#that for better or worse the two are inexorably linked

[scarletspider2the2ndpower]

“Strangers,” Spider-Man: The Lost Years (Vol. 1/1995), #1.

Writer: J. M. DeMatteis; Penciler: John Romita, Jr.; Inker: Klaus Janson; Colorist: Christie Scheele; Letterer: Richard Starkings

[amjustagirl]

Summary: Sakusa Kiyoomi's heart has always pointed north. He wonders if it's broken when it starts to point inexorably towards her. 

Set in the aftermath of The Astrophile, in the same universe as Storm Chaser.

Pairing: Sakusa Kiyoomi / f! reader

Genre: Fluff, angst, romance 

Wordcount: 7.8k 

Masterlist link here

A/N: Dedicated first and foremost to Ami @softsakusa, one of the first people to convince that my writing isn’t shit and that I should keep creating fics. 

This fic is also for all the readers who wanted a happy ending for the reader in The Astrophile (which sets out the backstory of the reader, Iwaizumi and Oikawa), and also follows the events of Storm Chaser (which follows the turbulent relationship of Miya Atsumu and now wife - I named her Kaiyo in this fic to avoid confusion!). 

Hope you like it - reblogs and comments are always dearly appreciated <3

It must be the worst meet cute of all time. 

That is – if he’s using that phrase correctly. It keeps appearing in the god-awful English movies Bokuto and Miya keep playing during team movie nights that makes him want to tear his hair out. 

But yes, he meets her at Miya Shino’s seventh birthday party, the birthday girl the apple of Miya Atsumu’s eye, the princess of his castle, the most perfect angel in the entire heavens - the list of pet names growing longer and longer the more the obnoxious setter prattles on about his daughter. 

And apparently Miya Shino is a chip off the old block, and is as obsessed with volleyball as her father. Which means that he, one Sakusa Kiyoomi, is forced to turn up on a Saturday afternoon for a birthday party to teach a group of children roughly about the same height as his kneecaps how to play volleyball. 

There are plenty of other MSBY players that Miya Atsumu could have rounded up to fritter away a Saturday afternoon. Hinata, for instance - the sunny, fiery headed opposite hitter a perennial favourite with young fans. Or Inunaki - the liberio has an amiable personality that he certainly wouldn’t mind snot nosed children hanging off his arms like a walking, talking monkey bar. But no, Hinata is apparently busy on a weekend meditation retreat, and Inunaki is at his sister’s wedding party, so both of them managed to escape this travesty of a birthday party. 

That leaves him with Bokuto who’s practically a child himself, beaming, bumping balls at screaming children with one hand, the other hand lifting another child above his head. Meian’s here too but his own kid is somewhere in this gaggle of monsters anyway, so he’s here to carry out his parental duties – hopefully his presence might balance the sheer chaos he’s sure he’s about to face.   

‘Omi-omi you made it!’ Atsumu greets him with a slap to the back. 

Sakusa resists the urge to bare his teeth. Is this what hell is? Screeching gremlins underfoot, the nauseating smell of fried food permeating the air. 

And it’s probably because he’s still in a horrified daze at the situation he’s put himself in (which Atsumu is either too dense to pick up on or already immune due to the series of similar expressions he pulls at him on a daily basis), Atsumu manages to snap a party hat on his head, before he prances off in victory. 

Sakusa snarls, ripping off the red paper hat off his head. 

Why on earth did he agree to this again? 

‘Sakusa-san! Thank you so much for coming!’ 

His glare softens by a fraction. 

Miya Kaiyo, Atsumu’s long suffering wife approaches him, careful not to touch him, waving at him instead. He appreciates her thoughtfulness, so he thaws a little, giving her a slight nod in greeting. 

Right, she’s the reason why he’s here. 

He’s always been fond of her - competent, patient, intelligent, far too good for her idiot of a husband. Approximately a year ago, he sought her professional help with his accounts. He graduated with a business degree from Chuo University, so he can tell there is obviously something fishy that his manager is pulling with his finances, but the accounting courses he took weren’t in depth to pinpoint the problem. Miya Kaiyo, on the other hand, a trained forensic accountant with a nose like a bloodhound for fraudulent accounts, nailed down the problem within a week. So when she asked him after a game whether he’d be free to attend her daughter's birthday party, he hadn’t been able to turn her down. 

‘It was no problem’, he says stiffly, already itching to spray the whole place down with disinfectant. ‘I’m glad to be here.’ 

Kaiyo laughs at his obvious lie, tugging at his sleeve to seat him in a corner. ‘You don’t have to go play with the kids if you didn’t want to! I invited you so we could catch up, and besides, I did want to introduce you to someone.’ 

‘Hm.’ 

He doesn’t try to mask his reluctance this time. Kaiyo means well, he knows, but between her and his mother, he’s tired of having to fend off match making attempts. It’s not like he can’t get a date – he can and he has, it’s just difficult to find someone willing to put up with his prickly personality and busy schedule.

‘Well she’s not here yet, so you’ll have to wait. And while we’re waiting, tell me how’ve things been, Sakusa-san?’ 

Grateful that he’s not going to be forced into shepherding children into playing anything remotely resembling an actual volleyball match (he suspects he might have more luck teaching cats how to do the conga), he settles into his seat, mouth stretching into something resembling a smile. He lets her chatter about work, and they’re deep in a discussion about his plans post-volleyball (because he can feel the countdown on his career in his creaking bones, his aching sinews)  when Atsumu swoops in on him again, like a vulture seeking easy prey. 

‘What’cha doin’ with my wife, Omi-omi’, he slips a hand around Kaiyo’s waist mock possessively. 

She swats at him. He ducks, raising his hands in surrender. 

‘I enjoy talking to an actual adult sometimes, ‘Tsumu!’ 

‘Oh come on, I already have to share you with ‘Samu most of the time, now you’re leaving me for Omi-kun?!’

‘Dramatic ass.’ 

‘Please, you chose to marry me.’ He crows, flipping his hair. He looks ridiculous, he always does. Kaiyo seems to agree - 

‘And I wonder why sometimes.’ She retorts, Atsumu squawking indignantly at her response, hair ruffling like an offended chick. But Kaiyo ruins the effect of her words by laughing, leaning over to affectionately peck her husband on the cheek. 

Sakusa should be annoyed by this display of childishness, but for some inexplicable reason, a frisson of longing bubbles in his chest instead. It’s strange. Marriage or even serious relationships have never been something he’s actively sought. After all, it always seemed horrendously illogical to put all your eggs in one basket and hope nothing trips up – but his heart pays his mind no mind, and the strange sensation continues to trickle down his throat into his chest. 

He makes up an excuse to slip to the bathroom for a tactical retreat from this madness. 

Then he takes a breath. 

Rinse. Lather hands with soap. Rinse. Repeat again .

Familiar motions, bred out of a desire to do things right, transformed into an unbreakable habit. Cold water, washing away soap bubbles.

Right. Now he’s ready for another plunge off the deep end . 

He’s a foot past the threshold of the community hall where the party is being held when Miya Shino darts towards him. She’s very clearly her father’s daughter with his penchant for mischief because she dives between his legs, making him stumble in confusion. Then Meian Shugo’s eldest son Makoto barrels towards him, intent on reaching the ball held aloft in Shino’s hands. 

Athletic reflexes be damned in the face of a pair of hell-spawn. 

‘Shino!’. Kaiyo shouts. 

‘Makoto!’ Meian thunders. 

Sakusa flails, decidedly without grace, and in his attempt at not squashing the two little devils, he manages to do something even  worse . 

Much, much worse. 

He manages to trip over his feet and bump right into the woman Miya Kaiyo wanted to introduce him to (this, he finds out later). It’s a lost cause – he’s six foot two of pure muscle, dwarfing her by a mile, and she’s carrying a huge box in her hand. 

He ends up face planting directly into her chest. 

His brain short circuits at the feeling of plush softness and vanilla and – , 

‘Woah - Omi-omi, never thought I’d have to defend the honour of my cousin in law’, Atsumu laughs.  

The sudden flare of irritation at Atsumu’s words kickstarts his brain back into gear. Rearing back in alarm, he promptly topples over onto his butt. 

‘Uncle ‘kusa, I’m sorry’ Shino screeches, distraught. Makoto merely snivels. Kaiyo is evidently the only one with working brain cells, because she rushes over to help them up.  

The-woman-with-the-mysterious-box makes Kaiyo take the box first. It holds precious cargo - Shino’s birthday cake, he later finds out, but because she manages to cling on to it with admirable tenacity, it emerges more or less intact. Then she turns to him, still sprawled on the floor. He scoots away, still dazed. 

She offers him a steady hand. ‘Hello’, she says. ‘It seems we’ve gotten off to rather a bad start.’

There is a hint of mirth in her voice, but her eyes are kind.  

He takes her hand with a rare smile. 

Miya Kaiyo grins behind the cake box. It turns out her daughter is a better matchmaker than either her or (heaven forbid) her husband. 

It turns out that Miya Kaiyo wanted to introduce him to her cousin, newly moved to Osaka from Tokyo. She’s a sports journalist, used to cover volleyball even, but for some reason their paths never crossed. She too, is tired of her cousin’s well intentioned meddling, but asks him if he’d like to meet her for dinner one day ‘if only to get Kaiyo off her back, because she’s persistent’, and funnily enough, he agrees. 

He doesn’t mind making a new friend, he reasons. She seems decent enough. 

They go out for dinner on a Tuesday night. She doesn’t complain when he tells her that due to his diet planned by MSBY’s nutritionist, most restaurants are off limits. Instead, she asks intelligent questions about whether the sources of protein and fibre he’s relying on are varied enough, even suggesting alternatives like tempeh, a Southeast Asian soy product. 

He appreciates that. 

She doesn’t also fawn over the fact that he’s a professional athlete. That makes sense, considering she’s probably interviewed dozens, if not hundreds of individuals who are just like him. It’s nice - he’s tired of groupies who start dates off by staring at him starry eyed, but ending it with disappointment in their eyes when they discover that he’s just a guy who practices hitting balls enough to do it for a living. And best of all, she doesn’t mind that their conversation sometimes wanes into silence. She doesn’t seem to feel the need to fill empty spaces with inane drivel, nor expect him to entertain her like a circus animal. 

He likes that. 

So when the night ends, he asks her whether she’d like to have dinner with him again. ‘Just as friends’, he’s quick to clarify. 

‘Sure’, she nods, and they bid each other goodnight.  

They start having dinner every Tuesday night, subject to their erratic schedules. 

He enjoys her company. She’s thoughtful, bringing him home made baked goods like zucchini cake (low sugar, of course), sneaking him chocolate scones for his cheat days after she discovers his hidden sweet tooth. She’s considerate too, never blinking an eye at his compulsive need to make sure everything is just in order, even if the waitress stands behind them aghast when he insists on using disinfectant to wipe down their table. She doesn’t even call him paranoid when he passes her a bottle of sanitizer. 

Slowly, he finds himself confiding in her about things he’d maybe only tell his cousin, Motoya. Or at least, the things he would tell Motoya if the guy would only pick up his calls. 

‘Sorry’, Motoya texts back after a couple of missed calls. ‘ Practice has been brutal recently. 

In a remarkable display of restraint, Sakusa does not point out that EJP Raijin is below MSBY in this season’s rankings. 

So he tells her instead about how he’s contemplating retirement, how he’s trying to chart out his next steps career wise. She surprises him by listening to him gravely, pointing out that he can lean on his business degree to possibly land an office job in event management or with sports associations, putting him in touch with one overly excited Kuroo Tetsuro. He tucks her suggestions away carefully at the back of his mind.   

It’s nice to have a friend, he tells himself, his lips quirking ever so slightly when her hand grazes his as they walk down the street together. 

He invites her to the monthly gatherings that the MSBY players take turns to host for their family and friends, making the excuse that he needs a human shield in any event hosted by Miya Atsumu. She agrees easily, perking up at the chance to spend a Sunday afternoon with her cousin and niece - ‘ and Kaiyo’ll need help, especially since she’s pregnant’, bringing far too many cupcakes topped with the lightest, fluffiest cream cheese frosting he’s ever had the pleasure of tasting. Even Miya Osamu gives her a nod of respect after stuffing his face full of her cupcakes.  He, unlike his twin, has good taste.

Her brow furls into a concerned frown when he quietly sneaks himself a second cupcake. ‘You don’t have to force yourself to eat it just to be polite! I made it, so  I  know it has so much sugar and butter it would make your nutritionist weep. If you want, I snuck some zucchini cake in my handbag for you instead.’ 

He stubbornly shovels a large bite into his mouth. ‘I won’t tell if you don’t.’ 

She bursts into laughter, leaning forward to wipe away the smudge of frosting on the tip of his nose with her thumb. 

Miya Kaiyo shoots him a knowing look across the room, waggling her eyebrows in an eerie imitation of her husband. He fights to keep his face blank, refusing to feed her satisfaction, but fails, a hot flush rising in his cheeks. 

‘Traitor’ he mouths at her. Her smirk only deepens.

Fortunately, the gathering ends with no further mishaps, either to his physical well-being or his dignity. Makoto is packed off with Meian, the little boy whining for more time to play with Shino. Hinata and Bokuto prance off for some ridiculous buffet on the other side of town.

As for himself, he hangs back with her to help the Miyas put their house back in order, expelling an amused puff of a laugh from his nose when she forces the very pregnant Kaiyo to ‘stay still, for goodness sake!’  on the couch, dancing around the house with a mop, Shino trailing after her waving a feather duster with gusto. He refrains from telling the little girl that she’s more likely to spread  the dust than to actually clear it – at least she’s not causing more havoc this way. 

‘I can’t believe I could’ve ever taken this for granted, y’know’, Atsumu comments from behind him, mouth wide in a tender smile. ‘It’s the best feeling in the world to have a wife and kid who loves ya to the moon and back, welcoming ya home after a long day at work. They make everything worth it.’

He’s thrown for a loop at this rare display of emotional vulnerability from the usually obnoxious setter and for once, does not resort to hostility, choosing instead to acknowledge the blonde setter’s words with a tacticum nod. 

The Miyas’ apartment is far too chaotic for his tastes, with colourful toys scattered on the floor, mismatched picture frames of the little family on the walls, but laughter hangs in the air, and light spills from the windows, illuminating the warmth and love and fondness in every look and word the Miyas gift each other. 

His father gave him a compass when he was a child, as a present to celebrate his first match. His mother clucked her tongue because it’s a strange gift for a child - delicate, fiddly, its gold exterior tarnished with age. But his father chuckled and told him that he’s old enough to appreciate that the compass is his father’s, and his father’s father before that, an heirloom to remind their sons to work hard at everything they do, and to keep their hearts on course, pointing north. 

And Sakusa thinks he’s done that. He’s worked and worked and worked at perfecting his skills in his chosen sport. He’s accepted his solo course, so laser focused on carving out a career in professional sports leaves little time or space for intimate relationships. Not to mention the fact that watching the disaster of Atsumu’s early years of marriage from the sidelines, made him swear off similar heartbreak for himself. 

But there are times when he can’t help but feel a little lonely - when he has to struggle to find a date for MSBY events, when he has no one to celebrate the holidays with, when he goes home every day to his neat, cold apartment with space for only one occupant. 

The compass in his heart creaks. It starts to turn a few degrees just off-course. 

‘Do you ever wonder what it’d be like to get married?’ he asks her as he’s walking her home that night. 

‘I did, once upon a time’, she shrugs carelessly. He misses the sudden strain in her smile. ‘Why do you ask?’ 

He stays silent for a while, the length of the quiet street giving him time to properly ferment his response. He considers the effects of adding splashes of colour to his dull life, weighs it against his long cultivated instinct to avoid the potential chaos of any emotional entanglements. He finds himself suddenly craving the sweetness of cream cheese frosting, and wonders how it’d be like to come home to light, fluffy cakes baked by her hands. 

When they reach her apartment block, she tilts her head at him curiously, obviously awaiting his answer. He tugs his words together, strings his swirling thoughts into a decipherable sentence. 

‘Because Atsumu and Kaiyo seem happy together. And I wondered if we’d be happy together too.’ 

He watches her puzzle over his words, her brow furling into a confused frown. ‘And I wasn’t proposing, by the way’, he feels the need to clarify. 

She snorts. ‘I didn’t think so.’ With a directness that he very much appreciates, she looks at him squarely and asks - ‘Are you asking me out, Sakusa Kiyoomi?’ 

He meets her gaze. ‘Yes, I am. We’ve known each other for a decently long time for me to conclude our personalities are well matched, and we’re both mature adults who respect each other’s work schedules and commitments. And if you don’t mind that I can be overly blunt and quiet sometimes - ‘ 

‘ - which I don’t’, she interjects, with a chuckle. 

‘I think we might be happy together’, he concludes, with a small smile that’s becoming more common in her presence.

He allows her the space to turn his proposition over in her mind. 

‘Alright’, she finally says. ‘I guess we can give it a go’. 

So much for Atsumu accusing him of having a heart made out of tin. Flesh and muscle works overtime to pump blood into his cheeks as she slots her fingers between his and gives his hand a squeeze. 

Being in a relationship isn’t too different from what they had before. 

They still keep to their standing date to meet every Tuesday (schedules permitting, of course). But now he doesn’t have to make up excuses to ask her out on outings that aren’t food related. At first he tries his best to adhere to dating norms, arranging for romantic dates at candlelit restaurants, buying her massive bouquets that make her sneeze. 

‘It’s fine, Omi’, she tells him gently after they spend another uncomfortable evening in a dimly lit restaurant eating off plates too large for the laughably tiny food portions. ‘I’m happy just hanging out with you. You don’t have to go out of your way to impress me, I’m not holding on to any ridiculous expectations of you’. He stops after that, glad he doesn’t have to suffer another night trying to decipher which utensil to be used at which course, or having to put on starched formal wear to yet another stuffy restaurant. 

She’s noticeably happier when they accompany each other on trips to the supermarket, each holding a stack of coupons to take advantage of the latest deals. She shields him from any overly zealous obaa-sans with gusto, throwing elbows and using her grocery basket as a makeshift battering ram before they crowd close enough to him to trigger his anxiety. He helps her reach for things on the top shelf ‘to prevent her from scaling the grocery shelves like an overgrown teenager’ , he snarks. He’s worried his attempt at teasing lands wrong, but she snorts and thanks him good naturedly anyways. 

On the weekends, they develop a habit of meal prepping for the rest of the week at her apartment. His kitchen lacks the fancy mixers and blenders that she has, and in all honesty, his dark, spartan apartment lacks the sunlight and warmth that spills into her apartment from the windows, so it’s only logical that they should spend the bulk of their time there. It’s an oasis of calm for him, chopping vegetables and chicken into small cubes, sautéing them for the week ahead, while she bustles around whipping eggs and flour and milk together to form another delectable cake that they always end up sharing at the end of the day. 

He starts to dread matches away from home a little more than he used to. While hotel rooms are as spartan as his own apartment, he doesn’t have the option of heading over to her apartment to bask in her quiet warmth. His meals come in styrofoam boxes instead of the glass tupperware she stacks on her kitchen counter, and he turns up his nose at store bought cakes that his teammates offer him, only craving for those baked in her oven. He even starts looking up to the stands for a glimpse of her, only to remember that she can’t be there to cheer the team on. 

‘Cheer up, Omi-omi! We’ll have a home match next week’, Atsumu tells him jovially. 

‘It doesn’t matter either way to me’, he mutters resentfully, but the setter only grins.

‘Trust me, it matters a great deal to have the girl ya love cheering ya on, y’know?’ 

He stalks off to the changing room, ignoring the peals of laughter from the blonde annoyance he leaves in his wake.  

The tight coil of loneliness only loosens when he sees her waiting for him at the station when he returns. She ignores his protests to snag his suitcase away from him, the case looking comically large against her small frame, but she uses it effectively as a tank to force a path through the crowd, and drag him back to her apartment in no time. 

‘You need a home cooked dinner to make up for all those industrially prepared food you must’ve been eating this entire week’, she tells him, bustling around the kitchen, only stilling when he takes her shoulders in his hands. 

‘Are you happy?’ he asks, when he cups her face to carefully brush the dusting of flour on her cheek away.  

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ She laughs, the sound fond.

‘Just checking in’, he tells her, closing his eyes as she pulls him down towards her for a kiss. 

All in all, it’s a happy, uncomplicated relationship. He likes it that way.

If his heart were a compass, he’d suspect it’s broken because instead of pointing north, it starts to inch inexorably towards her. 

But there are strange quirks he notices about her that niggles at his brain. 

She refuses point blank to check out the planetarium when she attends an event held at the adjacent Art Museum as his date, professing to have an irrational dislike for stars. 

‘They’re just balls of burning gas and light ’ , he points out. ‘What could you possibly have against them?’ 

There’s a flicker of irritation in her eyes that he does not miss. ‘I know it’s stupid but just humour me, ok?’ Her tone verges on a snarl, before she storms away, ostensibly to the bathroom to freshen herself up. 

She returns later with an apology for her behaviour. Though he’s confused, he respects her privacy and does not push for an answer. 

He’s at her apartment preparing meals for the week ahead when the doorbell rings and an enormous bouquet of white lilies are deposited into her arms. She stares dumbly at the flowers, their sickly sweet scent permeating the air. 

His brow furls. ‘Today isn’t your birthday, is it?’

His words jolt her out of her trance. ‘No’, she answers, before inexplicably storming to the living room and dumping the bouquet with a vengeance on the coffee table. Pollen flutters to the floor, delicate white petals crushed in her hands. 

‘It’s nothing’, she tells him as he shoots her a questioning look. 

When she disappears to the washroom, he peeks at the card. There’s no name on it, just a simple message - ‘consider it, please?’

He doesn’t question her about it when she returns to the kitchen. She doesn’t offer him any answers either. 

He finds himself wondering about them. 

It was refreshing at first to have a relationship free of any expectations. She never asks for more than he’s willing to give, seems happy enough to slot herself into the pockets of time he offers, only attends his games when he gives her tickets, doesn’t get upset with him when he inevitably forgets to text. 

But therein lies the issue, doesn’t it?  

If she truly likes him, wants to pursue a relationship seriously with him, shouldn’t she be demanding more than the crumbs of affection and attention he shows her? They’re both past the age of thirty, shouldn’t she be looking to get married and settle down, maybe spawn a demon child or two? 

He’s tried raising it with her once, but she responded with confusion. 

‘I don’t have any expectations of you, Omi’, she’d replied. ‘We both have busy lives, so whatever you’re willing to give, I’m happy to take’. 

There’s technically nothing wrong about her answer. It’s wholly considerate and kind - very much her.  

Still, it makes him wonder - if her heart were a compass, would it point towards him? 

He manages to hold his tongue until she gets another delivery of flowers. 

This time he opens the door when the doorbell rings, assaulted by the heady scent of lillies, pollen smeared on his sleeves. This time, there’s a name on the card. 

Oikawa Tooru . 

It takes a couple of seconds for him to realise why the name is so familiar. It’s the same name Hinata and Kageyama used to buzz about every Olympics - the famous Argentinian setter who started his career as a schoolboy from Miyagi, a prodigious setter who never made it to Nationals in high school, refused to give up and forged his way to success in a whole new land, continents away.

‘How do you know Oikawa’? He asks her. ‘And why does he keep sending your flowers?’ 

‘He’s just an old acquaintance,’ she admits. ‘He’s just sending the flowers to persuade me to attend his wedding.’

His forehead crinkles in confusion, and he tries his best not to leap to conclusions, but since she doesn’t seem to be forthcoming with further clarification, he presses her further. 

‘And why won’t you attend his wedding?’ 

Her shoulders slouch in obvious reluctance as she turns away, focusing her attention on the mixing bowl. But Kiyoomi isn’t easily deterred, so he firmly takes the mixing bowl from her and sets it on the countertop. He raises an eyebrow at her, clearly seeking an answer. 

She huffs a sigh through her nose. ‘Because he’s getting married to my ex-boyfriend, ok?’   

He blinks. That was unexpected. 

‘It happened half a decade ago. Ancient history. I’m over it.’ She mutters to the floor. 

‘Why didn’t you tell me about it?’ 

‘Because it’s none of your business’, she snaps, grabbing the mixing bowl again, beating the batter with a vengeance. 

‘You’re going to ruin the texture if you whisk it too hard’, he tugs the bowl away from her again. She refuses to relinquish her grip.

‘Leave me alone!’ she snarls, yanking the bowl back. Confused by her sudden fury, he lets go of the bowl, only for her to stumble back, eyes wide as she loses her balance, knocking her head against the countertop.

He drops down onto his knees, not even noticing the batter soaking into his pants, combing through her hair, scouring the back of her neck for any sign of injury. It’s only when he’s satisfied that her fall has resulted in nothing more than a bruise that should go away by tomorrow that he notices her tears soaking the front of his shirt. 

‘Do you want to tell me what’s wrong?’ he asks, wiping her tears away with a batter splattered thumb. 

She hangs her head, body still shaking from her sobs. ‘I’ve already made such a mess of things – don’t want you to have to listen to my nonsense – am just bein’ stupid, that’s all - ’. 

He patiently waits until her sobs dissolves into mere sniffles before speaking. ‘I want you to tell me what’s wrong. If you’re up to it.’ 

So through more broken sobs and hiccups, he listens to the tale of Iwaizumi Hajime, a boy who was her world, who only realised he was always in love with Oikawa Tooru, a fortnight before she and he were to wed. Her voice wavers as she tells him the full story of the white lilies, explains that her irrational dislike for stars stems from the reminder that she chose to give her world up to a boy-king burning brighter than the stars in the night sky combined. 

He waits until her words run out, and she’s leaning against him, broken and pliant in a way that makes his heart ache. 

‘I wish you told me about it earlier’, he tells her, tucking the loose strands of hair behind her ear. ‘That you would trust me enough to tell me about the things that hurt you in the past. And I wonder about the state of our relationship if you don’t even trust me enough for that’. 

‘That’s unfair. You never asked - ‘ 

‘How could I ask about something I didn’t even know about?’ He takes hold of her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. Hurt and anger and shock simmer in her eyes, each swirl of emotion fighting for dominance. 

‘I didn’t want to expect anything more from this relationship than you were willing to give’, she admits after a pause. 

She’s scared of being hurt again. He doesn’t miss the subtext.  

‘Shall I tell you what I want from you then? I have a list, if you’re willing to hear me out’ he asks, with a smile that’s growing more common the more time he spends around her. 

She nods, but keeps her gaze stubbornly on the ground. 

He takes his time to choose his words. He’s never been verbose - not like Atsumu or Bokuto or even easygoing Motoya, choosing to only say what is strictly necessary, using the precise amount of words, nothing more, nothing less. But this is a situation that requires more emotion rather than precision, so he inhales a shaky breath, letting it fuel the sentiment in his heart as he exhales. 

‘First. I want you to trust that I’ll never hurt you like he did’, he says, and with a self-deprecating smile he adds - ‘I don’t have any childhood friends to be secretly in love with besides Motoya, and I’m hardly going to be pining after my flake of a cousin’. 

That triggers the corners of her lips to tilt upwards, and encouraged, he carries on.    

‘Second. I want you to be open with me about what you want - your dreams, your expectations of me. I want to hear them all because  you’re important to me.’

That makes her flush pink, and she sneaks a glance up towards him. 

‘Third. I want to wake up each morning with you by my side and come home to you every night. I want to watch you fight cranky old ladies in the supermarket in my honour, be the first person to taste test all your baking experiments - even the failed ones that are only fit to feed Atsumu. I want us to be happy together. Forever, if possible.’

He lifts her bodily into his lap, brushes his nose against her cheek. ‘Now that I’ve told you what I’m willing to give, is that too much for you to take?’ he murmurs against her lips. 

Her blush blossoms into a deep scarlet, but her eyes are iridescent pools of startled delight. She doesn’t speak, sealing her answer instead with her lips. 

His heart’s compass is irretrievably broken, the needle melted into place. It doesn’t point north any longer, no  – it’s always going to point towards her. 

They move in together after that. 

He gives up his apartment, professing to prefer the warmth and light of hers. The Miyas help him move in even when he tries to refuse their help, Atsumu helping him to lug cardboard boxes up the stairs, Kaiyo helping him sort out his belongings, sorting them into his allocated cupboards. 

When they’re done, they order pizza and she bakes a cake to celebrate. ‘An impromptu housewarming’ she says, toasting Miya Kaiyo with a slice of pepperoni pizza with a laugh.

Kiyoomi shares a slice of chocolate cake with Atsumu in complete defiance of their nutritionist’s advice, jostling forks over the very last bite. She and Kaiyo scold them teasingly, telling them to behave like they’re actually thirty and not teenagers on the cusp of adulthood. Atsumu pulls at Kaiyo’s ponytail in retaliation. He refuses to engage in similar tomfoolery, reddening instead when she reaches over to ruffle his curls.

‘This is nice’, he remarks to Atsumu later, when their significant others are out of earshot, gossiping and giggling about something or other.  

‘It is, isn’t it’, Atsumu replies, a dopey smile on his face as he stares at his wife. 

It truly is , Kiyoomi thinks, staring at her.  

He takes over most of the cleaning, it clears his mind, he tells her. So to split the chores evenly, she insists on doing their laundry and cooking, and he doesn’t even nag her too much when she forgets to split the white and coloured clothes and stains some of his shirts once in a while. 

Wedding invites printed on expensive cream paper and bouquets of white lilies start to litter their doorstep every day. He tries his best to dispose of them before they reach her sight, but every so often, he comes home too late, catches her wilt as she brushes white petals from their doorstep. 

‘I don’t blame either of them’, she tells him, after he asks if she’d like him to call Iwaizumi and tell him to drown himself in a vat of batter, thank you very much. 

‘You’re too kind to both of them’ he says plainly, as they share a pot of tea, his head pillowed in her lap. ‘I would’ve just set them both on fire and left them to rot.’

‘Hajime loved Tooru for almost all his life - I just wanted to see him happy in the end. Argh  - I sound so stupid and sentimental like an old grandma, just laugh at me already’ she complains, hiding her burning cheeks in her hands.  

‘You aren’t stupid for being kind.’ He hums, quiet and low. ‘It’s why I love you so.’ 

He relishes the soft light dawning in her eyes, captures her whispered affection with careful fingers, spins them into gold. 

He has to turn off the stove to answer the door when some rude lout bangs on their front door far too early on a Sunday morning. 

With his coldest sneer and thinking resentfully about his breakfast, Kiyoomi swings the door open, fully intent on looming over the disturbance with his full height, but takes a step back instead when he finds one Iwaizumi Hajime hanging off the door knob. 

‘Hello’, Iwaizumi looks up at him confusedly. 

‘Hi’, he nods a greeting back at his old Olympic team trainer. They stare at each other. 

‘Eh - I think I’ve got the wrong house’, Iwaizumi scratches the back of his neck awkwardly. ‘Sorry about that, Sakusa-san.’

He’s about to close the door in Iwaizumi’s face when her voice chimes in, clear as a bell. 

‘Who’s at the door, Omi?’ 

The shorter man shoots him a look of barely contained rage as he uses his bulk to push his way through the doorway towards her. Kiyoomi tries to stop him, protesting that he can’t barge into someone’s private property without an invitation like that, but it’s as futile an endeavour as trying to block the path of a raging storm.

Iwaizumi reaches her first, raising a hand as if to cup her face by instinct, before letting it fall back limply by his side. ‘You weren’t answering any of my messages or calls’, he says. ‘I was worried about you.’

She stares at him blankly for a moment. Then fire sparks in her eyes. 

‘Well, as you can see, I’m completely fine’, she replies, jaw and fists clenched. ‘You don’t need to do a welfare check on me, we’re not involved anymore.’

The scorching pain in Iwaizumi’s eyes is evident, even from a distance away. ‘Yeah. Well. I thought we were friends. You didn’t even tell me you were dating again’. He shoves his hands in his pockets, tossing another heated glance in Kiyoomi’s way. 

‘I didn’t think I needed to update my ex-fiance about my love life, especially not when he’s trying to drag me to attend his wedding that I already said I’m not going to attend’, she bites back. 

Iwaizumi opens his mouth, then closes it with a resounding snap. ‘I’m sorry’, he says, with heartbreaking honesty. ‘I told Tooru that you probably didn’t want to hear from us, but he insisted and I got worried when I didn’t hear from you for months’. 

Kiyoomi can see her glare soften into molten sympathy. The tension in the air crackles with electricity. He’s neither blind nor stupid – he can sense the years of longing and love not quite lost between them. 

He thinks she loves him, Sakusa Kiyoomi – weird habits, cold disposition and all, but the doubt clogging up his arteries and veins is enough to make his heart seize – and if she’s going to break his heart, he’d much rather she not do it in front of Iwaizumi.  

‘Hajime - ‘ she begins to say, and at this point he jumps in - 

‘I’ll excuse myself so you both have the chance to catch up’, he says, waving aside her protests as he slips on his shoes. Even in his haste to leave the house, he clicks his tongue at the mess Iwaizumi left behind at their  genkan , kneeling down to arrange their shoes, only standing up when he’s satisfied they’re neatly arranged back in place. 

‘Omi, you don’t have to leave’, she says, holding the door open. 

He shrugs his shoulders at her, nose and mouth already obscured by his usual face mask. ‘Let me know when you’d like me to come back’. 

If she’d like him to come back. She doesn’t chase after him, after all.  

It’s a beautiful Sunday morning, but the golden sunshine feels more like a taunt rather than a balm to his mood. His stomach growls, making him long for the scrambled eggs he was in the middle of frying before he was so rudely interrupted, but his growing sense of nausea keeps him from seeking out an alternative meal. 

Instead, he makes his way to the park, sits on a relatively clean bench. There are couples a-plenty, strolling around hand in hand, families picnicking merrily around him, compounding the growing chasm of loneliness in his chest. He tries to count the seconds by his breaths, tries not to let the minutes expand the insecurities crawling, inch by inch up his throat. 

He sits alone. Poised, yet short of breath. 

He wonders if Iwaizumi Hajime has finally figured out that stars, for all their brilliance, cannot compensate for their lack of human kindness. And if so, he wonders which direction her heart would point towards if it were a compass - whether it’s as broken as his, and whether it points towards Iwaizumi or him.   

He waits. 

Then his phone buzzes. 

Ah. 

She’s asking him to come home. He does not dare to overthink the meaning of that single word. But he does not hide that his steps back  home are lighter than when he left, though the key in his hand shakes so hard it takes him three tries to fit it into the keyhole. He does not try to suffocate the seed of hope budding in the soft earth of his heart when he realises Iwaizumi’s shoes have vanished without a trace.  

“Omi?” 

She’s waiting for him, slipping warm arms around his waist, tangling her fingers in his curls, ignoring his complaints about letting himself wash his hands first. 

‘Am I silly for missing you, even though it’s only been an hour?’

He refuses to be distracted by the affection in her voice.

‘But what about Iwaizumi?’ he frowns, hesitation still poisoning the well of thoughts in his mind. 

Perhaps it’s a testament to how well they’ve grown to know each other that she doesn’t need to read the silent subtext of his statement. She smiles, bringing his palm flat against her chest, does not answer until his pulse matches the steady beat of her heart.  

‘I love you , Omi’, she tells him. Her heartbeat does not quicken, her smile does not waver. ‘You told me not to long ago to always be upfront with you about what  I  want so I’m going to be honest with you now - Iwaizumi is only ever going to be my past, and I want you from now on’. 

If her heart were a compass, the steady beat of her heart tells him, it would point only towards him.  

‘That is – if you’ll have me’, she adds, a shadow of doubt suddenly appearing on her face. 

‘Don’t be ridiculous’, he scoffs, burying his nose to breathe in the familiar scent of vanilla in her hair. ‘Who else would I rather have than you?’ 

Who else would he be lucky enough to call his home – a woman with a heart large enough to fit a whole ocean within its depths, with kindness in her eyes and mirth in her smiles. 

She laughs in spite of the salt in her throat and water in her eyes, leaning on her toes in a vain attempt to reach his face. He lifts her into her arms, laughs when she squeals indignantly as her feet only find air, toppling them both onto the couch where he can seat her between his legs, press kisses to her cheeks.  

She’ll tell him later that Iwaizumi came looking for her because he’s never outgrown his overprotective streak, and he’s truly happy for her - for them, because they’ve both moved on with their separate lives. And she ended up agreeing to attend his and Oikawa’s wedding on one condition – that an invitation is extended to him, Sakusa Kiyoomi, to attend with her as his date. 

He’ll tell her later that he’s happy to attend the wedding with her, just not to expect him to smile in any wedding pictures. And more importantly, he’ll tell her in his plain way that the list of expectations he has of their relationship has expanded yet again. 

He’ll lay out his dreams of a pair of matching golden rings to bind them to lifelong companionship, of hellspawn of their own and a dog, maybe two. 

He’ll ask her if it’s too much for him to ask of her.  

She’ll tell him that she’s willing to give him everything he asks for and more. 

It’s Miya Shino’s ninth birthday party. 

He’s retired from volleyball proper, and is thankful he insisted on getting a business degree from Chuo University before going pro, because it comes in handy working alongside Kuroo Tetsuro at the volleyball association. 

Miya Atsumu insists on inviting him to the party, though he supposes he’s invited not by virtue of being a former teammate, but because he’s also Shino’s uncle by marriage now. The thought that he’s related to Miya Atsumu, however distant and most definitely not by blood, still fills him with dread. 

The birthday girl is a little less imbued with her father’s chaotic energy this time, though she still squeals when her birthday cake is unveiled – though to be fair it’s less a cake, more a tower of cupcakes with cream cheese frosting spelling out her name. 

‘Thank you Auntie!’ Shino cries, flinging her arms around her. Kiyoomi flinches at the sight of anyone, even his nine year old niece, coming in close contact with his extremely pregnant wife, but a sharp glare from her subdues any complaint he dares to make. 

He fusses over her the minute he has the chance to corral her away from the clutches of Miya Shino. ‘Are your feet hurting? What about your back? I don’t know why you insist on walking so much when you know the doctor said you should be on bed rest soon’. 

‘Stop fussing, Omi! The baby and I will be fine’, she replies, exasperated. ‘This is the last social event scheduled before I pop and I’m determined to enjoy it while I can.’ Then she scuttles off faster than he imagines her frame allows, leaving him floundering in her wake. 

‘Just let her be’, Miya Atsumu laughs, slapping his back. Kiyoomi is on the verge of pointing out -  pot, meet kettle, reminding Atsumu that the last time Kaiyo was pregnant, Atsumu didn’t stop fretting until she went into labour and delivered a healthy baby boy. But then he remembers the grief etched into Atsumu’s face when Kaiyo miscarried in the stands during a game, so he holds his tongue and rolls his eyes instead. 

‘I’m just worried she’s pushing herself too hard’, he admits in a rare bout of vulnerability. 

Atsumu smiles, genuine for once. ‘Those crazy women, eh? They’re always gonna drive us up the wall, but they’re worth every minute of it.’ 

He looks at her, belly swollen with their first child, peach blossoms blooming in her cheeks. His past self would never imagine that he’d find this much joy and contentment in being a husband and a father, but then again his past self was satisfied coming home alone day after day to a cold apartment. He knows better now - life is so better when he has her, sharing stories of their day of over steaming mugs of tea at their kitchen countertop, listening to her hum as she bakes treats for the weekend, warmth and laughter and love abound in their cosy apartment for two, soon to be three.   

So feeling vaguely drunk though he hasn’t had a drop of alcohol in the months since she whispered during their anniversary dinner that they were expecting, Kiyoomi laughs aloud. 

Atsumu lifts his eyebrows in surprise.

‘She really, really is’, Kiyoomi says, breaking into an unguarded smile.  

If you wanna know more about the backstory of the reader - check out The Astrophile, and if you wanna know more about Miya Atsumu’s relationship with his wife, check out Storm Chaser. 

As always, reblogs and/or comments are so very appreciated <3

Taglist: 

@snoozless @softsakusa @moondaius​ (yeon i’ll be shameless and tag you cos I know you’re an Omi stan!)

[writ-in-writings]

Embarking on a writing project - particularly historical fiction, but any genre - calls for some dedicated research. It’s important for your own ease when writing your novel and for the reader who can feel fully immersed and trust that what they’re reading rings close to the truth. It’s also respectful to those who lived through major events or were affected by them down the road.

By itself, this task can feel daunting and there’s the temptation to charge in and figure things out as you go. I should know; I started by employing this very tactic. But in my journey, I learned a lot of dos and don’ts of novel research that I’ve now compiled here for other writers who would benefit from knowing this approach early on.

For further discussions, follow the link to my full post on Medium, but I’ll be sure to put plenty of details on here, as well as some smoking hot summary slides made via Canva, a godsend from the design deities.

Why we research

Several reasons, briefly discussed earlier: doing quality research is a service for writer, reader, and subject matter alike. Historical fiction deals with some of the most incredible, awe-inspiring (for better or worse), and/or underrepresented moments in the stunning scope of human history. To navigate this totally new world with ease, you’ll want to know about it yourself; make it your area of expertise in every sense of the word. Literally, with the senses, so your writing process can get a running start once this is done.

Then, of course, the reader can enjoy the experience as the immersive journey it’s meant to be. They can trust what you’re presenting to them and enjoy a really, really good book, learn something, and not feel the need to pause and wonder “does that make sense...? Is that true...?”

Start with Wikipedia - I promise it’s okay!

I know many of our grade school and high school teachers are turning their heads 180 degrees to stare in horror at the idea, but eventually instructors will loosen the reins. And they’ll offer the important distinction: Wikipedia is a good starting place, not a final source. It offers a fount of useful terms, a broad overview, related topics worth looking up to truly paint a true picture of the historical era, and it (usually) cites its own sources. That, in turn, lets you conduct the important step: trust but verify.

Think of Wikipedia like a web. The very center is the most basic related search term about your novel’s subject matter. From there, it branches out into new subjects that are inexorably related and relevant, that WILL fill in important gaps, even if it’s just one or two sentences - those two lines will ring true and authentic because you read a related term on Wikipedia, checked its sources, and found a valuable scholarly or firsthand account on the subject matter.

What should you be looking for, anyway?

Primary or secondary sources, or something totally different, all should provide you different pieces of information that all serve the goal of enriching your world and easing your job as a writer.

For a truly immersive experience, you want to get into the very mind of people from that time and place. This is always important because it will help set an appropriate voice for characters. Go forth into the sources you compile wanting them to give you helpful chronology, relevant players, key locations, and common practices, at the very least.

Primary Sources

These almost always have some sort of biased leanings - what doesn’t? But that too has value. They put you into a sample mind of someone from X demographic, in addition to any objective, factual information they can provide. They’re not worth overlooking or discarding, even if they should be approached with a critical eye.

But that’s part of the fun, right?

Secondary sources

Still don’t want to totally rule out a person’s own biases leaking through what they have to say. But there are some important numbers they can give. Usually, these can be considered accurate, BUT you should always verify with other sources, even when it seems something as straightforward and irrefutable as numbers, dates, locations, people involved, etc.

For example, try being a 20th century historian figuring out what happened at the Ipatiev House in 1918. Different outside sources will give WILDLY different accounts to avoid blame. Same with state-sanctioned erasure of history. Even our beloved, reliable textbooks can leave certain things out to totally re-color history. Literally.

Important source types!!!

This is one I really want you to take to heart because it made a world of difference for me. A lot of quick research can be done online these days and many sites can have well-organized content that outlines essential information in a very helpful way.

But there are some things they can’t or won’t provide for you, usually from time and word count constraints. You need the little details and some sites just don’t have a place to include that. What are the sounds of the era? The tastes and textures, sights and routines? What would you have seen if you stepped into the era of your interest? When available, videos give you just that window to the past.

Putting it all together

So you’re onto that lovely stage of using all this information you just gathered. Congratulations! Now here are some recommendations for how to actually research and keep track of everything.

Have a Word Doc or note sheets just for this. Organize it however suits you best; I went through chronology and relevant parts of my novel (since it’s set during WWII, I had separate spots for combat and civilian life, and broken down further based on setting as the front line moved).

For your own peace of mind, keep track of where you read each fact. That way if you ever doubt or want to read more or anything, you know where to find it. Remember, the reader is putting their trust in your hands (and your book in THEIR hands). Do right by yourself, your book, the subject matter, and the reader by having an earnest research system. With all this in mind, best of luck to you on all your literary endeavors.

To read more of my writing guidelines, follow me at the links below:

[Medium]

[Instagram]

[Twitter]

[The Quilted Atlas]

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Food and Climate Change Without the Hot Air

Back in 2009, I found the best technical book about climate change I've ever read: David McKay's SUSTAINABLE ENERGY WITHOUT THE HOT AIR:

https://memex.craphound.com/2009/04/08/sustainable-energy-without-the-hot-air-the-freakonomics-of-conservation-climate-and-energy/

McKay's book was a first for me: not a popular *science* book, but a popular *engineering* book, one that simply parameterized the way that we create and use energy, inviting the reader to draw their own conclusions about the tradeoffs we'd need to make to save our world.

McKay's figures included things like the total number of solar photons that strike the Earth, the total tide-stresses exerted by the moon, the maximum possible efficiency of a plane-shape cylinder through air, etc.

All of these represent the absolute best-case scenarios for various energy usage, production and storage problems, and anyone proposing a climate measure that exceeds these maximums is either ill-informed or actively lying.

That volume, with its lucid prose and superb data-visualizations, begat a whole series. In 2011, there was SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS WITH BOTH EYES OPEN by Julian Allwood and Jonathan Cullen.

https://memex.craphound.com/2011/11/17/sustainable-materials-indispensable-impartial-popular-engineering-book-on-the-future-of-our-built-and-made-world/

SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS adopted McKay's axiom of focusing on making small changes to large causes, rather than large changes to small causes.

Thus it zeroed in on the role that concrete and aluminium production play in emissions, after showing that all other material production amounts to a rounding error when compared to these two factors.

2015 saw the publication of URBAN TRANSPORT WITHOUT THE HOT AIR, which adopts the same "small changes to big causes" approach by focusing on private automobiles (and the urban layouts they demand) as the major driver of emissions.

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/12/03/urban-transport-without-the-hot-air-confusing-the-issue-with-relevant-facts/

Author Steven Melia explores the potential - and limits - of buses, bikes, walking, rail, etc, and the role that planning plays in changing private automobile usage, and makes an excellent case that urban design is more important than transit links for reducing car usage.

It's been half a decade since that last HOT AIR book, and now, fantastically, we have a new volume in the series: Sarah Bridle's FOOD AND CLIMATE CHANGE WITHOUT THE HOT AIR.

http://www.uit.co.uk/food-and-climate-change-without-the-hot-air

Bridle's volume is an important addition to the series, and uses a subtler knife - rather than opening with the small change in a big thing, she instead sketches out the emissions associated with a variety of prepared meals, organized by breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner.

All of this is framed around the idea that each human on Earth must rapidly draw down their food emissions to no more than 3kg/day if we're to meet the 1.5'C global warming target.

Bridle tots up a cup of tea, an apple, bacon, a sandwich, a steak, fish and chips, etc, and shows how they fit into this picture. As the reader is drawn through this narrative, the inescapable logic of energy narrows down to an inexorable conclusion: we eat too many animals.

Even leaving aside all questions of animal cruelty and human health, there's no escaping the fact that cow and sheep products, including milk, cannot be central to our diets if our species is to survive.

Other meats - poultry, fish, and pork - are vastly more sustainable, but still must be drawn down in our daily eating in favor of plant-based diets (Bridle's very good on explaining how different methods of animal rearing have different emissions profiles).

Moreover, a huge fraction of our food emissions are the result of the inefficiencies of home cooking: heating up your whole oven to cook a potato or a ready-meal massively increases the emissions relative to the same food at a restaurant where many items are cooked at once.

Finally, waste is a huge contributor to emissions, and household kitchens are the worst culprits by far: while industrial food prep offcuts are sold off as animal feed, household waste (including massive volumes of spoiled food) might end up as compost, or worse, landfill.

Like the other HOT AIR authors, Bridle's clear, nonthreatening, technical language, brilliant data visualizations, and example grounded in our daily experience make this a powerful read.

For all its gentle, moderate language, it comes to a devastating conclusion: our species' survival depends on eating more plants, with more centrally (and efficiently) prepared meals.

As with the other HOT AIR books, we're reminded that climate adaptation means significant changes to our lives - changes as profound as the industrial revolution. Bridle devotes significant language to discussing the social factors involved in such a shift.

It's hard to imagine a better addition to the HOT AIR cannon: a volume that boils a complex, urgent issue into a clear, undeniable set of parameters with equally clear conclusions.

If you want to experiment with Bridle's findings and methods, she's got an excellent "climate stack calculator" that lets you quickly assess the emissions associated with different food.

https://www.takeabitecc.org/calculator.html

There's also a free ebook edition of this book; go to whatever ebook store you use and you'll find a copy for $0.00 that you can "buy" and download.

(One more note before I close out: there's another HOT AIR volume, David Nutt's spectacular DRUGS POLICY WITHOUT THE HOT AIR, which had a new edition last year)

https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/02/be-the-helper/#davidnutt

(I didn't include it above because while it is an unmissable, essential volume, it doesn't deal with climate change)

[alounuitte]

spiral

Royce Bracket falls ill and has a crisis about it. 3.8 words; warnings for vomiting, descriptions of anxiety and OCD. Adapted from a prompt by @rachthecool.

Ao3 link in notes!

He feels it first like, like an itch, like an itch he can’t reach, like the itch that creeps back in to the back of his head until he can’t ignore it, can’t ignore it anymore. And he, well, he manages it the same way, of course, because he stops being - reasonable, stops thinking clearly when it gets too strong, and he simply can’t afford that now, can’t afford to lose his focus. He’s very busy, there’s no time to let a thing like that get in the way, not now, especially not now, when he’s getting so close. So close!

It’s not so bad, anyways, when he can focus on his work. When he can devote his attention to it. Makes it easier, to ignore it, push it aside for a time. Not fight it! Never fight it, no, that’s how it gets him, if he fights it, well, he’s already lost. But set it aside, that he can do, for a while, when something else has his attention. As long as his work’s not interrupted.

But this, now, this is something different - quite different. Setting it aside, that’s supposed to work, supposed to let him get on with things for a time, but it doesn’t seem to help. Something’s wrong, terribly, terribly wrong, and it, well, it’s like it’s eating him alive, pulling at all the threads of his thoughts until they unravel. His focus, that crisp bright ray of focus that’s supposed to keep it at bay, it just isn’t there, today, isn’t there at all. Scattered, like reflections on the water, stirred up by the wind.

He shuts his eyes, presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, his thumbs against his temples, as he takes in a breath and lets it out. That’s better, that should be... better, but it’s still there, still pulling at the edges of him: something’s wrong, out of place. He checks his desk, the pens and pencils laid out all in order, the notebooks marked and stacked just where he needs them. Not neat like people think it ought to be, but then, people often seem to miss the obvious patterns in things, don’t seem to understand the math - and the math is always flawless. Always flawless! The mathematician might err, of course, even he’s only human, but the math itself is perfect.

And it’s not his desk that’s misaligned, no, though he touches each notebook and writing utensil just to be sure, just to be on the safe side, adjusts them each minutely and confirm they’re laid out exactly as they should be. Precise. Mathematical. It’s something else that’s wrong, that’s ever so slightly, well, displaced.

Back to work, he’s got to get back to work, but he’s started thinking about it now, about all the dozen things that could be wrong, and the itch won’t go away, and, well, now he’s got to be sure. Got to be sure. If he could only focus maybe he’d put it aside, but he can’t now, not today, so there’s nothing for it.

He turns away from his desk and crosses the room, opens the blinds and closes them again. Opens them and closes them again. Again. Again. Satisfied that they’re fully closed, everything in order, he checks all the lights as well, one by one, runs the tips of his fingers along the edges of the shelves along the wall as he makes sure his books and files are all in order. Everything’s as it should be, as it should be, good. Good.

But why, then - why the itch. Why the feeling of wrongness that makes his spine crawl and his shoulders draw in too tense. Why the nagging sense that something isn’t right. His mind drifts briefly to the thought of what might be wrong in the kitchen, or the bedroom, or the foyer - but he tears his thoughts away from all that. No time for that, no, no, he can’t think about that.

It’s not real, he tells himself, gritting his teeth. It’s not, it’s not real, it’s not real or, at least, not measurable, not perceptible. Not something he can change or fix, despite the inexorable need to do something. He closes his eyes again, presses his fingertips to his temples. Wasting time, he’s wasting time now, and he’s too close for that, much too close. Got to snap himself out of it.

He takes a breath. Lets it out again. With one hand, he reaches into his pockets for his cigarettes, counts how many left in the pack, eleven, good, that’s good, and pulls one out carefully. He puts it between his teeth, flicks his lighter a few times before letting it catch to light the end. Inhales, and holds his breath. And holds it. And holds it.

When he exhales, his head is spinning, but it feels - clearer, yes. Clearer. Sharp. Focused. He takes another drag and sits back down, adjusting his chair into its place, into its proper place. It’s still there behind his eyes, the unfamiliar itch that he can’t place, but it’s dulled now, dulled enough that he can think. Back to work, he tells himself, can’t solve a problem he can’t see, now, can he, so he ought to work on something he can.

For a while, it works well enough; as it often does the cigarette helps soothe the itch, keeps it from getting, well, overwhelming, from getting too hard to ignore. Something else to focus on, help clear his head of all the meaningless distractions.

But even before he’s finished he feels it creeping back in, prickling at the back of his neck and clawing at his spine. That’s not supposed to happen, not yet. It’s supposed to, supposed to help, supposed to keep the feeling at bay for longer - an hour, sometimes two if he’s lucky, if he’s focused on his work. Shouldn’t come back yet, why, he’s still smoking his cigarette, it can’t come back now.

He rubs his temples with one hand, takes the cigarette out of his mouth to sip his coffee in the hope that it’ll help, but it’s gone cold, gone cold and stale in the time he’s been working.

For a few minutes longer, he tries to keep working. Tries to keep working. There’s so much to do still, he can’t let it get in the way. Can’t let it get in the way. But if it’s coming back already while he’s still got a cigarette in his mouth, it only gets worse after he snuffs it out. Not so bad as it was before, no, not quite so bad, but it begins to eat at his focus again, drowning out his thoughts with the persistent nagging feeling that something is wrong until he can barely think clearly.

Perhaps stepping away for a moment, just for a moment, will help, he finally decides, and lays down his pen. Just a moment to clear his head, yes. With a sigh, he downs the rest of his cold cup of coffee and gets to his feet to pour himself another in the kitchen.

The taste of copper suddenly coats his tongue, cutting through the lingering traces of smoke in his mouth, and deep in his gut he feels something lurch unpleasantly as the room seems to spin.

No, oh, no, no, he can’t - he can’t be - can’t happen, he can’t let it happen, can’t be careless enough to let himself—

He hiccups and a mouthful of, well, coffee, mostly coffee spills onto his desk and as he catches his breath he has a brief glimmer of, of clarity, just enough to push his notebooks aside; they fall to the floor in disarray but he doesn’t, he doesn’t have it in him to care. The tight choked feeling in his throat is all that seems to matter, the only thing left that matters.

“No,” he whispers, “oh no, oh no, please, no.” He hopes the sound of his voice will ground him but it doesn’t seem to help. “No, please, no, I don’t - want—“

He breaks off as his throat closes up, his stomach heaving, making him gag. He’s going to be sick again, isn’t he, doesn’t matter how much he doesn’t want to be, how much he can’t be sick, not now, not now. He closes his hands and opens them, raises one almost to his mouth before thinking better of it. Another painful lurch of his stomach makes him gag again, and then retch, before vomiting another stream of coffee and acid up onto his desk.

What a mess, he’s got to, got to do something about the mess, can’t just leave it pooled there on the polished surface, but he feels as if he can’t move, as if he’s stuck somehow, stuck frozen in place. It shouldn’t be difficult, why, it shouldn’t be much different than if he’d just, just knocked over his cup of coffee, that’s really all it is, just coffee, except for the smell of it - and of course there’s the way the cream’s started to, to spoil, to curdle - and the sight of it thickening’s enough to make him gag again, choking on the foul taste at the back of his throat. He’s - he’s got to - got to - leave, he’s got to leave now, before he’s sick again and makes it even worse.

Stumbling slightly he runs for the bathroom, has to press one hand to his mouth halfway there when he gags and nearly vomits in the hall, only barely manages to swallow back the burning in his throat. He drops to his knees without the time to turn on the light and wraps an arm around himself. Can’t, can’t stop shaking, bent double over the toilet and fighting to choke back the contents of his stomach as heaves wrack his body - but it’s, it’s, well it’s simply no use at all. The itch that’s been nagging at him for hours has made itself at home now on the back of his tongue, and the best thing, the best, the only thing he can do is dislodge it.

He whimpers, and sounds pitiful even to himself as he gags and retches weakly over the water, a thin stream of liquid spilling over his lip. Helpless to stop it, entirely helpless, but knowing’s not enough, just not enough to keep himself from fighting it either. He hates it, hates it, hates being helpless, having no control, having anything he can’t control let alone himself.

Another heave makes him pitch forward, shuddering as his stomach forces up more of its contents. At least he’s barely eaten today, and it’s all liquid, well, mostly liquid, just coffee and cream, nothing else in him to expel. Even that, why, after a long few minutes - he can’t tell how long, can’t keep track, nothing to measure except his own ragged breathing - even that trickles off to nearly nothing, until he’s only gagging, just shaking and gagging uselessly.

With a groan he spits into the water and slumps back against the wall, eyes screwed shut, waiting for his heartbeat to settle. He digs into his pocket and pulls out another cigarette. It’ll calm him down, maybe it’ll calm him down, and if not it’ll at least get the sick taste out of his mouth.

His hands won’t stop shaking as he fumbles with his lighter; the first time he tries to get a spark it goes out, and he curses under his breath as he starts over, click click click click click click click before it catches on the second try.

The first drag makes him cough when the smoke hits the back of his throat, still raw, raw and ragged from retching and heaving trying to empty his stomach. He grabs the cigarette out of his mouth quickly as he hunches over the toilet again, but there’s nothing, simply nothing left in him to bring up. He sits back again, slouches against the wall and puts his cigarette back between his teeth.

There’s still the mess, all that awful mess he’s got to deal with, and only worse now, now, now that he’s let it sit all this time. Terrible, terrible, the thought of it, makes his stomach turn again; he sucks in a deep breath, smoke burning in his chest, and lets it out slowly through his teeth. Terrible thought, but what’s to be done about it now? He’ll have to see to it, sooner or later. Once he’s finished his cigarette, yes, once he’s finished this cigarette he’ll go and clean it up.

He stays curled there on the floor after he snuffs the cigarette out against the tile though, for a few minutes longer, just needs a few minutes longer to rest, when he’s only just gotten finished emptying everything from his stomach. His head feels heavy and the room’s spinning faintly around him, even now that the prickle of nausea has faded. Just a few minutes longer, he thinks, taking a breath to steady himself and pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes, pressing them in until he sees stars.

Okay, he tells himself, okay, okay. Get up, up up up, it’ll only be worse the longer he waits. Up and into the kitchen for a cloth, and then back to the studio to deal with the mess, nothing else to be done about it. With an effort, he pulls himself back to his feet and stumbles out into the hall, reeling a little as his vision blurs.

First the kitchen, where he doesn’t bother turning a light on, just fumbles blindly in the drawer for a dish towel. He checks the corners of it before running it under the tap, makes sure it’s soaked through, soaked all the way through and then grabs another, dry, as well. Checks the tap twice to make sure it won’t drip, checks the stove just in case, and then again for good measure. Good, good good good, everything in order.

He lingers for a moment longer in the kitchen, and considers turning the lights on to examine it more thoroughly, examine every corner in depth - but he’s wasting time again, wasting time, looking for excuses to delay. It’ll only be worse, only be worse the longer he puts it off. He’d best just get this over with.

Gritting his teeth, he ducks into the hall again and heads back to the studio. There’s a foul smell that hits him as soon as he’s in the door, harsh and acidic, and it nearly makes him want to vomit again, but at least he’s sure, well, relatively sure he can’t, so there’s no need to worry. No need to worry. No need to worry.

Still, his throat is tight as he stumbles over to his desk, and it makes his breath catch in his throat. Get it over with. He drapes the cloths in his hand over the back of his chair and leans down to grab the waste paper basket under the desk. Up close, the smell is so strong it makes even his empty stomach churn, and he has to swallow hard to clear the lump from his throat so he can breathe. Just have to get it over with.

He rests one hand gingerly on the clean edge of the desk to steady himself for a moment before he grabs the dry cloth, holding the wastebin up against the desk to contain the mess as he mops it up. He’s not yet half finished cleaning the surface of his desk when it overwhelms him, completely overwhelms him, though he’s not sure if it’s the smell or the feeling of it soaking into the dishcloth under his palm; he has to brace himself against the desk again to lean over the bin, retching harshly but bringing up nothing of substance. His eyes are watering, making his vision swim, and he scrubs at his face with the back of one hand.

He’s just pulled himself together enough to try and finish cleaning up when he hears someone at the door, someone knocking at the door. He freezes. Can’t answer, not now, can’t let anyone see this mess though why someone’s come to visit is far beyond him—

“Royce?” That’s Grant, it’s Grant calling from outside as he knocks on the door again.

Shit. Had he sent a message to say he was coming? Had they had some plan to meet that Royce had forgotten? He can’t remember, can’t remember, been too caught up in his work all day to think of anything else, and it doesn’t matter now, no, what matters is that Grant is here and goodness knows he can’t let Grant see this.

“Royce!” Grant calls more loudly, hammering harder on the door. “Royce Bracket, I know you’re in there.”

For his part Royce wishes he wasn’t, in fact, wishes very much that he was not in here, that he was more or less anywhere other than here, but there’s nothing he can do about that now. He takes a deep breath to steady himself and sets his jaw, one hand clutching the edge of the wastebin tightly as he hurries to finish cleaning up his desk. The urge to gag again threatens to overpower him, but he’s got to finish this, got to get this cleaned up before Grant sees, so he swallows hard against it and keeps wiping the pool of sick into the bin.

“Royce?” Grant calls from behind him, much too close. “What are you - ah, hell.”

He turns quickly, trying to keep himself angled between the desk and the doorway to hide the awful sight from Grant, but the movement makes his head spin and he has to double over the bin again, with a weak gag that comes out more like a strangled sob.

“You damned idiot,” Grant says quietly, crossing from the doorway to put a hand on his shoulder. “What have you gone and done to yourself now?”

“I think, ah,” he manages, his voice hoarse and trembling. “Think I’m not well.” He swallows hard, trying to clear the lump in his throat again, and adds, more quietly, “Not... really very well at all, actually.”

“I can see that,” Grant says, not unkindly. “You look awful. When’s the last time you slept?”

“I, ah,” he falters. “I’ve been, well.”

“Mm,” Grant replies, arching an eyebrow. “I thought as much.” He glances at the desk, and Royce wants to disappear into the floor. If Grant’s grip on his shoulder wasn’t so tight, he might collapse, might just collapse right here. “Have you even eaten today?”

“Not, not much since....” he begins, frowning. “Since, ah...” Now that he thinks about it, he’s not sure the last time he ate even was today, technically speaking, in the usual sense. Certainly more recently than he’s slept, but that’s little use, little use as a measure at the moment.

“Get something to eat and then get to bed,” Grant tells him. “You look ready to drop.”

He groans, swaying on his feet as his stomach lurches unpleasantly. “No, I can’t, don’t think I could, ah, could eat much, not at the moment,” he manages weakly, and swallows hard, trying to keep his breathing steady.

“Bed, then,” Grant says firmly, steering him towards the hall. “You need to sleep, Royce, you’re going to kill yourself like this.”

“But I,” he protests. “I’m, I’m busy, Grant, busy busy busy, I’ve got too much work to do—“

“And it’ll be here when you’re up again,” Grant points out, pushing him gently out the door. “You’re in no fit state to work now, though. Go, and I’ll make sure you have some ginger tonic when you’ve slept, and something light to eat.”

“I have to, well, have to clean up this mess,” Royce insists, but he doesn’t have the strength, doesn’t even have the strength to dig in his heels as Grant marches him down the hall. “All this mess, I can’t just...”

“If it’s so damned important, I’ll see to it myself,” Grant says. “You’ll have to get your papers back in order yourself, I’m afraid, but you can do that after you’ve slept.” He stops pressing forward outside the door to the bedroom, his grip on Royce’s shoulder loosening slightly. “Bed, Royce,” he says. “Now.”

If he were to be totally honest, why, if he were to say anything about it at all, Royce would have to admit it’s relief, more than anything, quite incredible relief he feels as he stumbles into his room, his knees simply giving out from underneath him as he reaches the bed. His head is still spinning, still spinning even now that he’s no longer standing, but it’s better than being on his feet. As much as he might like to argue, would still very much like to argue in fact, it seems his body, fueled mostly by coffee before he’d thrown all of it up, has sided with Grant in this particular debate, and even as he struggles to crawl under the covers he finds it’s getting hard to keep his eyes open.

He thinks Grant says something, looking into the room from the doorway, but he can’t make out what it is, can’t make it out at all, and everything’s gone dark before he has the chance to ask.

It’s dark by the time he wakes, sometime late that night, and his head feels clearer than it has in days, and when he turns on the light by his bedside it’s to see a plate of soda crackers and a bottle of ginger tonic on the nightstand, just as Grant had promised. He manages a smile, pushing himself upright, and reaches for the tonic with one hand.

When neither a few sips of tonic nor a handful of crackers makes his stomach try to revolt, he rubs at his eyes with one hand and stumbles to his feet. It seems Grant’s already gone, gone home once he was asleep, but there’s a message waiting for him, reading Hope you’re feeling better when you’re up. Cleaned up in the study; I don’t know how you organize your things but I tried to at least make them tidy. Call if there’s anything you need. -Grant.

It’s true, when he looks into the study, that all his things are still out of place - but the notebooks, pens, and papers he’d scattered on the floor in his earlier panic are stacked and lined up neatly at the edge of his desk. To his surprise he’s still relieved, even glad about the attempt to help, even as he sits down to rearrange them, put them all back in their places, all in their proper places.

He’ll have to say thank you later, he promises himself, once he’s caught up with his work. As much as he’d resented Grant’s unexpected appearance at the time, now that he’s back on his feet he can’t deny he’s grateful for the help.

[randomslasher]

man, this isn’t a new thought or anything, just an experience I’m having today, but pain and depression are really really inexorably linked. Like, they’re buds. They’re bffs. They go together hand in hand and trying to separate them is pretty tough a lot of the time. I know there’s all this stuff about managing pain and mindfulness and how you can make pain worse by giving in to the depression that comes with it, but I guess it’s just like...i don’t know, it’s easy to forget that when you’re in pain, you’re fighting a war on two fronts: physical and emotional. It’s hard not to feel pain you know is always going to be a part of your life and not feel the crushing weight of that in your general mood, too. And sometimes it’s worse when you’ve actually been doing better, telling yourself ‘oh it’s actually going away!’ and then it comes back. Somewhere deep down you always knew it would but when it goes for a bit, leaves you alone, then returns, there’s always this little bit of you that was hoping it would stay gone that gets crushed all over again. 

And that feeling sucks as much as the pain itself, tbh. At least for me it does.

[ifdragonscouldtalk]

this is for @aurumacadicus’s birthday! i’m about to go to bed so it’ll be on ao3 sometime tomorrow, i’ll post a link to it then, but for now, here’s this! spirk hurt/comfort (with spock whump, obviously). i hope u like it rei

“In, in, in,” Jim chanted under his breath, shoving Spock’s back even though the Vulcan was being wholly compliant with the command to urge him on faster, glancing over his shoulder anxiously. They had lost their pursuers, but he could still hear their footsteps and shouts echoing through the hallways, so they weren’t too far behind. The door snapped shut behind them and he let out a soft breath, fiddling with the lock. 

“Captain,” Spock said in a low voice, and something stiffened up Jim’s spine at his tone. “I believe it would be prudent to leave me behind. Your chances of survival without me increase by-”

“Not happening,” he replied firmly as he turned to his friend, his First Officer and lover, taking him in as he slowly sank onto the thin bed, one hand clutched over his thigh and the other clenched into a fist, the only indications that he was in pain. The room they had darted into seemed to be some sort of guest bedroom, which was just as well. Spock wouldn’t have been able to make it much farther on his feet. “I’m not leaving you Spock, and you know it, so go ahead and make your token argument since it makes you feel better, and then put that brain to work thinking on a way out of this mess.” Spock raised a disapproving eyebrow, but it lost its impact in a face pale with bloodloss over eyes glazed with pain.

Jim let out another soft sigh, kneeling in front of him to check the shoddy tourniquet they had wrapped around his upper thigh to stem the bleeding of his nicked femoral artery. The blood would leave a trail right to this room despite them taking precautions to leave several false trails and Jim using his foot to smudge the blood as they ran, making it blend in easier with the dark tiles of the palace, so it was only a matter of time before they were found. They needed to have a plan before then, and preferably before Spock lost consciousness as well. He had already lost more blood than either man was comfortable with. 

“Captain, it is very unlikely that I will make it out of this encounter alive.” There was his token argument, and Jim almost smiled, looking up at beloved indulgently as he tightened the tourniquet where it had come loose. He probably wouldn’t have noticed the slight twitch of the Vulcan’s face, a flicker flinch of pain, if he hadn’t been looking for it, if he didn’t know Spock so well by now. He might’ve been offended by the assumption that there was any way he would leave Spock behind, if he didn’t know it was the only way the Vulcan knew how to cope, clinging to logic and trying to save others. 

“Well, let’s assume that you will anyway, Mr Spock, and come up with a plan that accounts for that.” Spock’s chest expanded in his version of a sigh before he nodded. 

“Very well, Jim. Are our communicators still blocked?” Jim flicked out his comm, both taking a moment to wilt at the static that emerged from it. “Noted. Perhaps, then, the most prudent course of action would be to leave the castle and find shelter until we can discover what has blocked our instruments.”

“We don’t have that kind of time, Spock.” You don’t have that kind of time. They both looked down at the wound in Spock’s leg, bleeding steadily with the pulse of his heartbeat onto the ragged mattress. 

It had been a simple diplomatic mission with a warlike race. Their technology was advanced but their weaponry was primitive, swords and spears greeting them on their way through the palace which homed the Queen. Everything had been going fine, until it hadn’t. Jim wasn’t sure what he had said, but the Queen abruptly and unexpectedly decided that she didn’t like them very much, and was going to have them killed for it. Spock had taken a spear to the thigh before either of them could react, and Jim would continue to wonder how he had run on the wound with such speed as they were fleeing the Queen’s guards. Sure, he had seen Spock endure worse wounds, worse pain, but it never ceased to amaze him how much like a pillar he could become in times of need. Jim prayed that there wouldn’t be a day when he would look back and that pillar would be one of salt. 

“We need another option,” Jim said as he stood, looking around the room for any useful tool, anything they could use as a weapon or a means of escape. 

“We do not have many options.” Spock sounded tired, the skin around his eyes just that much pinched, and a stab of panic struck through Jim’s heart. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing him, not now, not after everything, especially not like this, maybe not ever, so he didn’t bear it, casting it away as he cast his gaze around the room, searching, always searching. “Jim.” Warm hands grabbing his, drawing his attention; the tingling in the back of his mind, gentle, of the bond, nearly unnoticeable due to his psi-null nature. “Jim, there is no point in you dying as well.”

“You’ve not yet died,” Jim pointed out, and knew he was starting to lose it, knew they couldn’t go on like this much longer, pretending that he felt like he was a captain right now when he was just a terrified lover, Romeo in Juliet’s tomb, when his voice trembled just that much. Spock squeezed his hands -- intimate, more intimate than the Vulcan usually allowed, even when they were alone. An expression of trust, of love. 

“Then there is no use in you watching as I do,” he replied, soft, always soft. “It will only hurt you, Jim, and that is the one thing I vowed never to do.” 

“Stop acting like you’re saying goodbye!” Jim couldn’t help it, ripped his hands away because if they stood here any longer he was going to start crying foolishly. 

“We cannot deny the inevitable.”

“No, I was supposed to die first! I’m Human, and I’m the Captain, and I’m supposed to go before you do!” Spock just looked up at him, veiled pain in the lines of his face, blood dripping quiet and slow onto the tiled floor, and Jim collapsed to his knees in it, already stained with green, staring up at the man who had taken him as he was. Something crashed against the door and they both looked over at it, their eyes inexorably drawn back together, teeth clenched, hands fisted. “It’s too late.”

“So it seems,” Spock whispered, and Jim took his hands, bloodied, faintly trembling with his pain, with the emotions he was so incredible at containing. 

They didn’t need to say I love you. They already knew, after all. And so, there was silence, until the lock on the door clicked and the panel separating them from the world slid open. 

Only to reveal Scotty and Bones, phasers clutched in hand, scanners out, eyes alert. Jim leapt up, one hand still in Spock’s, eyes wide with shock and residual fear. “Bones?”

“Dammit, Jim, I told you to be careful!” 

“How did you two find us? How did you even know we were in trouble?”

“Enough about tha’ now, lads, Mr Spock looks like he needs some help,” Scotty cut in, interrupting whatever answer Bones might’ve given. Although, Bones didn’t seem all that inclined to give an answer, having also zeroed in on Spock, tricorder already out and scanning as the door slid closed once more. “Enterprise, four to beam up!” 

It was only later, when Spock was groggy from surgery and nauseous from medication, that Jim had the heart to say what had been pushing at his throat for hours, those words they whispered to each other in the night where they couldn’t affect their working lives. “I love you,” he breathed into Spock’s skin, eyes squeezed shut, lips pressed against Spock’s wrist. Intimate, still too intimate, but Spock was allowing it. He must’ve felt worse than he let on -- hell, that was the story of Spock’s, life, wasn’t it?

“I love you as well, ashayam,” Spock breathed back, eyes half-lidded, ears flushed green with the fever Bones was still trying to bring down. And, quieter still: “Thank you for not leaving me.”

“Never,” Jim replied. “But next time we’re hiding, I’ll still let you make that token argument, because I know how much it means to you.” Spock’s eyes slipped closed, still exhausted from the blood loss, the sedative, maybe trying to escape the emotions Jim was definitely projecting at him. “That’s what love is.”

“Indeed.”

[its-max-okay]

MIXED BLESSINGS || lughnasadh festival

The tarot booth.

In all her century of life, Max never pretended to be a person of faith, nor was she terribly superstitious beyond the good luck tokens she kept at her wrist. Despite the esoteric appeal of fortune telling booths and tarot readings when she was younger, Max hadn’t indulged in decades, figuring she’d long outgrown the pomp and eccentricity.

Now, though, with the echoes of Asclepius’ two-fold blessing and gentle warning still echoing in the back of her mind, Max couldn’t help but slow her steps in front of the ornately decorated tent. Chewing indelicately at the inside of her cheek, she paused for a moment of consideration before gesturing for her companions to go on without her; she’d catch up.

The clean scent of burning wax permeated the air as Max ducked into the tent, her eyes taking a moment to adjust to the candlelight and focus on the curiously ageless woman in front of her. She had that quiet, borderline smug look on her face that told Max, ‘I’ve been expecting you.’ Max rolled her shoulders and shrugged it off with a smile, like she did so many things, and set a pair of silver coins in a small weathered dish with a handful of others.

Everything in the tent seemed muffled, sleepy; Max blamed it on the candles and the comfortable resonance of Tyrian purple. Her boots sank into the plushness of the carpet, and for a distracted moment she felt blasphemous for not removing them.

Before Max could follow through on that particular train of thought, her cards were being laid out. Gold twisted in the designs and caught flickers of light, muted and mesmerizing. Max was lost in the art of the cards by the time the woman started to read them, her low, smooth voice sending a shiver down Max’s spine in distraction.

‘You like running, moving forward, being in the action, meeting new people, traveling the world and discovering new things. Your daily life is filled with dreams and disappointments, desires and needs. You have to live it fully and unhindered in order to live your life completely fulfilled.’

Max’s lips curled with a muted amusement; she’d be impressed with the assessment, if it weren’t something anyone walking down the street could suss about her. It was written in her shoulders, her body language, her very being; moving forward, recklessly, for better and for worse.

‘Although you are a thoughtful person, sometimes your character pushes you to live at a frantic pace, from which you find it hard to escape. You could consider meditation.’

Now Max actually snorted, the sound terribly out of place in the solemnity of the room. The reader paused for half a second, and Max had the wherewithal to turn the snort into a more polite clearing of her throat, allowing the woman to continue.

‘You have arrived at a key moment in your life. A period during which you’ll take the time to observe your past in order to grasp its meaning. This spiritual step is indicated by the association of the Knight of Wands and Ten of Swords--’

There it came -- not the doom and gloom, necessarily, but the gravity. Any leftover frivolity Max was feeling slipped from her expression, brow knit in gentle consideration. A spiritual step. That seemed to be putting it lightly, and despite not being a terribly god-fearing woman (before recent events, anyhow), it was easy to assume they could have a sense of humor.

‘On the emotional level, Knight of Wands and Ten of Swords evoke someone who is dear to you. A man whose presence brings you the balance and stability you need to feel content. He is someone who is intimately linked with your life path who occupies a prominent place in your draw.’

A smile teased its way back onto her features and a pit of warmth nestled in her chest as Max immediately thought of Jihoon. Balance, stability, an inexorable connection; the teller may as well have mentioned him by name. Only the briefest pang of guilt followed when Max considered how she hadn’t yet come around to telling him about her blessing, either uncertain about what it could mean or too tentative to bother him with something that could be construed as silly superstition. Now, though, as Max unconsciously flattened her palm below her ribcage to feel the strength of her manacore thrumming just beneath her skin and muscle, she made a quiet promise to herself to try and broach the subject soon.

‘Love: the Emperor.’

Max would later be embarrassed to admit how her ears perked at the prospect.

‘This card has extremely positive connotations with regard to romantic relationships. It reflects the existence or the emergence of a lasting relationship in which tenderness and communication make it possible to consider the future calmly. This card refers to the protective side of the patriarch, whose primary function is to take care of the needs of his family.’

A quiet exhale, and the tarot reader’s eyes flickered briefly up to meet Max’s. The healer’s answering smile was a private one, which the reader mirrored without asking for more.

She continued.

‘Destiny: the Seven of Cups. This card is closely related to the ideas of abundance and choice; each one of the cups is full of a substance that is capable of hurting or satisfying you.’

The hand Max already had settled over her core pressed down with a newfound insistence, coupled with the edge of her teeth catching her lip. Not noticing, the tarot reader continued, even if Max was no longer properly processing the words.

Abundance and choice; hurting or satisfying. The mixed nature of her new blessing in a conveniently contradictory package. ‘You will have to grow to new heights,’ her new deity’s words echoed in an unhelpful reminder. Max wondered if his hand guided her cards. Briefly, she rebelled against the concept of being owned; just as quickly she was grateful for his blessing and what it meant for keeping those close to her safe.

Belatedly, Max realized the tent was quiet and the reading was finished. She stared almost dumbly at the teller for a moment, the look reflected back to her with a soft patience. Shifting from foot to foot Max hesitated, not wanting to break the spell by leaving the tent but not wanting to overstay her welcome with questions she assumed would go unanswered. A muted, conflicted sort of smile was all she had to offer, along with her thanks.

[webcricket]

Winter’s Eye

Pairing: AU!CastielXReader Word Count: 1560 (Ch. VII) Story Summary: Season 13 canon tells you how AU!Castiel’s story ends, this is how it begins. The deranged and damaged iteration of Castiel we met in the apocalypse universe - an obedient soldier to Michael’s cause barely in control of his vessel’s frayed and erratically firing nerves whose inherent kindness toward humankind appeared entirely obliterated - wasn’t always an unfeeling angelic weapon of interrogation. Once, he sympathized with the plight of humans; one, he loved. Outlined for 10 chapters (although, my muse is bad at maths and these things have a way of multiplying). Chapter Summary: As the connection between Cas and the reader finds firmer footing, a link from his past arises to threaten them both.

Previous Chapter: VI

VII.

“Are you kidding me?” The question explodes in a puff of breath on the frozen air; before you unfolds a pristine island of black tarvia, the filtered sun beating down on it with enough heated force to melt the snow anywhere pavement touches. Parking spaces outlined in regular intervals of yellow striping, and a handful of abandoned vehicles, radiate from the mountainous façade of a Mega-Mart.

Surveying the scene through the squinted blue optics of his vessel, Cas casts you a curious knotted-brow glance from where stands at the edge of where forest rings this convenient miracle of civilization seemingly constructed in the middle of nowhere. “Is something funny to you?” he asks, looking between you and a building too empty and too quiet for his instincts to trust; out here you’re exposed - a living breathing target unprotected by a buffer zone of wooded isolation – and he doesn’t like it one iota.

“No-” you laugh, further confusing his brow with the conflict inherent between your answer and attitude- “I guess I was expecting a rinky-dink general store fronting a small town main street. Not this-” You gesture at the looming building, a wonderland promising to contain anything and everything your heart could possibly desire and more. More, that is, beyond the surprise solace of sharing a cabin with your very own personal overly protective angel, of course.

“There is a highway not far from here, and a town like you describe – one whose populace was decimated by werewolves and worse. It’s not safe there or here,” he says gravely. And yet here you are, allowed to tag along against his better judgement because, in a moment of weakness of reason, he let an inexorably extant and angelically errant emotion of fondness for you overrule his head.

“We should hurry-” haste propels his feet forward; he curls a beckoning arm backward- “Stay close.”

You obey, legs scissoring at a trot to try to keep step with his purposeful stride. On level ground, it’s even more punishing a pace than the hike that hurried you here. Feeling the bite of blisters forming on the boney points of your heels and on the tops of your toes, you make note on your mental shopping list to search for a pair of better fitting boots and Band-Aids.

As you thoughts wander, he begins to outpace you. “Hey, where’s the fire?” you pant across the growing gap of distance.

Gradually getting the gist that not all questions you pose want answering given he observes no indications of a blaze in the immediate vicinity, he ignores the query, but not the subtext of comment on his speed, and slows until you catch up.

Approaching the sliding glass doors of the entrance, he notes they are intact and locked just as he last left them. A scattering of stone spilling outward from the threshold, not so accidental as it appears, lies undisturbed.

Strategically speaking, this would be the easiest egress for an intruder to gain entrance inside. The rear and side admittances are steel, chained, and padlocked. Still, with you to watch over, he does not permit these subtle reassurances to soothe his caution.

A flick of two fingers to focus his grace frees the dead bolt. He pries the doors apart with brute strength just far enough to permit you both to squeeze through. On last look out at the parking lot as he secures the doors shut, his regard is drawn heavenward to the horizon to a solitary silvery vapor streaking the otherwise uniformly tarnished gold glow of the sky – a wisp of airy nothingness so slim as to barely be noticed and the sort of smoky linear disturbance a plane would create in its wake as it passed - a contrail disturbing the pressure of the low atmosphere.

Except there are no planes, and there hasn’t been anything save the bodily bound bombs of angels skimming the firmament in flight - or, like him, falling in a smoldering ruin of fate - since the day Michael donned a crown formed by the flayed flesh and bone and souls of billions of humans and the emptied glory of the thousand and more angels who opposed him and whose snuffed existence stains, in a bloodied shadow of once brilliant light, Castiel’s hands.

In the seconds he spends considering the cloud, it dispels in a freshet of cool wind. It wouldn’t make sense, angels scouting here where there is nothing. They’ve done with him, banished him to dwell in and on his defeat, and ever since he etched a warding sigil upon the curved carriage of your ribs, they cannot so much as sense you exist.

Besides, with what you’ve told him of the holdouts of human resistance groups, why waste heavenly resources hunting one human in a haystack of the wild when bigger targets persist.

The tear of a candy bar wrapper loudly resonates in the benumbed and stagnant space; the crumpling of plastic and crunch of chocolate crust is swallowed up as eagerly by the silence as your gullet.

“I missed these,” you mumble and moan in immodest taste bud titillating pleasure around a mouthful of melted sugary goodness as his gaze rounds to seek out the source of the sound.

“Shh-” he scolds; the grit of worry in the warning hushes you instantly.

Terror tightens your throat so that you cannot swallow the amalgam of sugar and saliva held amid your teeth and tongue. Heart seizing, then pounding with such ferocity each ferried beat of fear shudders your frame, bits of brown moisture ooze at the trembling corners of your clinched jaw.

In the depths of the store, somewhere down a darkened aisle, winding to reach his celestially superior discernment, a soft scraping of fabric and rubber soles, slightly sticky on the tiled floor despite the feather-lightness of the footsteps, faintly perforates the calm.

Lashes widened in alarm quickly narrow again in a lethality of resolve; an inner luminance of blue burns in his searching gaze as he shifts a few steps into the eerie fringes of where the window light bleeds into the dimness. When he shakes his sleeve, you see a glint of metal flash into his grip.

Adrenaline opens up your veins and, also oiling your muscles to fight or flee from this place, it permits you to thickly and audibly gulp the wad of partially chewed chocolate nougat.

He extends the hand unburdened by a blade out at you, a movement meaning to say that you should do neither and duck out of sight behind the register.

You misread the purely practical physicality of his request and instead cede to the instinctive tug at your emotions to meet his fluttering fingers halfway, meshing yours into the warm sanctuary of their apertures and securing your other arm through the crook of his elbow to flatten his entire weaponless limb to your chest.

To say the action – a clingy suggestion of deeply rooted trust, concern, and consequently of a firm belief in his ability to shield you in the face of danger - catches him off guard would be an understatement.

However, with a hiss of his name in a tone familiar to him as that of his unwaveringly loyal lieutenant and sister – Rachel – slicing through the dark loud enough, even, for you to hear the anger and resentment whetting the knife of feminine voice, he has no time to analyze the exhilarating effect your embrace and corporal nearness exerts upon his being, nor does he permit more than a speck of added anxiety to alter the determination of his affect.

Pivoting, his typically stony rigidity a balletic display of swiftness, grace, and fluid urgency, he covers your mouth, pins you flush against the waist-high wall of the register, and very briefly steals your breath in the press of his hips against yours. The dynamism of his blues, desperately sparking hue dancing less than an inch from your flared lids, implores you to stay there no matter what happens.

He’s certain she heard you - can hear the wild banging of pulse within your body just as clearly as he can – she is, after all, an angel, and a sometime ally sympathetic to humanity who is not as dead as he presumed and evidently has an axe to grind with him.

If you stay out of her way, you may yet survive. Castiel maintains less hope for himself, and before he found you, he would’ve welcomed whatever retribution she required up to and including his life – a life sunken into meaninglessness and seeped in suffering; but now, staring into your eyes, their pleading concern begging him to be careful, to not leave you alone, he feels reason to fight.

Numbed by panic, limbs turning into immovable lead weights of worry for him, you feebly nod against the electrically charged scent of his skin a promise to stay put for his sake and collapse as he pushes you down to your knees and into the alcove underneath.

You watch the lower portion of his legs retreat from your sight and disappear into the gloom. Straining to hear what is happening, the pain pinching your heart in his absence drums dully in your ears and pulls with each strung and stinging beat at the fluid filling the blisters on your feet.

Castiel tag list:  (Closed, if you’d like to be removed please let me know!)    @jeepangel  @sammiesamness  @willowing-love  @blueicevalkyrie   @im-the-nerdiest-of-them-a11  @thesugargalaxy​    @bluetina-blog​  @dont-trust-humanity​  @afanofmanystuffs  @honeybeetrash​  @bucky-thorin-winchester​  @superwholockz​   @tistai​  @wordstothewisereaders​  @gill-ons​  @mrswhozeewhatsis​  @marisayouass​  @stone-met​   @castiel-savvy18​  @samualmortgrim​  @trexrambling​  @magnificent-mantle​  @kdfrqqg  @xdifsx​   @mandilion76​  @rockfairy​  @peaceloveancolor​  @unicorntrooper​  @anisolatedship​  @itsilvermorny​  @aditimukul​  @kudosia​  @goofynerd-67babylove​  @uninspirationalsonglyrics​  @gray-avidan​  @mishascupcake​   @mishapanicmeow​   @praisecastielamen​  @roseyhxnt​  @jessikared97​  @let-the-imaginationflow​  @warriorqueen1991​   @sebastianstanslefteyebrow   @hisnameisboobear  @kristendanwayne  @fuschiarulerinthebluebox​  @coolpencilpie​  @jenabean75​  @luciathewinchestergirl​  @morganas-pendragons​  @heyitscam99​  @fangirl-and-stuff​  @selahbela  @realgreglestrade​  @splendidcas​  @pointlesscasey​  @i-larb-spooderman​  @thewhiterabbit42​  @thelostverse​  @castieliswatchingoverme​  @beccollie18  @dragonett8  @dixie-chick​  @jtownraindancer​   @carowinsthings​  @passionghost​  @ladyofletters67​ @futureparent​  @gabbie7-11​  @myfandomlife-blog​  @dreamerkim​ @shamelesslydean​  @earthtokace​  @neaeri​  @justanormalangel​  @lone-loba​  @supernaturalymarvel​  @lilrubixx​  @wings-and-halo​  @x-cassiopeia​ @thehoneybeecastielfollows​  @musiclovinchic93​  @81mysteriouslyme​  @the-bottom-of-the-abyss​  @jaylarkson​ @pixiedusts  @spookysculderfiles  @laqueus-ludovicus  @missjenniferb @lexininja  @jessiekay2010   @skrratata  @rhiannonj79  @calicat79

[author-morgan]

Phobia ☤ Alexios

twenty - down to the water

masterlist

“Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier; I have seen worse sights than this.”

Fate decrees two kindred souls from two different empires will find one another, and the spear shall be made whole again

NIGHT FALLS AND still, Irene slips in and out of consciousness, though before the moon rises to its zenith, she begins to wake. The woman sitting next to her is not a familiar face, but Irene already knows who it must be —they have spent months searching for her. "Myrrine?" She asks, voice faint.

Myrrine nods with a gentle smile, reaching for one of her hands partially covered by the golden silk. "Thank you for helping bring him back to me," she says —there something almost doleful about her smile. Hold him gently she wants to tell Irene he has been cracked enough as it is and his heart is more shattered than he lets on.

"Lamb?" She calls and seconds later Alexios appears —he'd been pacing back and forth for half the night, sick with worry and unable to rest. His eyes are downcast as he enters, but the tautness in his shoulders fades when he sees the princess is sitting upright. The Eagle Bearer rushes over, pulling her into his chest and burying his face into her neck.

Irene presses her cheek against his hair and loosely grips onto his arms. Alexios lets her go after a long moment and leans back, taking in her unkempt appearance —even now she is a goddess. "You're stunning," he utters, caught in a trance —her eyes are the only sea he would happily drown in. Irene smiles —the tips of her fingers tracing over his jaw.

Lost in each other, it's easy to forget they are not alone. "How did you come by this?" Myrrine enquires, holding the other half of her father's spear. She had not noticed it before, but the markings are unmistakable —as is the power it harbors.

The question brings the world crashing back down around Irene as the color fades from her rosy cheeks. "Mater," Alexios warns, but the princess lays her hand on his chest and draws in a slow breath.

"I-" Irene sees no point in hiding the truth. Alexios's arm wraps around her waist. "I am the daughter of Amytis and Apollonides. A Princess of Persia, granddaughter of Xerxes." Anger flares in Myrrine's eyes, her grip on the spear tightens. It is the spear of her father, and she has every right to be irate it had fallen into Persian hands, but now is Irene's chance to remedy the past. "You can have it if you wish."

Leonidas' daughter glances down at the broken spear then up to her son and the woman he holds in his arms. The two halves have come together —are whole again even if the great weapon has not been reforged. Myrrine places the spear on the table, bows her head with a soft sigh —shoulders sagging. "The gods granted you this for a reason," she declares before leaving.

Irene lets out a slow breath and feels the unease and tension in the room slip back into oblivion. "I thought she was ready to run me through," she says with a dry laugh.

He presses his forehead against hers. "Wouldn't have let her, princess." His words dance over her cheek. Irene smiles and lifts her chin so her lips brush against his. It feels like the right thing to do. Alexios responds immediately, cradling the back of her head and neck. Her lips are soft and have the faintest hint of salt upon them. He draws back, thumb tracing the fresh scab on her forehead. "You must be starving."

"Famished," she confirms, "but I'd like to bathe first." Saltwater disagrees with her skin and hair, as do days of mud and sweat. Alexios nods and presses his lips to her temple —she can feel his faint smile against her skin.

At this hour, the bathhouses are empty. Faint tendrils of steam rise from the water, mixing with silver rays of moonlight. Irene unwraps the golden chlamys and reaches for the fibula at her shoulder, unclasping the pin. She lets the ruined linen puddle around her feet and steps down into the water, turning to look over her shoulder. Alexios is shifting on his feet, gaze turned toward the tiled floor though she can make out the faint wash of color on his cheeks. "Stay with me?" His response is the sound of metal bracers clattering against the stone floor —greaves following shortly after.

Alexios watches her from a distance —wringing suds and oil from her black hair— and feels his heart start to beat faster. It isn't fair Irene can make him feel like an infatuated and foolish boy. He finds another scar on her back, near her shoulder. This one is smaller than the one curving upward beneath her arm, but the silvery mark is unmistakable against her sun-kissed skin.

There's a quick moment of surprise when a coarse sea sponge touches her back, but Irene relaxes instantly when a familiar hand settles on her waist. He washes her back without saying a word. Soon the sponge is replaced by the rough pads of his fingertips tracing over the small scars on her upper back. Shivers crawl over her body. "Alexios," she breathes, glancing over her shoulder at him —his brows are creased and lips pressed into a taut line. Sighing, Irene turns to face him, hands resting on his broad shoulders and a soft smile on her lips. He looks at her as if her smile is the only thing that matters.

Alexios rests his other hand on her neck. His eyes flick down to her lips before he leans forward. Slowly, inexorably, he presses his lips to Irene's. This time it feels different. It's soft and gentle and chaste and maybe there's no lightning or sparks, but it's far better than that —it's a wave of warmth that fills him up, spilling from his heart. The warmth of Irene's lips on his makes him understand why Orpheus would follow Eurydice into the underworld —he would undoubtedly do the same. He doesn't say anything, but it's written in his eyes and over his face —it has been for quite some time.

He tugs her over to the marble steps and draws her into his side. "Where will you go now?" The princess is afraid to know the answer —she does not wish to be parted from him. Distracting herself from somber thoughts, she traces the raised scars wrapping around his bicep. One day she'll ask how they came to be.

Alexios feels he has known Irene long enough to decipher what many of her expressions really mean and how she acts when worried about something yet to pass. He catches her hand before she can move to the scar on his shoulder and links his fingers with hers. "We sail for Thera then Lakonia," he tells her. They had come this far together, and he wasn't about to let the woman he loved go.

Irene rests her head against his shoulder and lets out the faintest of gasps when he lazily runs his fingers down her spine. "Without you, I'd be at the bottom of the sea," she whispers —recalling the darkness surrounding her, the weight of the water growing heavier, and the way her lungs burned.

He shakes his head and lifts his hand to her cheek. This was all his fault. "If not for me you'd have never been taken by a Cultist," he says, voice low and filled with guilt.

The princess frowns. The blame lies solely with Silanos and the Cult, not with him. "You can't be sure about that," she counters, "who's to say I wouldn't have come to Naxos of my own volition?" She'd long thought about visiting Naxos and Paros to see the famed beaches and quarries. Silanos could have easily captured her even if the Eagle Bearer had never crossed her path.

"Irene," Alexios chides. She covers his hand and turns her cheek, pressing her lips against the center of his palm. He pulls her back against him, and the princess settles into his embrace, head resting on his shoulder again. The calm is interrupted by the sharp growl of Irene's stomach. She buries her face into his chest and Alexios laughs, holding her tight.

ALEXIOS IS MISSING when Irene wakes. His mother had seen him leave but is not sure where her son disappeared to with a gleam in his eye, wearing a lovesick smile. For now, Myrrine has begun making final preparations for her departure as she plans on returning to Sparta and reclaiming her home. She motions for Irene to join her and Timo in their discussion regarding Naxos' future defense. "My son tells me you grew up in Athens," she notes and surprisingly there is no indication of distaste for Athenians. Naxos was a member of the Delian League.

"Partly," Irene amends, "for a time I was raised in Persia, too."

"How would you go about defending this island?" Myrrine inquires —if the princess had truly grown up around the likes of Hydarnes and Perikles then she would no doubt be skilled in strategy.

Irene looks over the map, considering the number of soldiers stationed on the island and the number of ships at the isle's disposal. Naxos is fairly small and she describes a beacon warning system that can connect the island's coasts and allows for the quick dispatch of men to land or sea. All that would be needed were a series of watchtowers and braziers. Myrrine steps up to the map table and places several markers where construction of the watchtowers would be most suitable. It is a sound plan and there are enough resources for the system to be implemented immediately. "That is all for now, Timo."

Myrrine rounds the table, regarding Irene closely. It's the first time she's really taken in the princess's appearance. A dusting of freckles on her cheeks and forehead. Eyes a deep, clear blue —she wonders how many men have drowned in the depths of her eyes and if her son is one of them. Her hair is darker than the night sky and falls in loose waves from being plaited overnight. Irene is a fighter, but her features are still rounded and soft —unlike the women of Sparta. Alexios' mother now knows it is not only Irene's beauty that has enchanted her son.

"I'm sorry for how I reacted last night," Myrrine admits, pouring a cup of watered wine, "I had not expected to see the other half of my father's spear in my lifetime." Reaching behind her back, Irene takes the spear and lays it on the table between her and Myrrine. Explaining how Hydarnes had entrusted it to her as a girl, unknowing she would be able to harness its powers.

"A warrior, a healer, a politician, Athenian, and Persian," Alexios' mother rattles off a handful of the words her son had used to describe the princess. A faint smile crosses her lips as she pushes the broken spear across the table. "Few people wear that many titles," she remarks —admiration lacing the statement. Irene flushes at the compliment and takes the cup of wine Myrrine offers.

Shortly after midday, Alexios returns and steals Irene away from his mother to a waterfall where a pallet of pillows and linen blankets have been arranged at the edge of the natural pool. Irene turns to look at him, but his gaze is lowered and he's rubbing the back of his neck —as he often does when nervous. She takes his face into her hands, kissing him quickly upon the lips. "I love it," she murmurs, and all his unease fades with those words.

"Join me for a swim?" The princess asks, already beginning to undo the buttons at her shoulder —she slips out of the dull green exomis and stands proudly in her smallclothes whilst tying up her dark hair. Alexios takes in her shapely figure, tawny-gold eyes unabashedly trailing up her strong legs to the soft curves of her hips and stomach. He's pulled from the trance when Irene reaches for the pins holding his deep grey chiton up —stepping out of the puddle of fabric, he follows her into the water.

The cool water is a pleasant contrast to the sweltering heat of the day, but there is still a type of heat between the princess and Eagle Bearer that water cannot cure. Alexios catches a glint in Irene's eyes that he's never noticed before, it's something dark and hungry. "What?" He asks —attempting to decipher the contemplative expression she wears.

Irene's teeth tug on her bottom lip as she wades over to him, hands resting on his chest. "I want you," she utters and her voice is so low and rough she can hardly recognize it.

Alexios' dark gaze flickers to her parted lips then below the water's surface to the soft swells of her breasts. Desire stirs in him too. He's wanted her ever since he laid eyes on her when she was sitting on that gods' cursed beach in Samos. He surges forward, takes her face into his hands and presses his lips against hers —hard. "Irene, we-"

She cuts him off with another kiss. "I know what I want, Alexios."

The dry caress of his open mouth is warm against her neck. She shivers and without willing it, her body draws against his as he drags his lips from her throat to collarbone and back up. Irene's own quiet, yearning song joins his satisfied, broken humming. He finds the pin holding her dark wool apodesmos in place and tugs it free —pulling the sodden material off and tossing both items toward the pool's edge. All Alexios can do is look at her, eyes darkening at the sight of her. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, jaw flexing. He's a man of few words, but she can read exactly what's written all over his face. He wants her, too.

Alexios' palms move up her sides, pausing to stroke her breasts, then slides over her arms and shoulders. One finds a home gently cradling her head and cheek, the other runs long, tickling, fingers through the tangle of her dark hair. The motion sends a shiver down the princess's spine, but then his hand catches on a knot —she half-laughs at the exasperated look that overcomes his sharp features. Her soft laugh is silenced by another kiss, this one more urgent than the last.

Her hands, unemployed, move of their own accord over his chest, over his arms, squeezing lightly. Irene tugs at him, but he stands like a statue of marble. Immovable. Alexios finds her lips again and dips his hands beneath the water, finding and untying the knot of her perizoma. He's seen her bare before —fleeting glances when she bathed or changed clothes— but now he is certain she is a goddess for even her scars are silver.

He lifts her onto a smooth rock at the edge of the pool —coaxes her knees apart and lays gentle kisses from the inside of her ankle up to her thigh. "What-" the question dies on her lips as his mouth descends upon her. Alexios drags her legs over his shoulders and makes a feast of the princess as though he is a starved man who'd stumbled into a banquet.

No man has ever taken her like this before. Her hands tangle into his matted hair. The stubble of his jaw against her thighs, the warm caress of his tongue, and his teasing fingers is all too much. "Alexios," Irene breathes trying to push him away before she shatters, but he holds her in place and savors the soft whimpers and quiet moans that leave her lips. He looks up at Irene —lips glistening with her essence, ocher eyes painted dark by lust.

Alexios eases her legs from his shoulders and lifts her from the edge of the pool to lay her back on the spread blanket. Her cheeks are flushed, lips red and swollen, and breasts heaving as she recovers from a flood of ecstasy —to him she is Aphrodite made flesh, the weaver of wiles.

Settling between her thighs again, Alexios unties his loincloth —tossing it aside and resumes his adulation by covering Irene's neck and cheeks with quick kisses. She laughs and to him, the sound is sweeter than any song a siren could ever sing. His soft and copious kisses are not enough to fully distract the princess from the hard length resting against her hip, though.

Irene drapes one of her legs across his waist and her arm around his shoulders, pressing herself against him until she twists and flips Alexios onto his back. He grunts at the soft impact, and she is quick to straddle his waist —pinning his hands down beside his head. Defiance flares in his eyes, but fades when his face contorts as her warmth envelopes him and strings of curses fall from his lips.

She rocks against him, lips parting as she adjusts to his girth. Alexios slips his hands free from hers and sits up so his chest is flush with hers. He finishes ruining the disheveled braid holding back black waves of hair darker than Nyx's. Kissing her, he rolls his hips, the slow drag of his cock along her walls makes her breath shake. Irene's fingers slide into his hair, holding on as she rotates her hips to meet his with each thrust. If anyone happens across them, they will only think it is one of Ares and Aphrodite's forbidden romps. "Irene," he whispers against her chest like a devotee at prayer. I love you is what he means.

Neither of them will last much longer —too much has been left unspoken, undone between them. His eyes are unfocused yet entirely focused on her, each thrust sloppier than the last. Irene presses forward to kiss Alexios and pant against his mouth as his hips jerk up into her. Her hands are at his shoulders, sweat-slick and trembling beneath her palms, and his forehead is slick too when he pushes against hers.

She's so close, so close, and by his uneven movements and the short gasps at her ear, Alexios is too. "Alexios-" Irene's mouth falls open.

Each thrust and the roll of his body against the engorged bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs brings her closer. One of his hand presses into her lower back and he shifts, hitting a new spot that causes a sobbing wail to escape her lips as she shudders against him —grip tight on his shoulders. Her body pulls him in, a wordless beckon for him to join her over the precipice. With a few more weak thrusts, he does.

Alexios falls backward into the pallet and takes Irene with him. He pulls the princess closer, tracing a constellation on her shoulder.

"You've ruined me," Irene tells him with a smile. She can feel the rumble of laughter in his chest before hearing it. She's had several lovers, though she can honestly say none compare to the Eagle Bearer —or perhaps it is because she has never felt anything for her previous flings as she does with Alexios. Irene knows the word that describes how she feels about Alexios, but she's terrified of admitting it to herself, let alone him.

The sharp curve of his nose presses heavily into the crook of her neck. Alexios inhales her scent with a deep sigh. "I've wanted you since I saw you on that malákas beach on Samos," he admits.

The princess props her chin upon his chest and traces the line running down the center of his abdomen, her fingertips stopping just shy of his naval. Irene knows this marks a change in their dynamic, but she can't be sure if it's for better or worse. "And now you have me," she smiles.

"I do," Alexios smirks, giving her backside a playful squeeze.

"Ahem," Timo clears her throat and quickly looks away from the pair of young lovers she'd stumbled upon. Though with another fleeting glance the general realizes it is Alexios and the princess —the exact persons she'd been sent to find. "Your mother is looking for you," she notes before retreating up the path toward the chora. Alexios rolls onto his back, sighing, he isn't ready to leave this spot, this moment in time.

Irene pulls herself from his embrace and reaches for her exomis, neglecting the sodden wool strips of her underthings. He follows suit, shrugging his grey chiton back on. She looks at the footpath leading from the waterfall to the city, reluctant to go down it. Alexios wraps one of his arms around her waist and pulls her back into him —stealing one last lingering kiss.

Myrrine looks between her son and the Persian princess as they appear from the worn path leading to the sacred waterfall of Dionysos —arm in arm and laughing like children. It fills her with joy to see her son happy. "I'm glad you both could join us," she remarks, arms crossed though her tone is laced with amusement. Irene's cheeks grow heated under Myrrine's gaze. Alexios rubs the back of his neck, unable to meet his mother's eyes.

[jmespottuh]

❛  if there’s one thing the gods love, it’s tragedy. with wings that burn and boys who fall. ❜

* ╰   brandon arreaga  ;  17 ;  he/him  —— wow, james potter sure has changed. i guess he is feeling isolated from the other gryffindor members. guess you can’t really blame them. i still remember them being so charming & incisive now they just seem dependent & inexorable.  guess being a  pureblood isn’t helping matters much either.  i’m hopeful though. they’ll be just fine.

links: pinterest, stats character parallels: bellamy blake ( the 100 ), shane madej ( buzzfeed unsolved ), jake peralta ( brooklyn nine-nine ), stefan salvatore ( the vampire diaries ), scott mccall ( teen wolf ), steve harrington ( stranger things )

james henry potter ( named for two his two grandfathers, maternal and paternal respectively ) was born on april 4th, 1960 to two of the most loving parents a child could have.

fleamont and euphemia had been trying for a child for years. they’d been together for basically all of time, having been that typical good-looking, well liked couple in hogwarts that everyone always just assumes will get married ( spoiler alert: they did ), however had had to postpone kids due to fleamont’s brief stint as a professional quidditch player for eight years following their graduation. after that, they would try every month for a child, and after many years of disappointment, eventually gave up. it was during this time that fleamont developed the sleekeazy hair potion which only added to their immense wealth. 

finally at age forty-one, they were surprised with the arrival of james. obviously, they saw him as their miracle child, and as such he was pampered and completely spoiled from the moment he was born.

i cannot stress enough how much this spoiled upbringing shaped james into the person he is today. if you’re wondering why he was ever an arrogant prick, it’s because he was always used to getting absolutely everything he ever wanted. he grew up with money, he grew up with fame and with every bit of attention he could garner, and so it was really no wonder he was a bit of an asshole by the time he started at hogwarts.

obviously, james had a pretty cushy childhood, and as such, shit didn’t start getting real until he started at hogwarts. 

it took all of three seconds for the hat to sort him into gryffindor, and i guess you could say he pretty much considered himself to be the gem of the house. he was the absolute epitome of a gryffindor, basically considered him the poster boy and all but expected everyone to love him.

really did not help his ego to know that everyone did.

in typical sterotype-gryffindor fashion, james hated slytherin. he had always been taught growing up that purists were basically the root of all evil, and his father had had no qualms in lumping all these people in with the house of the snakes. james and his friends took a particular disliking to severus snape almost immediately for the poncy way in which he seemed to believe he was superior to all for his intelligence and his house status, and this dislike only grew when lily evans was tossed into the mix, too.

for basically the first four or five years of hogwarts, james really was that stereotypical arrogant asshole that he’s often made out to be. he always got everything he asked for, he was incredibly popular and incredibly intelligent, he had the most amazing friends and his eyes on the most amazing girl. he was set!! shit was good!!

shit was not good, though. definitely was not.

despite having known of remus’ furry little problem since second year, things didn’t really start to settle in james how awful it was until third or fourth year. he hated seeing his friend in pain, he hated that he couldn’t help, and so he rallied the boys to put into action their worst plan yet!!!!

becoming animagi!!!!!!

it took fucking forever, obviously, but by the end of fourth year they did it!! we stan icons

except then in fifth year shit hit the fan again in just, like… so many ways

first, it was the whole severus ‘mudblood’ situation. honestly, james was absolutely furious. he’d always hated snape but this just made everything 1000 times worse. even if it had happened to anyone else, he would have been fuming. but for it to have happened to lily like… yikes. 

this was also a horrible time for james though because lily rejected him for the thousandth time. like, look, what a yikes thing to think when she was just called a mudblood, but frankly he was sick of being rejected and he was sick of being the asshole who kept pressuring her so that was the breaking point — he gave up on her. 

and tbh, he changed a lot from here on out. grew up!! became a better person bc he saw how horrible snap was and decided he was sick of horrible people!! saw, recognised and acknowledged that just bc he was hot and intelligent and rich he wasn’t always going to get everything he wanted ( see: miss evans ) and just generally learned that oh shit the world doesn’t revolve around him!!!

oh and then there was that whole thing with sirius and snape and remus the werewolf and ohhhh boyyyy…. that infuriated him. 

he loves his bros so much and y’all know he would die for them, but to see his friend abuse remus’ pain and suffering for his own gain was heart wrenching. it just pushed him further to pull him in line, to realise that not everything was about games, or petty rivalry, or ‘ getting the girl ’ — life was heartache and mistakes and it was never going to go the way he wanted it to.

now look, this isn’t all to say that james is now a super strict, super intense, brooding weirdo. he’s still a bit of a child, and he’s still a bit of an arrogant prick, but ultimately what wins out is his morals — every time. he wants to lead the world to a better place, without war and without hate, he wants everyone to have the same opportunities he had as a kid and he wants nothing more than for blood purity to be eradicated.

get that shit outta my house!!! gross!!!!!!

now in his final year, james is always flipping between taking his role as head boy deadly serious and turning it into one big game of mischief. he’s still a marauder at heart, after all, and has definitely abused his power sometimes for the benefit of fun and games, but when it comes down to it, he can be very strict and lowkey paternal. the leader really just…. popped right outta him, it came to play and it came hard, and really you’d think he’s minister for magic with how serious he treats it sometimes.

i hate him.

the disappearance of one of his best friends, one peter pettigrew, landed james to flop pretty fucking hard on the side of seriousness. once you spend months without knowing where your best friend is, thinking he’s dead, you’re bound to start to lose a bit of that which once made you smile. it was this piled on top of what james had already been feeling which led the head boy to start finding ways he could join the revolution within the walls of hogwarts --- it’s been bloody hard but james is determined to make a difference, to make sure no one else he loves suffers in a war that they never asked to fight in the first place.

anyway here’s some fun facts that didn’t fit up top

james is a lot less intense with his hatred for slytherin’s. he has come to recognise that not everyone from that lifestyle is going to be the same, not everyone who grew up a certain way or was sorted into a certain house is going to think with a deadly mind, and while he’s still a bit wary, he’s a lot more relaxed about it, especially as head boy ( gotta at least pretend shit’s fair !!! )

he’s very dependent as in like… boi cannot go a week without his friends. he is used to having people to bounce off, that’s always the type of leader he has been, and as much as he would probably be amazing at anything on his own, he’s never really tried. too scared!! i hate him!!!!!

super unforgiving. like, if you have gotten on his bad side…. i’m sorry. it is going to be very difficult to return from there. his moral compass is pretty black and white, you’re either good or your bad, and if you’ve done something he considers bad well sucks to be you, i guess. sorry not sorry.

takes his quidditch very seriously tbh. so many people have told him he needs to be a pro like his dad, but he’s like haha fuck you i know what i wanna do ( hint hint: he wants to rule that goddamn auror office, make that shit far more efficient then he thinks it is now ). but srsly, he’s so intense abt the game and it really like… idk gets him in the zone, keeps him level-headed in amongst all this chaos. 

he’s smart. i guess. straight a’s and shit idk. just very naturally intelligent, finds everything he does easy, like.. really is that asshole who is just good at everything he does.

[tenspontaneite]

Peace Is A Journey (Chapter 9/?)

In which the consequences of Callum’s procrastination catch up with him, and Rayla makes use of some potent painkillers. Back in Katolis: Opeli makes General Amaya an offer, and Lord Viren visits his prisoner.

Content warnings: animal death, descriptions of preparation of meat, discussions of meat ethics. Also, medicinal drug use, amputation mentions, some gross wound descriptions, and Viren.

(Chapter length: 22k. Ao3 link)

Viren lingered watchfully at the foot of the stairwell, but only for long enough to see it click back into place. With General Amaya almost literally on the warpath, he couldn’t be taking any chances with the security of his workshop…but he was so very, very ready to sit quietly for a while away from prying eyes. His meeting with the General, needless to say, had not gone well.

With a sigh, he plodded tiredly over to a chair by one of the workbenches, and half-collapsed into it. He eased back against the backrest, raising a hand to rub at his temples, where a headache had been in residence for several days now.

The Crown of Towers was growing heavy on his brow, even after less than a week of sitting there. It wasn’t the best of signs. If not for her unfortunate state of mind, he might have been tempted to offer the damned thing to General Amaya, but there would be no soothing her or directing her rage to productive concerns until that Moonshadow thief was dealt with, and he supposed he had to deal with that. His machinations had rather bitten him in the backside, there – he should have thought of what the princes’ deaths, or even the mistaken assumption of them, would have done to her, but he hadn’t. Now he had no egg, his children were gone from the capital in pursuit of it, and the Standing Battalion stood headless in its hour of greatest need. It would be enough to drive a lesser man to drink.

The Kingdom was vulnerable. So horribly, sickeningly vulnerable. And he, somehow, had to guard it against the legions amassing at its border. It was his job now. His responsibility – his duty. And, though he didn’t know how, he had to fulfil it. Paragons, but he’d never anticipated the Crown would rest so heavy.

He considered, for several moments, admitting to Amaya that he had reason to believe her nephews might be working with the Moonshadow assassin. That they might, depending on the extent of the elf’s mercy, still be alive. He thought about it, fingers lingering near the gleaming line of the crown on his head, and hummed lowly as he thought.

Would there be any benefit to it, really? Would it be worth the aggression he’d likely encounter for hiding information like this?

…No. No, it would not be advantageous in the least. He had no guarantee himself that the princes remained alive, after all. Moonshadow elves were infamous for their ruthlessness, and he had no reason to expect this one to spare the boys once she’d taken the egg from them. Really, it almost served the elder prince right – he’d meddled in things he hadn’t understood, and might well have paid the price for it. It seemed nearly fitting for the boy to die by the hand of the elf he’d trusted not to turn on him; just as if he’d held a viper close to his chest and expected it not to bite.

Prince Ezran, though…that, he could almost regret. Now that he’d been crowned Lord Protector, there was little risk of him being toppled by a child king. If Soren failed in his duty, likely the worst scenario Viren would face was being retitled Regent of Katolis, and that would do well enough. So long as he still had the freedom to make the necessary decisions for the kingdom, it would do.

Still, though, in the best-case scenario, there would be no princes left to lay claim to the throne. Katolis could not afford a child-king in these tempestuous times – he could not risk the slightest chance that his rule would be supplanted now. General Amaya he could trust to rule, perhaps; she was powerful and intelligent, and knew well the depths of Xadia’s evil. But a naïve child? Particularly a boy who was every inch the son of Harrow and Sarai, with stubborn idealism brimming in every drop of his blood?

No, he could not risk that. No matter how he regretted it, he could not risk it. That was the sort of decision a firm ruler had to make.

Still. He hoped that the elf had followed her nature, and turned on the boys. Dispatched them, so that Soren wouldn’t have to. He loved his son enough to hope he could be spared the killing of children.

Viren closed his eyes and leaned back. The low light in the workshop was a balm on his headache, but darkness was even better. He had hard times ahead of him, he knew. The whole kingdom did. General Amaya was on a mission of revenge, and even if he gave her reason to suspect her nephews were alive, she was by now so far gone into rage that he was certain she’d chase that assassin to the ends of the world. He couldn’t trust her to do her duty as General, let alone bear a crown. The rest of the council – well, they were a help, and he could at least delegate to them, but they made no secret of the fact that they’d prefer someone else ruling in his place. Opeli in particular. They weren’t outright obstructing him, perhaps, but they certainly weren’t smoothing the way, either.

Really, it was almost like they wanted the kingdom to fall.

He sat there in silence for a few minutes, listening to nothing but the distant sounds of activity in the castle above, the near-inaudible hum of the light-crystals, and the occasional metallic scrape of his prisoner’s chains in the nearby cell. That last one was a bit too much work to contemplate at the moment, so he steadfastly ignored it. After a while, he opened his eyes and leaned forwards to the table to prepare some ingredients for his most common spells. It wouldn’t do to waste too much time, after all – and besides, he found the preparation quite calming.

It was late enough in the day that his skin was beginning to feel tight and dry again, a familiar weary ache settling into his bones. By morning he’d be desiccated again, and need a little magic to refresh himself. But he would abide well enough for now.

Viren worked in peaceable quiet with the pestle and mortar until he felt somewhat settled again, and had a new batch of bone powder to use. He set it aside in little glass vials, storing them carefully with the rest, and considered what to do. His eyes went, of their own accord, to the archway to the cells.

Well. He was somewhat overdue for a visit of his…guest. Duty had kept him a little too busy to have much time for prisoners.

He considered for several minutes what to say, what mannerisms to project, how to present himself. Then he stood, settling his posture and bearing into an easy, relaxed confidence, and went to fetch some water. The prisoner might disdain food, but he had to be feeling the dehydration by now.

In the end, he strode into the cell with a jug of water and two tankards, running an assessing eye over the cell’s occupant. The elf did more or less the same back at him, though with the addition of his ever-present glare. Really, did he have to insist on looking so very dour all the time? It was growing tedious. “I see you’re looking somewhat worse for wear.” Viren greeted, neutrally, and stood in front of the elf to inspect him. “My apologies for the gap in my visits. Running a kingdom is busier work than I’d anticipated, you see.”

The elf, predictably, said nothing. Only glared up at him. That arm of his was beginning to look truly dire – the whole thing was a dark, almost mottled purple, and there even seemed to be a couple of weeping sores opening on the palm of his hand. Fascinating. Perhaps he should have a healer take a look, give their opinion of it.

“I elected not to bring food, since it doesn’t seem to interest you, but I haven’t been an entirely terrible host: I’ve brought water.” With his carefully-crafted affect of nonchalance, he poured the water into one tankard and held it out to the elf’s face, politely inquisitive.

Also predictably, the elf turned his face away, face heavy with its perpetual scowl.

Viren held the tankard there for a few more seconds, sighed, then sat down on the cell’s chair to drink it himself. “Your perseverance is admirable, I must say. The dehydration must be telling on you by now, but you still won’t drink.” He watched the elf’s face idly for any reaction, but there was nothing besides that usual watchful antipathy. How to change that, he wondered. “Really, it’s surprising you’re not already dead of it. Dehydration would have killed a human man by now.”

The elf’s lip curled. Ah, perhaps finally some response? “I am already dead.” He rasped, voice dry and scratchy and generally not sounding very healthy at all. Clearly the dehydration was treating him badly, after all.

“Yes, yes. That beloved Moonshadow creed of yours.” Viren sighed tolerantly, considering the prisoner before him. “You consider yourself dead already, so you stubbornly waste away and wait until the dehydration makes it true. I wonder: do all Moonshadow elves have this…fortitude…or is it only you?” He mused aloud, thoughts trickling inexorably onwards to something…interesting. Yes, that was an idea. A way to use his frustration with General Amaya for something productive. The edges of his lips twitched upwards, which the elf didn’t seem to miss. “…Or perhaps, is it only the assassins?”

The prisoner’s eyes narrowed, a little wary, as if he were suspicious of the thought that had put the edge of a smile onto Viren’s face. He said nothing, only wore his stormy expression, as if it were a shield capable of guarding him. How wrong he was.

“Does that extend to the younger assassins, too?” Viren asked, almost conversationally, as if genuinely curious. He clearly wasn’t fooling the elf, though – he’d already tensed a little. “That young assassin girl of yours, for instance.” Oh, there, that was nice. The elf’s entire body had gone still at that one, the expression had frozen on his face – yes, this was where to find a reaction. “Ah, I assume you know who I mean, then? Good. That makes things…simpler.” He smiled then, more widely, making his satisfaction plainly evident. “She’s one of yours, I take it? Another assassin? Is she already dead, too?”

Those words seemed to drag the prisoner forcibly out of his unnatural stillness. His face contorted into a rictus of a snarl, in the space of a second, lips drawing back like an angry dog’s. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes narrowed into furious, burningly-blue slits that half-glowed in the low light. Inhuman, he thought, unbidden, and shrugged off the instinctive shiver of unease that those eyes wanted to prompt in him. He focused on the breadth of the reaction instead, and how excellent a sign it was.

Good. Good. That was good. Finally, a proper response. A weak point, perhaps, for Viren to gouge at. “Perhaps you have a harder time applying your philosophy to others, is that it? It’s easy enough to accept the inevitability of your own death…but someone else’s? Yes, I imagine that would be more difficult.” His smile turned sly, just a hair’s breadth short of mocking. “Who is she to you, I wonder? A student? A sister? A daughter?”

His adversary gave only the barest twitch – but that was enough. Viren couldn’t quite draw any conclusions about specifics from that, perhaps, but he could tell something.

“Important to you, certainly.” He concluded, pleased, and watched the elf look even more furious. “More than a mere colleague, at least.” He affected a sad, wistful sigh. “What a shame for you, given it seems your philosophy holds true for her, after all.”

“…What do you mean by that?” Growled out the elf, voice a low snarl, the expression on his face the epitome of murder. If he weren’t half-dead from starvation and dehydration, and chained up besides, Viren might have felt concerned. Instead, he felt nearly elated at provoking a response of this magnitude. A weak spot, indeed!

He schooled his face into surprised realisation. “Oh, of course, you wouldn’t know.” He said, as if this were genuinely news to him. “They say your assassin girl killed Prince Callum and Prince Ezran when she fled the capital, you see.” The dark hand twitched at that, fingers seeming to flex a little. Interesting. “I imagine you must be very proud of her, following in your footsteps, so to speak. Not that it will matter, soon.” Viren watched closely. “I don’t suppose you’ve heard of General Amaya?”

He had. That was perfectly obvious from the way his head jerked back, ever-so-slightly, in response to the name. The intelligence did say that General Amaya had earned some notoriety at the Breach. It seemed it was well-founded.

He wanted to get the elf to admit it, though. “It’s hard to tell what you Xadians hear of our forces, I’m sure you understand.” He said, airily, waving a hand as though to dismiss the notion. “I wouldn’t want to bore you with gossip on people you aren’t familiar with, though, so if you don’t know her, well-“

“I have heard of the General Amaya.” The elf’s voice was low and angry as he interrupted – actually interrupted!

Viren eyed him, carefully masking his delight from his features. Oh, what a wonderful vulnerability he’d seized upon, here. “Oh, have you?” He asked, with faux-surprise. “Perhaps you’ll follow along, then. You see – the Princes of Katolis were the esteemed General’s nephews. I understand they were very dear to her.”

The snarl on the elf’s face went oddly fixed and lifeless, then, as if frozen in place. The vivid fury in his eyes slipped away, going blank for a single, motionless second. Then the eyes widened, just slightly, as the meaning of Viren’s words seemed to occur to him.

“She’s rather distraught, you know.” He said, shaking his head sadly. “I met with her earlier today. It seems she’s sworn herself to a mission of revenge. She has decided to personally lead the hunt for that little assassin of yours, and who was I to hold back a woman from her rightful justice? So, I’m sure you begin to see what I mean.”

Slowly, colour was draining from the elf’s already-pale face. His expression, so full of rage before, had slackened into something tight and tense, as if that might hide the depth of his vulnerability from Viren. It didn’t, of course. He could see the fear in his prisoner’s eyes, plain as daylight. It surprised him, how pleased he was to witness it. This elf had been a tough nut to crack – but here, at last, was a point of leverage.

Better press his advantage. “Certainly, if I had a bereaved, enraged General Amaya pursuing me on a quest of personal vengeance, I’d have to consider myself more-or-less ‘already dead’.” He mused, watching for the reaction. “So, as I said, it does seem that your Moonshadow philosophy is appropriate for that girl. She’s fleeing alone, without supplies, across a great deal of hostile terrain, with the General’s forces on her heels. I don’t expect she’ll last very long.”

The ‘without supplies’ part wasn’t strictly true, given the reports from the Lodge, but it was a useful lie to tell. Viren watched, satisfied, as the elf’s pallor worsened, as his fingers flexed urgently where they were bound as if desperate to act, to do something. He could only imagine what thoughts might be running through the assassin’s head, right now.

He considered mentioning the General’s intentions in more detail, to stir the prisoner a little more, but decided against it. Best hold that back for a later occasion. He had a good thing to work with here; if he was careful, he might be able to get something out of the elf with this. Perhaps if he played his hand correctly, the elf would even volunteer information in exchange for news about his errant assassin girl. He’d have to arrange to have the elf force-fed soon, to prevent him from dying before he reached the end of his use.

What an interesting development this was. Previously, he’d been growing displeased with this prisoner’s lack of utility or response. He’d been considering threats to use that might count as sufficiently terrifying so as to be worse than death. He’d been eyeing his pouch of special coins, speculatively, trying to make time to move that unwieldy mirror to this cell….But this – this seemed useful. This might well be the leverage he’d been searching for.

What, after all, could be a greater strength or a greater weakness than love?

“I can tell that the girl’s fate concerns you.” Viren said, in the end, with all the smoothly-feigned sympathy he could muster. “I’ll be sure to keep you informed of the progress of…well. The hunt, I suppose, would be the best thing to call it.”

The elf pressed his lips together so furiously they turned white. The look in his eyes might have been either rage or terror, or even both.

Viren smiled, stood, and took the jug of water with him. “If I receive any word, you’ll be the first to know.” He promised, taking one last look at the pale, near-trembling form of his elven prisoner.

Then, with deliberate nonchalance, he turned and left the cell, ascending the stairs back into the cold light of day.

---

The river winding out of the north of Verdorn was, as Callum had said, thoroughly inundated with signs of civilisation. In only a half-hour of walking, they passed two separate mills and also a house, and at one point spotted a barge laden with lumber heading down-river from the valley. All the while, the sound of the river hissed in her ears, setting her on edge even more than the constant signs of human activity did. She kept her hood up, and tried not to feel too uncomfortable.

In the end, though, the ceaseless ache of her hand was more than enough motivation for her to stay their course.

Not long after finding a third mill, Rayla spotted the willows growing along the river. There were eight, five on the other side of the river, and three more immediately accessible. They were plainly well-used by the human population, because most of the easily-accessible trunk and branches were utterly bare, stripped clean of their bark.

But, she noted, no one seemed to have bothered with the higher branches.

“…Are those the willows?” Callum guessed, tentatively, when she’d been still and staring at the trees for a good minute.

She rolled her eyes. “Nah, I’m just appreciating the scenery.” She said, dryly, and slung her bag from her shoulders. “I just love stopping to stare at trees for no good reason.”

“Uhuh.” Callum snorted, and after a moment followed suit, setting his bag onto the grass. “I guess we’ll be taking a break here, then?”

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Rayla asked, already approaching the nearest tree with hook-blade in her good hand, scanning it briefly to determine the easiest way to climb it.

“Oh, just a hunch.” He answered, wry, and Ezran giggled at them as he sat to watch.

It was, in a way, kind of demoralising to have to assess this tree for a good climbing strategy. She should have been able to jump into it with barely a thought. It should have been near-effortless, a manoeuvre she’d undertaken so many times that it was all but second nature. But her hand seared at her side, stiff and horribly tender, and she knew that trying to use it to climb would not end well for her.

In the end, she took a few steps back, made a running leap at the tree, and hooked her weapon into a junction between two branches to pull herself up, settling amongst the twigs and leaves. A quick flick shifted the hook back into blade-form, and she set to work stripping the bark from the branches.

“Anything we can do to help?” Callum called from ground-level, and she considered it, looking down through the branches.

“Not right now.” She decided, gathering the bark into the crook of her bad arm. “Sit and draw, or something. I’ve got a few trees to get through.”

He seemed perfectly happy to abide by that instruction, and so she spent the next half-hour comprehensively denuding the willow trees of their bark, sticking a piece into her mouth to chew as she worked. By the time she had a large enough supply of the stuff that it would probably be challenging to fit into her bag, the pain was already ebbing a little. Not hugely, maybe, but after a night and day of agony, any alleviation of it was a blessing.

“Right.” She decided, tilting her head to stare at the branches of the third tree. “That should definitely do it.” With that, she dropped the small pile of bark unceremoniously out of the branches, where Ezran happily went to work gathering it up like he had for the other two trees. She considered the soreness of her hand, debating her options, and in the end elected to jump down from the tree. The impact as she landed jolted her hand, as she’d expected – but, while painful, it was…bearable. The bark was already helping.

“I put it all in a pile near your bag.” Ez said, brightly, as he gathered up the last pieces. “Do you want me to help – Bait, no, you shouldn’t eat that-“

“If you can fit some in your bag around the egg, I’ll be grateful.” She said, watching the glow toad’s colour go especially dark and grumpy as he was denied access to the pile. “Otherwise, I’ll manage.”

Callum peered at her as she went to start packing her bag, and said “Are you done, then? Is that enough?”

She snorted, eyes on the very considerable quantity of the stuff she’d harvested. “If it isn’t, I’ll be very concerned.” She said, with a touch of humour. “This much willow bark would last us all weeks, probably, even if we were all chewing some three times a day.”

“….Right. Good.” Callum cleared his throat, closed his sketchbook, and stood up. “Well, if we’re going to be moving soon, I’m just going to go – er – go.” He said, and then went off into the trees, presumably to answer the call of nature.

Less than a minute later, she heard him shriek, and flinched from her bag with a hand darting quickly towards a blade. She heard the undergrowth rustling, and then – Callum returned from the trees, face panicked, pursued by-

She blinked, startled.

Pursued by, it seemed, an especially angry white goose.

“Help!” He yelped at her, as he broke into the clearing. The goose chased after him, wings mantled and long neck lowered at him as it hissed and flapped at his heels. “It just started – came out of nowhere – bit me-“ he tripped over one of the willows’ roots and then stared up in terror as the feathery menace advanced on him.

“That is a really grumpy goose, wow-“ Ezran said, eyes wide, as he scrambled back. “He’s not trying to hurt you? Or invade your territory? Or steal your food?” he added, a little desperately….to the goose? “You don’t need to drive him away, I swear?”

The goose, unconvinced, lunged forwards and bit Callum on the arm he was attempting to ward it off with. He yelped again, trying unsuccessfully to push it off, and – okay, that was enough. Rayla broke through her bemusement, strode forwards, and grabbed the goose behind its head, wrestling its body under her arms so it couldn’t slap her with its wings.

It honked and shrieked at her, absolutely enraged, as she stood to move it away from Callum.

“He really isn’t listening at all.” Ezran noted, staring. “He really doesn’t like you. Or Callum. Or me.”

She wondered, idly, whether he was enough of a bird expert to tell that the goose was male, or if he was just guessing. “I did get that impression.” Rayla said dryly, weathering the bird’s attempts to wrestle free with equanimity. It was a powerful bird, maybe, but if she couldn’t restrain a goose she’d probably have to die of shame. “I’ve never met a goose I liked.”

“…I mean, they’re usually pretty cranky.” The little prince admitted.

“Hm.” She responded, idly, as she considered the very angry bird flailing ineffectually in her arms. It struggled fruitlessly to free its neck from her hand, and then made a sound interestingly reminiscent of a volcanic gas vent.

“…Thank you for the rescue.” Callum said, with an attempt at dignity, as he pulled himself from the ground and removed a downy white feather from his shirt. “Er. Are you…planning on letting it go?”

She hummed again, eyes narrowed. “Interesting question.” She said, contemplating the size of the bird, the work it would represent, the hour of the day…

In the end, though, it wasn’t like it was every day that potential dinner ran at you shrieking and hissing and attacked one of your human companions. Feathers were a pain, and it was a larger animal than convenient, since they’d need to stop travelling to cook it, but…they needed food. And geese made good eating.

“Oh.” Callum seemed to realise her intent when she’d been silent for a few seconds. “Er.”

She cast a vaguely irritable glance his way, aware that he still hadn’t spoken to his brother about this, and…really, she’d waited long enough. They’d all waited long enough. Travelling without hunting in this sort of terrain wasn’t sustainable, and it wasn’t smart. She was about out of patience for his recalcitrance.

“I’m going to take this bird away now.” She said to him, flatly. “And you can explain to your brother why I’m doing that.”

With that, she stalked off into the treeline, a large water-bird conducting its last angry moments beneath her arm.

---

Once she’d moved a suitable distance from the boys, Rayla found a secluded hollow and pinned the bird against the ground, thankful that the pain-relief provided by the willow bark had made her hand vaguely usable again. The goose hissed and struggled, wings flapping ineffectually against the grass, and she reached back for a blade. Without ceremony, she slit the bird’s throat and held it still for the seconds it took to die, the metallic stench of blood biting into the air.

She closed her eyes for a few seconds to respect the animal’s death, feeling the warmth of its lifeblood on her fingers. It was just a goose, maybe, but it had been a living thing, and it hadn’t wanted to die. She’d hunted before, so this had no particular emotional impact for her, but – it was important to respect the lives you took. Animal or elf or human – all deserved that respect. All were owed it, as price for their deaths.

She felt the pressure of the bind on her hand, exhaled, and opened her eyes. The white feathers were stained with blood, now, dark red seeping into the earth.

She picked the dead bird up by the legs and, with some difficulty, went to hang it in a tree to drain a little. She wiped her hands and her blade on the grass and went out to look for a suitable place to camp.

She hated to stop them so early in the day. She especially hated to stop so close to human settlement. But the goose had been a chance she couldn’t afford to waste, and it would take a long time to cook and prepare, and they needed it. It was risky, but…well, going without food was decidedly not a smart idea in the long run. It would have to do.

Rayla found a decent clearing not too far away, and after inspecting herself for signs of gore, went back to find the boys.

She found them by the river in what looked like an unhappy silence, Ezran folded amongst the roots of a willow with his hands in his bag, Bait sat against his leg. His expression was closed-off and his shoulders were tense. Callum, nearby, had his sketchbook open, but plainly wasn’t actually drawing in it. He kept glancing back at Ezran, uneasy, and it was relatively obvious what had transpired while she was gone. Callum had told him, then, and he wasn’t happy about it.

Rayla lingered in the shadows of the trees for a few seconds longer, watchful, and then approached. “Everything alright?” She asked them, even though the answer was fairly obvious.

Callum looked up at her, blinking, and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Huh? Oh, uh, yeah. All good.” He said unconvincingly, and then gave her a cursory inspection, possibly for blood or feathers, that he’d probably intended to be discreet. “Where’s…um…”

“Somewhere else.” She answered, and let her eyes move between him and Ez for a second. She shook her head. “Get up, I’ve found us somewhere to camp. Best get us over there now.”

That seemed to elicit Ezran’s curiosity enough that he deigned to look over at her. At her impatient gesturing, he reluctantly pulled himself up, removing his hands from his backpack. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“Isn’t it kind of early to camp?” Callum inquired after a moment, clasping his sketchbook shut and standing. “…Er. Not that I’m complaining!”

“Preparing that much meat takes a long time.” She told him, without bothering to sugar-coat the words, or to speak quietly to shield the words from Ezran. She wasn’t unsympathetic – she remembered her first hunt – but this was going to be a long journey. She wouldn’t make anything better by tip-toeing around the fact that there was a dead goose in a tree nearby. “It’ll take the rest of the day, probably.”

“…Oh, um. Right.” Callum cleared his throat, eyes moving conspicuously to his brother every other second. “So. Er – is it far? The camp.”

“A couple minutes away, if that.” Rayla watched Ezran lingering by the tree, silent, for a few moments more. Then she approached him. Laid a hand on his shoulder, and offered him a small smile when he looked up. “Come on, Ez.” She said, voice gentler. “Let’s go, alright?”

“…Okay.” He said, quiet, and obediently followed after her, Bait hopping at his heels.

She led them to the clearing she’d picked out, which showed signs of having been used by woodsmen sometime last year, if the decay of the tree stumps was anything to judge by. She set their things down and said “We can wait a while to set up the tent. Today the priority is going to be cooking. We’ll need a lot of firewood. Maybe enough to keep two fires burning for hours.”

“I’ll get the wood.” Ezran said, abruptly, setting his bag down and heading off into the shadow of the trees without looking back at them, glow-toad in pursuit.

Rayla stood beside Callum as they watched him go, quiet. Callum exhaled beside her, troubled. “He’s pretty upset, I think.” He said, softly.

It was on the tip of her tongue to say something sarcastic, like ‘no, really?’, or ‘I gathered’. Instead she nodded, and asked “What did he say?”

“Nothing.” Callum said, frustration slipping into his voice. “I – you know, I explained how there’s not enough food for us to live on in the mountains unless we hunt, and…well, he’s not dumb, he guessed pretty fast what you were doing with that goose, and then he just…” He waved his hands. “Shut down. Just said ‘I get it’, and then…” He gestured at the treeline Ezran had slipped into, past which Rayla could hear the sounds of the little prince rustling about in the undergrowth.

“Maybe he’ll be up for talking later.” Rayla murmured, and rested her hand briefly on his shoulder, a quick reassurance. “Until then, probably best to let him process it however he needs to.”

He sighed. “Yeah. I guess.”

She observed him for a few moments, and then nudged him. “Look, I need to prepare that goose.” She said, and he grimaced slightly. “But even if you’re too squeamish for any of the rest of it-“ She exhaled, gritting her teeth a little before she admitted “-I’ll need help with the plucking. It wouldn’t be easy even if I had both hands, but…”

He swallowed, then set his jaw determinedly. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s, um, that’s fine. I’ll help.” He shifted. “I…I’m not exactly used to blood and stuff, though.”

Rayla sighed, a little relieved. “It’s fine. Just do your best.” She stepped across the clearing and cupped her hands around her mouth to call for Ez: “Ezran! Call if you need anything!” He didn’t reply, but he wasn’t so far away that he wouldn’t have heard. Probably. Human hearing probably wasn’t that bad, right? She shrugged, and led Callum through the trees to where she’d hung the goose.

It was draining well, and had left a dark red stain down the trunk of the tree while she was gone. She saw Callum stop at the sight of it, go a little green, and then visibly gather his fortitude and follow her forwards. Rayla retrieved the goose from the tree and sat herself near the roots. Callum followed her lead, seating himself gingerly beside her, staring at the bird with mild trepidation.

“I somehow never thought of how many feathers you need to get off a bird to eat it.” He admitted, looking at it.

“It’s a pain.” Rayla said, with feeling. “I hate plucking birds. Especially when you have to do it in the wild. It’s much easier if you can pour boiling water over it first, but something this size – that’s not something we can really do, out here. So we have to do it the hard way.” She made a face, braced her leg against the goose to keep it in place, and then set about pulling feathers from its back.

“…Is there any special trick to it, or…?” He asked, uncertainly, fingers wavering in the air. After a moment, he made the sensible decision of removing his gloves.

She shrugged. “Try to pull from the root of the feather instead of the fluff?” She offered, and followed her own advice. Soon she was casting bloody feathers aside, beginning a pile to her left. After a few more moments of conspicuous hesitation, Callum moved his hands over to help, and they set at the task together.

They worked quietly, for the most part, pulling feathers and putting them aside. Once, he asked if she was planning to cook the neck (she wasn’t), and another time he inquired about the best way to extract the deeply-rooted flight feathers on the wings. In demonstrating that, she had to brace the wing with her bad hand to pull at the feathers, hissing a little with the soreness of it as she yanked the feather free.

Watching this, Callum mused “I…didn’t actually tell you what the healer said, did I? Or, were you listening?”

Rayla tensed a little, remembering how she’d loitered outside the building close to a window, where the sound filtered around the edges of the glass. Remembering the obvious, painful worry of the boys as they spoke to the healer. “…I was listening.” She admitted, with a half-shrug. “At least until Ez came out.”

“So you heard what she said about keeping your hand circulated?” He inquired, looking down at it. She flexed the fingers in feathers, very slowly, and grimaced at the tight pain it provoked.

“I did.” She admitted. Her hand had been painful enough earlier that the thought of moving it so comprehensively had been awful enough, but the concept of massaging it? Practically unthinkable. The willow bark had helped, but…well, it only went so far. Still… “This is going to hurt,” She sighed, grim, and forced herself to set herself back to work with both hands, this time.

Her hand was too stiff to effectively close its fingers around the vanes of the feathers, so she ended up using it mainly for bracing herself against the animal’s skin, making it somewhat easier to pull the feathers with her other hand. Even so, it hurt to move her hand so much, hurt like pulling at an enormous bruise, and set the searing ache around the binding to worsening. She hissed and flinched at it from time to time, and to her side saw Callum flinch with her.

“…Is the willow bark not helping?” He asked, in a somewhat timid voice, after a while.

“No, it is.” She sighed, voice a little strained as she worked. “This would be way worse if it wasn’t.” He looked almost crestfallen at that, as if dismayed that it wasn’t helping more, and she looked away as her gut twisted.

It was…nice, she supposed, that he and Ez cared so much. That Callum was sitting here so aware of her pain that he winced when she did, and was unhappy when the willow-bark didn’t prove powerful enough, and had gone to so much effort to try to find some way to help her. But, at the same time, it was a little galling. Not just because the whole thing smacked of weakness, but also – also, she hated to see what the worry was doing to the boys.

She knew they wouldn’t find anything to save her hand. They were heading off into the mountains, now, and wouldn’t see anyone else for probably two weeks or more. Their chances of finding some miraculous magic-breaking thing or healer along the way weren’t even worth considering. She was going to lose her hand, and Callum and Ez still had hope that they could change that, and…and they were just going to be disappointed. They were just going to get hurt.

She thought of having the conversation with them. Thought of how to let them down gently about it all. Thought of how she’d tell them to give up hope, and accept that there was nothing they could do. Then she exhaled, remembering how long Callum had put off his talk with Ezran, remembering what she still hadn’t told them about their father.

In the end, it was just…difficult, to have conversations that you knew would hurt people. Even when it was necessary. Even when there was only so long it could be delayed.

What had that healer said? A couple of days at most until she started losing fingers? It wouldn’t be long, now. Her gut felt oddly tight at the thought of it, nausea clutching at her throat and unhappy tension quivering strangely under her skin as she imagined her hand finally turning black, going still, going dead-

She pulled at wing-feathers a little too vigorously in her agitation, and one of the vanes splintered as she pulled it free; the feathers came loose too-quickly and she jolted against her bad hand as she moved, and yelped at the sudden raw pain-

“Ow!” She dropped the feathers and pulled her hand automatically to her chest, a new kind of pain stinging horribly on her finger.

“What is it?” Callum asked, alarmed, dropping his hands from the bird and leaning over.

She made herself check, holding her hand out to stare at the finger. “…Burst the blister, I think.” She said, finally, looking at the round, virulently-red pit between her first and second knuckles. A little skin was hanging off the side of it, abraded away by her misstep with the feathers. It was just a little wet, sluggishly leaking a clear fluid. The touch of air seared against it. She winced, and gingerly picked bits of feather from her hand. “…I think I’d best go disinfect and wrap this.” She said, distinctly unhappy at the prospect. “Don’t want to get anything in it.”

“No, let me do it.” Callum said, frowning worriedly at her hand. “It won’t be easy for you to wrap something on your own hand. We want to go boil some water to clean it, right? Hopefully Ez has got some firewood by now.” He stood, clearly intending to go off to see, and she twitched.

“I’ll handle the fire stuff.” She said, waving him back down. “You’ve got two good hands, keep working on the feathers. I’ll call you over when I’ve got enough of a fire to boil water.”

He eyed her. “Well, alright.” He said, reluctantly, after a while, and sat back down. “There’s not too much left to do here, anyway.”

She snorted. “Plucking is just the first step. ” She informed him. “Once that’s done I’ve got to gut it and hack it up. I’m guessing you’ll not be excited to help with that.”

After a few seconds of looking wide-eyed and slightly ill, he said, valiantly “….I can try.”

Rayla’s lips turned upwards, reluctantly amused. She patted him on the shoulder as she stood. “I’ll call you in a while.” She said, and went off to inspect their camp.

---

Callum had mostly finished with the plucking when Rayla called him over. He set the bird down, not sure what else to do with it, and gingerly picked feather-fluff from bloody fingers as he approached the camp. Rayla had one fire going and space set aside for another when he arrived, and had carefully removed their iron pot (full of steaming water) from over the flames.

“Where’s Ez?” he asked, after failing to spot his brother or his brother’s glow-toad in the vicinity.

“Still collecting firewood.” She answered, gesturing at the pile already accumulated a fair distance away from the makeshift firepits. “We’ll need a lot of it. And, well, he still seems to want some time alone.” She passed him the little field-healer’s kit she’d taken from the lodge, as well as a jar of water, and their increasingly-diminutive soap bar. “You’d better wash up if you want to put your ‘field-healing’ to work.”

He huffed, and did as he was told, glancing over her hands as he did so. “How’s the blister?”

“Nasty.” She answered, succinctly, and watched as he cleaned and disinfected his hands and went rooting in what she would probably call a first-aid kit. “Would probably be nastier without the willow-bark though, so there’s that.”

She presented her hand when he was ready, and he spent several careful minutes cleaning the blister, wrapping it in a thin strip of bandage, and tying the ends into place. Caring for a wound that small wasn’t exactly a long or involved process, but it was a little nerve-wracking – the thing was clearly intensely sore, and she hissed with pain at the disinfectant in particular, but…well, he did his job, and the blister was cleaned and wrapped, so he supposed that was something.

“First time I’ve used that field-healing training for anything.” He commented, wry, and started packing the things back away.

Rayla planted a piece of willow-bark into her mouth and started chewing. “Relatively nice for a first injury to do. Just a little blister.” She said, amused, words indistinct and a little slurred around the chunk of bark, and then even more so as she continued. “How’s the bird?” It sounded more like howsshebrd, but he could understand her well enough, given the context.

“Plucking’s basically done now, I think?” There were still bits of feather-vane stuck in the skin all over that he’d probably need pliers to remove, but given the lack of pliers, there wasn’t much he could do about that.

“Gd.” Rayla expressed, still chewing, and stood to return to the forest, presumably to see to the bird. Uncertain of what he was meant to be doing, Callum wavered hesitantly for a minute or two before following.

He caught up to her just as she crouched over the goose, blade in place at the base of its neck. She braced herself, then dropped the weight of her body down through the blade, severing the muscle and bone beneath it with a horrible crunch. The sight of it – the abrupt amputation of the goose’s neck – hit him like a sledgehammer, taking all the breath from him. He swayed in place, brought his hands to his mouth, and gagged a few times before he managed to get the sudden and shocking flood of nausea under control, the burn of acid rising horribly in the middle of his chest.

She looked up at him, sympathetic. She visibly moved the willow-bark into her cheek before speaking. “If that nearly made you puke, you might not want to stick around for the disembowelling.” She said, voice a little wry.

He made a sound that sounded like ‘erk’, supressed another gag, and swayed again before hastily retreating back to camp, his pulse feeling fast and thready in his throat.

Callum sat himself down by the still-burning campfire, mind gone blank and limbs strangely shaky, and took in several shuddering breaths of smoky air. Nausea curled with the acid at the back of his tongue, and there was a sick weight in his stomach, and his pulse was weird and his breathing was weird like he was having a panic – but what was there to panic at? It had – it had been gross to see the bird decapitated, maybe, and he had expected to be a bit squeamish, but why, why was he so…so shaky about it? Was it just after-effects from his reaction to what the healer had told him?

He shuddered, mind inexorably recalling the sound of it, the visceral crunch of bone and sinew, and – suddenly, he understood.

Maybe it wasn’t after-effects from what the healer had told him…but it was the same issue, in the end.

Callum sat by the fire and breathed air and wood-smoke, and tried not to think too hard about the commonality between what Rayla had just done and what he, plausibly, might end up needing to do. He tried not to wonder whether – whether the motions of amputating a hand would look the same, would involve that same full-body motion spoken through a blade, whether it would crunch the same visceral, sickening way-

He tried not to think and tried not to wonder, but he did not quite succeed on either count.

A while later, Ezran returned with his latest armful of dead branches, some of them cleanly-enough truncated that they were probably victims of last season’s lumberjacks, and stopped short at the edge of the clearing at the sight of him. Then, a little hesitantly, he approached to put his burden down upon the growing pile. Callum was aware of him wavering, silent, a few metres away – but he was still kind of busy breathing slow and even and trying not to think about certain things, and didn’t speak.

That, apparently, made up whatever was going on in his brother’s mind, and Ez crept slowly up to him. “…Callum?” he asked, tentative, coming to a stop near his shoulder, still-standing. “…Are you okay?”

Callum swallowed, tasting acid, and managed to say “Fine. Completely – yeah, fine.” Under other circumstances, he’d have been glad for Ez breaking his avoidant silence, but he was a little distracted right now.

His brother scrutinised him, evidently unconvinced. “You look kind of sick.” He said, sitting down. Bait hopped up and settled nearby. “And pale. And, um, shaky.” He eyed Callum’s hands, still bare of their gloves, and the subtle tremors they were perpetrating through the fabric of his trousers.

“I’ll be fine.” Callum assured him, probably a little too faintly to be reassuring.

Ezran reached over to put a hand on his arm, fingers closing on his sleeve. He was silent for a few seconds, and then he said “You’re scared.” A statement, spoken softly, but with every indication of certainty. Ez always had been good at reading people’s moods.

He closed his eyes, and exhaled. “Maybe a bit.” He admitted, quiet.

Ez shifted, let the quiet hold for a few seconds, then asked “What’re you scared about? …Did something happen?”

Callum wondered if, at this remove, Rayla could hear a softly-spoken conversation. “…Just, you know,” He curled fingers around his left wrist, in a sort of self-explanatory representation of the binding. “That. And how…” He found the words slipping from his lips, as if they’d been waiting for a chance to escape, “how we’re…running out of time.”

Ezran processed that, then looked down at his feet. “…Oh.” He said, unhappily. His eyes wandered to his bag, sat with the rest of the bags, as if it was of particular relevance to the topic. Callum followed his gaze, but couldn’t see anything that stood out to him – just Ezran’s bag, its sides rounded out by the shape of the egg within. He did, however, notice the tent pack.

He sighed, and straightened. “We’re not doing ourselves any good by sitting around moping though, I guess.” He said, and nodded towards their stuff. “If you can take a break from the firewood for a bit, want to help me set up the tent?”

His eyes lit up. “Can we do the putting-up-the-tent bit?” he asked, eagerly. As of yet, he and Callum hadn’t tried that part without Rayla, given it required at least one of you to know what you were doing. Callum mulled it over, torn between his awareness of his limited experience and the reflexive desire to cheer up his brother.

Eventually, he said “Eh, may as well give it a go.” And they went off to, through a somewhat prolonged period of trial-and-error, get the tent set up alone.

“We’re getting good at this.” Ezran pronounced, with deep satisfaction, when they’d finished and the doors to the tent interior were hanging open. Bait, who seemed to have grown fond of the sheltered space, promptly hopped inside and settled against one sloping wall.

“I guess we are.” Callum agreed, with a half-smile, and took his cloak from his bag to untie it and lay it out. Ezran followed his example, expression open and pleased, and it seemed like he’d forgotten his earlier melancholy – or, at least, had been distracted from it – but then-

“You set the tent up already?” Rayla’s voice came from outside, a little bemused, and he poked his head out to locate her. “And on your own? Not bad.” His eyes, somewhat automatically, went to what she was holding. Which, it seemed, was a wash-cloth full of slabs of meat, bloody and raw and more than a little gross to look at.

Ezran was cheerful when he replied, eyes bright as he turned out of the tent interior to say “It took a few tries! But-“ he stopped as his eyes fell on her, and his expression dimmed. “…But, we did it.” He finished, much more quietly, and watched as she planted some of her bounty into the cooking pot. He sighed, slowly, as if the cheer were escaping him with the breath.

Rayla set the rest of it down beside the fire, and looked over. Her eyes were gentle and understanding as they settled on his brother. “You alright, Ez?” She asked, and Callum looked between them nervously.

“…Yeah.” Ezran said, softly, and withdrew himself from the tent. He hesitated for a second, looking between them and the campfire, and turned away. “…I’m gonna go get some more wood.”

It was a pretty blatant ‘I want to be alone’ signal, but Callum wasn’t so sure it was a good idea to let him go off again rather than…try to talk to him, or something, help him through whatever he was dwelling on. “Ez…”

Rayla didn’t seem to share his compunctions, though; she nodded, and only said “Don’t go too far. And don’t take too long, alright?”

“Okay.” Ezran nodded, very slightly, and returned to the shadows of the trees with his shoulders hunched and tense. Callum watched him go, conflicted, and slowly picked his way across their campsite to where Rayla was crouched by the fire.

“Shouldn’t we be trying to talk to him?” he asked, in an undertone, as if Ez could still hear him.

She considered it, looking across at him with a sort of sombre pensiveness. “He’ll talk to us when he’s ready, I think.” She said, finally, and poured some water out from a waterskin into the iron pot, filling the rest of the space available.

“And if he doesn’t?” Ezran had a tendency to run away and hide when he didn’t want to deal with something. It would be pretty hard for him to avoid them too long on a journey like this, maybe, but…

“Then we find a way to talk to him. But for now…” She hesitated for a moment and shrugged. “He’s your brother, Callum. You’ve known him a lot longer than I have. But I think it won’t hurt to give him more time to think.”

He sighed. “I hope you’re right.” He said, eventually, and watched her work with their dinner. “…Anything I can help with?”

“Well, Callum, I’m glad you asked,” She flashed a grin at him, and passed him some long sticks she’d picked out of the firewood. “Get one of my blades and strip all the bark off those. Make them pointy, so we can stake some meat on them. But before you do that, get the second fire going.”

It was strangely relieving to have been given something to do. He nodded gladly, taking the specified sticks and setting them aside, and went to gather some good tinder from Ezran’s pile.

He set the sparks into the wood and leaves, and watched them catch alight.

---

They worked, for the most part, in companionable silence, broken by occasional murmurs and questions and easy answers. Callum sharpened up the stakes and she piled small cuts of meat onto them like she was making kebabs. The meat in the pot that she was boiling was hissing merrily away, and she felt relatively comfortable leaving Callum to stir it while she went to collect more meat from the carcass.

A goose was a big bird. There was a lot of meat on something that size, enough that they’d be cooking it for hours. Enough that they’d be eating it for likely several days, and it would be a challenge to find a hygienic way to store it all in their bags. She sent Callum to wash the cloths and refill their waterskins at the river at one point, trusting that he wouldn’t mind handling the water for her, and felt her stomach rumble insistently as the smell of cooking meat rose thickly into the air.

Ezran returned several times with armfuls of wood, but didn’t speak beyond mumbling affirmatives when she asked him if he was doing alright. He seemed a little more tense and a little more unhappy every time she asked – so she stopped asking, and left him to it. Bait emerged from the tent to join him after a while, hopping off into the trees.

Eventually, though, the firewood heap was getting excessive, and the afternoon was stretching into early evening, and some of the food would be ready soon. She caught Ezran by the arm as he stood to head off again, saying “That’s enough wood now, Ez. We don’t need any more.”

Callum looked over as his brother lingered uncertainly by the fire. “…Oh.” He said, quietly, as she deprived him of his excuse to go off alone again. “…Okay.”

After several moments of wordless, almost confused lingering, he went to get his bag and withdrew the egg as had become his habit. He sat by the tent instead of by the fire, at a noticeable remove from them and the cooking, and let his eyes slip closed as his hands settled on the eggshell. Bait stared at him for a while, croaking questioningly, and then sat with a disgruntled harrumph when he was ignored.

Rayla exchanged a glance with Callum, shrugged helplessly, and set back to work.

The quiet was more awkward, now, all of them avoiding the obvious issue of Ezran’s upset and the way he was very determinedly not talking about it. The silence did break, from time-to-time – Rayla wasn’t sure if Callum could hear it, but Ez was muttering, very quietly. Quietly enough she couldn’t make out all of the words.

“What do you think?” She heard him say, once, very softly. A good while later, a sigh, and “…you don’t get it either, huh.” Then, a half-minute after: “I know. It’s okay. You can’t help it.”

It sounded, disturbingly, like half of a conversation, and she was a little concerned at who he thought might be contributing the other half.

…He wasn’t talking to the egg, was he?

She cast him concerned, side-long glances as the campfires crackled and the water bubbled and goose-fat hissed as it dripped from the stakes to sizzle in the flames. Finally, when the weight of the silence had grown uncomfortable enough to move her, she spoke. “You talking to someone, Ezran?” She asked, projecting her voice enough to catch his attention. His head rose, startled, the blue of his eyes reflecting the blues of the eggshell.

“Um….no?” he said, unconvincingly, shifting the egg in his lap. “Just…talking to myself.”

Rayla raised an eyebrow. “Was it an interesting conversation?” She asked, tone lightly teasing, and managed to startle a giggle from him. Callum glanced at her, briefly, looking strangely relieved.

“…I guess?” He said, then sighed, looking down at the egg. One hand smoothed over its surface. “I was just…thinking.” The words went quiet and unhappy at the end. His lips turned more firmly downwards, expression somewhere between upset and sullen. Sad, but on-edge as well.

Callum fidgeted beside her, clearly wanting to say something, but just as clearly uncertain of what. “…Care to share, Ez?” She asked, as neutrally as possible, and elbowed her companion in an attempt to incite him to talk, already. She shot him a stare she hoped conveyed ‘I could use a little help, here’.

He cleared his throat and finally deigned to lend his voice to the proceedings. “…If you want to talk, Ez, we’re listening.” He said, awkward but sincere, and turned fully to look at his little brother over the metres of distance between them, fingers moving with anxious agitation at the edges of his scarf.

“I know you are.” Ezran said, and – there was an edge of plain frustration in the words. Frustration, almost to the point of sounding like an accusation.

Rayla blinked, brows furrowing lightly, as Callum stiffened at the strange tone. “…What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked, warily.

Ezran exhaled, a quick and frustrated puff of air, and he carefully set the egg down at his side. “It means you’re not exactly subtle, Callum.” Now he definitely sounded a little accusative. He crossed his arms and turned away from them. “I know you want me to talk. I know!” His voice rose a little, thick with stress. “We’re supposed to talk about my problems and then everything will be great again. That’s what you want, right?”

Callum opened his mouth, then let it snap shut again. His face was almost comically nonplussed; he clearly hadn’t expected this response at all. Neither had Rayla, for that matter.

She raised her hands in a conciliatory motion. ”Ez…” She started, tone as soothing as she could make it, but he didn’t give her time to continue. He stood, pale eyes sweeping towards her, his face screwed up.

“I get it!” he snapped, scooping Bait up from next to the egg. The glow-toad offered a somewhat alarmed-sounding croak. “I should talk about – about the animals, and meat, and what’s bothering me and what I’m thinking – you don’t – you don’t need to dance around it. I know.”

Callum shifted, a tension in his shoulders that betrayed a touch of irritation. “Well, that would have been easier if you hadn’t spent half the day avoiding us.” He said, with a bit of an edge. He almost visibly held himself back from saying anything more argumentative. Still, that hadn’t exactly been a helpful comment.

She shot him a quelling look as Ezran exhaled, shoulders hunched and frustration writ in every line of his face.

“I know, Callum.” He huffed, not looking at them. “I always run away from my problems instead of just – talking about them. I know. You want me to talk about this. You do too, Rayla. Trust me, I can tell.” he shot that comment at her, accompanied by an icy flash of his eyes, and she blinked with surprise.

“…Seems better than sitting on it for the next two months.” She said, eventually, in as neutral a tone as she could manage. It seemed to take some of the wind out of his sails, at least, and he deflated a little.

“I know.” He said, a little quieter, a little more miserable. “I know. But – Rayla, Callum, I don’t – I don’t know what I think, okay? I know how I feel and it’s awful, but I – what am I meant to think? What can I think?” He blinked rapidly, and sat down again, a heavy collapse that made Bait complain. “You’re right, okay? I know we need to eat. We’re all hungry and we’ve got to eat. What is there to talk about?”

Rayla shared a glance with Callum, and she stood with him, crossing the distance to sit beside their youngest companion. “Something being necessary doesn’t mean it’s easy.” She told him, quietly. “You’re allowed to feel unhappy about it. Or…to not know what to think about it.”

Tentatively, Callum reached out to put a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “I think you’ll probably feel better if you try to talk it through with us, Ez. But…” he hesitated. “You don’t have to.”

“Sure I don’t.” Ezran said, a little woodenly, and shrugged the hand off. His shoulders were tense. “And then you’ll just be making worried eyes at me for days because I wouldn’t talk. That’ll be fun.”

“I can keep my face unworried.” Rayla said staunchly. “Picture of elven stoicism, I am.” He looked across at her, a little confused at the unexpected diversion from whatever he’d expected.

“…Sure?” He said, doubtfully, looking at her as if she’d gone mad. But the tense line of his shoulders had settled a little.

“And if your brother’s face gets too annoying, let me know. I might be able to arrange something.” She added, and Ezran blinked as Callum stared at her. “Like worms in his clothes. Or spiders in his hair. That should keep him distracted.”

Startled momentarily out of his mood, Ezran produced a short, amused huff. “…That would be pretty funny.” He said, quiet, lips twitching just a little at the edges.

Callum glanced at her side-long and grumbled. “Speak for yourself.” He didn’t seem too bothered, though. Perhaps he appreciated the levity, even if it came at his expense.

They sat in slightly-less-tense silence for the better part of a minute until Ezran sighed, heavily. “Look, I get it.” He said, wearily now, and stared down over the top of Bait’s yellow head. “We’re travelling, and we’re gonna be in the mountains, and – and there’s not enough for us to eat if we don’t – don’t-“ He scowled and broke off the sentence. “I get it.” He repeated, quieter, more miserably. “We need to eat. And even if there are enough plants and berries and stuff laying around, it takes too long to find them, and…I get it. I just…” Callum reached out again, and then hesitated, as if he wasn’t sure of its welcome.

Ezran looked out at the camp, at the two fires merrily burning, at the wealth of meat staked over the flames and lacing the air with delicious smells. Then he looked down at his lap, face screwed up.

“Ez…” Callum’s hand hung hesitantly in the air for a few moments longer, and then he let it fall.

“It’s just…hard.” Ezran said, miserably, not looking at them. “It’s not like I never ate meat before, but – I don’t think I’ve ever met an animal that…that I needed to eat. He was alive, and I felt him, and now – now he’s meat.” He sniffed, wiping his nose. “I just…it’s really sad.”

Rayla shared a glance with Callum, wondering briefly at the word ‘felt’, before considering the depth of Ezran’s reaction. Callum had been plainly uncomfortable around the dead animal, and reasonably squeamish about the preparation, but it had been a lot milder. More the reaction of a pampered person who’d never had to kill or prepare their own food before. Ezran, as Callum had predicted, was taking it a lot harder.

She mulled over what to say, thoughts turning to life and death, and the things she’d been taught. “I’m an assassin.” She said, slowly, as she considered her words. At the unexpected turn of conversation, Ezran lifted his head a little, and Callum turned towards her blinking. “But, more than that, I’m a Moonshadow assassin. We have…teachings. About what it means to take a life. I don’t know, maybe it’ll help you to hear them.”

Ezran blinked at her, uncertainly, but didn’t say anything to disagree. So…

She cleared her throat, and looked away, heart feeling a little strange. “’Life is precious. Life is valuable. We take it, but we do not take it lightly.’” She quoted, the words falling from her tongue with the ease of practice and the cadence of memory. The last time she’d heard the creed uttered, it had been Runaan who spoke it, even as he bound them all in the assassins’ ritual. She glanced across, and found them both looking at her, attentive, and looked quickly away again. Feeling oddly self-conscious, she added “I mean, I was taught that about killing, you know. Humans. But Moonshadow assassins – we’re taught to respect the life we take. That it’s…special. Precious.”

Ezran made a pensive noise, and he at least seemed a little less upset, if only because he was thinking. “I think it seems pretty weird to respect things by killing them.” He said, but without any particular judgement or disapproval. “But…I don’t know. It’s not like…” he trailed off, troubled, and frowned at his feet. “…One time, I met a banther with her cubs.”

Callum startled. “You what?” he squawked, looking his brother over as if to inspect him for banther-claw scars. “And you lived? Hell, Ezran-“

“It was months ago, Callum, and I was fine.” Ez interrupted, rolling his eyes. “Banthers are actually pretty friendly, you know. Anyway…” he shook his head. “That banther? She…um, she’d killed a deer. And brought it for her babies, because they were still too young to hunt, and…” He turned a little green. “It was pretty horrible. Really, um. Bloody. I was…”

Rayla, who’d raised her eyebrows at the first mention of banthers, settled a little to listen.

“She didn’t understand why I was upset.” Ezran said, pensive again. “To her it was just…natural. Normal. She needed to eat, and so did her cubs, and that was just…it. I thought about it for a while, and…it made sense, you know. Banthers don’t eat plants. They get sick if they try. So she has to eat meat. But I never really thought about – about humans needing to eat meat. Or elves, I guess. Because we can eat other things.” He didn’t sound like he was finished, but he fell quiet.

Bait croaked in Ezran’s lap, and the boy glanced down at him, absently patting him on the head. He was quiet for a few seconds, while Rayla watched and Callum’s brow furrowed, both of them waiting for him to continue.

“A lot of animals need to eat meat to live.” Ezran said, quietly, like he was thinking the words through as he spoke them. “And…I didn’t think really about it, but a lot of people need to eat meat to live, too. Because, I mean, it’s not like everyone can live off leaves and berries from forests, right? You’d run out of leaves and berries pretty fast. And if food doesn’t grow where it’s cold…” His brow furrowed. “I guess that means…in winter, you can’t grow food? I don’t know.”

Perhaps it was starting to occur to him how incredibly, uncommonly charmed his life had been, to pass through a decade of winters without ever going hungry, or worrying about food, or even thinking about where it came from. Rayla hadn’t grown up so divorced from the realities of life, but she’d never especially had to worry about hunger before this quest, herself.

Callum shifted, and said “Most people stock up on grains and stuff for the winter, I think, if they can. But you’re right, Ez – there’s places where people can’t really farm much. Mountains, definitely. And in winter, especially, well…” He trailed off.

“…Right.” Ez sighed, and mulled that over, visibly thinking. His features were solemn, and a little sad. “So they need to hunt. Or they starve.” He pursed his lips, as if coming to some unhappy conclusion. “…And that’s us, now.”

Hesitantly, Callum reached out again to lay a hand on his brother’s shoulder. This time, it wasn’t cast away. “…Pretty much.” He agreed, and watched his brother exhale.

“A lot of animals need meat to live.” Ezran repeated, quietly. “And a lot of people do, too. I guess…I never realised that I was lucky, because I could – not, and be fine, but…that’s not how it is for a lot of people. They’re not that lucky. And – now, now…we’re not that lucky either, are we?”

Rayla reached out and squeezed his hand, gently. He looked down at it and sighed.

“Sorry.” He said, finally, voice weary. “For…making such a big fuss about it. I know we need to eat. I get it. I’m not gonna complain.”

She shook her head at him. “It’s fine, Ez.” She said, firmly. “It’s okay to be upset about things. …Even if other people aren’t.”

On his other side, Callum moved the hand on his shoulder to hook around his brother’s side, a loose one-armed hug. “I’m glad you talked about it, Ez.” He said, in a similar sort of tone to Rayla, like he was parroting something he’d been told before. “Better than bottling it all up.”

Ez sniffled a little, and then curled into his brother’s side. “You always bottle things up.” He mumbled, muffled by clothing.

“…I do.” Callum agreed readily, and settled Ezran securely against him. “And it’s dumb of me, and you definitely shouldn’t do it.”

There was a small, tired huff from the smaller prince. Rayla observed them for a few moments, a light smile on her lips, and then quietly turned away to see to the progress of their dinner.

“I’m sorry I waited so long.” Callum said, after a while, his voice remorseful. She couldn’t see what Ezran’s reaction was, but she heard him shifting. “I knew it would bother you, so it was…hard to bring up.”

A sigh. “…It’s okay.” Ezran said, a little sadly, and Rayla couldn’t help but think that he’d likely have taken it a lot better if Callum had had this talk before there was a living animal in the vicinity that they were going to be eating. “I know. You just didn’t want to upset me.”

“…Yeah.” Callum agreed, quiet. “Still. I should have talked about it sooner.”

A huff. “Maybe. But it’s kind of late to worry about that.” The words were a little pointed, carrying an edge of ‘stop talking about this now, please’. Callum seemed to pick up on it, and didn’t make any further comment.

Instead, he steered himself onto more innocuous topics. “So, that banther…I mean, you’re really lucky you didn’t get hurt, but it must have been cool, right?”

“Aside from all the dead deer blood?” Ezran said, wry. “Yeah, it was. The cubs were really cute. And playful, too.”

“…If you say so.” Callum said, dubiously, and after a moment, went on to coax the details of the encounter out of his brother.

Rayla listened with half an ear, a little intrigued by the younger prince’s obvious affinity with animals, and stirred her blade in the bubbling pot. After a while, the boys shifted closer to the fire, Ezran still visibly conflicted at the sight of their in-progress dinner, but certainly less upset than before. She observed him from the corner of her eye, watchful for signs of distress, but…now, he just seemed tired. Perhaps a little sad.

She let Callum take over the food-tending for a while, and traded off with him for the next half-hour until some of it was ready to eat. She used the lids of their jars as makeshift plates and gingerly piled the food there, passing it around for everyone to eat their fill.

Unseasoned meat was, at least, more flavourful than unseasoned boiled leaves. The stuff that had been staked by the fire and allowed to go crispy was even pleasantly tasty, and a nice change from the meagre rations they’d been on for the last few days. She expected that over the next week or so she’d get profoundly bored of meat again, but that was how life went for travellers.

In any case, there was enough of a wealth of food for them all to eat until they were stuffed, and then still have an enormous quantity left to cook. This, as it happened, was not really a good thing.

“This smelled amazing before,” Callum said, going a little green as he dutifully turned the sticks around and stirred the pot. “But that was before I’d eaten so much.” He made a noise best described as uurgh.

Rayla was feeling quite nauseous herself – the smell of cooking meat was quite rich, and quite fatty, and neither of those things were very merciful on a thoroughly-filled stomach. Ezran had wisely backed away and gone to sit with egg and Bait in the tent, but given she and Callum were obliged to tend to the cooking process, they had no such reprieve. “Maybe we should have waited to eat.” She sighed, making a face. Whenever she’d helped to cook this amount of meat before, it had been distributed among six very hungry elves, and therefore generally hadn’t lasted long. She’d not quite predicted this particular conundrum.

“We’ll know better next time, I guess.” He reached to the side to take a swig of water from one of the waterskins, making a face. “At least we’ll have stuff to eat for a day or so.”

“If we find some leafy stuff along the way, this should last us two, at least. Three if we’re lucky.” She said, gauging their bounty. “It won’t all fit in the jars. We’ll have to wrap some of it in the wash-cloth, or something.”

He paused for a second, thoughtful. “If we get desperate, I’ve got a pair of socks I’ve not worn yet.” He suggested, offering her the waterskin.

“Ew.” She commented, reflexively, then pushed that response aside in favour of practicality. “….I’ll keep that in mind, I guess.” She felt a twinge of pain from her hand as she took the water from him, and grimaced, transferring the skin to her other hand as she carefully flexed the dark fingers.

Callum didn’t miss the motion, eyes tracking her hand as she tipped her head back to drink. “…How’s the hand doing?” he asked, an increasingly-familiar shadow of worry settling on his features. His fingers fidgeted, anxious, hands still bare of the half-finger gloves. “Is the willow-bark helping?”

She eyed him for a second, and considered lying. Considered pretending to be better off than she was. In the end, though…“It’s helping a lot.” She answered honestly, setting the waterskin aside to inspect her hand. “Only goes so far, though.”

He frowned, sympathetic. “Still hurts?”

“Still hurts.” She confirmed, sighing, and waggled the finger he’d adorned with a narrow dressing of bandage. “Especially this stupid blister.”

He nodded, eyes still heavy on the dark skin. “…Looks pretty nasty around the binding, too.” He said, too-neutrally, as if he were trying very hard not to sound too bothered about it.

The skin around the binding was, indeed, more tender and sore than any other part of the hand, including the finger-blister. She turned it around, grimacing at the almost shiny-looking swell to the flesh constricted by the bind. The skin was starting to look a little weird at the sides of her wrists, too. The colour wasn’t quite right. Or maybe it was just more dull-looking than the rest of it?“…Not looking forward to having to massage this.” She admitted, and reached out to gingerly poke around the flesh. It instantly rebuked her for the trespass, and she winced at the pain.

He winced with her, fingertips twitching unhappily. “…You could take some of the lilium?” He suggested, looking over at the nearest bag as though he would lunge for it the second she implied any sort of agreement.

“Don’t know about that.” She said doubtfully. “I read the dose sheet the healer gave for it. It’s addictive, you know. And strong.”

He paused. “Don’t think I’ve actually read that yet.” He realised, and went to go rummage in the bag for it. He came back with the little bottle of red fluid, oddly blood-like in appearance, and the folded paper with the handwritten information on it. He planted himself nearby while she made a quick round of the cooking meat again.

“Addictive with long-term repeated use.” Callum concluded, after a few minutes of scanning the paper. “Like, a week or more. That’s…I mean, it could be worse?”

“Maybe so.” She conceded, sitting back on her heels. “But I’m meant to be doing my hand massages daily, aren’t I? That seems like ‘repeated use’ to me. No, it’s better to save it, I think.”

“…But maybe for just the first time?” He pressed, plaintively. “Just a few drops, to take the edge off?”

“I’m not interested in becoming a lilium addict, Callum.” She informed him, flatly, and he fell silent. Cast her vaguely forlorn looks, like a kicked puppy, as if she’d wounded him by refusing to take a potent drug before it was absolutely necessary.

She sighed, and turned back to the cooking.

It took around two hours to cook every scrap of meat they could salvage from the goose carcass, by which time the sun was setting and the dark of evening beginning to encroach. Ezran returned to the fireside after a while, shivering, and Callum realised that – away from the two campfires – it was actually getting substantially chillier.

“It’s getting pretty cold, isn’t it?” He commented, frowning, and peered momentarily eastwards, where he knew Dorel and Farel loomed above them, hidden by the canopy of trees. “Is that just because we’re getting higher up, or…?”

“The altitude is definitely part of it.” Rayla said, shrugging. “Places on the edge of mountains like this always get a lot colder once the sun goes down. The rest of it, though…” She looked up at the sky, and frowned. “Weather’s turning, I think.”

He blinked, and looked up as well, trying to see what she’d noticed. It was quite cloudy tonight, maybe?

Ezran made a thoughtful noise as he peered up with them. His hand smoothed over eggshell, and he closed his eyes for a second. “You think it’s going to rain?”

“Yeah, I think so.” She nodded, not looking especially happy about it. “Not heavily, maybe, but I reckon it’ll start in the night, or morning. That’ll be fun.”

“I guess we’ve been lucky to go this long without rain.” Ez said, a little philosophically. “It is spring.”

“Ugh.” Was her only response to that, as she shook her head and continued squashing meat into one of the jars.

He smiled a little, distantly amused. “Don’t like water any more when it’s falling from the sky, huh?”

“Rain makes walking so much more miserable.” She groused, scowling. “…At least we have the tent.”

Callum tried to consider the idea of sleeping in the open through rain, wind, and possibly snow. He winced. “Have I mentioned lately how glad I am you got that tent?”

She snorted. “Not that I can think of. But please, go on.” She invited, lips twitching.

“I am really glad you got our tent.” He confirmed, with feeling. “Imagine if we had to sleep outside up in the mountains. You said there’s going to be snow, right?” Ezran shivered at the very thought, shuffling closer to the right-hand campfire.

“I think I’d freeze.” He said, a little faintly.

Rayla smirked at them. “It wouldn’t have been fun, I’ll say that much. You can’t always count on finding convenient caves to sleep in.”

Ezran looked up, interested. “But there are some caves?” He inquired, with his characteristic curiosity.

She nodded ruefully. “Oh, you bet.” She said, shaking her head. “I saw my fair share during the trip here. Some of them were even empty.”

Callum raised his eyebrows at her. “That sounds like a story.” He commented. Ezran leaned forwards, clearly intrigued, and even Bait looked up with interest.

Rayla snorted, eyes resting on them for a few moments. Then, obligingly, she commenced a retelling of some of her travels, listing off caves and the things she’d found in them. The list included feather-bats, wolves, and – on one memorable occasion – a large and exceptionally angry bear. She described her group’s escape from said bear with a wistful, almost sad smile on her lips. Callum didn’t quite understand why, at first, but then-

Then, he realised that Rayla was talking about people. Not just anonymous, faceless elf assassins – but people, people she knew, people she’d been travelling with for months. People with names, and personalities – people she probably missed.

He wondered, uneasily, what exactly had happened to those people.

Callum listened, a little more sombre, as Rayla regaled them with tales of the variety of caves she’d encountered in Katolis, and quietly helped her with the packing of their food as he did. He pondered the strangeness of empathising with elves who’d come to kill his father and brother. Elves who might have-

He clamped ruthlessly down on that thought, breath catching, and forced himself to relax.

Don’t think about it, he reminded himself, and returned stubbornly to listening.

Eventually, she finished with both the story and the cooking, setting aside their well-packed bags with a sigh. “Finally.” She said, collapsing backwards onto the loose, woody ground with dramatic relief, hair splaying out around her head. “That took so much longer than I wanted.”

“Well, I guess we can relax now?” He said, shooting her a small smile. She glanced at him from the ground and huffed.

“I suppose it’s not too late yet. You’ve got time to draw, if that’s what you’re getting at.” She agreed, tipping her head back far enough that her horns were just about touching the ground. “Mind you, next time I’m definitely not hunting something that big. Takes too long to deal with.”

He opened his mouth to say something apologetic about not helping more, then bit the words back. He didn’t really want to invite scrutiny of his reaction to the beheading of the goose. For all she knew, he was just squeamish, and that was all it had been. He hummed sympathetically, but didn’t say anything.

In a sort of reflexive motion, he reached for his sketchbook and thumbed the catch open. He was flipping through it before he remembered the latest drawing he’d started, and stared at the half-formed sketch with troubled eyes for a few seconds before turning the page onwards. After today, he wasn’t especially in the mood to dwell any more on Rayla’s hand, but…

He stared at the empty pages, and for a second, all the things he could think of to draw were unhappy. The memorial flames, on their ceremonial stands, or the half-mast flags, or – again – Rayla’s hand. Then he shook his head, and started a half-hearted sketch of Verdorn as he’d first seen it, sprawling at the roots of of a mountain range.

Ezran came over to sit next to him almost the instant he realised he was drawing, trotting over hefting the glowing egg the way he’d always hefted Bait in the past. He wondered, for a second, if Bait was feeling grumpy about being supplanted by an unhatched dragon. “You’re drawing the town?” He said, after a second of peering at the page. It was early yet, with only a few lines delineating the mountains and the approximate arrangements of the streets, but Ez had plenty of practice seeing the direction of his drawings.

Callum nodded absently, hand settling into the motions of the sketch even with his heart not really in it. “Yep.” He hoped Ezran wouldn’t mention the hand-drawing – Rayla hadn’t seen it yet, and he wasn’t entirely certain if he wanted her to – and mercifully, he didn’t. His brother did give him a sidelong glance, but kept quiet, settling in to watch.

It was probably overly optimistic of him to expect to conceal a drawing from someone he’d recently been inviting to look at his art, though. Rayla seemed content to lay back on the ground for a while, occasionally flexing her left hand, but did sit up eventually, and did move over to see his sketchbook. She peered at what he was drawing and hummed approvingly before asking “Did you finish doing my weapons, then?”

He glanced at her sidelong and sighed. “Er, yeah.” He agreed, hesitating for a moment as he accepted what was probably inevitable.

She eyed him, clearly picking up on his lacklustre reaction. “Do you…not want to show me?” She guessed, a little dubiously, and tilted her head to peer at him. She didn’t seem especially bothered by the idea – he could probably say ‘I’d rather not’, and she’d likely accept it without any problems.

He eyed her for a moment. It was a little embarrassing, maybe, and would offer her potentially uncomfortable insight into the extent of his worry, but… “…No, it’s fine.” He said, resigned, and turned the page back to the completed assortment of weapon-forms. Two pages back, in fact, which she didn’t miss.

“You started another drawing?” She asked, right before she shuffled closer to inspect the finished product of his weapon studies. “That’s nice.” She said, appreciatively, and flicked out one of her blades for comparison, looking between the paper and the subject with interest. It seemed to meet her approval, and she nodded to herself before putting the blade away again. She glanced at him, then back at the book, before asking “So, is it the new drawing you don’t want to show me?”

“I don’t-“ he started, troubled, then shook his head. More to get it over with than anything, he turned the page, and watched her stop short at the picture there: her hand, four-fingered, binding cruelly tight about its wrist, and the dark skin half-shaded. “I was just…” he trailed off, then shrugged, not sure how to explain it, and honestly too morose to try.

Rayla blinked, features solemn. She reached out to the page, just briefly, with the hand he’d drawn; then flexed its fingers and withdrew it before touching the paper. Ezran looked over silently at the two of them, a light frown shading his eyes. He glanced down at the page and then back at the egg again, troubled.

“Kind of a grim thing to draw.” She said, at last. She didn’t sound like she disapproved, or was judging, so that was something.

He averted his eyes. “Yeah, well…it’s kind of been on my mind, you know.”

She sighed, and leaned back. “Yeah. I get it.” She held up the hand in question and carefully moved the fingers: clenching them in a weak, careful fist, then loosening them again. She exhaled, and said “I guess I should get this over with.” Callum whipped his gaze around at her, disproportionately alarmed, and she raised her hands placatingly to clarify “Doing my hand massage, I mean.”

“…Oh, right.” He said, a little embarrassed. He didn’t know whether to be more abashed at how his mind had immediately flown to ‘she means she’s gonna cut her hand off’, or at how she’d obviously read him like a book. “…Yeah, that’s, um. Probably a good idea. Are you sure you don’t want some of the lilium?”

“I’m sure.” She said, resolute, and stared at her own hand for a few seconds. Then she exhaled, visibly braced herself, and reached over to press the fingers of one hand against the other.

She was grimacing almost immediately, and then hissing and wincing and biting her lip as she pressed her thumb into the dark skin, and he did his best to look away and not watch because he could feel himself flinching every time she did – but it was kind of hard to ignore. He felt his shoulders hunch, felt himself go tense, and then was utterly unable to refrain from looking back at her when she uttered a strangled, clearly pained noise – She’d tried to touch the skin around the binding, apparently.

He swallowed the first three responses that tried to bubble on his tongue and said, a little desperately, “Are you sure you don’t want to try some of the stronger painkillers? Even, like, a half dose?”

It was somewhat telling that she didn’t immediately shoot the suggestion down. Instead, a little woodenly, she said “It’s too soon.” There was an odd sheen to her skin in the firelight that looked like sweat, like this was approaching the sort of pain that had wrecked her so thoroughly the other day-

“Rayla, if it hurts that much, it’s not too soon.” Ezran spoke, words firm and decisive like a royal decree. “This is why we went and got the stuff, right? So you wouldn’t have to be in pain?”

“It’s addictive.” She grumbled, clearly wavering.

He turned fully towards her. “And we have tons of it. Even if you do get a little bit addicted, we’ve got enough that we could like, wean you off slowly.” He thought that was a thing, wasn’t it? Slowly weaning people off dependence on a drug, by giving them less and less over time? He was fairly sure he’d heard that mentioned somewhere, though whether it was as part of his field-healing or from somewhere else was beyond him.

She shot him a wary look. “I don’t know what lilium withdrawal does. That might not be safe.”

“If it’s anything like lotus withdrawal, it’s probably not too bad.” Ezran said, too-cheerfully. “I met a lotus-eater once. We had a nice talk.” Callum turned to stare at him, incredulous, as his brother added, nonchalant: “He was nice.”

“Ezran,” he said, a little helplessly, as Rayla stared confusedly at them.

“Yes, Callum?” His menace of a younger brother asked, face the picture of angelic innocence.

His mouth opened and closed like a fish several times, and then he managed “First the banther and now a – where do you find these things?”

“Exploring the castle, city, and forest, mostly.” Ezran answered, sounding too cheerful for Callum’s liking. “I found the lotus guy by the moat, though.”

He opened his mouth to retort, with little idea of what the words would be, when Rayla interrupted. “What exactly is a lotus-eater? Or lotus? That’s just a sort of flower, right?”

Ezran shrugged. “Well, yeah, but these are different, I think.” He looked at Callum beseechingly. “I don’t really know much about it. It’s from Evenere, right?”

He nodded, shuffling a little under the curious eyes of Rayla and his brother. “I mean, I learned that much.” He agreed, thinking back on his lessons. “Marsh-pollen is one of Evenere’s main exports, so you do hear about it. Um. From what I know they have these super-dangerous flowers that grow in the swamps, and they turn the pollen into lilium? They sell the dead flowers as drugs, too…but they’re meant to be illegal in Katolis.” He gave his brother a pointed look.

Ezran nodded peaceably. “Yeah, the guy did say that. His dealer got caught by the city guard.”

“…Hence the withdrawal.” Rayla said, dubiously. “And this guy wasn’t, I don’t know, dropping dead, or anything?”

Ez shrugged. “He looked kind of sick, and when I asked if he was okay he said it had been worse before and was getting better. Kind of like the flu. So I guess it’s pretty nasty but not that bad?”

“Ugh.” She expressed, but she did look mollified by the assurance that lilium-withdrawal probably wasn’t a fatal experience.

He eyed her, somewhat hopeful. “So…?”

Rayla looked down at her hands, pressed fingers around the binding again, and grimaced. “…Ugh.” She said again, almost disgustedly. “Fine.”

At her acquiescence, he procured the bottle and conveyed it to her fast enough that he wasn’t completely aware of doing it, stalling a little as he realised he needed to give her the dosage instructions too. He handed the paper over and watched as she inspected it.

“Huh.” She remarked, upon opening the bottle. A second later she extracted something from the cap that turned out to be a ridiculously, ludicrously tiny spoon. She had to hold its handle gingerly between her fingertips, the skin smeared with the red of the lilium. “Apparently what fits in this is a full dose. I have no idea how I’m meant to figure out what a half dose of this is, though.”

“Aw,” Ezran said as he leaned forwards, instantly enchanted. “That’s so tiny!”

“…When I read spoonful, I was thinking, like, a teaspoon. One of those really little ones, like you get with the fancy cups at fancy meetings and dinners.” Callum said, peering at it. “This makes more sense. But wow, that means she really gave us a lot of it.”

“No kidding.” Rayla raised her eyebrows at the instructions. “A teaspoon of this would probably kill you.” She checked again. “Yep, would definitely kill you.”

“That spoon is so cute,” Declared Ezran, whose attention was still plainly occupied with the included utensil, rather than dire portents of excessive dosage.

She raised her eyebrows at him. “You think the spoon is cute?” She asked, dubiously, and carefully moved her finger to let the droplet of stray lilium fall into the spoon.

“Duh.” He said, as if it were obvious, and she huffed a laugh at him.

“If you say so.” Rayla accepted, and after a second raised the tiny spoon and tipped two tiny red droplets from it into her mouth. She closed it, peered at the spoon, and made a face. “Pass me the pot and the waterskin, will you? I think I should probably wash this. And my hands.”

Ezran set aside the egg to oblige her, passing the requested items eagerly. “Has your hand stopped hurting yet?” he inquired, bright-eyed, and watched as she swished the tiny, tiny spoon around in the water.

She rolled her eyes and smiled. “No, dummy. It takes time for medicine to work, you know.” She said, and passed over the now-clean spoon for his inspection. “Here. Don’t lose it.”

“Ooh.” He said, enchanted, and held it up to his eyes to inspect, looking utterly delighted with it. He was very easily impressed, sometimes.

Callum shared a tolerant, amused glance with Rayla over his brother’s head, and said “It’ll take ten or fifteen minutes to start working, right? From what I read earlier?”

“Something like that,” She agreed, and set the vial aside, carefully capped. “I suppose we’ll find out.”

He observed the sheen of the bloody-red liquid in the vial, and shrugged. “Guess so.” He nodded, and settled his sketchbook onto his lap again. He grimaced at the image of the bound hand on the page, and turned it back over to the incipient Verdorn, lowering his charcoal to define the lines.

The next stretch of time passed in that fashion, filled with the scratch of the charcoal on paper and Ezran cooing over the tiny spoon (and, apparently, telling Bait and the egg about it), and Rayla watching, prodding at her hand every now and then in what was probably an attempt to gauge the progression of the lilium. She borrowed the waterskin and kept it near her side, taking periodic swigs of water as she watched and waited.

Eventually, what was probably at least ten minutes later, she set about massaging her hand again. “ow,” She said, remarkably unbothered, and then again “Ow. Ow. I don’t think it’s properly kicking in yet. Ow.”

He lowered his book and made a face at her. “….Maybe stop and wait a bit, then?” he suggested, a touch sardonically.

“It doesn’t really hurt that much,” She denied, and then somewhat ruined her claim by immediately saying “Ow” again as she pressed her thumb into her palm. Strangely, despite the apparent pain, she was neither flinching nor noticeably grimacing.

Callum eyed her. “…Are you sure about that?”

She pondered the question for a second, then said “Nope.” She volunteered no further information.

A little perplexed, he shared a glance with Ezran before repeating “Then wait a while? It’s probably still working.”

“Sure.” She said, unusually placid, and then shuffled up to sit beside him. She peered at the page and watched him draw in comfortable silence for a good while longer, drawing her knees up and resting her chin atop them. Eventually, when he’d almost fallen into an art-trance and was just starting to properly get into it, she spoke up. “…Do you really remember what the whole town looked like?” She asked, breaking him from his reverie.

He looked up, blinked, and realigned himself with reality. She looked considerably less tense than earlier, though whether that was a product of the lilium or just having time to relax, he didn’t know. “Pretty much.” He agreed, and after a moment, lowered his charcoal to continue drawing. “Especially since I thought I might want to draw it, so I sort of…made sure to look extra carefully.” She made a thoughtful noise at that, but no actual comments, so for a while longer they sat in silence as he drew and she watched and Ezran grew bored with the tiny spoon.

He passed it back over to her, and she moved over to their belongings to stow it in some part of her bag. “Did you like it?” Ezran asked, and she looked up at him, blinking slowly. “Verdorn, I mean. Was it the first human town you’ve been to?” Callum looked up at that, curious, and watched the thoughtfulness spread over her features. In the increasingly low light of evening, her eyes were growing faintly luminous, pupils widening in the dark.

“Mm. Yeah, I guess it’s the first proper human town I’ve been in long enough to look around.” She mused, voice oddly slow and ponderous, and flopped gracelessly back into her seat beside him. “Don’t think the fort counts. Everyone was in…” She seemed to struggle to find the right word for a moment. “…helmets, you know?” She waved expressively towards the top of her head. “Harder to see they’ve not got any horns, that way.”

He stared at her, attention drawn by the strangeness of the cadence of her speech, and something subtly off about her movement and posture. It was…suspiciously off-feeling, and he thought he could probably guess where it was coming from. What she was talking about was sort of interesting, though, so… “And that makes a difference?” He asked, eyes drawn to her own horns as he suddenly recalled the strangeness of them. He’d grown used to seeing them, over the last few days, but…

“Mmyeah.” She agreed, and flopped a hand at her horns again. It was the bad one, but she didn’t seem to notice any pain; he raised an eyebrow. “Looks weird. I think ‘s the first thing I noticed, in that…human-town. Verdorn. No one had any horns. ‘S weird.”

Callum eyed her, simultaneously interested in the topic and increasingly aware of the progression of what might well be lilium side-effects. “We don’t have any horns.” He reminded her, as if it were something that needed pointing out. She looked at the top of his head as if to confirm his words, and nodded solemnly. “Does that seem weird to you, too?”

“’Course it’s weird.” She answered bluntly. “You’re missing a whole....” She waved her hand in the air, vaguely, as she attempted to summon the words. “Whole thing. Part of your face. No, not face – head. Yep.” She pondered this with a slow, languid progression of facial expressions, eyes narrowing pensively at her own thought processes.

“I…guess that makes sense?” He said, slowly, and looked at Ezran to see if he’d noticed Rayla’s increasingly evident…was inebriation the right word? Intoxication, maybe? Those were probably the most medically accurate words, but he could probably think of a few more colloquial things that would fit. In any case, Ezran was staring at her with a sort of puzzled, intrigued fascination, so he’d obviously noticed something as well.

Rayla reached out and patted him reassuringly on the shoulder. “’S’okay, I got over it.” She said comfortingly. “I don’t think you look weird anymore.”

“….That’s good to know?” he attempted, certain that he was probably making a very strange face at her. He peered at her, and tried to remember whether her pupils were normally that large. A quick consult with his memory confirmed that, no, they weren’t. Definitely probably a drug effect, then?

He wondered if it would be rude to ask to check her pulse.

Ezran shuffled. “But it looked weird in the town, though?” He asked, tilting his head as he apparently came to his own conclusions about whatever was going on with her.

She nodded slowly, ponderously. “Super weird.” She agreed. “Seeing that many people walking around without…with no…without any horns.” She considered this for a long, long while, then said “I suppose…imagine…if you walked into a crowd of people, and none of them had any ears. ‘S like that.” She nodded with an immense sort of gravity, as if she thought she’d said something staggeringly profound.

That was, in fact, a very weird mental image, so he supposed it made a good comparison. “Huh.” He remarked, interested, but in a sort of distant and distracted way. Mostly he was getting increasingly concerned with the obvious alteration of her mental state. A little anxious voice in the back of his head was beginning to say, worriedly, what if this affects elves differently to humans? Why did we never think of that? “…Do me a favour, Rayla?”

She blinked at him placidly. “Sure?”

“Check if your hand still hurts?”

It took much, much longer than it ought to for her to process his words, and then she moved a hand over to poke at the back of her hand. She blinked again. “Huh.” She said, and then poked harder. “It does not.” She then poked around the binding, and said “Ow.” It was a very calm, very unbothered ‘ow’. Eventually, she concluded “Maybe it still hurts a bit.”

“…I think maybe the medicine is working.” Ezran said, bemusedly, as he leaned forwards to see her better from Callum’s side.

Rayla considered that. “That makes sense.” She agreed, and after a lengthy, thoughtful pause, added “I feel…different.”

Callum stared at her, at her strangely relaxed and ponderous expression, at the looseness of her shoulders and the size of her pupils, and flatly informed her “Rayla, you’re higher than the summit of Mount Kalik.”

She stared at him, somewhat uncomprehendingly, as Ezran processed his words and then started giggling helplessly. “I’m what now?” She inquired, politely, with a lightly furrowed brow.

“High.” He repeated, finally conceding to his impulse to reach out and grasp at her wrist, searching for her pulse. She looked down at his hand, tolerantly perplexed, as he settled his fingers into place and felt for the speed of her heart. “High, as in drugged. Stoned. Marsh-whacked.” He searched his mind for more drug-related euphemisms, but couldn’t think of any. “High.” He concluded, and felt at her pulse as she made a face at him. It was slow, but regular and strong enough. So…well, that was something.

He reflected that he probably should have got more details from the healer about the medicine’s side effects. Then maybe he’d know if this sort of response was normal, rather than something to be concerned about. Her pulse was okay, though. And she wasn’t, like, passing out, or anything like that…

“I am not high.” She complained at him, face screwed up in a comically confused sort of affront. “You’re high.”

He raised his eyebrows at her and released her wrist, concern giving way to a glimmer of amusement. “How’d you figure that?” He inquired.

She stared at him, flummoxed. “…Sky mage.” She offered, after a lengthy pause. “You’re all…whooshy. Skies and high-up places. Mountains.” She seemed oddly struck by her own words, and looked away, frowning. “Callum,” She started, profoundly concerned. “…You don’t have any wings.”

Callum shared a glance with Ezran, and smirked a little at her. “I noticed that, thanks.” He said, dryly.

She blinked. “But sky mages have wings.” She explained to him, making a sort of flapping motion with both hands, thumbs joined and hands moving as if to evoke the movement of wings. He stifled a laugh. Ezran didn’t bother with such restraint, and giggled again. “You’re a sky mage. You should…” Her brow furrowed. “You should have wings. Are you sure you don’t have wings?”

“I don’t have wings, Rayla.” He informed her, patiently, and she looked over his shoulders as if she disbelieved him. This supposition was supported by how she leaned back and scrutinised his upper back, and even reached out to pat at his shoulder-blades before retreating, comically astonished.

“You don’t have wings.” She echoed, eyes wide.

He looked at her, and found it increasingly difficult not to join Ezran in giggling at her. Honestly, where did the wings thing even come from? Was there some sort of sky magic spell that involved flying? Lord, he hoped there was. That would be awesome. “I do not, in fact, have wings.” He repeated, in the end, and resolved to ask her about flight-related spells when she was…sober? Was sober the right word? He was having to consider all sorts of unexpected terminology this evening, it seemed.

“Why don’t you have wings?” She persisted, leaning forwards. Sort of uncomfortably closely, actually, her face was, er – he inched backwards a little to give himself some space, cheeks prickling with heat.

“Maybe it’s a human thing.” He suggested, shooting a glance at his brother in hopes of provoking some sort of support.

Ezran picked up on it, thankfully. “Humans don’t grow wings, Rayla. Even mages.” He agreed. “I think Callum would have noticed.”

She processed that for a second or two, then made a vaguely disgruntled noise. “Maybe so.” She said, eventually, and cast a last narrow-eyed look over Callum’s shoulders before leaning back with a sigh.

For a while, he and Ezran just…looked at her, while she stared vaguely into the fire, at once intensely thoughtful and uncharacteristically relaxed. It was strange to see her like this – particularly after the last few days, which she’d spent tense and sleep-deprived, increasingly bothered by the pain in her hand. “How are you feeling?” Ezran asked, eventually, and she looked over at them. The faint luminosity of her irises only made it more obvious how large her pupils had gone.

“…Different.” She concluded, eventually, and looked down at her hands. She flexed both of them, making fists and releasing, without any sign of pain or discomfort. “Weird. My skin feels weird. Soft? Or tingly. ’s weird.” She reached for her bound hand with her right and squeezed it again, experimentally. “Hm.”

“Doesn’t hurt?” Callum asked, though the answer was fairly obvious.

“Nope.” She poked around the angry, strange-looking skin around her binding more firmly than he thought was wise – he winced on her behalf, even though evidently she wasn’t actually feeling the pain at the moment. “Maybe a little, there. Mostly it’s just tingly.” Her fingertips wandered around the edge of the binding, and then, distractedly – “Itchy.” She proclaimed, and scratched at it.

“Er.” Callum said, a little alarmed. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea to scratch it?”

She stopped. “You think?” She inquired, interested, and looked at him.

“I think it’ll probably just make it hurt worse when the lilium wears off.” He agreed, beginning to realise that the drug’s effects could actually, well, be problematic. It was a good think she was using it now, when there was nothing left to do, rather than when they were travelling or – Mercy forbid – in a town. He thought she’d stand a decent chance of loudly commenting on the hornlessness of random citizens, in this state. “…Maybe just do your hand massage? That’s what you took the stuff for in the first place, right?”

Rayla contemplated that. “You may have a point.” She declared, and set about pressing artlessly at her poor hand. Callum winced, resolving not to look, and determinedly returned to his drawing. He knew, obviously, that the lilium had clearly been effective, but it was still making him cringe to see her handling her bound hand so roughly – his own left hand tingled unpleasantly at the sight, and he shook the fingers out to try to disperse the sensation.

He spent the next while steadfastly avoiding looking at Rayla tending to her hand, which turned out to be something of an error. He saw Ezran shift in his peripheral vision, and then heard him say, alarmed, “Er, Callum, um…“ he looked up at his name, and then more quickly when his brother tugged urgently on his arm.

Callum opened his mouth to ask, then followed Ezran’s nod to Rayla, who…

…Who had, at some point in the last five minutes, stopped massaging her hand and started scratching at the skin on the sides of her wrists. And not just that, but- “Rayla!” He exclaimed, dismayed, and shot out his hand to pull hers away before he’d even fully processed what he was looking at. “What were you – oh – urgh!“

She stared at him uncomprehendingly, as if she couldn’t conceive of why he’d felt the need to stop her from peeling her own skin off, Paragons wept- “What?” She asked, as if honestly perplexed, as if she really didn’t see what the problem was with her scratching around the binding until the skin broke. Ezran had gone a little green, eyes wide as he leaned to the side to see better, fingers twitching on the surface of the eggshell.

“You’re scratching your skin off!” He told her, voice high and strident, and turned to his brother as she looked down at her own hand. “Ez, get the field-healer stuff out of my bag, would you? Disinfectant, maybe some bandages…” His brother nodded quickly and set the egg aside immediately, hurrying over to their pile of things with pale-faced haste.

Rayla inspected her wrist, brow furrowed. “It doesn’t hurt.” She told him, earnestly, as Ezran rummaged in Callum’s bag. “Just itches. ’s probably fine.” Her fingers wandered in the direction of the binding again, and he snatched them away.

“It doesn’t hurt because you’re completely, horrifyingly high, Rayla, that’s why it’s not hurting!” He half-shrieked at her, ushering her until she was sat facing towards him, the fire to their side, as he held her bound hand up to inspect the damage. It could be worse, but – it was pretty obvious, now, that there had been sores developing on either side of the binding, and she’d just gone and opened them- “I had no idea the lilium would mess you up this much – oh, thanks, Ez.” He broke off, as his brother returned with the supplies and set them at his side, hovering anxiously nearby.

“I don’t feel messed up.” She complained, as he went for some bandage to wet with the spirits. “I feel fine. Good, even.”

“If you were fine, you wouldn’t be bleeding.” He told her, voice a little too shaky to be firm, and dabbed the bandage against the luridly-red, oozing layer of skin she’d exposed strips of. His fingers felt jittery with nerves as he cleaned up the clear, pink-tinged fluid that the sores were secreting. “Paragons wept, Rayla, I looked away for literally five minutes and you started peeling your skin off.” She didn’t even flinch at the touch of the alcohol on the raw sore, she was so powerfully affected.

She observed him. “You’re upset.” She deduced, blinking slowly.

“Yes, Rayla, thanks for noticing.” He said, a little sharply, dabbing the edges of the binding with the spirits just to be on the safe side. He reached for the bandages and, gingerly, wrapped a very light layer of them around her wrist. He didn’t want to restrict her blood flow any more, but leaving the sores open to air seemed like a great way to invite infection, so…

Ezran settled by their side as he finished wrapping this new, distinctly worrying wound on Rayla’s hand. “Are the side effects meant to be this strong?” he asked, voice soft and worried. Rayla blinked at him as he spoke, too-placid, and while Callum had found that sort of funny earlier, now it was anything but. No wonder Aunt Amaya had had those talks with them about how ‘drugs are bad’, and not to eat weird plants people gave them, or weird powders, or…well, drugs in their many varied forms.

“I don’t know.” He said, terse, and set the bandages aside, capping the bottle of spirits carefully.

“The paper said something about that, didn’t it?” Ezran asked. “I just didn’t understand the words.”

Specifically, the dosage instruction sheet had had a very brief sentence dedicated to explaining the drug, which it had described as a psychoactive analgesic, with soporific and euphoric properties. He wasn’t exactly sure what ‘psychoactive’ was meant to mean, but in hindsight, figured it had something to do with affecting the mind. He had no idea what ‘soporific’ meant, and had only ever heard the word ‘euphoric’ in relation to people being exceptionally happy.

“Neither did I, honestly.” He admitted, and looked at Rayla. She looked back, mildly interested, but nothing more. She seemed, in general, exceptionally relaxed. As if she’d spent a day at some hot springs or something, instead of sleep-deprived and in awful pain. He sighed, worried and still uncomfortably on-edge from the shock of seeing what she’d done to her hand, and said “Rayla, just…don’t touch your hand, alright? At least until morning.”

She considered this. “Why?” She inquired.

“Because I think you’ll probably start messing with your bandages if you do, and you shouldn’t do that.” He reached out to adjust one of set bandages to lie more smoothly over her skin, obscuring the binding entirely, and she watched him calmly all the while. “Just leave your hand alone.”

Rayla hummed thoughtfully, then reminded him “I’m meant to be doing my…thing, though. Hand thing.” She paused, thinking, and concluded “Hand massage. You said so. Kind of tricky to…” She waved the newly bandaged hand in the air expressively as she searched for her words, “…do the thing, if I can’t touch my hand.”

Callum eyed her. He considered whether or not she could be trusted to finish what she’d started without bruising her hand, disturbing her bandages, or making something else go wrong. She could probably work with the instructions ‘don’t touch the bandages’, right?

Just that moment, as if specifically to prove him wrong, Rayla reached over to try to itch under said bandages.

Tired, jittery, and already pre-emptively embarrassed for how he knew this was going to go, Callum reached out and gently caught her by that hand, moving it over and setting it on her knee. “No touching your hand.” He reminded her, and wavered for several awkward seconds before he moved to take her bound hand instead. He exhaled, cleared his throat, and determinedly not meeting her eyes, said “I’ll…Look, I’ll do it, okay? You just…sit there, and don’t peel any more of your skin off.”

It was testament to how incredibly drugged she was that all she had in response to that was an agreeable sort of noise. After a second, she said “Mmkay,” and nothing else. He chanced a look at her face, and found her looking spectacularly unbothered, and not even vaguely awkward. He instantly felt five times more abashed as a result, and quickly looked down at her hand again.

“I really hope you’re not gonna kill me when you sober up.” He muttered, only sort-of to her, and carefully started drawing his thumbs over the back of her hand. He had no idea how hand massages were meant to work, but he supposed he’d figure it out as he went along. He determinedly ignored the pronounced feeling of heat in his face.

“Mm.” Rayla expressed, just as placidly as before. “You’re my humans. No dying allowed. Wouldn’t like that.”

Ezran made a sound that sounded like ‘aww’ at that. Callum felt his cheeks, somehow, growing warmer. “Let’s hope you still feel that way later.” He sighed, making a face at her fingers. How were you meant to massage fingers? They were just sort of…bony. In the end, he settled for sort of…gently wringing them, and carefully squeezing his own fingertips along them.

“She’s not gonna be mad, Callum.” Ezran told him consolingly, and moved to take Rayla’s other hand to keep her from reaching out for her bandages again. “Maybe a little embarrassed, but I think she’ll mostly be glad you didn’t let her mess up her hand anymore.” Callum made a vague noise of assent, not especially wanting to think about how he was meant to meet her eyes in the morning.

Rayla looked down at him, bemused. “…You talkin’ ‘bout me?” She asked, eventually.

“Yeah.” Ez answered, utterly unashamed, and patted her on the back of the hand. “You’re kind of loopy now, but that’s okay. We’ll take care of you.”

“…Okay?” She offered, a little uncertainly, and then informed Callum “That feels weird, you know. Tingly.” She considered it for a second. “Kind of nice, though.”

Callum’s face burned as his brother snickered. “…That’s nice, Rayla.” He managed, and wondered how long he was meant to do this for. He turned her hand over and pressed his thumbs gently into the palm of her hand.

Thankfully, she offered no further commentary, and about five minutes later he decided he’d done more than enough and set her hand down again. “Alright, absolutely no touching your hand now, okay?” he said to her, and upon looking up…he blinked. “Are you falling asleep?”

“Mmm, no.” She denied, drowsily, with her eyes fluttering open a little from closed. “Got to…stand watch. No sleeping.” So saying, she yawned, swayed, and then nearly fell over. Callum shifted to hold her up by the shoulder, eyebrows raised.

“Stand watch?” he asked, a touch amused. “You look like you’ll be asleep in five seconds if you try.”

“Not me.” She claimed, while slumping against his side. “I’m a…very professional elf assassin, me. No fallin’ sleep on the job.” Her eyes closed again, and she muttered “Gotta watch for those…town-people. Humans. Town humans. Ambush ‘s inthenight.” With that, she set her head down against his neck, cheek smooshing onto his shoulder. The colour of his face, which had been recovering from the embarrassment of this whole ordeal, promptly reddened again.

He cleared his throat, flustered, and exchanged a glance with his brother. “No one’ll be ambushing us in the night, Rayla.” He said, soothingly, and slung one of her arms around his shoulder to support her as he stood up. She slowly, sleepily got her feet out under her, and stumbled along with him as he led her towards the tent. “Think about it – it’s not like they’ll be able to tell you’re an elf when we’re all in the tent. They’d just think we’re normal human travellers. ”

“Maybe.” She said, doubtfully, as Ezran rushed ahead of them to set out her cloak for her. “Dunno ‘bout that.”

“It’ll be fine.” He assured her, as they drew close to the tent. Bait, who’d been napping within for a good while, opened his eyes and grumbled at them. “You just get some sleep, alright? You need it.”

She opened one eye and squinted at the tent. “…Would be nice to be asleep.” She agreed, vaguely, and allowed him and Ez to manoeuvre her onto her makeshift bedroll. She made a happy sound, burrowed her face into the fur, and then – by all appearances – fell asleep immediately.

Callum retreated quietly with Ezran back to their bags, bemused. “…Well, I guess she won’t have any trouble sleeping tonight, at least.” He said, voice very quiet, and considered the dark of the sky. “Hopefully her head will be back to normal in the morning.”

“That medicine is really strong.” Ez observed, similarly hushed, as together they set about clearing up the various pieces of camp clutter into their respective bags.

“No kidding.” He sighed, eyes on the contents of Rayla’s bag. After a second of consideration, he withdrew a couple pieces of bark from it before closing it up. “It probably won’t be safe for her to take it except in the evenings, if it messes her up that badly.”

Ezran went to pick up the egg, slinging his backpack over one shoulder as he went. “Yeah. At least she’s got the willow-bark, I guess.” His eyes found the two pieces of said substance in his hand. “What’s that for?”

“…I figure she’ll probably want it in the morning.” He mumbled, after a second, a little embarrassed. “I’ll just put it next to her bedroll.”

His brother shot him a thoughtful look. “…Good idea.” He said, and looked towards the tent. “I guess we’re going to bed now, too?”

“I don’t know about you, but I definitely am.” Callum said, ruefully, and with considerable effort dragged the rest of the bags towards the tent. “It’s been a long day.”

Ezran looked down at the egg in his arms as he followed, expression a little strange. Pensive, but still inscrutable. “…Yeah.” He agreed, quietly, and set his bag down in the space between the tent-layers. “I guess it has.” As quietly as possible, so as to avoid disturbing their sleeping companion, they got their things arranged, closed the tent-doors, and laid out their cloaks in the space remaining.

Callum set the two pieces of bark carefully at Rayla’s side, and then laid down to sleep.

---

After a day of thoroughly unproductive meetings and even less-productive arguments, Gren found himself trailing after General Amaya as they vacated the war-room, striding along the corridors in search of an exit. “Are we leaving?” He asked her, hurrying forwards a little to make sure she could see his hands, and she glanced towards him.

“Yes.” She answered, plainly weary. “It’s time to get back to the barracks and distribute orders. Then maybe we can finally get some sleep.”

He nodded his acquiescence, more relieved than he cared to admit at the prospect of rest, and followed her lead as she sped up. He followed at her side as she turned the corner, and then – stopped short, just at the same time she did, as they found someone waiting for them.

“Opeli,” he said, startled, just as Amaya shaped the name-sign. They all exchanged the requisite bows and brief pleasantries before the General spoke again. “Did you need something?” She asked, plainly curious, as the priestess straightened before them.

“I wanted to speak with you before you left. I’m glad I managed to catch you.” She said, plainly, tucking her hands into her long sleeves. “I’ve heard of your intentions. You’re going to hunt the Princes’ murderess, is that correct?”

Amaya’s expression, previously open and curious, tightened into a tense grimace. Her words were spoken with sharp, stiff motions that made the pieces of her armour scrape harshly at themselves. “I will find her, and I will bring her to justice for what she has done.” She answered, face resolute. Gren wondered if Opeli could see the depth of the pain in that expression, in the movements of her hands. He doubted it, somehow. He’d had a lot more practice reading the General’s moods than most.

Still, the woman nodded, apparently satisfied. “I thought so.” She said, and inhaled in the way that people did when they were about to say something important, when they were steeling themselves for something significant. “I want to offer to consecrate you as a Justiciar,” She pronounced, with considerable gravity, and Amaya’s eyes widened with astonishment. “To act as the hand of Lady Justice on your pursuit.”

Gren stared, wide-eyed himself, and shocked enough that it took him a second to look across to wait on Amaya’s reply. She’d quelled her initial reaction enough that she now only looked mildly surprised, rather than outright thrown. Even so, she was wordless for longer than was normal in the face of Opeli’s offer, blinking slowly as she considered it.

After a while, she answered. “I’m honoured by the offer.” She said, hands moving slow and almost contemplative. “But my mission of justice is a personal one. I would not be suitable as a Justiciar, and even if I were….once my task is complete, I would have to abdicate, and resume my full responsibility as General.”

Opeli inclined her head, and spoke as if Amaya had never mentioned anything about her personal unsuitability. “And if you decided that was necessary, that would be your right.” She said, smoothly. “Alternatively, you could remain a Justiciar, and act in that capacity if you encountered dire injustice during your duties as General.”

Amaya’s lips pursed a little. “You’re aware that I intend to execute this assassin with or without a holy mandate.” She said, watching Opeli closely as Gren relayed her words. “And I am not an especially religious person, in any case.”

“You’d be bringing righteous justice, General.” She answered, shrugging just a little. “Whether or not you’re doing it in Her name, you would be the Hand of Justice, and carrying out Her work. You might as well make it official.”

“And what of the legendary objectivity of the Justiciar?” Amaya asked, clearly unconvinced. Gren watched her with interest as he relayed her words, genuinely curious as to what she’d decide on this. “I was under the impression that a Justiciar who allows personal motivation to cloud their justice is forsworn by the Church.”

Opeli huffed, lips quirking. “If I may be so bold, General…personal motivation or not, if there’s anyone that is going to catch that elf before she can return to Xadia, it will be you. And this crime needs a Justiciar to attend it, desperately. With the closest Justiciar roaming Neolandia, you are by far the best option. It’s not as though worthy and ready-trained candidates are thick on the ground.”

Amaya’s lips pressed into a flat line. “So it’s a matter of needing the Church of Paragons to be seen doing something.”

The priestess’ eyebrows raised. “Did I say that?” She asked, mildly. “No, General. This is a matter of Justice. The Pentarchy has not had something so heinous committed within its borders in decades, and setting a Justiciar on the task is – is necessary. Anything less would be – it would be a betrayal, do you understand? Five kingdoms are crying out to Lady Justice, General. If a Justiciar doesn’t attend a crime like this, then what are they even for?” Her voice became more emphatic and impassioned the longer she spoke, and abruptly Gren could see her for the Priestess of Paragons that she was, her demeanour near-brimming with the strength of her faith.

“A few vows won’t make me any better at executing a monster. She will die whether I am a Justiciar or merely a General. It would make no difference.” Amaya said, expression increasingly agitated as she signed.

“It would make every difference.” Opeli refuted, vehement, every ounce of her piety showing in her eyes. “Not to your fighting ability, of course, but – to the Kingdoms, to the boys’ memories-“ She cut off, perhaps warned by some stiffening of the other woman’s frame, and sighed. “…Are you entirely opposed to it, then?” She asked, more quietly, more solemnly. She did genuinely look sad at the thought.

She hesitated before moving her hands again. “Not necessarily opposed, but I have concerns.” As he watched, General Amaya closed her eyes, and puffed out a breath. She looked momentarily troubled as she shook her head, opened her eyes again, and looked back at Katolis’ Lady of Paragons. “A Justiciar must act as Lady Justice would.” She said, sighing, eyes hooded. “They must use the sword, the scales, and the blindfold all. Lady Opeli, I am too close to this to judge as a Justiciar should. I would use only the sword.” Her hands moved emphatically enough there that Gren relayed them with just the stress on the words he ought, a shiver running down his spine at the bald honesty in them.

Amaya wasn’t one to speak of her flaws or failings so plainly. But Opeli…he supposed if you couldn’t be honest to a Priestess of Paragons, you probably had a significant problem.

The Priestess herself watched Amaya for a few seconds, a very slight smile pulling at the corners of her lips. She looked satisfied, perhaps, or even a little impressed. “I appreciate your candour.” She said. “But I think you misjudge yourself. If consecrated to act with the responsibilities of a Justiciar, you would use the scales, and the blindfold too, even if you detested it with every breath. Even if every part of you wanted to use only the sword. You are not the sort of woman who can turn her back on what she is responsible for.”

Amaya huffed, a little startled. “And what would you call me abandoning the Breach to chase a single elf, if not abandonment of my responsibility?” Gren, glancing at her, said the words dryly. It was the first time he’d seen her express the sentiment that she was shirking her duty, though naturally she’d read the accusation on more than one pair of lips already.

“Justice.” Said Opeli, simply. “Justice for an unforgiveable, despicable crime. Justice that will soothe a kingdom of broken hearts, as well as your own. Don’t underestimate the power of this sort of closure, General. You know better.”

The General exhaled, a light frown furrowing her brow. She didn’t respond for a few long seconds, contemplative, and not in a happy way. “I don’t know that I could give the elf mercy, if for some unfathomable reason that was what she deserved.” She said finally.

“You would.” Opeli refuted, with a certainty even Gren didn’t quite have. He’d seen Amaya weep, seen her scream and rage and wail. He’d seen her fingers bloody in the blind fury of her grief, rust beneath her fingernails and vengeance carving out a hollow in her heart. He’d have agreed with Opeli in a heartbeat were she talking to a General whose nephews had not been murdered, but…Amaya was in a great deal of pain. People could change terribly when they were in pain. But, even so... “You’re not a sword, General Amaya. You’re a shield. Or do you carry that thing everywhere you go for decoration?” She smiled, gently teasing, and Gren couldn’t do anything but agree with her.

Amaya eyed her narrowly, and said nothing.

“You’re not an instrument of unthinking vengeance, no matter what you seem to think. You would be a worthy Justiciar, and I would be honoured to consecrate you.” She said, with a sort of self-satisfied air that suggested she thought she’d won. “Think on it. You know where to find me when you’ve made a decision.”

With that, she bowed, a clear conclusion to the discussion. Amaya bowed back, a little mechanically, and watched with brows furrowed as the Lady of Paragons walked away down the stone corridor. “That woman is a menace.” She said to Gren, shaking her head disbelievingly. Her fingers twitched for a few seconds between sentences. “…She reminds me of Sarai, sometimes. Just as impossible to argue with.”

He huffed a laugh, surprised, and let his shoulders loosen. He spoke to her in quick, somewhat excited motions: “do you think you’ll do it?” Whatever he thought, and whatever she thought…Justiciars were special. He couldn’t quite help the thrill that the thought of Amaya as one of them inspired.

She tilted her head back and forth, a gesture of indecision. “I don’t know, yet. I’ll think about it.” She sighed. “She seems very sure I have my head where it should be. I’m not so convinced.”

Gren considered that, and, a little tentative, answered “Well, she was right about one thing, General, if nothing else.”

Amaya stared at him, plainly questioning.

“You are a shield.” He said. “You always have been.” He hesitated, warring a little with the part of him that was wary of imposing, of overstepping, but…he was her friend. He knew he was. He knew she valued his opinions, even if he still couldn’t quite believe it. “I think she’s right. If it came down to it, and the elf didn’t deserve to die, you’d spare her.”

She frowned at him. “You sound very sure of that.” She seemed almost curious, there, as if she were listening, at least in the metaphorical sense. As if she were honestly considering that he might have a better insight to her actions than she did.

He hesitated again, but forged on. “You’ve suffered a terrible loss, and it has hurt you badly.” He said, cautious. “But you’re still Amaya. And if you swear the Justiciar’s vows, I know you’ll honour them.”

She stared at him for long, silent seconds, until he found it hard to keep still and fidgeted a little, shuffling in place. Then she exhaled, long and heavy, and averted her eyes just a little. “Thank you, Gren.” She said, hands picking their way slowly through the words. “I…am still unsure. But I will seriously consider Opeli’s offer, I think.”

He relaxed, just a little relieved, and nodded to her. Then, mind whirling with thoughts of his favourite childhood stories and the Justiciars that had featured in them, he fell into step beside his General, and followed her out of the castle halls.

---

End chapter.

Timeline: This chapter takes place on the latter part of 18.05, day 8 since start of canon. Subtract 2 days for time spent travelling. Kids are camped at 1250m above sea level.

Chapter notes: I hope everyone enjoyed ‘High’ Elf Rayla. That whole sequence gave me a fair bit of trouble in the planning stages; it was one of those that I needed to write to figure out the direction of. This chapter is super super long mainly because it had a lot of dialogue-heavy scenes, and dialogue is what really inflates my word counts.

Note on meat preparation: I have plucked game birds before. It is an absolute pain.

Next chapter is Highly Significant. It is also not finished yet, and I’ve had to do some major restructuring. I’m only posting this chapter now because it’s been so long since the last update, and because celebration of the Comicon panel and the new lore seems a worthy cause. It might be a while until the next chapter, although I’m still writing every day. Total piaj word count is now up to 230k.

Medical details: In this chapter, Rayla’s ischemic ulcer pops on her finger. This will, to put it mildly, hurt like a bitch. Arterial insufficiency ulcers are described in everything I’ve read as ‘intensely painful’.

Rayla also, while drugged to high heaven, scratches open the developing pressure sores around the binding. These are mainly on the sides of her wrist, on either side of the binding, rather than on the overside and underside of the wrist: they’re worst where the skin is nearly directly over bone. They are also an infection risk, especially given the presence of the binding right there, and will hurt horribly once the lilium wears off.

Her hand does not have a lot of time left. Expect this situation to come to a head next chapter.

Worldbuilding:

The Justiciars:

I originally had a (more) giant wall of text here, but I feel my worldbuilding is starting to exceed the scope of what I can reasonably put in chapter notes, so here’s a comparatively brief summary:

A Justiciar, in sum, is a travelling warrior consecrated to act as judge, jury, and executioner. As part of their religious mandate, they are required to act as the hand and instrument of Lady Justice, who will not bring her sword down upon an undeserving soul. Justiciars generally enjoy a reputation as folk heroes, with many historical Justiciars and their exploits featuring in popular stories and folktales. They are very highly regarded, and very uncommon. It is very difficult for most people to become Justiciars, and generally involves decades of training. The Justiciar swears vows in the name of Lady Justice and thereafter acts as a travelling perpetrator of justice. They are called upon to track, apprehend, judge and sentence heinous criminals who have fled conventional justice, or to navigate exceptionally controversial or incendiary crimes where local officials have difficulty remaining impartial. It is a religious role as well as a judicial role, and is one of several examples of how deeply entrenched Paragonism is in Pentarchy culture and societal structure.

It’s understandable that Amaya is hesitant, given that a Justiciar who allows their personal motivations and feelings to sway their holy justice is forsworn. And boy, does she have personal motivations and feelings about the ‘assassinations’.

Opeli, here, has looked at the situation and said ‘this warrants a Justiciar’, because there’s pretty much no crime that qualifies as incendiary more than the assassination of two child princes. She knows that Amaya will likely be the one to find Rayla, and there are no Justiciars to spare to send with her. Amaya herself is obviously a capable warrior, but is also extensively familiar with Katolis law, and in her position as General is already empowered with the authority to judge and execute anyone within the borders of the Pentarchy (though citizens of other kingdoms must be handled carefully). This, to Opeli, makes her fit the essential requirements of a Justiciar without the usual lengthy training. Opeli really wants a Justiciar on this case, she believes that the princes’ assassin warrants personal attention from an ordained judge, and she thinks she can make that happen.

The Marsh-Lotus and Lilium: As previously mentioned, medical preparations of the marsh-pollen are known as ‘lilium’. It almost always comes in liquid form, and is a very, very potent drug, and commonly used across the Pentarchy. In smaller doses, it is a very effective pain relief, and can also be used as a sleep aid. In larger doses, it makes an excellent anaesthetic, eliminating pain and quickly rendering a patient unconscious. However, larger doses than that are likely to kill you, so the anaesthetic use is only done by trained healers who are very good at calibrating dosages.

The recreational preparation of lotus can be made from the pollen, in which case it’s very small doses of pollen cut with beet-sugar and a variety of other things. This is then imbibed by drug-users. The more well-known preparation is with the dried flower petals, which can be sold unmodified and eaten to obtain the drug’s effects. Users of lotus-derived recreational drugs are known as lotus-eaters. Recreational lotus use is illegal in Katolis, Duren, and Neolandia; but sale of medical lilium is not well-regulated, so most addicts just use that instead.

The healer Marla stocks an above-average quantity of lilium, as she suffers from a chronic pain disorder and arthritis, which are eased by the drug.

Medical jargon: psychoactive = messes with your state of mind, analgesic = painkiller, soporific = makes you sleepy, euphoria = state of varyingly intense pleasure and happiness, or feeling of wellness.

Due credit: the psychoactive effects of the lotus, as well as the term ‘lotus-eater’, are naturally inspired by the Odyssey. I’m also very fond of the Tennyson poem ‘the lotos-eaters’.

Lilium side-effects: Someone using lilium will experience intense feelings of relaxation and wellness, which at higher doses can reach euphoria. They will become lax and disinclined to do anything very active or taxing. They are highly liable to decide to lay down wherever is convenient for a nap or rest, particularly as the body begins to metabolise the lilium. The drug fosters a confused and somewhat incoherent state of mind; users will be very suggestible, will find it difficult to muster negative emotions or reactions, and will have absolutely terrible impulse-control.

Less psychoactive side-effects: dry mouth, dilated pupils, slow heartbeat, strange tactile sensations (‘tingling’ and sometimes ‘itching’; painful areas in particular are likely to feel especially itchy), and lethargy.

Idioms: The term ‘marsh-whacked’ is human slang meaning ‘high’, as in intoxicated on a recreational substance. It originates from lotus-derived drugs, which are naturally from the marshes of Evenere. The slang is vaguely inspired by real-world slang ‘bush-whacked’, meaning ‘exhausted’.

There is also a Xadian slang word for being high, which I’ll certainly get to use at some point.

[manynarrators]

Umbrella Academy AU - Rent

Sooo, I finished the show like two days ago and loved it. Anyways, I  was scrolling through the tag yesterday when I saw one of the gifs of Diego and Klaus, when Klaus says “His name was Dave.” Cut there, freeze frame, and the au is planted with that is perfectly coinciding with Roger’s “Her name was April.”. So for your pleasure I present a Rent AU I will never write, but give if anyone else wants to....

Klaus Hargreeves as Roger Davis or Mimi Marquez.

The once well known, inspiring man loses it all to a drug addiction, and by the time he manages to pull himself out of it, he’s dying of AIDS. In the end he’s trying to better himself, but it’s hard, because temptation is always just around the corner. He’s trying his best to keep his friends away from it as well.

Or, self-destructive and largely alone, Klaus found himself escaping home and spiralling into drug addiction, and a haze of forgotten days. Eventually he contracts AIDS. When he tries to rehabilitate himself he just falls down again, after his family splintered apart.

Ben Hargreeves as Mark Cohen.

Cautious, bookish Ben, who’s spent years looking over Klaus, making sure he takes his AZT and makes good choices. He’s overlooked most of the time, but he watches everyone,and it’s through him we see much of the world, truthfully. He’s watched his family break and fall apart, all while holding onto the little bit he has left.

Diego Hargreeves as Thomas Collins.

He’d been family with Ben, Klaus, and Vanya once, and then he tried to go and do the respectable, legitimate thing. Being a police officer seemed like it would be such a good thing Methods and beliefs conflicted though, and he came back when he realised that the police hated the poor, and they didn\t seem like they were helping as much as they could. When he came back, Diego makes sure to keep an eye on the others, making sure they stay alive.

Eudora Patch as Angel Dumott Schunard.

There’s moments when her methods are a little bit more questionable, but usually she’s a good person. Eudora is the who welcomes the others, however odd they may seem. And it’s her untimely death that causes things to shift, and her memory that stops things from getting worse than they have to.

Allison Hargreeves as Maureen Johnson.

Allison Hargreeves is a performer. Forever passing from one whim to the next until she met consequences, and then it made her think. She loves her family, even if it’s hard and they fight, she’ll come back, and when the need arises, she’ll protect and care for them. She wants to do the right thing, however much some people disagree with her methods.

Luther Hargreeves as Joanne Jefferson.

There’s right, and there’s proper, and intentions mean something. For Luthor he’s the odd one out, even if he’s closer to them than Vanya. He tries to do the proper thing, he listens to their father, when his relationship with Allison falls apart he stays around. It’s not easy, but they’re his family.

Vanya Hargreeves as Benjamin Coffin III.

There had been a point where staying at home had ceased to be an option. So she didn’t. She left, and in one movement, both inexorably linked herself to the others, and distances herself. Sometimes what she did makes it harder for them, and sometimes they don’t notice. Years later she comes back, with something that’s not quite good intentions, and the others are suspicious, and distrustful.

[anthonybialy]

Nope and Change

Remember Barack Obama doing a bad job? I'm sorry for ruining nostalgia. But it's important to note looking back is sometimes only comfortable for not having to endure it anymore. You can still think of contempt in the present tense if you'd like to remember how horrifying the bad old days were.

Adoring someone instead of noticing what a putz he was is supposed to make today's authority adulation even more embarrassing by comparison, so at least it's nice to have a benchmark.

Remembering the previous administration was awful with a different tone is the only comfort during a rather crude era. Sure, we still endure daily nightmares under a weak strongman, but they're of a somewhat different kind, and the variety of irritation keeps life spicy. We're enduring a different style of paternalistic groupthink. I'm still unsure if brutish chirping is more reassuring than creepy statist platitudes. Donald Trump is somewhat more honest about wanting you to worship him, although trusting any politician is as foolish as buying a timeshare while selling in a pyramid scheme.

Deep into the presidency you still can't believe is happening, the most satisfying aspect for a certain percentage of voters is the comfort of finally getting to join a cult. Your last autonomous act may have been backing a president who does the thinking for you. Or, you can realize that anyone who sucks up enough to win an election shows that narcissism and intelligence don't necessarily overlap.

I don’t particularly care for the incumbent, either. It's truly bipartisan to realize all politicians are trash piles and just particularly so at present. Focus on how each of these thieving monsters give trash fires a bad name and you'll be far less likely to hand over decisions and cash.

Remember how Trump halted New East Germany from becoming our alt-history reality? Pretending he's saving us from sharia socialism isn't just a fun way to distract from a lack of accomplishments. A placeholder who didn't think far ahead enough to scheme happened to be the other option when the alternative went full Sandinista.

Not being a lunatic Democrat is Trump’s best quality. His accomplishments still fall in the category of somehow not being the worst option. But you should definitely act like he saved America from the commies just like only one person can take credit for elbow room on Atlantic City's boardwalk.

Blessed are those who hate every politician, for they shall inherit the debt. The blessedly cynical are just irked at ceaseless infiltration, in part because they'll be billed for the mandated profligacy of both impossibly stupid parties. Politics is now a contest between two worshipers of federal power who each claim they're more efficient at managing Godzilla. Both are wrong, of course, but at least there's no conservative option.

Those who've been unhappy as long as there is a party in control are subversive lunatics. Limited-government insurgents react dangerously by sighing, perhaps with an eye roll if particularly irritated by a straw ban or sodie pop tax. Exasperated tweets are not the outcome I was told to expect.

Dissidents were supposed to rage out over not getting what was wanted. Those who just want the freaking government to obey the Constitution instead of spending a trillion dollars more per year than the astounding fortune they confiscate also aren't drawn to politics, which makes stopping the cash conflagration challenging.

Remember the halcyon era when people who attended Tea Parties were called racist mobs? People who dared note government acts as unconstitutionally as it does uselessly were demonized as un-American, somehow. Pretend that everyone wants to mooch just like Elizabeth Warren.

Wholly rational zealots who struggle to imagine their preferred political outcomes never happening are really pleasant to debate. Meddlers have caused thorough poverty and utter misery every time they barge in and impose their daft concepts for organizing society. The tantrums when they blessedly don’t get it are less fun than expected. You'd think the way their preferred goals have to be forced would serve as a sign that maybe they're not palatable.

Open-minded Obama minions oh so tolerantly decided that everyone who disagrees is a plastic bag-using neo-Hitler. Life is going to be ruined if their astoundingly crummy policies aren't implemented right this second. You'd think continually spiraling entitlements might bring them joy.

Government's growth sort-of being slowed is tempered by how we still get insane spending for nothing. You can't decline the purchase. Also, the bravest establishment-fighting outsider ever is too craven to note Social Security is about to bankrupt whippersnappers all so fogeys' pittances continue uninterrupted.

Circumstances are slightly better if you like a slight reduction in getting ripped off legally. Or, they're possibly worse, as the party that's ostensibly in favor of limiting hassling is now inexorably linked to a Napoleonic buffoon using his term to further a delusional case that he's the most successful man to ever grace our loser planet. Acting like joining one henchmen faction is better because of Supreme Court justices isn't going to make any branch as irrelevant as deserved.

[somniumtown-blog]

A Tale of Two Lesbians: The night.

For Barbara, it wasn’t the lack of sleep itself, the fatigue that grasped her mind, the ethereal fingers that killed her thought process, the muscles sluggish the heavy eyes… it was the tortuous passage of time. It was to feel every single second weighting upon her mind, the ceiling unmoving, the consciousness stretching to the point of turning every single minute into an eternity…

 And worse of all, the threat of stretching her misery to her wife.

 Every lil movement, every lil twist and turn felt like stepping on a landmine. Barbara could bear with her inability to sleep, but to wake up her wife? No, her misery was hers to bear and hers alone. Hers would be the sounds of the wind seeping through the window, hers would be the long hours till the sun rose. To move felt like dragging a sac of bells through a briar patch, with all those quills, Barbara had to slither upwards, in order to not tear the poor innocent mattress, then roll to the side carefully not to brush not even one of those scales. Even if her quills were carefully trimmed, even if she wore clothes and gowns that would pull them down and flatten them against her body, there was always the risk Barbara would end up plunging one of them into something. And while Regina was covered from head to toe in those chitinous scales, they weren’t exactly unfeeling and could still register touch, just like a nail. So off the bed Barbara went, biting her lower lip as her feet violently clashed against the carpeted floor to… nothing. Padded feet with socks and carpet mixed very well, but in the dead of the night exploded with fireworks and sirens. Especially for ears filled with the panic and dread of the long hours ahead, every sound, even the muffled ones, were a threat. Nothing, Regina still sleeped turned on her side, curled halfway into a ball as usual.

 Slowly, step after step, Barbara left the living room on the first floor of their quaint lil house. With the gentle closing of the door, the porcupine left a last sigh of envy and sorrow at her better half. Regina had no problems with sleep, no need for specific wardrobe, and not fake notions attached to her species.

 But those were ideas to ponder another time. Now came the inexorable fight against time. With nothing more than a long button shirt, Barbara walked down the stairs, ending in the small living room. The place where she passed through so many times per day suddenly grew in meaning and details. It wasn’t just the spot that linked the whole small house like a heart. With the insomnia, suddenly the walls were full of small smears and dots, spots where a hand or foot nonchalantly pressed, or the lines made when they moved the living room table that stood next to the corner, surrounded by . Nothing that required another coat of paint but…

 But the living room wasn’t her goal, no. It was just a quaint lil house in the suburbs from where Barbara could take the bus every day to reach all the people who requested her services and… and that would find her wanting this morning. Sluggish, the calculations in her brain being slowed down by the deficit of sleep, and an accountant that couldn’t count was just a waste of breath, wasn’t she? Anyone could pick up a calculat-

 And she felt her thoughts drifting again towards work, and it would make her nervous, and it would make her situation worse in a vicious cycle that she knew so well. Again and again and again. She even knew that, from her realizing this would be a sleepless night to this moment, at most twenty minutes had passed. The clock was a trap, it would tell her how much she was failing, for how long. It would tell her sweet lies like ‘your time is running out’ to ‘you have enough time to go back to bed’. No, clocks should be avoided at all costs… she suffered enough with them already. So when the porcupine stepped into the kitchen for a glass of water, it felt like entering Mordor under the scrutiny of the all-seeing eye. Just like everything in that house, the kitchen was utilitarian, instead of flashy. She wouldn’t turn on the lights, the clock was there over the wall and it didn’t need to be seen. Yes, her night vision would suffice, Barbara said to herself while drinking some water. Outside, nothing except darkness and the moon. If the neighborhood was safer, perhaps she’d even risk a night stroll, but now… not even her backyard. Not under the possible gaze of the neighbours who could be just as awake as she was. Or were they just sleeping?

 Her mind, so calm, so analytical starts to crumble every second that passes, she hears the tick of the clock, judging her, speaking of her failure to sleep… and thus forcing her out of the kitchen. Tap tap tap tap, feet enclosed by socks, the dull thuds reverberating inside her head, steps that, in her night paranoia, would wake up Regina.

 The living room was the only shelter. A laptop over the table, a set of headphones and the sequence of crappy shows and timewaster movies descends before her eyes. The first hours are filled with meaningless things, she cannot laugh from comedies, she cannot cry with the dramas… at least not too loud, and the energy was being sapped with every single second. Yes, this is bearable, finally she feels the time passing, minutes instead of seconds, half hour after half hour…

 The chirp of the birds bring her from that cozy world, announcing her failure. Even through the headphones, alongside the light that gently pours through the windows. The skies have lightly been tinted with blue, the stars start to fade. To avoid it, Barbara stands up and closes all the curtains, before hopping on her side. How would she explain her sleepless night to Regina? She’d worry, she’d ask if the porcupine was alright… all the sounds of her waking up, the heavier steps of her wife moving from the bed on the above floor… Any time now. It should be 6am, with the light outside, the birds chirping. The clock. To not see it, Barbara closed the laptop and removed the earbuds… And rests her head on the arm of the couch. She failed again, she’d suffer again another week of constant insomnia, of misery… anytime now Regina would wake up…

The smell of brunch woke her up, and for a second she felt that the world was unchanged. The curtains were still closed, the laptop was still in front of her, the headphones still hanging. But the air was warmer… noon probably. Also she had been covered by a sheet. And a towel over her eyes.

 Despair does many things to many minds, even the toughest one succumbing, imagining things. Her insomnia would always haunt her from time to time, destroying her nights and days. But unlike what her mind said, Regina would be there to understand, and cover her eyes, and let her rest, and receive her with a platter of warm food after she stood up.

[junker-town]

Tracking every NFL GM and head coaching change

Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Here’s everyone who’s been hired so far.

Teams are wasting no time filling vacant positions ahead of the Super Bowl. Unlike past years we don’t have teams waiting until the season is completely over to bring in new blood, moving quickly to fill vacant spots — without the need to delay their hiring process while coveted coordinators wrap things up.

The flurry of hirings is easy to lose track of who’s gone, who’s been hired, and who is still left available. So let’s take a look at every opening, and every hiring in the NFL so far.

Head Coach hirings

Atlanta Falcons

No hire at this time.

Outgoing: Dan Quinn Quinn was responsible for some of Atlanta’s highest highs, but also their lowest lows. His lack of consistency was hurting the team, requiring a chance.

Detroit Lions

No hire at this time.

Outgoing: Matt Patricia Patricia inherited the team and progressively made the Lions worse. The defense-minded coach didn’t help in any particular area, ensuring the team remained mired in mediocrity.

Houston Texans

No hire at this time.

Outgoing: Bill O’Brien O’Brien is hugely responsible for the mess the team is in now. He traded away DeAndre Hopkins in the offseason, which was the nail in the coffin for this team. They never stood a chance in 2020, and now have to deal with his decisions (and trying to keep DeShaun Watson happy).

Jacksonville Jaguars

Urban Meyer

The Jaguars were linked to a Urban Meyer for a long time, with many believing the former Ohio State head coach would not return to football. However, after a several week process the Jaguars announced that Meyer agreed to come to the NFL for the first time, and believe he’s the right man to use their eventual pick of Trevor Lawrence, and lead the team to success.

Outgoing: Doug Marrone Marrone inherited the team from Gus Bradley, and was only marginally better. While he did manage to move the team on from the disastrous pick of Blake Bortles, he didn’t make the team better from there.

Los Angeles Chargers

No hire at this time.

Outgoing: Anthony Lynn. Lynn was one of the more surprising firings this offseason. The Chargers were headed in the right direction, they had the QB they need for the future, so it’s hard to see how the team will do any better.

New York Jets

Robert Saleh

The Jets decided to move on from the offensive-minded Adam Gase, and switch to defense with the hiring of Robert Saleh. Saleh was responsible for the mammoth defensive overhaul of the 49ers, which turned them into the NFL’s best defense in 2019, taking San Francisco to the Super Bowl.

Outgoing: Adam Gase Adam Gase is terrible.

Philadelphia Eagles

No hire at this time.

Outgoing: Doug Pederson The firing of Doug Pederson is a risky decision that puts the blame for the Eagles’ recent failings on the coach alone, and not the rest of the front office. The only way to learn whether that was true is time, but the most-successful coach in recent Philadelphia history is a tough act to follow.

General Manager hirings

Carolina Panthers

Scott Fitterer

The Carolina Panthers decided to move on from long-time general manager Marty Hurney, who was a guy who liked to have a “feel” for players. Now they are moving more analytically, hiring Fitterer, who served as co-assistant GM under John Schneider in Seattle.

Outgoing: Marty Hurney Hurney was the on-agin, off-again GM that did a decent job moving the team on from Dave Gettleman, Hurney’s way of thinking was too old for the NFL.

Denver Broncos

George Paton

The Broncos opted for upside in hiring George Paton, who has been in NFL circles since 1997. Most recently he was integral in the Minnesota Vikings organization, credited with being responsible for some of the best draft classes in franchise history.

Outgoing: John Elway Elway remains with the organization in an executive role, but is stepping aside as GM to bring in some new blood. This was unquestionably the right decision, and while No. 7 is beloved, time had come for a change.

Detroit Lions

Brad Holmes

The Lions are taking a risky approach for their front office, choosing to hire Holmes who has never had a high-level position in an organization. However, that doesn’t make it a bad hire. He’s been the director of college scouting for the Los Angeles Rams since 2013, and helped bring superstars like Aaron Donald to the team.

Outgoing: Bob Quinn. Part of the Patriots’ brain trust that built New England’s dynasty, Quinn came in along with Patricia and didn’t make the team better as a result. Changing Patricia necessitated cleaning house.

Houston Texans

No hire at this time.

Outgoing: Bill O’Brien. O’Brien was not a good coach, and an even worse executive. The two sides were inexorably linked, requiring the change.

Jacksonville Jaguars

No hire at this time.

Outgoing: David Caldwell. Caldwell remained from the end of the Bradley era, through Doug Marrone’s — and his tenure was marred with bad draft picks, and failed opportunities. Keeping him would not have allowed this team to progress, especially when needing to surround Trevor Lawrence with more talent,