#twst ch7

[whitenoface]

Just to recap Lilia’s absolute love for his children:

Dragon eggs can’t hatch without “true love” aka “parental love.” Lilia believed he wasn’t capable of having those emotions, therefore he could not hatch Malleus’s egg if both of his parents died. And yet, and yet, Malleus hatched under the love and care of Lilia.

Lilia learned to love with Malleus (or a better way to say this, learned that he could love with Malleus)

Lilia sings Mallenore’s (Malleus’s mother) lullaby to Malleus often as a child

Silver was put under a spell by the fairies to sleep until the war was over. He could only be woken up by someone who truly loved him. Lilia finds him sleeping as a baby, still under the spell. Guess who wakes up?

Lilia upon meeting baby Silver, talks gently to Silver and says he looks a lot like Malleus when he was a baby. Lilia sings Mallenore’s lullaby to Silver too

He blesses Silver to be blessed by the night. He names him Silver because Silver radiates light, and “like the moon that lights the dark sky, Silver will light the dark path.”

Lilia does everything to learn how to raise a human, including buying baby formula/milk powder. He sings him to sleep.

Child Silver gives Lilia an acorn bracelet so that he can live a long time. Lilia responds, “…I feel I can live another thousand years with this bracelet.”

[yuanw3i]

stories from the valley ⚔️⚡️🐉

[ruler-of-thorns]

My son//my father

[serenescribe]

thank you @oddberryshortcake for letting me write something based on this absolutely heart-wrenching post! i am in shambles from the newest update. spoilers ahead.

“Silver,” Lilia whispers, in a voice that breaks as it spills past his cracked lips.

Lilia pays no attention to the way his knees ache, kneeling for as long as he has been, the thin fabric of his stockings rubbing raw patches into his flesh. Nor does he focus on any of the other ailments afflicting him — the blanket of fatigued exhaustion weighing down his shoulders, the throbbing agony pulsating through his head, the scratchy dryness itching up the inside of his throat. The only thing he has eyes for is his son: Silver, who lays in his arms, cradled close to Lilia’s body, his head lolling against Lilia’s chest.

Silver’s eyes remain firmly shut. He is still asleep.

Oh, Lilia’s heart crumbles with each ticking second, eyes fixated upon the slow rise and fall of Silver’s chest. He is not dead — Not yet, a terrible, pesky part of Lilia’s mind, words uttered from the lips of a disillusioned general, tells him, to which Lilia bats away, trying to ignore the thought. The sight of his breathing should fill Lilia with relief because it means Silver is still alive.

And yet, Lilia can only hang his head over Silver’s body, cradling him even closer, arms wrapped protectively around the body of his son, his child.

“Wake up, Silver,” Lilia murmurs into his ear. He blinks, eyes wet and heavy, feels something sliding down his cheek — a single solitary tear, but not alone for long. Wet droplets land on Silver’s body, sinking into the fabric of his shirt. How long has it been since Lilia cried like this? He cannot remember. Seven hundred years spent alive does that to someone — it numbs their heart, dries their tears, makes it nigh impossible to cry, especially when so much of their past is occupied by something as numbing as the wretched consequences of wars long fought.

Silver still does not stir.

Distantly, Lilia notices the faint tracks marring his cheeks, echoes of tears long since shed. He reaches for it with a thumb, swiping at the dried stains, as though wiping it away could erase all of the pain Silver must have gone through in his dream. He knows enough of what happened, knows of it from what the others has told him, and it makes his heart shatter — the thought that Silver had nearly succumbed to his own blot, all because he found out his past, a past Lilia tried to hide for fear of Silver being judged for the sins of his fathers, breaks something nestled deep inside of his chest.

Lilia closes his eyes. “I love you,” he breathes, words he has been so terrified of saying all these years. He does love Silver, truly — but to utter those three words, the words a young Silver have always said to him so freely with that beaming smile spreading across his chubby child cheeks… For years, Lilia has evaded ever speaking them into reality, to return the obvious affection of his son instead of laughing it off and saying “I know.”

And as a consequence of that, Lilia is now far too late.

He knows he is not alone in this room. He can hear things — conversations that swirl together, hushed murmurs, snatches of his name and Silver’s own, footsteps and doors creaking open and shut. He can see things — in his peripheral vision mainly, shadows that approach and depart, the occasional sight of footsteps slipping into view. He can feel things — a hand coming to rest on his shoulder, fingers reaching out to stroke Silver, all touches that Lilia shrinks away from, pulls Silver away from. Because as far as his addled mind is concerned, the only thing he can process right now is him and his son.

A memory haunts him: He is a few years younger, finding Silver for the first time. He uses his magic to explore his memories, discovers the identity of the child in the cradle, and finds out that he is the spawn of his enemies. And yet, all Lilia can focus on is the knowledge that Silver was fated to slumber until his true love woke him up, an unending rest only broken when Lilia stumbled upon him.

He is Silver’s true love, and Silver is his.

“Silver,” Lilia tries again, his voice cracking into splinters as he forces his name past his lips. “I love you. Wake up.”

Silver is his, isn’t he? Just as he is Silver’s — an absolute truth that Lilia turned a blind eye to for years, too scared to reciprocate the emotions swirling about his soul in full force, to unleash the depths of his love for his dear son. If Silver could wake from the throes of a sleep that had addled him for four hundred years all because of Lilia’s love for him, a love he had not realised the extent of when he found Silver for the first time, then surely he can do the same now, right?

Surely Lilia’s love for him, a love he knows now to show freely in the way he hugs him close, presses kisses against his forehead, will be enough to wake him… right?

So why is he not waking?

Why is he still asleep?

Is his love not enough? That cannot be the case. Lilia loves Silver — with all his heart, with all his soul; they have been bonded since the moment Silver was born, the invisible strings of fate entangling the two of them together before either of them knew it. Lilia is the key to Silver’s lock, his very presence opening the boy’s heart, dispelling the effects of a curse that has kept him in stasis for four long centuries. His only mistake was not showing his affections sooner, of keeping his heart carefully guarded until it was far too late.

So why then?

Why won’t Silver wake up?

[deluxe-rabbitsu]

Little egg Malleus...i liked the fact that Yuu had a chance to interact with the egg, it was so adorable 😭💕

I have to really wonder how heavy that egg could be? Also the shell of the egg is so pretty 🦎

[mister-mizu]

malleus draconia, as drawn by my finger on my computer mousepad

[violetlunette]

TwstOber Day 13: Truth

Just realized I should hide for Spoiler reasons! ^^;

Twst Spoilers for Chapter 7 below!

Malleus doubled over as he clutched his chest where his heart lay in jagged, broken pieces.

“How…” ‘How could this be?!’ He couldn’t believe it. He didn’t WANT to believe it.

But whether or not he believed it, the truth was still there.

Silver, the boy Malleus raised along Lilia. The one to whom the Prince taught magic, spent every birthday with, who became his knight so he could protect him, the human child he loved—was the son of the man who killed his mother.

Malleus gritted his fangs together as blot flared within him like the flames of a dragon.

‘All this time, Lilia knew?’

Lilia, the man who had been the friend of his parents and the general of Briar Valley, who hatched Malleus, knew this whole time?

Did the fae really know that Silver was the son of the man who killed his mother before he was hatched? That Silver carried the blood of those who stole and destroyed their land? And yet he still took the human child in? More than that, he had the gall to have Malleus babysit him on several? Let the human become his retainer? Let the two love each other as family?

Malleus’ claws tore into his face, which contorted in agony as if to rip the skin off him.

How dare he? How dare--

Tears of black ink rolled down Malleus’ face. His teeth sank into his lips till he drew blood as his throat burned with the urge to scream, to cry out. But he didn’t. Rather, he swallowed his rage and it settled in his chest.

There, it became a fire that burned away all the love he once had for the human child he raised and the fae who raised him, turning it all into sorrow and hate.

“I will never forgive you,” he stated into the clouds of the dream, words hollow with the bitter truth. “Never.”

[memoryoflife]

i wholeheartedly believe meleanor would smite down the senate if she were still alive ⚡️⚡️⚡️

[liviavanrouge]

Haunted Doll(A bit of Livia and Silver spoilers)

Livia is a Haunted Doll. She's dead.

Let's just start it off with that. Livia is dead and she's a haunted doll made by Silver and Livia is gonna be gone by the end of chapter 7 but be brought back in her original human body.

--

Livia died when she was 10 years old, getting petrified by a Basilisk rock and turned to stone, then somehow her body was knocked over and broken into pieces. Silver, unable to cope with his sister being gone, actually makes a daring and dangerous choice and brings her back using a training dummy. Since then, he's been keeping an eye on her and being protective.

--

Throughout the chapters there have been hints towards Livia being dead. Livia even stated once that she feels dead inside, which nobody really picked up on the meaning of. The second time she's hinted at her being dead is at the beginning of Chapter 7 where Livia states that Ollie shouldn't go around touching rocks without caution, unless she wishes to be dead inside like her.

Silver even makes an ominous comment about Livia, stating that she's unable to 'control' when she's mad, and that she only listens to him.

This states that Silver has COMPLETE control over Livia. Her thoughts, what she does, where she goes, how she acts. He has complete control over her. That is until Epel starts making her act rebellious against her brother, causing him to loose a degree of control over his sister and making it dangerous for people to be around her.

Lilia also often encourages Livia's rebellious behavior, shocking Silver since the fae had been the one to warn him about keeping Livia controlled and well mannered.

A lesson is about to be taught using Livia, even though it'd be a harsh one.

--

In Chapter 7, a glimpse of Livia evil side was shown after she escaped, and when she sent a dream message to the ramshackle group, Silver and Sebek before she takes off to fight Malleus as Ogre.

Silver knows.

He knows his sister is gonna die..

He hasn't gotten to repair Livia's body to make sure she's able to function properly.

Livia is gone.

He has to accept that

Now is gonna be his time to let go and let her leave

But, a bit of spoilers here..

That is NOT happening on Meleanors watch..

[whitenoface]

how do i go to sleep knowing silver's trapped in his nightmare thinking he doesn't deserve to live and be loved???

[person8789]

I am having SUCH A TIME with the new chapter 7 update pls I am going insane send post

[ruler-of-thorns]

Company of ghosts

[serenescribe]

pénthos Twisted Wonderland | 2.2k Summary: Silver is dead, and everything is wrong. AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52165603 TW: Major character death, heavy angst

I wrote this a few days ago while trying to process my complex feelings about death and life continuing on, mainly due to the sudden decline in health of one of my family's dear pet cats. It is, in essence, a vent fic; it deals with a lot of grief and hurt.

Nevertheless, writing is still a form of expression, and I hope that someone can find some meaning in this, in spite of the heavy content.

The cottage door opens with a long, drawn out creeeaaak.

He covers his nose and mouth with a hand as he steps inside, eyes squinting against the deluge of dust and musty air that permeates the inside of the house. For a moment, Lilia lingers there, standing stock-still in the doorway, his other hand still wrapped around the handle of the door. His grip tightens the slightest bit, the movement imperceptible, matching the way his heart is squeezed within his chest — a scarcely noticeable gesture to match such inner, invisible pain.

With deliberate effort, Lilia forces his hands to drop to his sides.

He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes.

And then he dives in.

A home is a place, everyone says. That is the textbook definition of what it is — a place where one lives permanently, especially as a family member, or as a member of a household. This cottage is a home, has been a home for all these many years spent deep in the woods of the valley. It was once decrepit, abandoned, falling to pieces, but Lilia had restored it for the purpose of creating a home.

A home for two — for him, and for his son.

His steps are slow, soles practically dragging against the dirt-stained floor. Despite the way the stale air makes him cough, with barely any fresh oxygen in this musty household to revitalise his soul, Lilia leaves it as it is; it is far more fitting this way, than to push open the windows and allow sweeping gusts of forest air to burst inside, washing the living room alight with life.

The decrepit atmosphere matches his mood, the emotions clawing inside his chest, tearing into him from the inside out. There is no point bringing life into a home, when to him, it does not feel like one anymore.

And with that thought, that realisation, Lilia stills. He blinks, and for a moment, it feels as though something indescribable has overcome him — an emotion so peculiar, so powerful, eating at the hollow abyss that has festered within his chest ever since it happened. His shoulders stiffen, teeth snagging against his lower lips. He raises his head, pulling his eyes away from moth-bitten curtains and dust-smeared windows to glance around instead.

Lilia looks at the frames on the wall, housing paintings and photographs within them — an oil painting of him, hair streaked fuchsia yet still draping over his shoulder in long locks, a slumbering toddler seated on his lap; smaller colleges of him years later, laughing in black-and-green uniforms with a boy who towers over him; and scribbly doodles on yellowing paper that tears at the edges, crayon scribbles of stickmen, with wobbling words that read: “Papa and me.”

The claws of fate snatch at his chest, and strangle his heart.

Pressure builds behind his eyes, something wet pricking at the edges. Before he even knows it, Lilia is pressing a hand against the framed drawing, tracing the amateurish yet loving strokes, a lump forming in his throat to choke him until he collapses into the black.

From the very moment he found a crying bundle in a castle of thorns, he has known one singular truth: Lilia has never intended to live longer than the son he shall raise.

Even all the way back then, as he used magic to bless the baby, watching sunlight-spun hair turn to streaks of silvery moonlight, Lilia has always known that his end was near. His only mistake was assuming he had more time than he actually did; if he were truly aware of how meagre his magic reserves were, of how he would run out before Silver even reached the threshold of adult maturity, he would have taken careful steps to preserve it longer.

But Lilia has always known he would not outlive his son. For all his human mortality, Silver was young, and Lilia was old; death has always followed him in his shadows, stalking him with each ticking year, looming like an inevitability that would one day swallow him up.

And yet, the fates had been cruel. Far, far too cruel.

Everywhere he steps in the cottage, Lilia sees him.

He lingers in the bookshelves, from the picture books to survival guides and training manuals. He is there in the wood-carved critters, from amateurish carvings of a bird to much more detailed squirrels and bunnies, that gather dust along the shelves, keeping the neglected books company. A candle, half-burnt, the wax melted a significant amount, sits on the square table they take their meals at; it would always be lit by a smiling son, who started with matches and ended with flickers of budding fire magic.

He haunts the creaking steps and groaning floorboards, the hinges that squeal as Lilia pushes into room after room. He stiffens with each sound, whisked back to years of the past; suddenly, he is playing hide and seek again, and he expects to hear a squeal or a giggle as he calls out a playful warning; “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” When Lilia steps into the bathroom, he spots the laundry basket that the giggling boy used to sit in, when he was tiny enough to hide inside and pull the lid over his head, unable to stop his laughter from squeaking out as Lilia entered and feigned ignorance about his obvious whereabouts.

He lives on in the withering potted plants and the bird houses hanging from the outside of the windows, still visible even through dirtied glass. Signs of life taken care of, from the flora which flourished under his care, lapping up water poured from a little cup and blooming with ample sunlight, left in the view of the shining sun, to the birds and squirrels who would clamber up swinging feeders, chirping and chittering as they tucked into meals of nuts and berries, a veritable feast gathered by a young boy who simply loved the world.

The hollow ache in his chest never dissipates. It only grows and grows, consuming his heart.

Lilia feels something streak down his cheek, and absentmindedly wipes it away.

Silver’s room is untouched by time.

Everything is just as he left it, coated with thin layers of dust. His bed is made, quilted duvet folded and spread over it neatly, his pillow fluffed up at the headrest. His tables are cluttered with a few trinkets, and his training sword, wrought from wood with some metal to emulate weight, leans against the wall. Books line his shelves, next to gifts received from his years of schooling — clocks received as gifts from hometown travels, a little jewellery case that gleams with far too many expensive jewels, and a memory album received in his final year. Lonely clothes hang within the wardrobe, limp and sad without their owner to adorn; he swallows a lump in his throat at the sight of a silly hat tucked away within an inner drawer, thinking back to the silly smile his son adorned when he wore it for the first time.

The weak rays of a setting sun streak into the room. Dust dances in the air.

Lilia stands in the middle of the room, and stares.

Slowly, he moves to the bed. The mattress dips under his weight, and he spreads a hand against the patchwork quilt beneath. Lilia can remember every little patch of fabric and their origins; against the logic that barely stands out in his tumultuous, aching mind, he summons what little bits of magic he has left, closing his eyes as he casts—

“Far Cry Cradle.”

Silver is young, and Lilia is younger than he is now, new to fatherhood with little idea of what to do. Silver outgrows his clothes at a rapid pace, faster than Lilia expects — how peculiar it is, the way the little human baby seems to grow in the blink of an eye!

The clothes pile up, again and again and again. Silver is older, tottering around on two feet. He giggles at him and claps his hands together, babbling at him over and over.

Lilia has always held a weapon in his hands. The calluses marring his flesh is proof of that. The needle he picks up feels pathetically small in comparison, thread looped through the little ring on the end. Silver slumbers in the cot nearby. A pair of scissors rest on the table to his side, along with a mountain of tiny patches of fabric.

A patchwork quilt. Baul told him about it, when Lilia visited him and his daughter and her family, and had grown interested in the colourful blanket folded across her child’s bed. “She sews one for everyone in the family,” Baul tells him, his voice gruff, though pride and affection underlines it deep within. “It’s her way of showing her love.”

So he tries. He uses Silver’s old clothes, before he moves on to his own, and then he moves on to anything else he can get. Silver grows as new squares are added, his stitching clumsy before it slowly straightens out over the slowing movement of time.

By the time he is six, Lilia wraps him in a thick, snug blanket, heart soaring at the way the young child beams at him, flashing him a toothy grin.

“I love you, Papa!”

Silver is dead, and everything is wrong.

“The worst thing about loving humans,” Baul’s daughter said to him once, when he’d visited in a panic over Silver growing sickly and ill, “is that they don’t live long.” At the time, she had fed the baby some medicine, mixing herbal remedies with some warm milk before feeding him with a bottle, and when she and Lilia began to converse, she had been rocking the slumbering baby in her arms.

Her eyes had grown distant as she glanced down at Silver, before raising her head. Their eyes met; “The knowledge that you will outlive them won’t ever go away,” she told him, her voice tinged with a miserable acceptance. A sad smile graced her lips, scales across her face shifting with her emotions. “I will someday have to bury my own husband, and perhaps even my own children. And yet, that is the risk I have taken, to love who I love, and to raise those who are mine.”

“I do not know if I will outlive Silver,” Lilia had confessed. He drummed his fingers against the arm of his chair, eyes floating down to the slumbering baby cradled in her arms. “I’m not sure how much Baul told you about me, but I am rather old, as it stands. And it isn’t just an issue of age,” he added. “I… greatly overworked myself during the days of war. Magic is what makes us who we are, after all — and how much longer can a fae live without their magic?”

There had been a pause, a comfortable silence filling the air. And then Silver had hiccupped noisily, eyes squinting open the slightest bit. He babbled, hands raising weakly, and Baul’s daughter had smiled at Lilia, reaching forward to pass him the little bundle of life. “You never know what may happen, Lilia,” she said, as Lilia took Silver into his arms, the baby breaking into a toothless smile. “Lifespan is one thing. Have you ever considered how much more fragile humans are?”

“Of course I have,” Lilia answered as he rocked Silver back and forth, heart bursting with such melting warmth. “Who do you take me for?”

And that was precisely why he decided, there and then, that he would raise Silver to be the strongest human that ever was. To live long, to live forever, to live past Lilia, and thrive through the rest of his life.

“I’m sorry,” he breathes, fingers clenching tight around the quilt. He hangs his head, the tears finally flooding forth, pouring down his face as he gasps for breath. “Silver, I’m sorry—”

But the only thing left for him is the ghost of a home, an empty cottage ladened with dust.

Even as Lilia wraps the patchwork quilt around him with trembling hands, burying his nose into the fabric in hopes of drinking what little snatches of Silver there still are, he knows, deep down, that Silver is gone. A horrible reality he never hoped to pass has come true — he has outlived someone he always knew he would, no matter how hard he tried to cope, lying to himself about a shortened lifespan and dwindling magic.

Fool, he thinks to himself, squeezing his eyes shut. You absolute fool, you—

A home is not a home without the son he so truly loves. As Lilia tips backwards, collapsing into the bed, he stares at the ceiling. The little mobile with the carved animals that he made when Silver was just mere months old still hangs over the bed. Even as Silver outgrew it, he still insisted on hanging it when he upgraded from a cradle to a bed of his own.

Lilia watches as the animals drift the slightest bit — barely moving, for all intents and purposes, static.

He sucks in a deep breath, and closes his eyes.

[threadboundgold]

“The Tree On The Hill” from the Lightning Thief musical is so Malenor/Lilia/Levan coded and I’m shocked no one’s said anything abt it

[babylemonart]

Baby Malleus Doodles

[violetlunette]

Spoilers for TWST Chapter 7

So, correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like Silver’s mom abandoned him. I know the fairies told her to run, but Leah was in the same room as Silver when the attack happened. She could have run over and grabbed him, or something, so they could flee together. But instead, she just left him. This isn’t like Malenore's situation, who was going to fight the enemy to keep her son safe, Leah was fleeing for her own safety while leaving her child to the fairies. (Again, from what I understand, I’ve been wrong a lot lately.) If this is true, it’s an interesting contrast with Malleus’ parents; Leven (Reven?) “died” trying to find peace (as he was a diplomat who disappeared reaching out) and The Dawn Knight died to aid in conquest with his bastard-in-law. Malenore died to fight for her son’s life while Leah “died” fleeing for her own. Both mothers left their sons but did so for different reasons. (Not that I think Leah is a bad person, I’m just overthinking here. I’m sure she thought the fairies could protect Silver better than her.) Still, I think it's kind of interesting. I dunno, I’m rambling. Your thoughts?