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eternalstrigoii · 4 years

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Unfettered -- I

A revamp-sequel to Caged Borra (Maleficent: Mistress of Evil) x Forest Dark Fey Reader; Maleficent x Diaval; Conall x Jungle Dark Fey; General Percival x Shrike; Philip x Aurora; King John is Everyone’s Dad (reprise)

“No, no, no! Please, please, please!”

Your flesh burned. Your flesh had been burning for weeks. Your blood was like molasses baked to fired stone on the floor of your cage. The thick, iron band around your neck welled more to the surface. Your senses should have been dulled to it, but they weren’t. Iron cuffs around your wrists kept you locked in place while white-faced iron men forcibly extended your broken wings.

The pain ricocheted through you. The queen watched impassively as you screamed. One snap. Your wing muscles violently recoiled. Two snaps in a different place. No, no, no, not more breaking, they already hurt so much!

“Don’t forget the little ones.” Her voice was cold.

Tears ran down your face. Dripped to sizzle on the oven-hot floor. You couldn’t move anymore, your pain was so great. Still, they pulled your wing taut, and something was jabbed through the bars. Once. Twice. Harder. The fragile little bones between muscles and membranes broke without a sound, and you were crying. You didn’t even struggle. What could you do? Where could you go? Ingrith had you. She would kill you.

And he was right.

You awoke with a gasp, startled right out of sleep. A bonfire still roared beyond the confines of your nest, and you crawled toward it habitually.

Some part of you still expected to find your father sitting by it when you emerged, drinking herb water from stone cups long after Udo and the fledglings had gone to bed.

But you were not in the nest, or in its forest; you were on the moors, and Ini was the one awake, pouring over the roughly drawn diagrams you’d all put together during dinner. Ulstead, the Midlands, Perceforest. The end of their borders were the end of your guaranteed safety, as though your safety was guaranteed anyway.

“Where is he?” you asked, and you hated that it was the first thing out of your mouth.

“Patrolling.” She was so casual about it, as though they hadn’t tried to kill him just a handful of weeks ago. “He still doesn’t trust them.”

“He shouldn’t.”

You were trembling, not that you realized. You crawled over a log and rested your half-limp wings against it, as though the warmth of the fire would be all it took to erase the panic from your chest, the excruciating phantom pains that lingered still.

“You sleep worse than he does,” she commented, barely looking up. “And he’s been to war.”

He wasn’t tortured, you wanted to reply, but you didn’t. You had nightmares about that, too – violent nightmares where they made him watch. You knew he’d fight, you knew he’d do everything in his power to keep you safe, and that would be why they killed him in front of you – why the queen would’ve had you unbound so you could hold him in your arms while he choked on his own blood with an iron bolt in his heart.

Oh, skies, you shook. Now the tears were inevitable. You were like a child, waking up sobbing at the first thought of violence against you – as though it could be undone.

Papers rustled as Ini put them aside, tucked carefully away from the fire. She came to join you, wrapped her arms and her wings around you. “Oh, Cassia…”

“I need him,” you whispered, and for once, it wasn’t Borra in your thoughts. You needed Conall to guide you. To be there, to soothe you, to press his head with yours and smile softly and sing to you like your mother had when she was alive and the sob that ripped out of you was guttural and wild and it made Ini press you close against her like a child, her palm flat against your cheek as she rocked you, tucked close into her side.

What’s the matter? Papa didn’t kiss it better? Your brother used to sneer when your emotions overtook you, and your father never hesitated to sweep in, gather you on his hip and remove you from the situation completely. I would rather you know you can depend on me than let you struggle when you shouldn’t.

He had been so close to you when he died. Nearly there. Over the trees and across the river. You never wanted them to find you, they would’ve been killed, but that didn’t ease your pain when you thought about how close to him you were – how nearly you’d been able to see him, see them both. Tell them goodbye.

“He was looking for you,” Ini murmured into your hair, “the night she plunged into the sea. He never stopped looking for you, Cas. Neither did Borra.”

That was exactly what shouldn’t have been said. You screamed into your forearms like a fresh-set scab had been ripped off an infected wound. You hadn’t done much crying in Ulstead. Now, free of suspicion, home with your family where you belonged, grief consumed you.

So close and so far and so near but no longer.

Your crying woke Shrike. You heard her grumble, her nest rustle. She padded out to join you both near the fire, put her strong wings around you. “Calm.” She rubbed firm circles into your back. “What is it, another nightmare?”

“Another memory,” Ini replied, squeezing your arms. “It’s hard not to have Conall to turn to when we need him.”

You never thought anything could be worse than the queen’s guard snapping your hollow bones again and again. Not the pain in your immobile wings afterward, the pieces of bone embedded in your muscle, the severed tendons poorly healed, or the fact that you could no longer fly on your own.

But awakening with the child version of you still alive and seeking the comfort of your now-dead father, that was worse.

That was so much worse.

You wished you’d died there, in the castle. You wished the only thing that had been left for them to find was your body, if Ingrith hadn’t destroyed it first. They broke you so thoroughly that you would never be repaired and that still hadn’t been enough, and you wished that if they hadn’t, that you had been able to die fighting.

Grief consumed you.

Shrike had plumage like your mother. Tired as she was, grumpy as she could be, she was the one who took you back to bed and laid down beside you. She folded you in her wings, drew yours close to you, and groomed spots of them gently.

“There’s snow in the mountains,” she sang to you in her rough, pleasant voice, though you never thought any of you would remember these songs or their words. Not after years of waiting for war, burying the peace of your childhood under preparation. “High up in the mountains, there’s snow in the mountains and rain down below. We’ll go to the mountains, high up in the mountains, we’ll go to the mountains and I’ll show you the snow.”

You missed them.

You missed your mother. Your father, most of all. Your brother, killed in battle (you were told after you’d recovered enough to handle the news, which you still hadn’t handled). You missed the child version of yourself, how sure she was that her freedom was a good thing – if you were bound to nothing, nothing would ever be lost.

You cried until you slept.

The clash and clang of armor did nothing but rattle your nerves. Skies and stars, Borra was ferocious. He showed no mercy to the king’s-men-in-training who’d arrived to serve on the royal guard; it was as much his training with bronze armor as it was theirs, not that it evened his advantage. Philip was just as easily overwhelmed, though you could see the intent in his face – the desire to prove his strength to a man he hardly knew.

King John took his breakfast with you, on the balcony just outside the dining hall, where you could overlook where they staged battle in one of the enclosed courtyards. Your herb water – tea – remained untouched despite your request for it.

“Here,” he placed a buttered roll on a wooden plate and passed it toward you. “Take some of the jam. It’s fig!”

You were tired and your head throbbed from your eyes to your forehead, but you smiled at the old man. “Thank you.”

“How are you feeling?” the once and maybe still-ruling king could be socially tone deaf, but he did his best not to tread too harshly on your unhealed wounds. So to speak.

You lifted your wings. They did that much for you now, but they didn’t fold properly. One of them barely folded at all after having been spread to let the bones set. “They’re half immobile, but they’ll do.” The violation of your soul remained unhealed.

“I’ve sought reparations on your behalf, you know.” His attention wasn’t even on them anymore. He had single-minded focus as he set another pastry – this one filled with fresh blueberries and drizzled with still-warm cream, something you couldn’t resist even if you wanted to – onto your plate. You took it from him, and took a large bite while he spoke. “That little creature in the sewers—”

“Lickspittle,” you clarified. “The pixie-made-gnome.” You knew nothing of their culture, but the intimacy of having your wings removed and being forced into servitude didn’t fail you. “Ingrith stole his wings, also.”

He wasn’t expecting you to be as empathetic as you were. You were no fool, you knew the woman hadn’t forced his hand in the atrocities he’d taken part in, but you still had to bite back tears at the recollection of someone’s hand on your face, lifting your head when you were too weak to do it yourself. Water at your lips. Someone refused to let you die even when the woman called you an animal to your face; despite the primal fear that gripped you whenever a human man looked at you now.

Human men who weren’t Philip and John, though that had been a difficult transition by itself.

“He’s going before the tribunal.” John was still quite proud of himself for that, and you wouldn’t be lying to say you also were. He was a good man, a good king. Just. But not always as aware as he should be. “He’s not the only one.”

Borra would be happy about that. Justice for your people. Justice for your fallen, even those who hailed from the moors.

You, on the other hand? No tribunal would erase the shots that took your father’s life. No measure of justice would give you back the full use of your wings or the peace in your heart. You saw the way Maleficent held herself, she who had once been wingless, and you wished you had the strength to do the same.

He ducked his head, tried to hold your eyes. “Is that alright?”

“Of course,” you replied. “I hope you weren’t planning on opposition.”

“Not from you,” he admitted, and took your buttered roll to add a generous amount of fig jam. “Not toward the tribunal, at least. I haven’t a clue how old you are, but you every time I look at you, I swear you’ve gotten thinner.”

It was the opposite, and it made you smile. You knew you’d been fed just enough to keep you alive and nothing more. Hunger was never strong enough to overcome your physical pain, and the scars that covered you like one of the young queen’s dressing gowns kept that on display. When you returned to your people, you ate like a wild animal. You made yourself sick for days. Despite the symbolic regular serving of goat while you resided in the palace, it took you weeks to feel full again.

“My father would’ve liked you.” You squeezed his hand and ate that one too. Then, at last, you had some tea, and the warmth of it gave you pause enough to rest the ceramic cup against your temple for relief.

“I would’ve liked him, based on the child he raised.” John squeezed your hand in return.

Your smile became more genuine, even as you heard several men go backward at the same time. Maybe because of it.

Borra was kind to you. Gentle in ways he had never been before. When you woke this morning, and Shrike had already gone, he was beside you, preening your wings since you still couldn’t do it by yourself. He hadn’t hesitated, when he saw your fixed gaze, to join you in your nest and fit his body against yours so that you could soak in the warmth of him. Your favorite places to kiss were the hollow of his throat and the space just above the gap between his wings. You loved to fit your body against him in return; wrap your arms around him when he slept and hold his head against your chest. Nearly took out your face on his horns more times than you could count, but that didn't rob you of the pleasure of it.

“Cassia,” John’s voice was a bit more grave. You felt better, though, letting yourself linger on pleasant thoughts. The throbbing in your face from your midnight cry had subsided some. “I need you to be there, at the tribunal.”

You stared at him. You knew what he was asking, but it refused to process. Metaphorically speaking, you’d mentally stalled out several weeks into your capture; you hadn’t processed the fact that your people had gone to war, that you’d collectively agreed to leave the nest on a whoever-desired trial basis, or that Borra was in love with you. (Though putting the thought to words filled you with inexplicable pleasure.)

“I know what I ask is far more cruel to you than I have ever desired to be, but there will be significant opposition to measures of reparation. The nobility and the gentry, in particular, need to be convinced.”

Phantom weight rested on your chest.

“John,” you began, though you didn’t know where you’d end. You recalled phantom whispers. Men daring each other to touch you while you burned with iron fever. Nudges at your hands becoming the jab of a weapon through the bars, making you startle and recoil and cry out. There were little wounds along your sides, adding to the count of your scars; from the tips of pole-axes, from the points of spears. You recalled, suddenly, with painful vividness, someone drawing a line down your hip with a sword.

You pulled away from him without warning. Your wings beat, but generated no wind. The phantom weight on your chest had become a tightness, and your heart pounded like the thunder of hooves.

You relived your ordeal regularly. He couldn’t ask you to do it for an audience.

But you are, some nagging little voice whispered, so why not?

You had to grip the stone railing for support. You faced the courtyard – Philip and the young men, and some part of you not hazed with anguish saw the concern written plainly on the prince’s face.

Borra didn’t miss a beat. The moment they faltered, he was there on the other side. Your cheek rested nicely in his covered palm, and you leaned into the heat of his touch.

Delirious with fever and delirious with pain. Being dragged out in a collar without regards to your broken wings, dropped in a bath of ice. You fought. It hurt, you hurt, it did nothing to soothe your wounds. But you were held down until you shook while someone scrubbed the molasses-blood from the bottom of your cage.

“Look at me.” He spoke only to you, his thumb brushing across the apple of your cheek. “Cas.”

You did. It took you a moment to find your lungs.

You lived in a constant state of exhaustion, now. It was different when you needed to physically heal; then, you slept at will. Now, your thoughts were invaded by paralyzing fear and the aftermath left you thoroughly drained. You could’ve climbed over the barrier and into his arms.

“I will need you at the tribunal, also,” John said to him. “They need to know what’s been done to the moor-folk.”

He watched your face until your breathing calmed, and then he shifted back on his heels to see him, his free hand coming to rest over yours on the railing as though out of habit. “Tell them yourself.”

“Absolute rule can only extend so far.” John was…good and kind and patient and you suddenly hated that about him. “This isn’t Stefan’s Perceforest. I won’t have my people cowering in fear while my children beg them to understand.”

That much, they had to mutually agree on. There would never be peace if the humans remained afraid. They were right to fear you – to fear him. He’d asked only once about what you’d dreamt, and your response (they looked at you like wolves approaching their wounded kill; you knew their faces so well that it scared you. That they’d torn pieces from your clothes with their weapons in the process of drawing blood, clipped your feathers just to hear you cry out in pain at the touch) created a dangerous fury that you had yet to see subside. You told him nothing of the ice baths, of lying there, drenched and shaking, while your body burned (though Ini had said, in passing, that you were lucky to have avoided infection; with the state you were in when Aurora found you, it would’ve been your end).

“I’ll go,” you managed.

Borra scowled.

“You’ll need to talk to them like you would if you went before our council. I want to be there.”

“The both of you are our best hope for justice,” John pressed. “Peace can’t be maintained if we sweep what’s happened under the rug.”

Aurora got to him, you realized. Aurora, or Borra got to Philip and Philip got to him. But it wasn’t planned; he didn’t want you to do this. Nearly as badly as you did.

You laid your head against him. It was so much, all the time. If it could bring everyone peace, if it could avenge your fallen and secure a future, then you might as well become complacent with it.

“I’ll go,” you repeated, more quietly. Just to him. “But will you request me an audience with Maleficent before I do?”

He shifted his hand to your back. You hated that there was a railing between you, but the affirmation of the gesture wasn’t lost. You thanked him quietly into the bronze plating over his rerebrace.

“That’s enough for today,” Philip said in the courtyard below. You thought if he could’ve scaled the wall to join you, he would’ve.

Borra tried to meet your eyes. He wanted to be told when you were ready to leave, and you didn’t know if you were. You had been since John dared ask of you what he had, and yet…

“What do you want of me, at the tribunal?” Would it be like going before your own council? Proposing ideas in hopes of agreement?

“I want you to tell them what happened to you. Though, be prepared….you will have resistance.”

You felt his growl through his chest plate. Resistance to what? They could no more deny your scars than you could.

You laid your head on him. “They won’t believe I got them there,” you told him.

He must’ve stared at John for confirmation. John also must’ve nodded, because all of a sudden, he scaled the railing and joined you on the other side. “You’re asking us to offer ourselves like a sacrifice?”

You rested your hand on his chest.

“No.” The gravity never left John’s voice after that. “You’ll be protected. No harm will come to you as long as we rule this land. I’ve promised before, and I will again. I ask you to persuade them with the truth, nothing more.”

“Persuade them,” he half-spit.

You felt for a bare spot on his shoulder or his arm where you could touch.

“Calls for peace instead of calls for war.”

“Calls for justice instead of erasure,” John replied. “They’ll give you peace, but it won’t be wholehearted. I want ill-placed hatred eradicated from my kingdom.” Your feathers prickled like he might’ve been looking at you, and you hated to think that you –listless, iron-fevered, wounded you who John had decided to nursemaid when Aurora found you – were the reason the human king so abruptly became someone even Borra could reason with. “I’ll not have fey avoiding Ulstead out of fear, nor will Aurora in the other kingdoms.”

“And you think jailing a fey will change that? You’ll give them what they want.”

“I said nothing about Lickspittle being the only one to go before us. As it stands, trying Ingrith would be little more than symbolic, but we do have the surviving members of the queen’s guard as well as—”

“Don’t,” you managed. Do not rip the ground out from under us all.

“General Percival,” John finished anyway.

The human Shrike was fond of. Fond of, though you knew in your heart of hearts that she would never choose him over your people, and that if John decided to sacrifice him to the tribunal, that would be the choice she would never make.

You knew Borra knew that also, and you knew that he felt the choice, or lack thereof, was her responsibility and her responsibility alone. But you still ached for her, and you kept your back to John for long enough that Borra’s arm ensnared your waist.

“I don’t trust kings.” That went without saying; your people never had one and never would. Aurora could merge the kingdoms all she liked, but even while you lived on the moors, you were not moor-folk. “Ones who spare their servants nothing, even less.”

“What else would you have me do?”

You were aware, at least in part, of approaching steps. Philip, perhaps. Maybe Aurora.

But it was so much, all the time, and you pressed your head against him so your horns curled against the side of his neck. “Can you take me home?” you whispered. “Please?”

Hold yourself accountable, was the thing unsaid. You were willfully ignorant to your wife, you had to have been. You knew the shrew you married and sympathy can only go so far.

There was some quiet movement behind you, and the tension in Borra’s posture softened just a bit when you felt a cloth parcel press into your hand.

You looked up. Philip wrapped nearly half of the blueberry pastries you liked in ornamental paper and bound them in one of the crisp, gold napkins. You held the parcel by its knot and your traitor eyes dampened.

“Get some rest.” His touch on your back was gentle – so gentle that you almost didn’t realize his fingers had begun to brush one of your exposed scars. “You don’t have to decide now. And, whatever you do, the crown will back you.”

It was in your best interest to leave before you started crying again. You still hated it, for how weak you felt and how frequently it happened, not that it could’ve been helped. You were tired. You never slept well. The past haunted you, the future frightened you, and nearly all measures of your solace stood with you on the balcony.

You tucked your wings in as best as they would go to shield them against Borra’s self-made windstorm.

You never had a dreamless sleep. Not since you joined him on the moors.

Tonight’s was, by far, the worst.

Because she’d taken your wings.

She’d taken your wings and sawed off your horns and bound you in iron like a puppet on a string. She made you hurt him, drive iron into his skin over and over until dark blood ran from between his lips. Even as you screamed, even as you cried, you had no control over your body. Your iron chains guided your hands even as you begged for her to stop, stop, please, you’re killing him, stop!

“STOP!”

And you were in his arms, pulled flush against his chest. Your cheeks were wet and your breath ragged. He was silent at first, his hand against the back of your neck keeping your head against him.

“Shh.” The point of his thumb-talon brushed your skin. “You’re safe now.”

You put your hands on his chest. You intended to go before the tribunal and do what? Put into words that you could never sleep? That the constant state of terror you felt twisted even the happiest parts of your waking life into nightmares that plagued your every sleep? You could see it so clearly, the dark blood rising to his lips, that you had to pull your head away and make sure it hadn’t happened.

“Do you want tea?” He searched your face. Even he looked tired, and guilt swept you away like a tidal wave. You tried to draw yourself into a ball, but he pulled you back against him, his arms secure, his grip tight enough to remind you that he would not let you shoulder your burdens alone.

“I keep dreaming that she kills you,” you whispered. “Or that she makes me do it.”

“She’s gone.” His touch traveled to your jaw, his fingers framed your ear so you could lay the weight of your head in his palm. “She’ll never hurt you again.”

And yet she did. Even now, even as a goat or an eaten-goat or wherever in skies she ended up, Ingrith tormented you, and that horrible, awful little part of you that begged for relief whispered how unfair it was.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured.

He brought your head back to his shoulder, curled his wing around you. The other lay beneath you, you realized, and you felt guilty about that too. “You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Your lips brushed his skin. Even before this, he slept poorly; he had always been prepared to protect you from attack, though that was the collective-you rather than the individual-you he tended now. You kissed the point of his pulse, one of your hands moving from his chest to the back of his neck.

He made a small sound of approval. You imagined his eyes were half-closed like yours. You imagined what raged inside of him was just as turbulent as your own personal storm.

You didn’t plan to do what you did, kiss a gentle path from his pulse to his lips, but you did. His mouth quirked against yours, and when you kissed him, it didn’t feel like you were kissing him anymore – not the broken, turbulent, uncertain you that he’d been holding. All of that fury and all of that pain had to become something different. They needed an outlet, and the best place for you to be was right where you were.

So you kissed him. Hard.

You clung to him, your arms around his neck, your fingers in his hair. You needed him. Your lover, your protector, your friend. You needed him buried to the hilt inside you where he was safe – you needed to be on top of him, riding him, so if an arrow came from outside, it wasn’t him that was struck.

“Mm, Cas.” He put his hands on your sides. He started to withdraw.

You tried to pull him closer, fighting to get him settled between your legs.

But he was stronger than you. He pushed you on your back and held you there while he panted, his lips flush and eyes blown and his body so very inviting even though, for some reason, he didn’t lower to meet you.

“Not like this,” he whispered, but the raggedness of his breath betrayed how badly he wanted to under any other circumstance.

“Yes, like this,” you whispered back. “Please, Borra.”

He dropped his head back, and you thought he might groan. How long had he been waiting to hear his name in your mouth like that?

You guided his hands. You wanted him to touch you, but he pulled away to sit back on his knees.

“Skies and stars, Cas.”

You were beneath him. You raised your hips, and he pinned you down suddenly like he was seizing an awaited prey. It drove your hips firmly into the down, and you tried to work them against him.

Until he started to withdraw fully. Like he would leave.

“Wait.” You grabbed for him. “Wait, no, I’ll stop—”

“I won’t take you like this,” his voice was so fierce, you hardly considered how badly he must’ve wanted you. “Crying out in your sleep--”

“I’m sorry—”

“Don’t.” He grabbed your hands just as quickly as you thought he might grab his armor. But he didn’t redress. He’d settled there, with you, before you’d gone to sleep. The radiant warmth of his body against yours made you feel safe; you didn’t know if you’d be able to get back to sleep without him.

For a long, tense moment, neither of you moved.

“Lie down,” he murmured, and you obediently did.

He stared at you for a moment, the rawness of his amber eyes unspeakable. He loved you, and he wanted you, and as badly as he wanted to indulge those impulses, when he laid down, it was with his head against your chest and his horns deliberately canted away from your face.

“When you’re ready, Cas.” His cheek rested against the hollow of your collarbone, and your hand that wasn’t settled against his back began lightly, absently, stroking the base of his horns. “I’ve waited for you this long.”

“Why?” you whispered.

“Because I love you,” he said, and there was no shame in it. It was so casual, so plain, like he’d said it out loud a thousand times before. It hit you in the chest full force, and you flattened your palm just below his horns, pressing him against you.

“Sometimes I feel like you’re all I have,” you replied. You stroked back his hair, your fingers lingering at the decorative cracks in his skin. This wasn’t the intimacy you’d abruptly planned on – it was much deeper, all that much harder to deal with.

He was silent for a moment. You didn’t want to risk breaking contact to see if it was because he was thinking or because he enjoyed being touched, so you just kept touching. Your fingers wandered from his temple into his hair, gathered it back behind his leafed ear. Your thumb brushed its shell, and he made a small sound of pleasure.

“Do you like that?” you murmured. You certainly liked touching him. His warmth, his weight, settled against your chest. Even without being wrapped around you like a protective outer skeleton, he still made you feel warm and soft and loved and safe.

“I tried to kill him after they found you.”

Your fingers paused. It didn’t surprise you, not really, but…he upheld peace.

“That hobgoblin, Lickspittle.” He nearly spit his name. “He swore to me he had nothing to do with it. I didn’t believe him. He helped her. He helped her kill our family. Poached and slaughtered the moor-folk. Little beast would’ve done anything to protect himself.”

“Why didn’t you?” You’d switched your attention, holding his head to your chest while you toyed lightly with the downy feathers where his wings met his back.

They flexed gently at the joints, something yours could only do roughly now. You stroked them in earnest for it, pressed your face into his hair and breathed him in.

“Because they nearly killed you.” His voice was dark, even soft. “When I smelled your flesh and your blood, I knew how easy it would be to destroy him and every man in the king’s guard. How easy, how satisfying.”

You could imagine him doing it. Snapping Lickspittle’s neck like a dry twig. The men he’d kill despite their armor. Whole halls draped with bodies like toppled statuary.

“I could’ve avenged you without losing you. But I felt that if I did, I would.” He shifted a bit, moving closer. His head was tucked into your neck and his body sagged more comfortably against yours, less of him out of the nest than in it. You tried to ignore the way his hands felt on your sides, the light skim of his talons through your well-groomed plumage. “You were so broken, lying in that bed. It took everything in my power not to take you home.”

Home.

If you’d awoken in your bed…would it have been better, or worse? Here, you weren’t as haunted by memories, though that didn’t stop them from seizing you at every opportunity. You could imagine waking in the soft white of the healer’s nest, but in that imagined alternate world, he was with you. Just as he had been in Ulstead. Touching you more softly than you ever thought he would, helping you mend your broken wings.

“When you awoke…when you cried out, and I saw how horribly they’d violated you, having you in my arms was all that tethered me.” His hands rested on your sides. Your back. You pressed yourself closer, your shifting wings making the twigs beneath you rustle. “There isn’t a moment when I don’t hate them for what they’ve done to you.”

“I love you,” you whispered. A reminder, an expression of gratitude, a promise all rolled into one.

“And I love you. If I slaughtered every man in that palace and returned to you with their blood on my hands, would you have loved me then?”

Yes, you thought with a certainty that frightened you. Yes, you would’ve, because it wouldn’t be the first life he took. That didn’t stop him from touching you like you were sacred; from combing out your plumage and pressing feather-soft kisses to your skin.

“I could no more hold it against you than you could hold my flight against me.” We all make mistakes, is what you meant – and you didn’t think you’d ever called it that before. The decision you made to leave the nest that night was impulsive. Stupid. A mistake, just as plucking that poacher from the river had been.

“You didn’t mean to get carried off.” It wouldn’t be the same.

“And you’ve never taken a life when you weren’t absolutely certain it would save one. I trust you, Borra.” Far more than you trusted yourself, at times.

He kissed your collarbone and then your throat, one kiss at the hollow and one at either point of your pulse. You held his hair and bit back the swell of your emotions.

“If you decide to go, I’ll stand beside you.”

You were never in doubt, but you still gave his shoulders a gentle squeeze. “We stand together. We fight together.” You’d been treated to Ini’s rendition of the battle cry that led them into war before, and you let his certainty balm your wounds.

“And we will show them no mercy,” he agreed, giving the hollow of your throat one more kiss.

You saw her since she and her raven-mate last offered care, but from afar.

Maleficent was, truly, a beautiful woman. As lovely of a forest fey as all the rest of you. Lips like berries, skin like birch, eyes like springtime, hair the color of wet bark.

Shrike told you they described her differently in the human villages. Lips like fresh-spilled blood, skin like death, eyes cold and green with envy, horns like the devil itself.

It didn’t surprise you. Even before, it never would’ve, but, now, it saddened you also; Maleficent was a strange name for one of you. You were named for an herb, like so many others; your father for the wolves, for when he had been a warrior he had been just as brave and just as fierce. It was said she was named for malice and magnificence, though only the latter was fitting.

Especially when she met you at your bonfire and took you in her arms like you had known one another all your lives. She was dear to your father, and that made her dear to you as truly as you were held in the reverse.

“You look better,” Diaval spoke first. His black eyes were keen and kind, and you smiled at him in return.

“Physically, the scars will fade.” Truly, you wanted to sound more optimistic about your plight than you felt, as though Maleficent didn’t know the sadness in your voice. As though she would’ve released you easily had you not sought to meet her eyes. “I’d like a private audience with you, if that’s alright.”

Diaval bowed his head graciously and left to join your kinsmen nearer to the fire.

You struggled to find the words that, frankly, you hoped had already been spoken. Especially while doing your best to keep the appearance of lifted spirits.

“Borra told me things were…difficult.”

The extent of difficult, you would’ve liked to know, but you released your breath in a full-bodied sigh and nodded. “I have something to ask of you that I’m not sure you can do. It’s alright if you can’t; I wanted to exhaust my options.”

How anyone could think her malicious, you didn’t know. Her concern for you was as gentle as it was obvious, you who were bound to her by the blood of your long-hailed ancestors.

“Can you take this fear away?”

No, her eyes said, though, blessedly, she didn’t respond as quickly.

“If I am to go before the tribunal on behalf of our people, I cannot be grounded by it as I’ve been. These visions, whether they’re memories or dreams…they engulf me.” You meant to say that you couldn’t very well go before innumerable humans clutching Borra’s hand like you were his child. You couldn’t very well be publicly coddled by the king. “It’s as real when I remember as it was when it happened.”

She did her best to keep her expression even, though you saw the briefest flicker of a downturn in her lips. She took your hand in hers – just one, but then between both, and held you there.

“I understand,” she breathed, and you recalled, suddenly, that of course she would. Stefan’s Perceforest – she who had been wingless at the hands of someone she trusted, someone she loved. There was no use in quantifying either of your pain; though it came from different sources, it ran just as bottomless.

She understood, but her grip tightened. You squeezed her hand in return, between both of yours. Your traitor eyes welled, and you forced yourself to breathe in deeply and release it slowly. “I needed to exhaust my options.”

“How are your wings?” she asked.

You shook your head. They were manageable. The pain was gone, now, save for the phantom pains that gripped you in the midst of violent panic. They didn’t work, and you were increasingly certain that they never would again, but they were there, and they were yours, and it was not as though the rest of you wasn’t just as broken.

“Stay with us,” you offered. “Tonight. Help us prepare.”

She nodded. Of all the things you’d asked, it was the only one she could do.

Before you could withdraw, she bid you pause with a gentle tug upon your hands. She could not erase your fear, but when she raised her hand to brush her fingers along your temple, the comfort she conjured nearly brought you to tears.

You were but a little girl, curled tight in your early nest-bed. The forest was still black with pre-dawn, but your mother came from the jungles. She wove the streaks of gold in your hair and in your dark, owly feathers. She felt the call of dawn song even when she nested with you and your father, and you remembered – all too well now, all too suddenly – the sound of her voice as she sang out into the void. Into the nothingness. She welcomed morning in a world so dark that it seemed it would never come, for your forest still existed in a cave, and until the light hit the entrances just so, there was only blackness. Not even the kiss of the moon.

Your mother spoke a language she had been stolen from you before you learned. She practiced traditions that seemed to die as abruptly as she did. You knew the sound of her shifting, the donning of her dress, the sound of her breath as she inhaled the petrichor and the cold and belted out into the morning words to a song that you would never know. She called to your ancestors, she called to their sons, it seemed she woke everyone in the entire cavern with her song.

Your father rose behind her, only minutes after. Her wings were as bright as his were dark; the colors streaked through her long, black hair painted rainbows over his shoulder when he held her close. His song was not the same, but he sang to her anyway. “Love bright as the dawn is golden, love sweet as the cherry tree. Only in the ground would it be colder; morning’s brought my love to me.”

You listened to them every morning, to your own approximation of dawn-song. You heard the jungle people echo it from somewhere far away, the pleasant rise and fall of melody within the forest. You never knew if the tundra and the desert joined them, but you’d always imagined that if they didn’t, they must’ve heard.

You wondered, now, what it meant to them. If it meant anything at all.

You brought her hands over your heart. For the first time in an age, you felt like you could truly breathe. You could taste the scent of home on the air, taste the perfume of your mother’s fruit concoctions, the sour-ripe kiwi stinging the back of your tongue. You felt like they were just within reach, slow to slip back out of it. Gone, but nearby.

“Thank you.”

She touched your face, and you brought your head close to hers even if that wasn’t what she initiated. She deserved to know the ways of her own people, and you bunted your horns with hers gently.

For once, the lightness stayed.

Despite the polarity of their differences, Diaval elected to sit nearest Borra, with space between them for the both of you to interrupt. They both looked up when you approached; Diaval’s sparkling eyes landed on his mate, and yours… You watched the tension leave Borra on his breath when he saw you.

When you sat, you bunted with him too. And then kissed him, just because you could.

You almost didn’t notice his hands lift until you felt the weight against your chest and your hand lifted to brush over the etched face of a pendant all too familiar to you.

Your father’s.

Your face changed, though you weren’t stolen-breathless. You searched his face, your fingers lingering on the smooth-worn blue stone that your mother made long ago, when you were still growing inside her.

Borra breathed you in. His fingers lingered at the back of your neck only to withdraw when he stood. When he addressed the assembled others.

“Our fight is not yet over.”

They beat their chests as they had in the cavernous meeting hall. That part of you that Maleficent brought back to the surface straightened you, brought you to your full attention.

“The humans have given us peace, now we seek justice.”

The severity of every phrase was punctuated by their exclamation. You were no longer watching from the sidelines, you realized much too soon; this was your fight, your war, your turn to be the warrior.

“They say they will repay every life they’ve taken--”

Again.

“Every wound they’ve caused.”

Again. If you hadn’t loved him before, you wouldn’t have been able to deny yourself then. Borra was a warrior, he lived to defend your people and all you stood for. He fought for those who could not fight for themselves, and you felt your own dawn-song budding in your heart.

“They bring us to a battle of a different sort and encourage us to win. We still have human enemies in Ulstead and the other kingdoms, and this will never stop.”

Maleficent was restless. She didn’t know him like you did.

“Our tides have changed. We hold the upper hand. The palace is ours, the kingdom is ours, and one day we will move beyond it. One day, we will take back the jungles, the deserts, the forests, the plains--”

You saw the excitement in the eyes of your collective’s fledglings. The very thought of freedom without boundary was so foreign to them – so foreign even to you that you dared not dwell on the thought for you knew the anxiety it would cause.

“Today, we claim these kingdoms for our own. No human will subjugate us. No kingdom holds us as their slave. For every life they take, we claim a dozen more.”

“Does he know what a tribunal means?” Diaval asked Maleficent quietly.

“Today, we look their worm nobility in the eyes and demand retribution. There will be no peace without justice.”

You knew that scared them. You understood why. But it was the first time in so long that your people assembled like this; even the children beat their chests.

He turned to you, then, the movement of his wings as fluid over the red-needled earth before the bonfire as they were on the weathered stone of the meeting cove. He held out his hand to you, and the part of you that Maleficent conjured was the part of you that had begun to trust him without question.

You accepted it. You stood.

One of your elders stood, also. They came to join you as Borra gathered back your hair.

You looked to him, knowing that your eyes betrayed you.

“Cassia Born-of-Conall, the blood of the Phoenix is inside you. From one of our most decorated warriors comes she who is too strong to die.”

They rallied for you. No one opposed. You didn’t understand – that was one way to see it, surely, but you were no warrior. Certainly not one as decorated as your father, though your elder began to paint his marks upon your shoulder.

“It was you the king sought to lead us into battle, and you the council backs as its head.”

What?

They planned this, then. Every last one of them. He didn’t just call Maleficent for you as you requested, he planned to drive your fear away himself if she could not.

Your stomach sunk. Truly, you were terrified. But not once did you oppose. You reasoned with yourself that it was not something your people did; you had been chosen, and therefore it was your duty, but that was not the whole truth and, of that, you were painfully aware.

Having Borra beside you made you feel strong. With his fingers in your hair, the paint drying on your collarbone, your father’s pendant on your chest, you could almost believe that the phoenix-blood that lived inside you all was responsible for your not-dying. You could almost believe that it was a combination of strength and stubbornness – like it would’ve been for him – and not raw luck.

You could almost believe that you would walk into the tribunal in the morning and feel no fear.

They welcomed you without being prompted. The rhythmic foot-stomping, chest-beating, guttural cries drew the air into your lungs. You tipped your head back, let him release your gold-tinged braids.

And you flared your broken wings.

For the first time since you’d taken to the skies on them, you knew how beautiful they were. Even crooked, even if the left one was canted a bit, they flexed enough to hold steady, and the veins of gold and dark, blue-green hues that tinged certain feathers caught the firelight.

If only for the time being, you could entertain the thought that your iron scars were as well-earned as his regardless of whether or not any of yours truly were. You could believe that someone who spent their life avoiding conflict, avoiding casualty only to become one, could be a worthwhile warrior.

You had to – because, in the palace of Ulstead, a man in a crisp, red formal coat entered the tribunal hall.

Lord Azarias was not well known to Queen Ingrith, and he considered that his greatest shame. Had he known the queen would prove to be so vital of an ally, he might’ve done more to secure the Midlands’ annexation despite the influx of similar merchants to his field. But, that was no matter now – for all he knew, King John had all the iron in the kingdom sealed away in an oubliette.

All of the iron save for the bolt he placed in the hollow well along the seam of his allotted seat.

#Borra x Reader #Dark Fey #Maleficent: Mistress of Evil #Borra Maleficent #Maleficent Borra #Maleficent x Diaval #Cassia born-of-Conall #Unfettered #cw: copious amounts of violence; trauma; trauma mention #This one's gonna be a doozy long term

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alyseinpalace · 5 years

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Chapter 33 - To save or not to save

Grace was sitting in the corner of her bed, her knees pulled against her chest, her chin rested on her knees, her gaze fixated on her toes. She was in a quandary. During lunch, Nara had told her in exhilaration a news that Qi Fei shared with her. With the disappearance of Yi Fei and the removal of Xian Fei, the Empress would be organising a selection ceremony for the Emperor to select two new consorts from the ranks of imperial concubines and selected noble ladies. More importantly, Qi Fei had promised to recommend her as one of the noble ladies eligible for the ceremony. It was indeed a fantastic news for Nara, but not so much for Grace.

After the day of Imperial Concubine Ling’s unfortunate accident, Grace took Alyse’s journal out and flipped through meticulously. Her heart dropped heavily with remorse when she read about the imperial concubine’s death. If she had read the journal earlier, she could have prevented her death. She would have insisted on staying in the garden and denied Nara the opportunity to commit the crime. Although that was not what Alyse would have wanted.

Alyse reminded her again that they were not here to change history. It was bad enough that a changzai was alive because of them, and saving an imperial concubine’s life would create an even bigger ripple. But Alyse was not there to see the imperial concubine’s blanched body floating in the pond. Alyse was not the one who helped to prepare those damned cat treats and participated in a murder unknowingly.

However that was not why Grace was in a quandary. Imperial Concubine Ling was already dead and there was nothing Grace could do to change it anymore. But what bothered her so much, repeating so inexorably in her head, was something else she read in the journal. A piece of history that had yet to happen. Nara would be killing the remaining imperial concubines. All five of them.

And Grace knew that Nara would be doing exactly what history recorded. The noble lady had been collecting small twigs and branches from the garden, claiming she was just storing wood to prepare for winter. But Grace had a feeling she was lying. She could not find an explainable logic, but she was very certain her gut feeling was right.

Grace groaned in agony as she covered her face with her palms. She needed to talk to someone, someone who could remove those unsettling thoughts in her mind, and it was not Alyse. So before Alyse and Irgen returned from the guard house, she decided to skip dinner and take a walk to the large garden.

She waited in the pavilion from late afternoon to sunset, and from sunset to dusk. Her mind and eyes were weary by the time Wichu arrived.

“Why are you sitting in the dark?!” Wichu chided. But when he placed his lantern on the stone table, he realised Grace’s eyes were missing the shine. “What’s wrong, Geleishiyi?”

“Everything.” Grace gave Wichu a bleak smile as he sat down on the stone stool next to her.

“What did your mistress do to you?”

“She didn’t do anything to me.” But she would be killing five other innocent people. And Grace could not tell him that.

“So… what did someone else do to you then?”

“No, it’s not about me.” Grace heaved a soft sigh. “Let me ask you a question. If you know someone is going to do something really bad to someone else, and you have the chance to stop this someone, but you’re not supposed to stop her because that will create more bad things for everyone, what will you do?”

Wichu gazed intently and silently at Geleishiyi for a moment, then he blinked. “Can you repeat the question?”

“No, forget it.” Grace shook her head. “This is not something you can fix.”

“Hey, you’ll be surprised to know I have the power to fix a lot of things.” Wichu folded his arms across his chest and huffed.

“I know you’re powerful, high ranking officer Wichu. But you can’t fix the future that is going to be history.”

“Geleishiyi, you’re even more outlandish tonight.” Wichu was so perplexed. “But for what it’s worth, maybe you should at least try talking to that someone who is going to do something bad? If he… or she, still insists on hurting others, at least you know you’ve tried?”

“Hmm… actually you’re right.” Grace finally lifted her lips into a happier smile. “I’m so glad I decided to look for you tonight, Wichu.”

“That’s the right thing to do!” Wichu grinned now that he saw a genuine smile on Geleishiyi’s face. “And Geleishiyi, is your mistress Noble Lady Nara by any chance?”

“How did you…” Grace squinted at Wichu, then she had a realisation. “Did you abuse your high rank to spy on me?!”

“So I take that as a yes?” Wichu’s smug grin widened.

Grace decided to take Wichu’s advice to at least try to talk Nara out of the murder she would be committing. She would rather be responsible for changing history, than to watch five people die when she knew she had the chance to save them. And if Nara were to listen to her, she would also be saving her from becoming the Evil Lady Nara.

For the next few days, Grace tried to find the perfect time to talk to Nara, but it was more difficult than she thought. With Yi Fei missing, Nara had been spending more time at the consorts’ house to keep Qi Fei company. Of course that would fortify her position as Qi Fei’s favourite noble lady as well. The only time she could be alone with Nara was during breakfast and she was hesitant to talk about such a serious topic early in the morning.

Until one night, Grace put her chopsticks down in the middle of dinner with Alyse and Irgen. She had decided not to delay the talk anymore. “I’m going to see Nara about something.” She stood up from the table abruptly and quickly walked out of the room before her cousin could react.

Alyse was worried. She had seen Grace’s brooding eyes ever since Imperial Concubine Ling’s death and had seen her tossing and turning in bed at night. Nara, or more precisely, Nara’s actions would be the only thing that could perturb her cousin so deeply here in the Qing dynasty. She knew from history that Nara would be turning evil right about now. and as her attendant, and also because she was such a righteous person, Grace must be going through a torment. She needed to talk to Grace.

Grace was surprised to find Nara’s room empty. The dinner she served her was still on the table, untouched. She took a seat at the table and waited, wondering where was the noble lady. She hoped Nara was out simply because Qi Fei or Ji Fei had sent for her, and she was not out there murdering people.

“Geleishiyi, why are you here?” Grace opened her eyes and looked up at Nara standing in front of her. She did not realised she had dozed off at the table.

“Nara…” Grace noticed a burning smell the moment she stood up to face Nara. “Where have you been?”

“I went for a stroll.”

“And skipped dinner?”

“I wasn’t hungry, Geleishiyi. And I’m tired now. If you want to chat, can we do it tomorrow?” Grace could catch a hint of irritation in Nara’s tone. But no, she would not want to wait anymore.

“Nara, I know you killed Imperial Concubine Ling.”

“What?” Nara was a little caught off guard. But she knew Geleishiyi was a smart woman. She must have pieced together her observations and guessed that the imperial concubine did not fall into the pond by accident.

“I could guess how you did it. But don’t worry. I’m not telling anyone.” Grace took a deep breath and exerted an even deeper exhale. “And I know that you’re going to kill the other five imperial concubines as well.”

“So you know.” Now Nara was surprised. She wondered how did Geleishiyi know about that.

“Nara, you need to stop now. I know you’re ambitious but the selection ceremony is coming up anyway, and with Qi Fei’s help, I’m sure you’re almost guaranteed to take over Imperial Concubine Ling’s slot. You don’t have to kill anyone.” Grace grasped Nara’s hand and besought her.

“No. It’s because of the selection ceremony that I can’t stop now.” Nara placed her other hand on Geleishiyi’s and shook her head. “I don’t want to be an imperial concubine. I want to be the next consort.”

“That’s why you want to kill the imperial concubines…” Grace muttered as she gazed at Nara in disbelief. “You’re eliminating competitors.”

“Geleishiyi, I’m doing this for us! If I become a consort, you’ll be a noble lady. And then we can move our way up from there, and one day, together you and I can rule the Imperial Harem!”

“But at what cost? How many more people have to die?” Grace grasped Nara’s hand tight, trepidation apparent in her eyes. “You’re a good person, Nara. Don’t do this. Stop while you still can!”

“It’s too late, Geleishiyi.” Their conversation was abruptly interrupted by the sound of incessant hitting on gongs and yelling. Grace let go of Nara’s hands and quickly walked out of the room. The other noble ladies had also walked out of their rooms to find out what was happening. One of the fire wardens ran right past Nara’s room, hitting on the gong and yelling that there was a fire in the garden.

Grace walked back into the room and closed the door immediately. Nara had to have something to do with the fire. She was the only one who did not walk out of the room, she had a burning smell in her gown, and she had been collecting dry wood. “What have you done, Nara?!”

“I wrote a note to each of the imperial concubines and told them to meet me at the shed in the garden. Then I locked the door and set fire to the shed.” Nara answered impassively. At this point, she had no reason to hide her plan.

“So you betrayed their trust…?!”

“Trust?” Nara snorted. “They only went to the shed because I told them Imperial Concubine Ling told me a secret about them before she died.”

“I don’t know you anymore, Nara.” Grace’s vision started to blur as tears welled up in her eyes. Nara was right. It was too late to stop her now. “You’re going down a path I can’t follow.”

“But Geleishiyi, you’re my friend.” Nara could not deny the heavy weight in her heart when she saw the tears in Geleishiyi’s eyes, and heard what she said.

“No, Lady Nara. I’m just your attendant from now on.” Grace muttered and rubbed the tears off with the back of her hand before opening the door again. She walked out of Nara’s room without looking back, knowing that she had left a friendship behind.

#nanowrimo

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