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viking-raider · 3 years

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Southern Generation - Part III *Mature*

Summary: Sy and Lily had a harmonious bubble around them, but ripples are sent through it, with an action of Lily’s and the past haunting Austin.

Pairing: Captain Syverson/Reader

Word Count: 6,211

Warning: M - Language, Fluff, Domestic Kink, PTSD, Attempted Overdose, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Teeny White Lie, Stalking and Harassment

Inspiration: It’s Sy, need I say more?

Author’s Note: Loving this story! Much love to @wondersofdreaming!

Lily laughed as she played tug-a-war with Aika in the living room, the sound of Sy putting up the last of the siding vibrated throughout the house, with her laughs and Aika's playful growling. The hammering stopped and Sy appeared through the front door, smiling at the two partners in crime.

“I need to go into town.” Sy told Lily, when her attention settled onto him. “The saw blade has dulled and I need to replace it.” He explained to her.

“All right.” She nodded, letting Aika take her rope. “I need to get lunch going.”

“I shouldn't be too long.” He promised, then left.

Sy wasn't gone a minute, when the phone rang in the kitchen and Lily moved to pick it up, before she missed it. “Hello?” She answered, pressing the receiver to her ear with her shoulder and turned towards the refrigerator. “Hello?” She frowned, pulling out food items for her and Sy's lunch.

“How's the business going?” A voice finally answered her.

Lily froze, hand resting on the loaf of bread she was reaching for. “How did you get this number?” She gulped, her heart racing and pounding in her ears.

“I bet once that caveman finishes fixing up the place, it'll look brand new.”

“Ho-” She gasped, a dizzying wave of nausea punched her in the gut, as reality set in.

“Soon, Lily. Soon.” The voice chuckled, then the line went dead.

The phone slipped off of Lily's shoulder and clattered to the floor, alerting Aika, who was chewing on her rope in the living room, and came running in, barking in inquiry and suspicion, standing close to Lily's feet and looked up at her, head cocked to the side. Lily gripped the edge of the counter in front of her, trying to take deep breaths in and out, but her vision swam with an overflow of tears and her chest felt like an elephant was standing on it. She turned and stumbled up the staircase in the kitchen that led upstairs, and went into the hall bathroom, locking herself inside, Aika bounding after her and barking at the bathroom door.

“How? How is this possible?” She trembled, pacing the small space. “I was so careful, so careful. It’s not possible. It’s just a sick joke, from some disgruntled customer. But, what if it isn’t? What if it’s really. Where did I go wrong? I put so many miles between us.”

Her hands shook and she struggled to breath, furious tears streaming down her flushed cheeks. Flashback after flashback rippling through her horrified and panicked mind, her stomach lurched and she dropped to her knees, wrenching violently into the bowl and losing her breakfast into it. She sat there for a long time, before making up her mind, standing up and opening the medicine cabinet, removing a prescription bottle from inside and popped the top off of it. She knew this was a drastic and dark turn to things as she dumped the bottle into her hand, but it wasn’t as dark and ominous, if the voice on the other end of the phone kept their word about finding her, and Lily wasn’t going to take that chance.

She gulped down dozens of the teeny pills, swallowing them down with sink water, then slowly sank down to the floor.

Sy returned twenty minutes later, with a new saw blade and rumbling stomach. He expected, as always, to find Lily had set his lunch down on the table in the breakfast nook, and was either eating hers as well, or she was patiently waiting for him, so they could eat together.

Instead, he entered the house and heard Aika barking incessantly upstairs, which was unusual.

“Lily!” He called out, rounding into the kitchen, finding lunch foods on the counter, some half opened, and the phone on the floor. “Lily!” He yelled out again, a pit forming in his stomach as he mounted the stairs to the second floor.

He had never been upstairs before, everything he needed in the house was downstairs, the kitchen and half bath, so he was unfamiliar with the layout. But, as he reached the second floor landing, he found Aika standing in front of a closed door, barking, whining and scratching at the wood. He crossed the hall and lifted his hand, knocking softly on the door, and listening inside.

“Lily?” He called, knocking again. “Lily, are you all right in there?” He asked, growing even more concerned, when he didn't receive an answer.

Not waiting a moment longer, Sy pushed Aika away from the door and forced it open with his shoulder. As the door flung open and banged against the wall behind it, Sy rushed into the room and felt his heart plummet out of his body, finding Lily laying on the worn and discolored tile floor. He dropped to his knees as he scrambled over to her, cupping her cold, but sweaty, face in his hands, her eyes were rolled back and half lidded, her breathing was shallow and the scent of vomit permeated in the small space. Sy, despite his heart rocketing in his chest, was reasonably calm, his combat cool kicking in, as he quickly pressed his fingers to the spot under the corner of her jaw, feeling how faint her heartbeat was.

“Shit.” He snapped, under his breath, scanning the room, he found a prescription bottle that had rolled under the lip of the vanity, swiped it up and pocketed it. “Lily.” He called, patting her pale cheeks, trying to get any response out of her. “Come on, Lily. Answer me.” He begged her, patting her cheeks a little harder. “What were you thinking.” He growled, then rubbed his knuckles against her sternum in firm circles.

“Oh, thank god.” He sighed, when she whimpered at the painful rub. “Lily, open your eyes and look at me. Come on, darling, look at me.” He coaxed her, rubbing her chest again, but not with his knuckles, just trying to keep her responsive.

“Sy.” She whimpered, eyes fluttering.

“Yeah, love.” He nodded, shifting to pick her up into his arms and carried her out of the bathroom and down the stairs. “Don't worry, honey, I've got you. I'll take care of you and get you to the hospital.” He told her, carrying her out to his truck and got her strapped into the passenger seat, before hopping in and gunning it down the driveway, relieved at his slight laziness, that he left the gate wide open.

“Come on, Lily. Talk to me.” He told her, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder as she whined and pressed her forehead against the window. “Tell me something, anything.”

“I wanna sleep.” She whimpered, brows creased.

“No, no, you can't do that.” Sy shook his head at her, pulling her away from the window. “What color do you want me to paint the house?” He asked, trying to think of anything to keep her engaged long enough to get her to the emergency room.

“What about purple, with hot pink polka dots?” He grinned, blue eyes light up, but still scared for her.

“I hate pink.” Lily whined, her head moving to rest on Sy's broad and stiff shoulder.

“So, pink polka dots.” He said in a voice that said he agreed with the choice.

“No.” She groaned, shaking her head with a whimper, then fell quiet again.

“No, no! Come on, Lily, don't fall asleep.” He begged her, feeling her body relax against him.

The tires of Sy's truck squealed as he parked outside the hospital, pulling Lily out, he quickly carried her into the emergency room, his usual 'cool under pressure' attitude was starting to slip with the desperate situation. The nurse at the station instantly noticed Sy carrying Lily in and read how bad the situation was, jumping out of her seat and barking orders, while guiding Sy to a place he could lay her down and they could start working on her.

“What happened?” She asked Sy.

“I'm pretty sure she overdosed on these.” Sy replied, taking the prescription bottle out of his pocket and handed it to her. “I don't know why she decided to do it, I just found her unresponsive on the bathroom floor. She was responsive for a few minutes, but then stopped just before we got here.”

“How do you know her?” The nurse asked, reading the name off the bottle.

Sy bit his lip, he knew if he admitted that he only worked for Lily as a handyman, then they wouldn't let him see her until after they had done everything they could for her. So, he fibbed. “She's my fiancée.” He told her, his voice steady and his face gave away nothing, but his concern for her.

“So, her name is Lily Ana Moore?” The nurse asked, reading the name off the prescription label.

“Yes, ma'am.” Sy nodded, though he wasn't aware of her middle name.

“And, you are?” She asked, looking up at him.

“Austin Syverson.” He replied, glancing over to Lily's bed as she whimpered.

“We'll take the best care for her, Mr. Syverson.” the Nurse promised him, resting a gentle hand on his forearm and gave it a tender squeeze.

They tended to Lily, while Sy stepped out into the waiting room, he was too high strung and agitated to sit down, so he paced from the humming vending machine and the automatic doors. His mind roiled over reasons and scenarios as to why Lily would try to overdose. She had been fine, before he left to the hardware store for a new saw blade, playing tug-a-war with Aika and about to make them lunch. What could have happened in the, maybe, fifteen minutes he was away, that was so frightening that she would rather take her life, than to either face it or tell him about it. If she had said something to him, told him that she was afraid of something, or someone, then he would have promised to protect her.

In a heartbeat.

“I’ll protect her from now on.” He muttered to himself, still pacing the room.

Once they were satisfied with how stable she was, then sent her up to a private room for an overnight observation, Sy stayed with her the whole time, never leaving her side, even once she was stable and in her room. He sat in a chair beside her bed, chin resting on his chest as he snored softly, the room was dark and quiet, minus the heart monitor she was hooked up too. It was late, when Lily did finally come back around on her own, sighing and whimpering, her body feeling spent and sluggish. She opened her eyes and instantly recognized she wasn't in her own bed, but a strange room, and panic started to set it, causing her to wake Sy.

“Hey.” He sighed, rubbing his tired face and leaning forward to take her hand in his. “You're all right, Lily.” He told her, his voice rough from sleep.

“Where am I?” She asked, squeezing his hand, like it was a lifeline, calm now that she realized Sy was there, watching over her.

“The hospital.” He replied, thumb rubbing the top of her hand. “I barely managed to get you here, after that stunt you pulled.”

She let out a heavy breath and rested back against her pillow, squeezing her eyes shut. “I'm sorry, Sy.” She whispered, not opening her eyes again. “I didn't mean to scare you.”

“And what did you mean to do?” He asked, lifting a brow at her. “Why would you try killing yourself?”

“It's complicated.” She replied, sighing again and opening her eyes.

“Then, uncomplicate it.” Sy begged her, wanting to understand what she was thinking.

“I can't.” Lily shook her head, the fear that had gripped her before her attempt started to return.

Sy could feel the tremble in her hand as it gripped his, he knew there was something she was afraid of, that she was trying to run and hide from, and wanted to help her so much, to protect her, so badly. He got up out of his chair and sat on her bedside, holding her hand in his lap and gently brushed his fingers against her cheek.

“You don't have to be afraid.” He whispered, gently. “I promise, I will protect you.”

“Don't make a promise, you can't keep, Austin.” Lily replied, meeting his eye.

“I can, and I will.” Sy replied, his stomach twitched, hearing her use his first name. “Is there anything I can do for you?” He asked, lifting a brow at her.

Lily paused a moment, regarding him, then bit her lip. “Lay with me?” She whispered, gulping at the strangeness of her own request.

Sy blinked at her for a moment, it was a bit of an odd request, but, if that's what she wanted of him, then Sy would gladly do it. He nodded, feeling slightly awkward, then toed out of his boots, while she shifted and turned onto her side, so Sy had room to lay down with her. He let her shift, her back pressing against his chest, and tucked his arm under her head, gently pulling the blankets over them and resting his other arm over her side.

“This must be awkward for you.” She mumbled, a few minutes later.

“Actually, it's not.” He chuckled back, his breath lightly caressing the back of her hair. “The most awkward thing that I've ever done, happened on my very first deployment to Iraq.”

Lily turned her head to look back over at him. “Tell me about it?”

Sy smiled at her, biting his lip. “So, it was my first deployment, back in 2004, I had been in the country a week, but hadn't left base yet in that time.” He started to explain to her. “So, my first outing off the base was a decent distance, and at some point, I ended up needing to go to the restroom.”

She laughed, starting to get the picture, making Sy smile.

“Now, I wasn't naive. I knew there wasn't a bathroom for several klicks, and I doubted any of the locals were going to let my ass in to use their bathroom.” He laughed, making them both shake from its mirth. “So, I asked my commander, cause then, I was just some lowly runt, where I could go. He walked away for a moment and came back, carrying a short handled shovel, handed it to me and said, 'pick a spot.' motioning to the wide open field we were in.”

“Oh lord, no.” She grinned, blushing at the thought of digging a random hole and going in it. “Tell me you didn't!”

“Of course, I did!” He grinned back. “I really had to go, and I wasn't holding it for another hour on patrol and three hours back. So, I dug a hole, dropped my cameos and did my business, with six guys, more or less, watching me.”

“Watching you?”

“Well, they had to make sure no one snuck up on me, and tried to kill me.” He chuckled, fully amused.

“You're braver than I am.” Lily said, after they stopped laughing. “I would have held it.” She giggled, shaking her head at the thought, relaxing in his arms.

“I think that makes you much braver.” Sy whispered, feeling the change in her breathing against the skin of his bicep as she drifted back off to sleep. “So much braver.”

“Sy, you can't sleep on the couch like this.” Lily sighed, finding him on the couch in the living room.

Ever since she returned home from the hospital, Sy insisted on sleeping on the couch, not wanting to leave her alone in the house. She had tried convincing him that she was all right, that he didn't need to sleep there and keep an eye on her.

“You should go home to Austin, sleep in your own bed.” She told him, handing him a cup of fresh coffee.

“I haven't slept in my own bed, in nearly a month.” Sy replied, taking several deep gulps of the hot brew.

“What?” Lily snapped, sitting down beside him, with a cup of tea. “Still!”

“I told you, I've been sleeping at the motel in Celina.” He confessed to her. “I've been too tired most nights to safely drive back to Austin, and it's only a couple minutes from here, instead of three hours.” He told her, rubbing a hand over his face.

“And I told you, you didn't need too, Sy?” Lily sighed, annoyed with him.

“Because, you would have wanted to pay for it.” He countered.

“No, I would have given you the guest room upstairs, like I said.” She countered back, lifting a brow at him. “And, if you insist on staying here, then I suggest you take the room, instead of the couch, so at least then, you can stretch out and not wake up all stiff and uncomfortable.” She told him, firmly.

“Especially, since Aika seems to enjoy sleeping with you.”

Lily had come downstairs at night, several times, to find Sy's long body stretched out on the couch, his head resting on one armrest, while his feet hung over the other one, and Aika's large body laid on top of him, like some sort of furry blanket.

“I've already made it up for you.” She added, getting back up and going into the kitchen.

Sy got up and followed her, setting his coffee down on the breakfast nook table. “Lily-”

“We both know, you're not going to leave me alone in the house, Austin.” Lily huffed, yanking open the refrigerator door. “So, there's no use for your additional discomfort, by sleeping on a couch that has zero support or comfort, especially after you've spent all day breaking your back to fix up my property.” She explained to him, pulling out a carton of eggs and milk, before letting the door of the original Big Chill refrigerator slam shut behind her.

“There's a comfortable bed in the guestroom, that's situated against the window, with a small walk-in closet and dresser, as well as being across from the hallway bathroom. As I said, I made the bed up for you, clean sheets and pillowcases. I opened the window as well, to air it out, since it's usually closed up and unused.” She explained to him, pulling out a pan and setting it on the stove, clicking on the gas burner.

“I do need to warn you, that the hot water tap in the upstairs bathroom, doesn't work.”

“Is there something wrong with the hot water heater?” Sy asked, lifting a brow at her.

“Not that I'm aware of, but I also don’t know crap about them, so I wouldn't know where to look or how to fix it, without replacing the thing completely. But, I don't think there is a problem with it.”

“Why's that?”

“Because, the hot water in all the sinks work, and the hot water in my master bathroom works as well.” She explained to him, whipping up a pancake batter, while the pan heated up. “I just don't understand why the hot water in that particular bathroom doesn't work.”

“Has it worked at any point, while you lived here?” Sy asked, watching her.

Lily paused and sighed, her brow creasing as she stared off in the middle distance for a moment, trying to recall. “I don't think so.” She finally replied, going back to the batter.

“Hm.” Sy frowned, his own brow deeply creased as he mauled over the numerous reasons the hot water wouldn't work. “I'll check it after breakfast.” He answered, pressing his lips together. “Do you need any help?” He asked, watching her fuss over the rest of breakfast.

“Yeah, can you flip the pancakes for me.” She nodded, side stepping the stove, so he could flip them.

Sy nodded, taking up the rubber spatula she was using and gripped the handle of the pan, carefully working the edge of the spatula around the sides of the bubbling pancake, before slipping it under and flipped it, quite unsuccessfully, splattering half cooked batter all over the pan. Lily saw it from the corner of her eye and laughed, shaking her head at him.

“Have you never flipped a pancake before, Captain?” She teased, turning to face him.

“I have, I'm just shit at it.” He replied, grinning at her, but Lily could see the warmth seeping into his hairy cheeks.

“Here.”

Lily stepped between Sy and the stove, gripping his hand, that still held the utensil, and guided him to the other pancake in the pan, gently slipping the edge of the spatula under it, and with a quick flick of their wrists, she helped him flip over the pancake, perfectly.

“See?” She smiled up at him, her blue eyes filled with pride. “You just have to do it quick and steady, like ripping off a plaster.” She picked up the batter and poured some of it into the sizzling pan. “Give it a minute, then try flipping it again.”

With that, she turned back to what she was doing, dicing up some potatoes. “Look at you!” She exclaimed, watching Sy's smooth pancake flip.

“You're a good teacher.” He smiled at her, setting the finished pancakes on a plate beside the stove.

“Would you like bacon or sausage?” She asked, opening the refrigerator again, turning her head to look at him, a brow lifted in curiosity.

Sy licked his lips and got a funny feeling in his stomach, something he had never felt before, not even as a young boy. He felt like he—belonged, here and now, with Lily. It was a natural feeling of domestic belonging, like there was a oneness between them and he had found his rightful place in the world.

“Sy?” Lily frowned at him, concerned.

She saw that far off look in his eye and worried he was having a flashback. She had seen him have them before, and after the first one, where he nearly took her head off, Lily learned not to touch Sy, calling his name, usually, did the trick of bringing him back around. But, this time was different, there was a sparkle in his cerulean eyes, and a soft smile on his lips.

“Austin?” She said, carefully, licking her lips and feeling butterflies in her stomach.

Sy blinked several times and focused on her, smiling completely, warm and happy. “Sausage, please.” He finally replied, cocking his head at her.

“Okay.” Lily nodded back, eyes wide like a doe's. “Why don't you sit down and relax, I can finish up.” She suggested, motioning to the table. “Your coffee is getting cold.”

“Sure.”

He kept smiling at her, even as he sat down at the table and sipped his cooling coffee; watching her drop the finely diced potatoes into the pan, stirring them around as they cooked and browned, before cracking three eggs on the edge of the pan and dumped the contents in with the potatoes, then tossed the shells into the empty bowl the pancake batter was in. She kept stirring the browned potatoes and fluffy eggs together, then added sliced up sausage. Finishing it up, she brought the food to the table and Sy served himself, heaping the potato, egg and sausage scramble onto his plate with four large pancakes, drizzling maple syrup everywhere. Lily picked Sy's now empty coffee cup up and filled it with fresh coffee, putting in two sugars and set it back down in front of his plate.

“You know how I take my coffee.” He asked, digging his fork into his mountain of food.

“I've known you for several months at this point, so, it's only natural that I've noticed things about you.” She chuckled, sitting down and making her own plate for breakfast.

“Fair enough.” He laughed, and got down to eating.

After breakfast, and helping Lily wash and dry the dishes, Sy went upstairs to the hallway bathroom to try and figure out why the hot water wasn't coming out of the tap. He tested it, spinning the hot tap all the way over, water jetting out of the shower head. He left it running for several long minutes, touching it periodically, and only found it to be even colder than when it first came out. Pressing his lips together and sighing through his nose, Sy turned the tap off and went downstairs to his truck, taking out the tool box from the back and carried it back inside, removing the faucet cover and checked the valve. He removed the tap handle, unscrewed the plate and reached inside for the valve, finding it was broken.

“There you are, you pesky little shit.” He said, setting it on the sink counter. “I need a new one.” He sighed. “Lily.” He called out, going down the hall to her office.

“Sy?” She called back, her eyes still on the work on her computer screen.

“I found the problem with the shower in the hall bath.” He told her, standing in the office doorway. “I'm going to go down to the hardware store to get a replacement part for it.” He explained, looking her over as she sat cross legged in her office chair.

“Will you be okay, while I'm gone?” He asked, his tone careful.

Lily's shoulders slumped and she looked over at him. “I'll be fine, Austin.” She told him, slightly annoyed with him being so overprotective, though she appreciated it and felt incredibly safe with him around. “Go, and if you remember, can you bring me back some Reese cups?” She asked, as he turned to leave.

“I've got a mad chocolate craving going on.”

“A hot shower and chocolate coming up.” He grinned at her, and left for the store. “Keep an eye on her, Aika.” He whispered to the pup as she laid spread out on the front porch, enjoying the warm rays of the sun; patting her on the head.

Aika huffed at him, before getting up and strolling inside, climbing the stairs and wandering into Lily's office, then laid down at her feet, dropping back off to sleep. Lily smiled down at her, bending in her chair to pat her between her proudly standing ears, then returned to her work. Sy returned an hour later, with four packages of king sized Reese Cups and the replacement hot water valve.

“Christ.” Lily laughed, when he set the candy down in front of her. “Did you buy the store out?” She teased, looking up at him.

“Actually,” Sy grinned brazenly at her. “I did. It was all they had in the little corner store, next to the hardware store.” He confessed, he thought it would be funny to buy them all, and one can never have enough chocolate.

“Thank you.” She giggled, opening one of them up, amused by his sense of humor and popped one into her mouth..

“You're welcome.” Sy nodded his head to her, butterflies filling his stomach hearing her laugh, making her laugh, and gulped as he watched her take the candy whole into her mouth, feeling something stir much lower than his stomach, before turning and going back to fix the shower.

“Is it working?” Lily asked, a little while later, coming into the bathroom to watch him work.

“See for yourself.” Sy replied, turning the tap on and stepping aside.

Lily stepped forward and held her hand out under the streaming water, feeling the pleasant warmth of it. She looked over her shoulder at Sy and smiled at him, proud and amazed. “That's amazing! Is there anything you can't fix?” She asked, drying her hand on the towel hanging on the rack.

“Oh, I'm sure there is.” Sy smiled, leaning back against the vanity. “But, if I encounter it, I'm sure I could figure it out.”

“I'm sure you would.” Lily smiled, patting him on the chest as she went out of the bathroom.

Sy beamed with pride, seeing how happy and proud of him she was, her gentle pat only re-enforcing that fact.

Later that night, Sy took the duffle bag he had filled with his clothing and other things he needed, upstairs to Lily's offered guestroom. It was a sweet little room, the window let in a lot of light during the day and he could see Billie Marlowe's crops and the beautiful night sky as he laid in bed. The dresser was big enough for all his things. He toed out of his boots and sat down on the edge of the bed, then laid back. It was a comfortable bed, more comfortable than the couch and the bed in the motel room he had been renting.

Satisfied, Sy stood, pulled out a pair of shorts and a black tank top, with a bar of soap, and crossed the hall to the bathroom.

He stood under the hot spray of the shower head, letting it seep into his tired and sore body for a while, before soaping up his body, head to toe, rinsed and dressed, before stepping out of the steamy bathroom. He paused in the hall and turned his head, Lily's room was at the end of the hall, the staircase leading into the kitchen between them, and her door was closed. But, he could hear the soft creaks of her moving about her room, no doubt doing the similar ritual he was, before going off to sleep.

Sighing, he went into his room, leaving the door cracked open for Aika to come in and out, and crawled into bed, the washed sheets and quilt smelled just like Lily, and he couldn't suppress the moan that escaped from deep in his throat, pressing the quilt to his nose and inhaling deeply. She smelled amazing, he wondered what her skin smelled like, before drifting off.

Lily wasn't sure what time it was, when she first heard it. At first, she thought it was just part of the dream she was having, but as it came more regularly, she realized it wasn't in her dream, but in the house. Her eyes opened, blinking in the darkness of her room as she laid still in bed, listening intently.

Yes, it was real and in the house, but what was it?

Shaking her head, she threw her blankets back and got out of bed, tiptoeing to her closed door and pressed her ear to the wood. It was a loud whimper, followed by a whine, with other noises mixed in. Daring to open her door, she stepped out into the hall and slowly followed the noise, down to Sy's room. She pushed open his half open door and peeked inside, Aika was sitting on the side of the bed, whining as she looked up at Sy, who was laying on his back, sweaty brow deeply creased and shaking his head, like he was trying to wake himself up, to no avail.

“Move.” He called out, body jerking. “Tristan.” He yelled out, then whined.

“Sy.” She called out to him, standing in the doorway. “Sy, wake up.”

But, he didn't.

Biting her lip, and stepping into the fray, Lily moved to the side of the bed, her stomach clenched as she sat down beside him, waiting for him to suddenly lunge at her, but he didn't. Her heart was pounding as she reached out and gently wiped away the heavy sweat on his brow, he made a sound, between a sigh and a growl as she did, his hands coming up, but fell back to the bed, before reaching her. She frowned at him, stroking the side of his face, his hair was slightly longer than it had been, when he first came. He usually kept it very short, but with her going into the hospital, he had neglected cutting it.

She touched the side of his head, feeling the soft hair just above his ear, then petting down his neck and cupping his cheek.

“It's all right.” She cooed at him in a soft and silky voice. “Ssshh, it's all right.” She spoke to him softly, caressing his bearded cheek with her thumb and rubbed his chest through the thin black material of his tank top.

Sy's wide and alarmed eyes shot open and he snapped upright, gasping for air and shaking, but he didn't lash out at her, like he had on the porch that day. She bit her lip, watching this bear of a man tremble, struggling to control his breathing and so frightened. Lily laid her hand on his tense shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze; Sy's head snapped to the side, looking at her, but not quite seeing her, but the face of the teammate he had been calling out for, one of the first men Sy had ever lost in combat.

“Lily.” He whispered, in a disembodied voice. “What are you doing here?” He asked, suddenly sounding alarmed and panicked, his sweaty body rigid. “It’s not safe, you have to leave, before more of them show up.” He told her, his voice still sounding discorporated.

“Who, Austin?” Lily frowned, shaking her head at him, not understanding what he was talking about. “Who’s coming?”

Sy’s vision hyper-focused on the small gap between them, twitching quickly side to side, like he was trying to reconnect unplugged wires in his jumbled up and confused mind, struggling to remember if he was in reality with Lily or in the nightmare of a long ago mission in Iraq that had gone bad for everyone involved, changing Sy forever, the first hung thread in a thick web of PTSD and flashbacks. But, the gentle touch of Lily’s hands on him, the soft whisper of his name in her voice, the close warmth of her body and her sweet smell gave Sy the traction he needed to pull himself back to reality and consciousness.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, biting his lip, self-conscious. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s all right.” She replied, then wrapped her arms around him, hugging him against her and rubbing his back. “It's okay, Austin.” She whispered into his ear as he buried his face into her neck. “You're okay. Safe and sound, back home, and with me.” She told him, closing her eyes as his arms wrapped around her waist and he clutched her against his sweaty and shaking body.

“I've got you, Austin.” She assured him and rested her cheek against his temple, tenderly rubbing the back of his head. “I won't let anything happen.”

Sy nuzzled his face into her neck, taking deep breaths to calm himself down and took in the comforting scent of her skin as he did, it helped him relax, as did the soft words she whispered into his ear and the soothing touch of her hand on his head or on his back. He didn't want to let her go, afraid that as soon as he did, she would fade away and the nightmares would come back, having only tricked him into thinking it was her.

Even though her heart thundered in her chest, she made a choice. “Come on, Austin.” She said into his ear, patting him on the back and wiggling in his arms, trying to entice him to let her go, so she could stand up.

“Where?” He whimpered into her neck.

She licked her lips. “Come to bed with me.” She told him, her lips brushing the rim of his earlobe. “Let me hold you and keep the nightmares away.”

Sy moaned softly into her ear, but his arms secured themselves around her waist, shifting her into his lap and stood, picking her up, still very unwilling to let her go, even for the minute it would take to go down to her room. So, he carried her down the hall and laid down in her bed, only then, letting her go long enough for her to cover them up and lay down beside him. Sy turned onto his side, wrapping his arms around her and hugged her against his body, his head laying on her chest.

Lily frowned, sympathetically, down at Sy, caressing his head, neck and shoulders, whispering soft things to him, soothing and lulling him back to sleep, with the pound of her heart in his ear and the pillow-y warmth of her skin and breasts under his head.

“My sweet bear.” She cooed at his sleeping form, then kissed the top of his head.

#Henry Cavill #HenryCavill #Southern Generation #Southern Generation *fic*#viking-raider fics #captain syverson #Syverson #Austin Syverson #Syverson/OFC #Syverson x OFC #Sand Castle #Lily #Hurt/Comfort #PTSD #Domestic Kink #Language #Fluff #Angst

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abbysfrenchbraid · 3 years

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Kissed by a Wolf - Chapter 4

Masterlist 🌿 (check for previous chapters) / Playlist

In this chapter, the reader fully joins Eivor’s clan and takes part in the celebrations before the raid. Talking with Eda does not go as planned.

Content Warnings for food & alcohol, mentions of physical abuse, lesbophobia, light smut and vomit.

Inspo Picture by @anaakeart

The Sting of Rejection

You had already slept for a few hours when Eivor returned from her council meeting late at night. Even though she tried to be quiet and not to wake you, you were awake as soon as you heard her steps on the path outside.

Birna had curled up in your arms and raised her head when the warrior entered, not moving from her warm and comfortable spot. You remained still, your eyes closed as you listened to the woman’s movements. Her fur coat fell to the ground almost inaudibly, the wood of her trunk creaked quietly as she sat down to take off her boots, her leather pants rustled when she pulled them off and threw them in a corner.

Then you finally felt her motions, too as she lifted a corner of the quilt covering you and slipped in the bed, immediately scooting close to you. She gave Birna a few gentle strokes until the cat started to purr softly and Eivor lowered her head next to yours with a satisfied sigh. She smelled like beer and smoked meat, accompanied by that faint, wonderful scent of tree bark.

You must have stirred because Eivor lifted her head again, whispering: “Little bird… there are good news for you.”

Careful not to disturb Birna, you turned slightly and looked at her with raised eyebrows. She smiled.

“You are now one of us. Mine.” She watched your face attentively for a reaction. You closed your eyes and swallowed. So it was decided.

“Are you happy?” Eivor asked, drawing her fingertips over your healthy cheek.

“Yes, I am,” you answered, turning back around and scooting back against her.

“Mmhh. We’ll talk in the morn.” She wrapped her arms around you and pulled you close, then you both drifted off to sleep.

You were woken by Birna's demanding meows at the door. She had not left the hut since yesterday and was probably hungry and in need of a quiet corner. Eivor grunted, then she untangled herself from your limbs and cursed in her mother tongue when she stumbled over her clothes on her way to let the cat out.

“You won’t like it outside, little lady. The snow has stayed,” she grumbled as she opened the door. Indeed, Birna was not amused at the prospect of stepping into the cold, wet powder that painted the village in beautiful white and whirled into the room as soon as the door stood ajar. You pulled the blanket over your head to escape the stinging cold air, listening to Eivor and Birna bicker about the cat’s options for the day.

It really sounded like they were having a conversation, one that ended with Birna leaving with a last, angry cry and Eivor shutting the door with a thankful sigh. She let herself fall back on the bed and crawled under the covers. You stuck your head out.

“So, I’m one of you now?”

Eivor needed a moment to process your question, then she sat up and nodded.

“The council was thankful for your offer to help us prepare the raid and accepted your proposal. You’re going to come with me later so you can have another look at the map and tell us everything you know. In return, you will receive a wooden bangle declaring you part of this clan and my personal servant as soon as we return.”

You sat up as well and leaned against the headboard, fidgeting with the edge of the blanket as you tried to find the right words.

“I am very grateful for your trust. I know it normally does not come easy,” you said. “May I ask something else of you?”

The blonde raised her eyebrows with a questioning look.

“My- the people who came with me. How are they?”

“Oh, they are all well.” Eivor got up and started putting on her clothes. “Three of them have decided to stay with us freely and work in the stables and the longhouse. Two have yet to decide and your lady friend is refusing to speak to us. I hear she is eating, at least.”

A wave of relief washed over you. You were not the only one to change sides. You were fairly sure you knew who had taken up work in the village; the two remaining prisoners were probably the squires to Lord William. They had endured harsh treatment at his hands, but he had promised them a future as knights and held them in higher regard than his own daughters. It made sense that Eda was not willing to speak or change her mind. She blamed Eivor for the death of her entire family.

“Eivor?”

“Yes, little bird?”

“Do you think I could have a word with Eda? Maybe I can reason with her,” you suggested, holding your breath as you waited for her reaction. She considered it for a moment, then she shrugged and put on her coat.

“I guess it would do no harm. You can speak with her before we meet the others in the map room, maybe she will tell you something helpful.” She turned around. “Do you want to join me in the longhouse for breakfast?”

The question surprised you, but she was right. You were healing fast, and there was no reason for you to stay in bed any longer. You agreed and swung your legs out of bed, slipped into your wooden clogs and put on your new coat over the linen tunic. Hopefully, you would be able to acquire some more fitting and functional clothes soon, but now was not the time to worry about looks. Your face was still swollen and blue anyway, your bruises now starting to fade to green at the edges.

You quickly rubbed the salve Valka had given you on your tender cheek, then Eivor held the door open for you and you stepped outside into the snow. The air was hard and cold, but clear and when it filled your lungs, you could feel it chase out the last remains of smoke and illness. Walking down to the longhouse, two dogs ran toward you and circled you with excited barks and wagging tails, apparently delighted to see Eivor. She laughed and chased them around for a bit, then she told them she had other things to do and they let her be and ran off towards the stables.

When you entered the longhouse, Eivor was immediately greeted by cheers and excited comments regarding the coming raid. She smiled and acknowledged everyone’s words before leading you to a side part of the house. There was a fireplace in the center of the area, a hole in the roof directing the smoke outside. A kettle and a metal grid were hung over the fire and an old woman was stirring porridge with a gigantic wooden spoon. You both stepped closer.

“Sfáva, dette er Y/N,” Eivor introduced you, gently placing a hand between your shoulder blades. “She is from Williamsburg and has decided to join us. She is a cook, too."

The old woman slowly came closer, squinting her eyes at you until her face was almost directly beneath yours. Then she suddenly gave you a warm, almost toothless smile, deepening the crows’ feet around her eyes and stretching the leathery, weatherbeaten skin on her cheeks.

“Velkommen, Y/N,” she croaked and took your hand, patting it lightly. She chattered something in Eivor’s direction and the warrior translated: “She’s glad to have you here and hopes you can show her some English cooking. She does not speak your language, but she understands a few words and can grasp your meaning if you speak slowly. Our tongues are not too different.”

You smiled back at Sfáva, gently squeezing her hand.

“I’m honored to work by your side, Sfavá.”

The old cook let out a delighted laugh at your proper pronunciation of her name and gestured for you to take a wooden bowl. You and Eivor both took bowls and spoons from a table and Sfavá filled them with porridge. Eivor loaded up her meal with several sausages from the grill, to which you passed.

“I’m afraid we can’t eat together. My place is up there” - she mentioned to the table at the back of the room, standing orthogonal to the rest of the tables - “with my brother. I see your old companions have found themselves over there, maybe you would like to join them?” She motioned over to where the three men that had been released as well sat and ate their breakfast.

You nodded and wished the warrior a good morning, then you walked over and sat down with the others. Aelfric and Hal had been the stable masters back at Williamsburg and were excited about the variety of horses and possibilities here. Eivor had apparently put a lot of money and work into the stables, making them a much more enjoyable place than the dark, moldy ramshackle hut William’s old mares had spent their days in. Lewin was also content with his situation; he had joined the butcher and his son in preparing meat for winter.

They were all happy to see you, thanking you for your quick thinking and cautious behavior during and after the attack. Lewin was even convinced they owed you their lives. While they went on discussing the possibilities of hunting at this time of the year, you stared into your porridge and tried to find the words and the courage for a conversation with Eda.

What could you say that would explain to her your disloyalty to her name, your treachery to England, your betrayal against her after everything you had gone through together? How could you ever change her mind or her situation, what were your possibilities in this? Would she stay locked into a cell for the rest of her life? What would the Vikings do with her if she was nothing but a nuisance?

The others took their leave and you were still none the wiser. Absorbed in your thoughts, you let your gaze wander through the long hall. Your eyes finally got caught on the she-wolf at the elevated warriors’ table. She was deep in conversation with Sigmund and tapping her finger on the table as she made her point to him. He seemed to agree with everything she was saying, consistently nodding his head as he devoured his sausages.

Suddenly, Eivor caught your gaze and while she kept talking, her finger stayed pressed to the wooden tabletop. You could have sworn there was a hint of a smile on her face as she turned back to her brother to ask him something. Shaking your head, you got up and brought your empty bowl back to Sfáva’s side table.

Even though her eyesight seemed to be terrible, she immediately recognized you and repeated your name with a joyful fondness in her voice that made your heart swell in your chest. What a wonderful woman.

As you wandered around the hall to collect the dirty bowls people had left on the tables, you felt someone’s eyes on you. Smiling to yourself, you relished at the feeling a little bit longer before turning around to return Eivor’s look. To your surprise, she had stood up and turned her back to you, speaking with someone behind the table.

Slightly bewildered, you finished your round and carried the stash of bowls and spoons back to the cooking area. Just as you turned to ask Sfáva where you should wash the dishes, you saw something blue in the corner of your eye. You looked up and had to force yourself to keep your composure as you saw Randvi leaning against a wooden pillar across the hall and watching you from afar, her arms crossed and her face smooth and expressionless.

She did not move or look away when you saw her, standing perfectly still and continuing to look at you as you finally lowered your gaze and asked Sfáva about your tasks for the day. The old Viking explained her wishes to you with a mix of slow Norwegian and sign language, making it clear you should wash the bowls outside in a big trough and bring her another few sacks of flour. You felt uneasy as you left the longhouse to do your washing up, still followed by Randvi’s piercing gaze.

Eivor caught you outside, glad you had already settled in with your new work and thrilled for the raid. She was practically buzzing with excitement and her restlessness made you laugh, taking your mind off the strange moment with Randvi.

“What are you laughing at, eh? You are looking at a proud drengr, not a jester!” she exclaimed, furrowing her brows in feigned outrage and making you laugh even harder.

“You remind me of Eda and Delia on the eve before Christmas. They were so excited for the next morning, they could barely sleep.” Your gaze lost itself in the dirty water in the trough before you. You had some good memories with the two girls. They had been so innocent and happy. A hand on the small of your back drew you back to the present. Eivor had stepped closer.

“I will sleep like a bear in winter so long as you lie by my side,” she said quietly.

Her words and touch sent chills up your spine. Before you could reply, Eivor stepped back.

“But first, we will plan our glorious raid. And then we will celebrate. Oh Y/N, you will love it. Mead and food and great songs - we will be in good spirits tonight. And tomorrow will be even better!” Her eyes lit up at the thought of the joy and glory to come. “I need to look at a few things in the stables. Take this time to speak with your friend. I will come and get you when it is time to meet over the map.”

You watched her as she walked away, a spring in her step as she headed for the wooden building at the far end of the village. The dishes were clean, so you took them back inside and left them on the table for Sfáva. She was deep in conversation with two other Norse women when you filled another bowl with porridge and two sausages and quietly made your way to the cell in the back of the longhouse.

Eda sat on the floor where you had left her last. Her dress was dusty and stained, her hair was matted and her face looked grey and old. Dag, who was keeping watch again, let you in with a grumble and sat back down on his chair. Eda refused to look at you as you knelt down before her and offered her the food.

“Eda, please. You must eat. You look like death itself.”

“I don’t fear death,” she mumbled, still staring at her hands, “I fear traitors and backstabbing snakes.”

Her words knocked the air out of your lungs. You had not expected her to be this hostile. What now?

“I do not claim to know the pain you feel and the losses you are bearing. I am simply trying to live with dignity instead of wasting away,” you explained, tears welling up in your eyes. “Do you not see my face? Were you not there when I learned I was worth nothing at Williamsburg, nothing but dirt on your father’s shoe? Eivor has offered me a place in this world. She-”

“You and your precious Eivor!” Eda snapped, her gaze now burning right through your head and her face screwed up into a hateful grimace. “You fell to your knees the second you saw her, begging for her to take you. I will not be lulled into submission by a filthy little sapphic whore!”

This blow hurt worse than William’s fist. There was nothing left to say. You put the bowl down next to her, then you stood up and left the cell. Dag gave you a strange look when he locked the door again.

Just as you rounded the corner, you bumped into Eivor. She knew something was wrong right away, pulling you into her warm embrace and letting you cry into her chest for a long moment until she pulled back and lowered her head to look at you.

“What is it, my little bird? Will your friend neither soften nor think clearly?”

You just nodded and pressed your lips together, trying to swallow the lump in your throat. Eivor turned to look over her shoulder for a moment, then she pulled you into an alcove.

“You stay here and collect yourself. I will tell them you got held up and will be there soon.” She pulled you in for a last, quick hug, then she vanished from sight.

You took a few deep breaths and slapped your chest and torso, trying to fully return to the present, to your body, and to your rational thoughts. If Eda wanted nothing more to do with you, so be it. You had other things to worry about now.

When you entered the map room there were five men waiting for you alongside Eivor and Randvi. One of them was Sigurd, Eivor’s brother and the official chief of her clan, even though you felt like a lot of people cared for Eivor more strongly. You had just found out today that he was also Randvi’s husband. The other four you had seen before but you did not know their names.

Eivor looked up from the map first, smiling widely and rounding the table to introduce you.

“Everyone, this is Y/N. She was the cook at Williamsburg and has visited Fort Winton several times. She will tell us all she knows about the area and the castle.”

“What happened to your face, Y/N?” One of the warriors gave word to what everyone was thinking. You straightened up, trying to brace yourself against Randvi’s icy expression.

“Thank you for this opportunity to make myself useful here. My cheek made acquaintance with Lord William’s fist the day of your attack, but I am healing now and he is not, that is all that matters. And I have you to thank for it.”

Your answer seemed to satisfy everyone and you got to work. You spent the next hours telling them about every path and entrance to the castle you knew of, every person working there when you last visited, and everything about the Stewart that had taken over the shire. You even drew a plan of the order of the buildings and the rooms you knew of.

The Viking warriors warmed up to you quickly when they realized how much valuable knowledge you were giving them and even Randvi seemed to forget her hostility toward you after a while. The group even allowed you to stay for their debates on the right strategy, taking all your comments into consideration and thanking you for your help. Eivor reminded you at some point that you were still injured and told you to go back to the hut, put on the salve, and lay down. She would pick you up later for the feast.

Birna was already waiting for you at the door, mortally offended at having spent the day outside in the snow. She weaseled through the first crack in the door and was even more distraught when the fireplace was dead and the bed cold. You apologized sincerely and lit a fire to make Valka’s wonderful brew while you gently applied her salve to your healing cheek.

While your tea was steeping, you curled up with Birna and poured your heart out to her about Eda. She was a wonderful listener, snuggling up to you when you started crying and supporting your distraught words with agreeing meows. It was heartbreaking - the one friend you still had left did not want to be your friend anymore. You were all alone here. You had to admit that the Norse people were extremely welcoming to you and that Eivor would probably be very offended to hear you call yourself alone after two nights in her arms, but still. You were lonely. After you had drunk a cup of your herb infusion, you laid down, pulled Birna into your arms and cried yourself to sleep while the white cat silently watched over you.

A light grasp on your shoulder woke you and you opened your eyes to find Eivor crouching down before you, smiling softly at you. It was already dark outside and you had trouble finding your grasp on reality for a moment. Was it the next day? No. The feast.

Your mouth was dry and your eyelids felt heavy from crying. Eivor softly brushed the hair out of your face with her fingers.

“Good evening, little bird. Can I interest you in some excellent boar meat and warm mead?”

Birna answered in your stead, crying out as she stretched her little body on top of you. Eivor’s expression became even softer.

“For you, little lady, I have something special.” She took a small balled up bundle from her pocket and opened the stained cloth to reveal some fresh innards, probably taken from the boar. She placed the cloth on the ground in front of the fireplace and Birna jumped down from the bed to have her own royal feast.

You got up and followed the cat's example in stretching your limbs, feeling Eivor’s eyes on you as you put on your shoes and cloak and tried to comb your hair with your fingers. The blonde was next to you at once, holding your hands still.

“Wait. Let me.”

She opened her wooden chest and produced a beautiful wide-tooth comb. It was made from some kind of bone or fang. The warrior stood behind you and gently pulled all your hair back towards her. Then she began combing it out, starting at the bottom of each strand and carefully moving upwards, taking out any knots or dirt. Her fingers touched your scalp every time she took a new strand of hair, sending lightning down your spine and making the hair on your neck stand up.

“That’s better. I can braid it for you, too, if you’d like that,” Eivor said behind you. You brushed a hand over your long hair and felt its smoothness. You had never been allowed to wear your hair down at Williamsburg, always having to put it up in a knot and wear a bonnet or at least a cap. Today you had seen so many Viking women proudly wearing their hair down, some with intricate little braids and beads in theirs.

“I’d like that, yes,” you whispered, scared your voice would betray you. Every day, every hour here felt like a step closer to freedom and happiness.

“Sit down on the bed.” The blonde gently guided you to sit at the foot of the mattress so she could stand next to you. Then she began taking hair from your healthy side and braiding it along the hairline around your ear and down the back of your neck. She stepped around you to look at her work from the front.

“I think that is all you need. You’re beautiful.”

Your heart jumped into your throat, almost making its way onto your tongue. Your fingers followed the path of the small braid, admiring the perfect work of the warrior’s calloused hands. How peculiar, that these rough hands that wielded swords and axes bigger than your head could also be so gentle and precise.

A knock on the door tore you out of your reverie. It was Valka who wanted to take a look at your face and pick you both up for the feast. She was satisfied with your healing process and delighted to see Birna, having a little chat with the cat on the bed. You had to keep yourself from laughing when the thought of Birna being the true queen of this clan entered your head. She probably felt that the same way. The white cat was adored by everyone, and her demands were followed without question.

As the three of you made your way down to the longhouse, you could already hear loud singing and laughter. People were stumbling outside to relieve themselves in the bushes and others were just arriving, all being greeted with loud cheers and big jugs of mead. The same happened to you when you entered the great hall. A few warriors rushed to your side, greeting Eivor and paying you compliments and thanks for your help that day. Enthusiasm saturated the air like a humid day, filling everyone with joy and confidence for tomorrow.

Valka was quick to take the jug of ale from your hands and gave it to someone else who swore his love to her in return. She just smiled and pulled you towards the kitchen area. You had already lost Eivor in the mass of warriors jeering and singing praise to Odin. At the hearth fire, you met Sfáva sitting on a bench and enjoying a massive pitcher of mead. She cried out in joy when she saw you and hugged Valka tightly in greeting before squeezing your hands and grinning her almost toothless smile at you.

Valka asked you to stay with the older woman for a while and help her with the food; then you saw her talk to a red-haired woman and vanish in a dark corner with her. Maybe that was the woman she had spoken about with Eivor before? You wished her the best of luck.

There was not too much to do. The boar was on a spit over the great fire in the main hall and the men were responsible for cutting down the meat for everyone. You were grilling sausages and vegetables on the side and helping the boys open new barrels of ale that were consistently emptied within the hour.

Eivor came by soon, asking for more variety on her plate. It was obvious that she had already had enough mead to kill a boar, slightly swaying when she walked and getting extremely close when she tried to talk to you over the noise in the hall. Her face was red and radiating heat, her eyes had a drunk glisten to them and her laugh was rougher and dirtier than during the day. You were glad she was enjoying herself, although you could not help but wonder if this was the best idea considering her plans for tomorrow.

You spent some time outside cleaning plates at the trough and getting fresh air when you suddenly heard a noise around the corner. You debated for a moment whether you should risk a look but your curiosity got the best of you. As you stuck your head around the edge of the house, you weren’t immediately sure what you saw before you.

Two figures were leaning against the wall in close embrace, chuckling and mumbling sweet nothings to each other. As a cloud finally freed the moon and its light shone down on your village, you made out Valka’s golden headdress and the silhouette of the red-haired woman she had talked to earlier. Apparently, she had gotten lucky. You quietly moved back to your plates and smiled to yourself. Valka was a wonderful person, giving and loving and always putting others’ needs above hers. Eivor had spoken very highly of her trusted friend. She deserved to be happy.

When you came back inside and put the plates back on the sideboard in the cooking area, you noticed Eivor sitting at the front table surrounded by her men. And oh - there was Randvi sitting next to her. The two of them were leaning toward each other, their heads almost touching as they laughed about something Sigurd had said. It seemed that they had talked about their difficulties and made up.

You let yourself fall on the bench next to Sfáva and she patted your thigh, holding out her pitcher to signal it was empty. With a sigh, you got up to get her more mead and made yourself a plate of vegetables from the grid, seeing as you had not eaten since breakfast. Sfáva noticed you had not taken any meat and insisted you go get some boar meat. Upon the realization that she would not let you sit down again until you had tried the boar, you slowly went over to the big fire, hoping no one would notice you. The warrior there cut you a generous piece and you were almost back in your dark corner when someone called your name. God, no.

Aelfric, Hal, and Lewin were sitting at a table with some other stable boys and young maids. You gave Sváfa an apologetic wave which she answered with a loud, heartfelt laugh, then you made your way to your old companions. The boar was better than you had expected and you really were terribly hungry, wolfing down your food at an indecent speed and even going back for another portion. The others were talking about the two squires still sat in the cell; they were sure they would come around by the next morning. Who would really prefer the cold ground over these celebrations and the wonderful food that was shared fairly between everyone?

Looking over to the table at the back of the hall you could see Eivor and her friends conversing loudly, laughing and slapping each other's backs. At one point Dag danced on the table, but he soon lost his footing and went down in a wave of plates, jugs, rattling metal, and the yells of his fellow warriors. You stared at Eivor for a while, hoping she would return your gaze, but she was completely immersed in her conversation and never even looked up from her table. You finished your meal quietly, listening to the others talking about a new dice game they had learned and about a filly at the stable that was born in late autumn, a strange and dangerous time for newborns in the animal world. Together, they were sure they would get it through the winter safe.

Later you returned to Sfáva and leaned against the wall opposite her, warming yourself up by the fire and keeping an eye on Eivor, who was apparently in another drinking contest with one of her men. Randvi had her hands on Eivor’s shoulders and was cheering her on. A small figure stepped next to you, crossing her arms and following your gaze. Valka had returned.

You made no attempt to hide your feelings, you knew she had already seen through you. The healer put an arm around your waist and shook you slightly, looking up at you with a sympathetic expression.

“I know you saw us, Y/N.” The words took a moment for you to grasp their meaning, then you turned to Valka in surprise.

“Oh God, I swear I will keep your secret. I am a master at keeping my mouth shut.”

The smaller woman had to smile at your nervous reaction.

“I trust you. I am glad it was you that caught us and not someone else.”

“May I ask…” you hesitated, “what is going on between you?”

Valka turned her head to look at the singing warriors in the hall. There was a pain in her eyes that felt just too familiar.

“She is married. It was not her choice, but her father’s way of forging an alliance. Her husband is one of the hunters and away most of the time. When he beat her badly the first time, she came to me.”

The silence between you was heavy with meaning. When she began to speak again, her words grabbed your feet and pulled on them, getting heavier and heavier until you began to wonder why the earth had not opened underneath you and swallowed you whole.

“I know you wonder what happened between Eivor and Randvi. It is neither my place nor my ability to tell you everything, but I will say this, for fairness’s sake and because I think you already know in your heart. There was once love between them. Whether it still lives on, I cannot tell. But Eivor has told me that she is ready to leave this bond behind her because she feels something new, something far deeper and more intensive is coming. That is why she has pursued you. She felt something deeper the moment she met you.”

Valka turned to you and you fought to at least turn your feet so you could face her. Everything was spinning around you. The dark-haired woman gently placed her hands on either side of your neck and looked deep into your eyes.

“Follow your heart, Y/N. The gods will lead you. They have decided your destiny long before you were born.”

After recommending you should get some sleep, Valka left you frozen in place and dizzy. The noise that filled the room was now nothing but a single loud booming voice threatening to split your head. You needed to get some air. Maybe your bed was really the best idea.

You looked around for Eivor, but she had vanished from sight. It did not matter, you would find your way into her arms later one way or another. You said your goodbyes to Sfáva and the other servants, then you finally exited the longhouse and inhaled the cool night air.

Rounding the corner toward your hut, you were suddenly startled by a noise that sounded like an animal crying out. Maybe a cat? You tiptoed around the dark cottage to your right and suddenly stopped dead in your tracks.

Your heart dropped to your feet and all the blood left your face.

Eivor had pressed her brother's wife to the wooden wall and was kissing her passionately while her hands explored Randvi’s body under her tunic. They were so immersed that they had not heard you coming. You could not move, your feet suddenly weighing you down like boulders again.

The blonde’s knee was between the other woman’s legs and Randvi spread them for her lover, moaning into her mouth. As Eivor started attacking her neck with kisses, the auburn-haired woman opened her eyes and looked directly at you. The surprise in her gaze was almost unnoticeable, fading quickly to be replaced by malicious pleasure as she continued to stare at you while whining Eivor’s name and burying her fingers in the warrior’s hair.

Finally, your muscles started to work again. You turned on the spot and quietly made your way to Eivor’s hut. You felt sick. Closing the door behind you, you kicked your shoes under the bed and threw your coat into the corner. The cat on Eivor's pillow just gave you a questioning look.

“Oh Birna, if only you knew.” You threw yourself on the bed next to her, then you started bawling for the second time today. You cried until there was not a single tear left and you felt completely empty inside. Then you scooted close to the edge of the bed, turning your back to Eivor’s side, and tried to fall asleep.

Even though you fell into a state of absence, sleep would not come. Dread filled you when you heard teps at the door. But before Eivor could enter, you heard her cough and retch, probably throwing up into the thorny bushes a few steps from the door. A slight feeling of righteousness overcame you but it quickly disappeared again, leaving only misery and desperation.

When the warrior finally entered, you could hear her stumble through the room and curse under her breath as she hit her foot on the bed frame. She seemed to only take off her coat and let it fall to the floor before lying down next to you and falling asleep in an instant. A part of you had still hoped for her arms around you, despite everything. Now you could hear her ragged breathing and smell the smoke and alcohol on her hair and breath.

The tears came again and you silently cried into your pillow while the warrior slept soundly next to you, oblivious to your sorrow. Only Birna proved her loyalty to you by getting up from Eivor’s side of the bed and rolling up in the crook of your bent knees.

You must have fallen asleep at some point because you were woken the next morning by another salve of mumbled curses. It was still grey outside, dawn had only just begun. You stayed completely still and listened to Eivor dress herself and collect her weapons and shield from her trunk.

To your surprise, the warrior suddenly walked around to your side, crouched down, and lightly stroked your hair.

“Have a good day, my little bird. I will bring you honor and victory today,” she whispered, then she stood up and swiftly left the hut.

Let me know what you thought ❤️ (it’s okay if you hate me, I promise I’ll make it up to you in the next chapters)

#eivor x reader #lady eivor #f!eivor #f!eivor x reader #lady eivor x reader #eivor fanfiction #ac valhalla #assassinscreedvalhalla #fluff #angst #im so sorry for the pain im putting you through #but it will be worth it in the end #never thought writing angst would be this much fun

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volturialice · 3 years

Text

me: i’m not gonna write any more of the drugged!human alice au

also me:

it has a title now too I guess. posting in a huge rush because I was supposed to be out the door ten minutes ago, so it’s even more unbeta’ed than usual. oh well

2,180 words

warnings: drugs, discussion of date rape, vomiting

rating: T

pairings: jalice

part 1 here

perihelion 2/?

It’s hard to tell visions from dreams. Sometimes, Alice doesn’t know which is which until a vision is coming true right in front of her, and then it’s like, okay, too late to do anything about this now. It means all of her dreams are high stakes—any nightmare could become a life-ruining disaster, any good dream could be made or unmade real by some hidden catalyst she doesn’t know about. She’s pretty sure she almost bombed the PSAT because she didn’t wear the blue top she had on in the dream where she scored a 189.

But her inability to tell the difference was never that big of a deal until Forks—until she started dreaming about the Cullens, and Jasper specifically. She wishes she could tell which of the Jasper dreams are real. They’re just so…well, horny. If Alice knew they were visions, and not her subconscious making a complete, desperate idiot of itself, she could be less embarrassed about the whole thing.

Tonight she dreams of Jasper and Rosalie in a room with green walls and shiny wood floors. They’re different in the dream, somehow—more still. Rosalie doesn’t sit. Jasper doesn’t blink.

Between them, an open doorway gapes into darkness. Just visible in the room beyond is the silhouette of a prone figure on a bed, unmoving. They watch it for an uncomfortable amount of time before Rosalie speaks.

“If she were any other human, I would have hunted you for sport, you know.”

“I know,” says Jasper, sounding impossibly old and tired.

“I would be off absolutely wrecking your shit right now, and then I would take care of the liability, because that’s how it works in this family. But she’s…this.” Rosalie grimaces, gesturing to the figure on the bed. “And why was it you told us you were following her, again? To ‘ensure her silence?’ Right,” she scoffs, evidently too disgusted with Jasper to keep looking at him.

“She hasn’t said anything. She won’t.”

“No, she won’t, because you’ll stop her at all costs, will you?”

Jasper’s face doesn’t betray the slightest twitch, but his eyes harden almost imperceptibly. “Not that way.”

Rosalie whirls back around. “You were supposed to be the one person I could count on to do what’s necessary! And now you’re telling me you won’t? Listen to yourself!”

Jasper throws up his hands. “Why are you here, then, Rose? Why are you helping her?”

“I’m helping you, you jackass! I know you all think I’m this narcissistic bitch, but I’m not…not inhumane, okay?” Rosalie levels a contemptuous glance at him, then looks away. “I don’t want some girl to be date-raped, however dangerous she is. And I’m not about to sit by and watch you make a complete mess of things.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I think that ship may have sailed,” grumbles Jasper.

“I’ll say. I drive up and she’s going on about how you’re stalking her and claiming you’re dating? She should have been killed the moment she figured out what we were, but instead you’re following her around protecting her because of some bizarre psychic connection she claims you have? Make it make sense, Jasper.”

“Edward confirmed her ability is real.”

“Great, so she’s a bigger freak than us. That makes it all ok,” snaps Rosalie, dripping with sarcasm. “Wonderful to know your abysmal taste in women hasn’t altered after all these years.”

Jasper ignores both the jab and the implication. “Earlier you made it sound like you were on her side.”

“I just think you ought to admit what’s really going on here. You won’t let us kill her—fine. It’s utterly irresponsible and stupid, but I can accept that. But it’s not like we can allow her to keep existing out there as a human, knowing what she knows.”

Jasper barks out a humorless, incredulous laugh. “Are you advocating that we should have Carlisle change her? You, Rosalie Hale, want to ‘take away her humanity?’”

Rosalie shrugs. “I’m not saying she wouldn’t be better off dead. But she’s not a very good human, is she? I gather she’s not exactly thriving. They have to pump her full of drugs just to keep her functional, and her human peers still think she’s insane. Be realistic. Her life was over the moment she learned the truth about us.”

Jasper’s only response is a slow shake of his head, like he still can’t believe what he’s hearing.

Rosalie’s eyes narrow. “Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about changing her. Don’t tell me it wasn’t your first thought, when you realized you didn’t want her dead. I may not be the mind reader in the family, but I know that’s a lie.”

It takes Jasper a beat too long to answer. “Of course I’ve thought about it.”

“Not enough, apparently. Right now, we’re in as much danger as she is. If she were one of us…well, her life is already ruined anyway. At least then we’d have her oh-so-special ability on our side. Surely you can see the strategic advantage,” Rosalie rebukes. “Better Carlisle changes her than the Volturi. Has it occurred to you that if they ever find out she exists, the decision will be taken right out of your hands?”

“It’s not in my hands.”

Rosalie rolls her eyes again. “Hers, then.”

He sighs. “The possibility did occur to me.”

“You think she wants to learn Italian and live in a sewer? Eat tourists?”

“I have no idea what she wants.”

Rosalie laughs. “Right, because she’s playing it so close to the vest. She called you a simp. Do you know what that means?”

“We’re not talking about this.”

“Funny how you never want to confide in anyone, yet here we are.”

Jasper’s look says that isn’t what’s going on here, but he doesn’t respond. They settle back into tense silence.

“What are you going to do about the man? The one who drugged her?” asks Rosalie after a while.

“Eliminate him. Quietly.”

Rosalie nods. “Carlisle won’t like it.”

“He doesn’t have to.”

“Can you actually do it, though? Without slipping?”

Jasper doesn’t answer, which is an answer in itself.

“I could do it.” Rosalie’s voice is quiet.

“It’s not your problem.”

“Exactly,” Rosalie insists. “It wouldn’t be a problem for me. If you slip…well, we may not have to move, but you won’t be able to come back to school for months. Going to trust the rest of us to babysit your human?”

“I won’t slip,” says Jasper, but for the first time, he sounds uncertain.

Alice’s dream chooses this moment to blur and shift. Jasper and Rosalie melt away, voices distorting until they’re drowned out by other voices, other sounds and images that crowd in and pull at her, like being tossed around in a rough ocean. They come one after another, too fast to make sense of them—muddy tires, a burst of cut-off music, a slow, dark ooze crawling over pavement, an echoing splash. Familiar red eyes, looking down at her.

Then Alice is awake, and the eyes looking down at her are black. Wait, no. There are no eyes looking down at her. It must have been part of the dream.

She’s lying on something soft—a bed. Above her is a white ceiling. Her head throbs with a confused, cotton-y ache, and her mouth tastes disgusting.

What the hell happened? Alice isn’t great at piecing together chronological sequences at the best of times. She remembers being in Port Angeles…splitting up with Bella in order to meet her friends from the art show at a bar, and then…people talking, her legs sticking to the green leather barstool. The lights getting blurry around the edges, the cool, slippery feel of condensation from the glass in her hand, and…oh. Oh, shit. Jasper.

Jasper had been there. The last thing she can recall is Jasper approaching, his face twisted in rage so murderous that she’d thought, huh, I guess he really is a vampire.

She rolls over and—speak of the devil—there he is, standing kind of a weird distance away, halfway between the bed and the door. He looks far less murderous than she remembers.

“Good morning,” she croaks, struggling into a sitting position. “Um. Where the hell am I?”

“Port Townsend,” says Jasper, which means absolutely nothing to her. She’s only been in Forks a few months—is she seriously supposed to know Washington geography?

To Alice’s immense relief, she’s still fully clothed. She does a surreptitious check to make sure her boobs aren’t falling out of her shirt, and when she looks back up there’s a glass of water in front of her face. She takes it and chugs the whole thing down in a few gulps. Why does she feel so hungover? She had only had, like, two drinks last night. Certainly not enough to make her black out and forget the whole evening. No, this big, empty gap in her memory feels more like when they used to drug her at the hospital. In fact, it feels exactly like that.

Jasper takes the empty glass from her and hands her another full one. He’s still watching her in a way that makes her want to squirm and fidget. Why had he been so angry last night?

She chugs the second glass of water while her sluggish brain tries to add it all up. Angry Jasper plus no memory plus waking up in a bed in a strange place, equals…yikes. Maybe she shouldn’t be drinking whatever he hands her.

“Uh,” she taps her fingers against the empty glass, “why do I feel like I’ve been roofied?”

“Because you were. Here,” says Jasper, handing her something else. Her own phone, somehow fully charged. One new voicemail, from…herself.

Future Alice, this is Past Alice. You’re probably pretty freaked out right now, but it’s okay! Jasper didn’t drug you. I repeat, Jasper did not drug you. Be nice to Rosalie; she’s there to help. Now put the phone down, you’re about to hurl. Bye!

Alice has just enough time to think, Rosalie? before a violent wave of nausea hits and she’s throwing up into the waste bin that appears in front of her face. “Ugh,” says the person holding it, and sure enough, there’s Rosalie.

There’s something extra humiliating about throwing up in front of two vampires, one of whom she kind of has a thing with and the other of whom is his super-hot sister who hates her. Thankfully, her stomach was empty except for the two glasses of water.

Rosalie blurs out of the room—damn, she’s fast—and reappears without the waste bin. It’s weird being on the bed while Rosalie and Jasper are standing, so Alice gets to her feet, already feeling way better. “Whose house is this?” she asks.

“Mine,” says Rosalie, practically shooting laser beams of resentment from her eyes.

“You wouldn’t let us take you home or to the hospital,” explains Jasper. “This is Rosalie and Emmett’s beach cottage.”

“Cottage” seems like the wrong word for this place, now that Alice gets a look at it. It has eight- or nine-foot ceilings and the view out the window—a vast, gray body of water that might be the ocean or some kind of bay—looks like a default computer desktop.

“Oh. So, then…someone else drugged me last night?” She tries to remember who she was talking to before Jasper came over, but she’d talked to so many people at the bar that they all kind of blur together in her head.

Jasper nods.

“Like we’d ever need to drug you,” says Rosalie. Oh, right. Vampires.

“So you just…watched me sleep?”

“Yeah, it was riveting. I had no idea snoring like a lawnmower was a side effect of rohypnol.”

So Alice was supposed to be nice to Rosalie, huh? Easier said than fucking done.

Something pushes at the back of her mind—Rosalie and Jasper watching her sleep. She, Alice, had watched them watching her sleep—from outside her own body. A vision, then, and not a dream.

She tries to remember the rest of it on the drive back to Forks, staring out the back window of Rosalie’s BMW like a kid with the two vampires up front. There had been something else in the vision, something besides the disjointed set of images. Jasper and Rosalie had talked about her, about whether or not she should be a vampire. She sneaks a glance at Jasper in the car mirror, at his downcast, shadowed eyes. Had he ever actually said whether he wanted Alice to be a vampire or not?

His eyes snap up to meet hers in the mirror, so suddenly she almost jumps. Alice looks away, guilty for no real reason. The vision, think about the vision.

There had been something else in it: a plan. They were going to…something. Something about slipping, something Rosalie thought she could do better than Jasper…

Right. They were going to kill someone.

rosalie @ human bella: noooo don’t become a vampire you’re so fertile aha

rosalie @ human alice: yeah nobody’s impregnating this little gremlin. bite away

#twilight fanfiction #jalice #jasper hale #alice cullen #rosalie hale #fic: mine #drugs //#date rape mention //#vomiting //#perihelion tag

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ffangirlingsince2001 · 4 years

Text

The Witcher and the Princess: Intro

*not my gif*

Geralt x Reader

Geralt of Rivia is not a babysitter, he is not a bodyguard, and he has no interest in transporting princesses across the continent. Until gold is offered and for the next 90 days he’s saddled with a chirpy, bubbly, princess, who is betrothed to the prince of Narok and has a desire to see everything before she’s trapped behind another set of walls.

Warnings: Language, Geralt being grumpy, eventual smut, angst, fluff

Geralt prided himself on hunting monsters, on keeping people safe, but he was not a babysitter. Especially spoiled princesses betrothed to equally spoiled princes. He was rough around the edges and had no time for the softness of royal who had never experienced a callous. But gold is gold, so as the king pleaded with him, ushering towards the very large bag of gold he was promised, Geralt grunted a begrudging yes.

The instructions were simple, take the princess to Narok and return with a pouch of black sand and a lock of her hair, to prove the task had been done. It was the time limit he was given that made the task odd enough he was willing to listen a little longer than he normally would. The day before her birthday, no sooner, no later. Exactly ninety days. An oddity that rubbed raw against his skin, but as he had thought when he first accepted the task, gold is gold.

However, now he wasn’t entirely sure that gold really was gold, not when the princess talked more like an auctioneer and the same consistence as Jaskier. She had been going on for hours. From the very second she had offered him a curtsy and late into the night, the jabbering had never stopped.

To be honest he wasn’t sure if she had even paused to breathe.

At first, he had figured she would tire out, the jostle of the horse and cold should have pulled her into a silent exhaustion long ago. He didn’t even know what she was talking about, never bothering to listen. To him it was simply a list of names and actions.

Geralt, though not one for large crowds, practically cheered when they pulled into the town for the first night of their journey. His keep suddenly quieted and he glanced over his shoulder to see if she had suddenly disappeared. She had not of course but was staring the dirty little town in awe. The lanterns glimmered in her eyes and a wide smile spread across her face. He glanced around, confused as to what had captured her attention, but found nothing but filth and glowing windows.

“Which one are we staying in?” she asked, the first question he had actually paid attention to.

“The cheapest,” he grunted, waiting for the complaints that were to follow, but she only looked more excited, dismounting from her horse and following him through the streets.

He was grateful she had stopped talking, but that made it so every time she was distracted by a peddler who was closing up for the night he didn’t notice until he was a block ahead. By the time they reached the inn she was lacking a few gold coins and her arms were weighed down by the little trinkets she had purchased. He couldn’t help but be annoyed, even in her silence.

“Two rooms,” he barked and the innkeeper shook his head.

“Only got one, two beds.”

“Two rooms or we’ll go somewhere else.”

“Good luck to you then. Most rooms are shut down, leaky roofs and what not. This cold doesn’t do good things to the wood.” Geralt grunted and slammed the gold on the table, before snagging the key and marching up the stairs, the princess hurrying after him. He threw open the door and surveyed the room. It would have been cramped with one bed, let alone two, but he knew the innkeeper was right about the condition of the buildings around these parts. He dropped his pack on the floor and watched with mild distaste as she hung her bag and fur cloak on the bed frame and pulled back the covers before sitting. Her fingers ran over the threadbare blankets, what he thought to be a melancholic smile lingering on her face. She looked out of place amongst the dusty browns of the room, dressed head to toe in green velvet and golden embroidery.

“What time do you think we will leave tomorrow?” She was still disgustingly chipper.

“When ever your majesty decides to rise,” he grunted and she looked at the floor, her shoe rubbing a hole in the thin carpet.

“Okay…” She trailed off, avoiding his gaze by studying the hole she had created. “I should go to bed then, so I don’t keep you waiting.”

“I’m eating, don’t leave,” he grunted before turning and locking the door behind him.

He needed a drink.

When he returned to the room, the princess was merely a pile of barely moving blankets. Her dress had been hung up and the shoes were tucked neatly beneath the bed. All the signs of perfect upbringing are there and make him want to vomit up his dinner.

Fucking princesses.

#the witcher #the witcher x reader #geralt x reader #geralt of rivia #the witcher smut #the witcher fluff #the witcher angst

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yeoldontknow · 4 years

Text

Ciperion: 1/2

Author: @yeoldontknow as part of the Anchors & Arrows collaboration with @imdifferentshadesofpurple Pairing: Jaebeom x Reader (oc; female) Genre: fantasy!au; shipwreck au; jaebeom is a fisherman; romance; angst; elements of horror; ghosts; eventual smut Summary: Everyone on the Isle Indolon knows the story of Ciperon, though none believe it is true. Over centuries, the tale of the long lost ghost ship on the high seas has become little more than urban legend. In his youth, Jaebeom always thought the story was heartbreaking, and he did his best to avoid it - the same way he avoids the missionaries that have taken occupation on the island. On the anniversary of Ciperion’s ill-fated port date, you wash up on sea, and only you have the answers he’s always been seeking. If only you could remember who you are. Rating (this part): PG-13 Warnings (this part): angst; shipwrecks; references to head trauma; jaebeom does CPR; jaebeom rescuing an unconcious woman; allusions to sexual assault but it didnt happen, he just is protective and misinterprets everything; anxiety; ptsd; vomiting; ghost stories; graphic depictions of violence; mentions of blood; non-major character death; themes of horror; lots of grief; memory loss; jb doesnt really know what to do with himself; mentions of becoming a widow; it sounds really sad but i promise its not that bad; tbh oc is a really great sport Word Count: 17.5K

Three hundred miles off the emerald coast of Isle Indolon, Second Mate Ansil Green looks up at the shimmering night of the dark sky and feels a chill of apprehension burrow deep within his bones.

There are only three days left to their journey, and for five months he has charted each with meticulous accuracy. It is easy to rely on the stars, he thinks. Their steadfast illumination and the reassurance found in their seasonal rotation have brought him immeasurable comfort throughout his life, and not once, not even on nights when storms threaten to eat their way through the ship’s bowsprit, have they ever led him astray.

In the berthing hull, the missionaries say their prayers with tightly clasped hands, while others read their scrolls in preparation for new lectures once they reach the shore. Back in Indolon, Ansil’s wife and two children anxiously await his triumphant return, and everyone, every crew member and stow away rat, is eager to breach land. Even now, he can see it clearly - his wife’s pretty eyes as she laughs, small crescent moons that remind him of the night sky; the youthful, almost violent laughter of his sons as they play in the fields; the creaking if their iron bed frame as he rocks between her thighs, not unlike the ship as she rocks against the sea.

Tonight, he wonders if these simple treasures have fallen too far out of reach, if they have slipped, imperceptibly, out of his grasp.

Because tonight, the stars are wrong.

Gripping the mahogany banister, he leans against the side and cranes his neck, angling his view slightly to the right in the hopes of correcting the pattern. Something about this is terribly wrong, wrong enough that the deepening doubt bites at him, heating his skin like a fever. Chewing the inside of his cheek, he does his best to swallow this worry, attempts, rather meekly, to focus on the light flapping of the mainsail above him, on its rhythmic and soothing white noise that often helps him drift, hazily, through sleepless nights. Now, it offers him little comfort, the wind that moves the ship rustling through his hair, stroking against the shell of his ear, carrying whispers of splintered wood and rocky shores blackened by sea water mixing with spilled blood.

Heavy footsteps make their approach from behind, the purposeful strides and confident gait of Captain Grier L’Allante causing the heels of his boots to shatter the false sense of peace. Ansil does not move to greet his Captain, and while this would be considered an insult on any other crew ship, he supposes Grier has become used to his flippant and yet focused attitude when the stars are out, decades of manning ships alongside one another having reduced the rules of propriety almost entirely non-existent. Keeping his gaze on the sky, he feels Grier come to stand beside him, the heat of his closeness full of pride and awe; admiring the vastness of the sea before him, he exudes an energy that puts a sour taste in the back of Ansil’s throat.

How he hates to ruin the evening.

‘We’re going in the wrong direction,’ he announces, feeling Grier stiffen rather than deflate entirely.

His captain hums in consideration, never one to give over to fear or uncertainty. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Look at the stars.’ Ansil corrects his posture and regards his friend with pleading eyes. It is, perhaps, the first time he has ever shown signs of fear with his captain, but Grier maintains his composure and presses his lips into a thin line. ‘They’re at the wrong angle by about twenty-six degrees,’ he continues to explain.

Pointing up at the constellation Cassiopeia, he gestures a long straight line back behind him, back towards the foresail, in the direction of Hydra. Turning once again to look at Grier, he waits for some kind of flicker of emotion to pass over his features, and when nothing comes, he simply sighs, pressing his friend for more.

‘This distance shouldn’t be this wide,’ he offers grimly, straightening his posture to stand at his full height. ‘Did we turn?’

‘No.’ Grier barks his reply with forceful authority, though, behind his eyes there is a storm brewing, a brief flash of concern that placates Ansil. ‘I helm this ship myself, and you know in your heart we haven’t turned. You said straight on until dawn, and the wind is steady at four knots to the South-West. We’re still on course.’

In unison, they turn back to the sky, and Ansil tightens his grip on the railing. ‘There’s something bad about this. I can feel it.’

Grier chuckles amicably. ‘What you’re feeling is five months staring at the same bloody lights in the sky.’ His gaze falls on Ansil’s profile, and he can feel him regarding his features with probing scrutiny. ‘You didn’t even take a woman at the last port,’ he states, nudging his shoulder with a force that makes Ansil lean to the side.

‘They’re not precisely the same,’ he admonishes with a laugh. Grier regards him expectantly, but all Ansil can manage is a sigh of longing. He’d love to laugh at this kind of crude joke, and normally he would, but three days is somehow longer than five insurmountable months, the ability to count them transmuting the number into something brutal. ‘And you know I’d never do that to Mala.’

Taking off his hat, Grier runs a hand through the greasy black strands of his hair, grimacing through his laugh. ‘Too loyal for your own good.’

This is something Ansil can tease him about, and he offers his friend an impish grin, taking his own opportunity to nudge Greir’s shoulder roughly, revealing his hidden strength. ‘And your prick is too slippery for your health.’

It’s childish, the way they punch their fists into one another’s arms, the jovial nature of this making him feel as though they are teenagers once again. At once, he is nineteen and Grier has just convinced him to come out to sea, to stow away on his father’s vessel, and they are laughing at the reckless foolishness of this idea. But they are smiling, already hungry for the adventure, already wanting the spray from the waves and the salt that shall never leave their skin. They are young and they are hopeful, and now, even after the bloodshed and the violence and the horror they have seen among the ocean, he thinks they have never been quite as dangerous as they were then.

‘You need rest, mate,’ Grier advises once they’ve settled back against the railing. They look out over the ocean, the water as black as the night it reflects, light of the moon illuminating the peaks of waves and casting shadows behind them as long as the sea is wide. Releasing a deep sigh through the flare of his nostrils, he suddenly becomes alarmingly serious. ‘Otherwise, it’s scurvy.’

A beat of silence passes between them, a pregnant pause in which neither one of them breathes, the word hanging heavily between them both, unwilling to be touched. Until, they erupt into laughter, Ansil leaning against the railing to steady himself atop the wet baseboards. A wave hits the side of the ship and sprays gently against his cheeks, cooling his skin and for a moment, he is grounded in the happiness of this. For a moment, the sky is clear and he can see Grier’s warm, too kind smile; can see the way the ship is heading home, steadfast and unyielding in her journey.

For a moment, there is peace.

Calming his breath, he runs a hand over his face and nods. ‘What I would give for a peach.’

Ansil waits for the inevitable hum of commiseration, a sound of companionship in the memory of the juicy ripeness of Indolon peaches - the yellow of their fruit so moist it would leave their hands sticky for days. He can almost taste the burst of flavor in his mouth, tongue wet in desperation for something other than the salt and brine of oysters and trout, and finds the only consolation for this hunger is that they shall arrive in time for the peak season.

Ansil waits for Grier, but the sound never comes, his captain watching the waves beyond the ship with lips parted in pale shock. Knotting his brow, Ansil takes his time turning to look where Grier’s focus rests, the tendrils of dread rising once more within his belly. The fear in him feels almost inhuman, taking full control of his joints as they stiffen, keeping him rigid and held firmly in place. Grier continues looking out to sea, blood rushing away from his cheeks, likely retreating within to service more important pieces in preparation of survival.

When Ansil finally gathers his strength, he swallows thickly, and looks out to the water. He has lived through war - a great many battles on Naval ships both larger and smaller than this. He has seen dying men beg for both life and death, the fear in their eyes making it unclear which they crave more. He has seen waves rise taller than the ships he crews, seeking an immortal companion for her enduring loneliness.

But he has never seen fog overtake the earth quite like this, or with such wrath.

It comes from nowhere and everywhere all at once, swallowing both sea and sky as it crawls across the horizon. From its center, an ethereal light seems to glow, a beacon to herald the nothingness that surrounds them, but even this light too is a half formed shadow, the core of its rays smeared across miles as it spreads within the clouds. The blood in his ears in unrelenting, the rush of his blood to his thunderous heart making his head begin to hurt as he watches it spread. Has anything ever been so fast?

The fog works quickly to cover everything in sight, racing towards the ship at a speed he simply cannot comprehend. When he was young, and newly appointed to Third Mate Naval Officer, he sailed aboard the Cygnus, the fastest ship Indolon had ever produced - reaching a record breaking thirteen knots in the correct wind conditions. Somehow, this fog is so much faster, ravenous for absolutely everything it touches as the waves begin to still beneath its touch.

The wind ceases.

The waves still, cannibalised by the fog.

And as he looks to Grier, their eyes mirroring the horror they find in each other, he realizes the ship has come to a full stop.

It is when the fog touches the boat that he hears it, the anguished screaming of men beneath their feet. Even at war, he has never heard such terror as this. The sound is born from men suddenly learning that they will die, this death an ambush to the unsuspecting and therefore all the more gruesome in its wake. He regards his feet with a disgust that taints his numbness, the abjection of this noise releasing a myriad of feelings within his veins - the urge to run, the urge to scream, a tightness in his throat so painful he fears he may suffocate on the size of it, and the overwhelming desire to cry. Yet, it seems his body cannot decide upon any of these, and so settles on none, rendering him absolutely and completely silent.

They stand above the berthing hull, listening to the missionaries burst to life for one extraordinary moment before their echoes die one by one, their last breath a wail of anguish. As Ansil takes in a long, slow inhale to steady his growing panic, he can smell the acrid stench of blood and piss wafting up between the boards, bile rising to the back of his throat. The silence that befalls them in the aftermath is threatening, an eerie calm that raises gooseflesh along his skin. Bones brittle and mouth dry, he simply stares at Grier and takes in every detail he can, unfailingly certain this is the last time they will see one another.

In the distant horizon a tall mast looms beyond the mist, the main mast taller than that of their vessel. The crow’s nest is empty, and if he focuses long enough he has the passing sensation he could look right through the wood into an empty, eternal void.

‘It can’t be,’ he whispers, reminding himself it is just a legend and that legends are buried in the past.

They are buried.

His voice carries no echo, the atmosphere around them tight enough his voice lives and dies before him, reaching nowhere else but his own ears. Grier does not even react, does not make any movement at all, save for the shifting of his attention to the world behind Ansil, eyes trained on something that makes his adam’s apple bob in the effort of swallowing his trepidation.

A bead of sweat glides down Ansil’s spine, and he can feel an angry shadow looming behind him. Burning like hellfire, he waits for the scent of his own flesh bubbling beneath his chemise to reach his nose, readying for immolation. Death comes slowly for people like him, he supposes. It likes to take its time weighing the worth of his soul and the value of his existence. He has made love and he has made life, but he has taken far more than he has created, and so he suspects this slow conquering of his person is deserved - retribution for the bloodstains etched into his palms.

‘Ciperion,’ Grier says, eyes widening in sudden, terrible realization.

It is the last thing Ansil sees and hears before cold hands wrap around his jaw, pressing fingers into his mouth and pulling until the pain in his bones, his skin, his muscles is so great the world turns black.

Standing on the old oak dock behind his home, Jaebeom stares out at the open sea and knows that, today, the water is ruthless.

He can feel the rage beneath her waves, the violent and unforgiving aggression of the current guiding the water as it rolls up against the edge of the dock, shaking its legs as if testing the foundation’s strength. The first light of morning is unable to penetrate the intense cloud cover along the horizon, their peaks and valleys tinged with red shadows behind the murky green and black. Awake far too early to begin his descent to the jetty, he balls his fists in the pockets of his linen coat and eyes the gathering storm with suspicion.

Once again, he’s been brought out.

Pulled from his feather bed by some unseen force, it has become a habit for him to spend his early hours on the dock, overtaken by a profound sense of longing. Rooting himself to the wood, he has grown used to the passage of time that drifts beyond him, and finds that he is unencumbered by these lost moments. It’s been happening more often as late, his sleep interrupted by the desire to see and to know, an endless stream of questions burning at the back of his mind that chase the sleep from his limbs. But, always, the words are garbled, the thoughts unclear.

It is worse today - somehow, he knows this with all of his being. Even as he stands, completely alone and unseen, he feels naked all the way down to his nerves. Narrowing his eyes, he peers at the water, unblinking, taking hold of the ache within his chest. Something is missing, has been lost. Or, perhaps, it was taken from him, the intense longing in his chest delivering him a nostalgia too great to be expressed or understood. If he looks long enough, he can almost envision it emerging from the horizon, precariously balanced as though hanging on a thread.

But the image never fully forms, never reveals its nature, and he is left bereft, hissing a sigh of frustration between his teeth.

Gulls pass overhead, making way for the Southern shore. Their calls are the music of the morning, a siren song that only serves to mire him deep within his thoughts, and he blinks several times as he rolls his shoulders back, trying, and failing, to collect himself. The current sends a rough breeze through the thin fabric of his chemise, the uncharacteristically cool summer air nipping at his skin, and he bristles though he does not shiver. Digging his nails into his palm, he struggles to gather the will to leave, every bone in his body telling him he must wait.

Each morning Jaebeom finds himself in this position, looking out to the open water and waiting - wanting to write love letters, wanting to write odes, often wanting to simply cry or curse the tide for what it has taken, but he remains mute, dumbfounded, lingering expectantly for an answer that will not come. And he is angry, muttering to himself that he must leave, that there is no purpose here, but the thought of missing it only serves to aggravate his insistence on keeping still, on looking and looking harder.

‘Come on,’ he mumbles, as if willing a response from the sea.

When nothing comes, the muscles in his arms and thighs tense as he presses himself into the dock. ‘Show me,’ he hisses, emphatically.

Immediately he feels terribly silly, not even certain to whom he is speaking. It is not the first time he has made these demands, not the first time he has called out to the sea as if it would even deign to reply. The answering silence and empty air should neither surprise nor disappoint him, but as his posture curls and his chest deflates, he finds both of these things happen in quick succession. Something is out there, something beyond the place the light touches, and he thinks what frustrates him most is the endless unknowing.

Voices along the shore break his concentration, a group of missionaries walking side by side, barefoot in the warm sand as they talk, sometimes laugh, amongst one another. The sound of their chatter breaks the magic of this hour, an unwelcome interruption to the morning solitude. At once he returns to himself, hands in his pockets relaxing out of the fists he’s been holding, and suddenly he feels rather neutral about his position on the dock, about the ocean, and the thick clouds overhead.

The town has started to wake, the missionaries commencing their morning walk a sign that he is late - terribly late, and the time it will take him to prepare his sails and his nets will likely cause him to miss the golden fishing hour. Closing his eyes, he hangs his head and sighs, certain he will lose the best crabs of the day.

Briskly walking along the shore to the jetty, he keeps a wide berth from the missionaries as he passes. Jaebeom keeps his eyes trained on the rocky jut of the shoreline, keeping his posture rigid in the effort of not being overtaken by the staggering sense of unease that gradually drops his feet to his stomach with each step he takes. He’s certain they must feel this, must feel the crushing weight of his discomfort, and he furrows his brow, swallows thickly, and grits his teeth as he prepares for conversation.

‘Good day,’ they chime in unison, bowing their heads in greeting. The steely chill in their voices makes him shiver. ‘May Deus keep you.’

Jaebeom simply nods politely, but says nothing, finding no solace in their words. On instinct, his attention diverts to the slotted diamond shaped symbols on their rosaries, a sense of nausea rising in his stomach. Lifting his gaze to their faces, he focuses on their features - their eyes, their well practiced smiles, their royal blue square hats - but all the while, he battles against himself, soul willing him with all its might to look, once more, at the rosaries.

Quickening his steps, he hurries past them, releasing a breath he did not know he had been holding. Running a hand through his hair, he chastises himself sheepishly for his disrespectful behavior. He’s old enough now, nearly thirty and well past the age of childish anxiety, to know they are harmless, it is harmless, but still he feels a rattle in his bones even after they have disappeared from view. He remembers the monthly service ceremony - his mother, her pleading eyes, and his frightened distress as she brought him along. Long into the night, he would be plagued with the memory of their long faces and their empty expressions, the fear and hatred in him making him feel sick with fever.

Eventually, he grew out of this level of anguish but still his maturity and his logical reasoning do not serve as a comfort. In the numerous missionaries that occupy Indolon, he finds no refuge, no joy, somehow more sure now, in his old age, than ever of their wrongness.

His schrooning boat is docked at the base of the rocky cliff side, just below the lighthouse and pushed far away from the crowded wharf. As he makes his approach, he feels the eyes of other fishermen bore into his spine, their judgement of him, his lack of a First Mate, a crew, and his placement of his boat always deeply felt at this hour of the morning. But he does not mind.

Since he was small, Jaebeom’s understanding of the sea, of her nature and her cruelty, has kept him at a great distance from his peers. As a child, he preferred to listen - to listen to the ocean and to watch it change, finding a deep affinity in her tumultuous loneliness. This kind of loving relationship, he thinks, has developed into a skill that keeps his family well paid, a roof over his head, and the bellies of many full. Maintaining a crew would simply distract him, his mind less on the water and more on the work of his members.

And while he, too, might have agreed the placement of his boat against the rocks is reckless at best, it is placed where he would catch crabs as a child with his father - the best location to spot their lavender and purple shells as they eat the moss along the stones. And just below, the bright vermillion of the king crabs glittering as they sink to the ocean floor.

Stepping onto his boat, he sheds his linen jacket and cranes his head back to observe the large mast, its mainsail tied neatly at the base with a strong sailor’s knot. Rolling up his sleeves, he lets the sea breeze kiss his warm skin, heated and dewy with moisture from his walk, and watches light behind the clouds do its best to illuminate the land below. The rains will likely start soon, the hours left in the day for adequate fishing conditions dwindling, and so he hoists himself up on the shroud, untying the sail in quick, easy motions.

Climbing up the iron ladder connected to the mast, he reaches for the rope at the center of the sail and latches his fingers, giving one large tug to set the sail free. It flaps loosely in the wind, releasing itself to its full length, and as he makes his way down in the cover of its shadow, he looks out to the lighthouse, admiring the way the tall grass is somehow more viridescent beneath the grey skies as it reaches upwards, asking for rain. Autumn is nestled in the branches of the trees, the peak summer season soon to give way to the burning gold of autumn, but as he regards the lighthouse field he finds it difficult to imagine the world any other way than this. It’s as though the earth has always been green, always been bright, too alive to ever fully be witnessed.

As he takes in the splendor of the earth, letting pleasure root itself against his ribs, he notices, rather curiously, a pile of cloth discarded amongst the rocks. Strewn carelessly across the sharp incline, the ivory cloth has been yellowed and torn, resting long forgotten in the shallows. Narrowing his eyes, he steps off the shroud and leans over the edge of his boat, glad that it is still tied to the fender and not drifting away with the sudden displacement of his weight. As he continues to look, the ivory gives way to the vitality of flesh and long limbs, and his mouth runs dry.

‘By Deus,’ he whispers, the dread in his veins restricting the volume of his voice. ‘It’s a person.’

Limbs moving of their own accord, Jaebeom is carried back to the dock, hands working quickly to remove his boots. Gaze unwavering, he keeps his eyes on the body, transfixed and horrified, afraid of letting his eyes wander for fear of it disappearing altogether. His heart beats like thunder against his sternum, warring with too many emotions and unable to allow any one a victor. Behind the worry, the confusion, the terror, a curious sense of relief is building, a calm that would almost have him believe he is not in the process of coming undone.

If he focuses on it, he gets the sense that this is what he has been waiting for - not just in the morning before the dawn breaks, not just in the crash of waves against his boat and their icy waters demanding his spirit, but for always. In this moment, the hollowed sensation in his heart, the sense of something long absent, is scabbing over with each breath he takes.

Barefoot, he moves at a slow run, something like grief and hope mixing in his blood and putting a swell in the joints of his fingers. Jaebeom stifles these feelings, grounds himself in the reality that someone might be hurt, might be in need, and reminds himself, dutifully, that it is not the time to be carried away with his emotions. Still, there is a tingle at the base of his neck, an urgency that goes beyond humanitarianism, pushing him forward with exhilaration.

'Help.'

A female voice is carried on the wind, musical in its cadence and pleasurable in the way it sings its request. The ocean spray delivers it to him at the same moment the water bursts over the rocks, the sea mist rising up against his cheeks before retreating through the crevices in the earth, cooling the flush beneath his skin. Inside him, it burrows, reaching down and deep to nestle in the long empty caverns of his heart. As he moves over the rocks, carefully placing his feet to maintain his balance, he strains to hear it once more, certain it is a woman he is racing to help and she is begging to be saved.

'Help heal.'

'I'm coming,' he calls out, voice as shaky as his legs and echoing over the ocean’s roar.

He does his best not to cut his toes on the angular shards that have been eroded over years of rough sea water, but with each step he takes the water rises over the rocks with an aggression bordering on feral, demanding all of him within its foam. With each rush of water, he has the feeling it is reaching for his ankles, hands desperate to clutch at his person and drag him down, and down.

Yet, the closer he gets, the more he feels as though he could weep - from joy, from desperation, from loss - and this alone is enough to make him want to rush, pushing through the erratic rhythm of his heart and beyond the lump in his chest that makes each inhale ache. Now, with a clear vision of the body, it is as though you have been spit from the ocean’s mouth, cast out for your transgressions and all the corrupted ways you have disappointed the ocean. There is tragedy in the way you are draped over the rocks, body poised at woeful angles for having displeased the gods. Now, you have been forced to greet the horror of your retribution.

Only a few rocks away, Jaebeom allows himself a brief pause and takes you in, letting his eyes take their time in their discovery of your person. Hugging himself, he suddenly feels conflicted, as though he is learning your shapes while still becoming reacquainted with something long missed. This state of being is a paradox, and in the full emptiness of it, he has the passing sensation that he is learning the essence of love, and little else.

Shaking himself free from his idle reverence, he takes a few steps closer and notices the silk of your dress is ruined, perhaps permanently. His jaw drops slightly at the still gleaming shine of the fabric, the most expensive silk he has ever seen. It clings to your skin, dampened and tarnished, fraying at the ripped edges but still doing its best to hold you delicately, clinging to you in the effort of keeping you safe. Something about the cut of the dress triggers a memory he cannot quite reach, a familiarity in its lines and shapes that make him recall there was a purpose behind this outfit, a reason that it is both extraordinary and unforgettable, but it vanishes from him as quickly as it came. The fog in his mind is heavy, muddling his thoughts and pulling at the edges of his concentration and he knits his brow together to keep himself grounded.

In the aftermath of this brief recollection, he bites a whine of longing burning at the back of his throat, a pathetic sound of loss, regret, mourning. Your hair spills over the rocks, eyes closed and skin bruised though not scraped to bleeding. Flickers of recognition press at him, mind racing around the image of your soft lips, the high angle of your cheekbones, and the delicate elegance found in your wrists. Struggling to recall your name, Jaebeom approaches gently, coming to a kneel at your side, unsure what to say at all.

Pressing two fingers to the pulse point in your neck, he feels a dull, yet ever present, throb of life beneath your skin and releases a breath he did not know he had been holding. Alive, though just barely and unconscious, lungs likely full of sea water. Everything about you is soft, the warmth of life fading quickly beneath his fingers and rendering you terribly fragile, and he retracts his hand for fear of his touch giving bloom to more marks along your flesh.

Glancing around the cliff face, he looks for signs of wood, other bodies, ripped sails or bent iron, but finds nothing. No signs of shipwreck, no signs of a waiting party to receive you. You are alone in this torment, rejected by land and sea, and forced to exist within the limbo of life and death.

Before he can stop himself, he lifts you to his chest, cradling you close as he rises to a stand. If you were awake, you would be shivering, would tremble in the chill that means to overtake your very bones, and he hurries as best he can back to his boat and the woolen blankets he keeps in case of cold summer rains. Moving quickly over the shore, he stumbles slightly, feet tripping over themselves in surprise as he feels you burrow into him, seeking warmth with a low moan, and brow furrowed in what he hopes is simply the effort of healing.

Finally aboard once more, he takes you into the small cabin beneath the helm and tucks you into the straw bed he keeps for nights when the winds are threatening and violent, remaining on the boat in case the waves should do their best to reclaim the wood. Draping several blankets over you, he crawls close enough the heat from his chest could radiate into your skin, encouraging a rush of blood in your veins. His fingers twitch, wanting to brush stray strands of hair out of your eyes, but he presses the flat of his hand into the bed, resisting his urges.

The medic will need to be informed. This realization hits him with a bitterness that speaks of separation, chest restricting and tightening against the air in his lungs until it hurts to breathe. Against his bones, his muscles battle the urge to hold you close and he shuts his eyes with a grimace as a headache blooms at the base of his skull. Yet, as he strains to focus in the quiet of the cabin, he is acutely aware there are no traces of your breath, no labored wheeze no even inhalation, and so he resolutely declares that he will ferry your oxygen, coming to sit up on his knees as he plugs your nose and presses his lips to yours, opening them slightly.

Cradling your chin between his thumb and forefinger, Jaebeom exhales deeply, letting the strength of his breath travel into the limit of your lungs. Squeezing his eyes closed, he exhales for as long as he can manage, giving everything within himself to you before, all at once and all over again, he feels as though he has stepped out of himself.

Once more, voices materialize at the back of his mind, these new sounds more like echoes that erupt from nowhere and no when, fingerprints of a bygone era carried to him on wings. Their words are a garbled mess of sounds, undeterminable cadences lacking diction or emphasis, but he hears the sound of a man, low and gentle and wondrously tender.

He hears a man, and the man is unmistakably, unfailingly, him.

Opening his eyes, he drinks you in, and surrenders to the notion he is being conquered by the mere sight of you. One word from you, and it would be as violent as a new beginning, a great shattering of all the comforts he knows of the world. And he would welcome it, knows, as if by magic, that he has given over to it before, would give over to it again, the power in you so great only ritual could contain it.

Blinking several times to clear the shock from his mind, he quickly moves his hands to your chest and presses against your sternum in the rhythmic way his sister taught him when he announced he wanted to be a fisherman, just like their father. Her eyes had glazed over then with the memory of loss and strife, and so she laid him on the floor and promptly taught him how to save a life should the sea threaten to claim a man as her own. The muscles in his harms strains as he continues pressing, and he thinks maybe he will need to press his lips to yours once more, bracing, instinctively, for more voices to fill his head, but a rush of water bursts from between your lips and he quickly moves back, turning you to your side to let it drain completely.

Falling back on your side, you release a cough but you do not wake, the small puddle of water between you both at once threatening and sacred, a reminder that everything Jaebeom has seen and felt is real, tethered to this moment. Tethered to you.

‘Who are you?’ he murmurs, but even as he says it, even as the words leave his mouth, he knows this is not the right question.

In the oncoming silence, the correct words swell on his tongue, nearly tumble from his lips, but, instead, he chews the inside of his cheek, aware that the right question will insight a riot in him he is unprepared to endure.

When Jaebeom carries you into his home, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, overtaken by the staggering weight of deja-vu.

He’s been in this position before, holding you against him in the center of his small kitchen as the elasticity of his emotions stretches outward for an eternity. There is an awakening occurring at the very center of his soul, bursting like a new star as its white heat slithers down his spine. Glancing down at you, your soft lips, your closed eyes, and your limp frame, held so closely to him, he feels the earth move beneath his feet, the shifting tectonics of his life all leading to this single moment.

Shaking his head, he releases himself from this, moving to his bedroom with focused steps as he places you in his bed. Igniting the oil lamps, he works quickly to bathe you in warm light, covering you with his down comforter before moving to the furnace tucked in the corner of the room. In summer, he keeps little coal and kindling but he uses the last of the brush wood he’s saved from the recent winter to ignite a small fire that burns red and gold behind the latched closing.

He regards your still form with a frown, running a hand through his hair in distress and grits his teeth. The last several days have been almost unbearably hot, but it seems August’s heatwave has been broken by the cool wind of the day, the overall gloom breaking the humidity and blocking the sun from her usual path. Of all days, it pains him that this would be the day the sea released you from her clutches, sent you from the cold depths of her darkness back to the shore where the sun refused to keep you.

From his kitchen, he takes a small linen cloth, inspecting it for cleanliness, and folds it into a long rectangle. Warming it in front of the furnace, he rotates it in circles before he feels it is sufficiently heated, just enough to ease tension in your muscles and restore heat where you need it most. It warms his hands, palms already swollen and grown clammy, room becoming relatively stuffy as he slides the cloth beneath your neck while you sleep. Already, a pink flush has begun to settle within your cheeks, the relief in him not unlike a rapture.

What will you say when you wake, he wonders. How will you sound when you look him in the eye, unsure of where you are? More importantly, he worries if you will wake at all, if perhaps the rush of blood beneath your skin is the last tour it will take before it stills altogether, heart too sluggish to keep a steady flow. The thought sends a tremor of heartbreak into the base of his spine, and a pained gasp tumbles through his lips, scorning the very notion of the thought.

He needs an occupation to distract, needs a purpose to feel as though there is progress being made, and so he turns on his heel and grabs his coat, supposing that when you do wake, he should at least be ready.

The walk to his sister’s cottage is not long, one that he usually relishes in the spring when the path is lined with blossom trees and the foxes play around their dens, their ruddy tails bouncing amongst the high grasses. Today, his strides are long but the journey feels endless, the path reaching well beyond the limits of the land, his mind thinking only of arrival rather than enjoying the view.

Another group of missionaries passes him along the dirt road, and he crosses to the other side to give himself space, freedom, liberation from their watchful eyes. Offering them sidelong glances, he studies the way they regard him conspicuously, whispering to one another as though he cannot hear the faint sounds of their voices, the conviction of their stares a judgement he feels with all of his body. Do they somehow know that he has found and kept a woman? Have they heard the voices too, the echoes he is resurrecting just by being near you?

He finds he cares little for the answers to these questions, deeming their existence as something infinitely less important or significant in the light of resolute purpose.

Byeol answers the door after three hard knocks, her face a picture of confusion that still does nothing to mar her beauty. She stands just shy of his height, one hand on the door and the other on her hip, the laugh lines along her cheeks carrying a secret smile within them.

‘Jaebie,’ she announces, more a question than a statement. Arching a single brow, her brown eyes bore into his with the chastising admonishment only an older sibling could manage. ‘Shouldn’t you be fishing?’

Jaebeom nods, a noncommittal gesture of affirmation, and presses his way through the doorway, past her slight frame. He wastes no time slipping off his boots as he fumbles for an explanation.

‘Sorry for the unexpected arrival,’ he mumbles, only partially apologetic. ‘Something’s…’ his voice drifts away, eyes looking everywhere but her face as he searches for the right words. To tell the truth means he must tell the whole truth, unable to hide anything from her, and so he settles for one single, vague word. ‘Happened,’ he says, finally.

Immediately, he regrets it.

Byeol’s eyes widen, hands raising to gently cup his face in her palms. Satisfied he is whole, they run down his shoulders to his arms, searching. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘No, no.’ He pulls himself from her grasp, hands raised in surrender, offering her a sheepish smile of amiable regret. ‘Nothing like that. I, uh, need to borrow some of your clothes.’

She takes a single step back, brow knit together in bewilderment. A myriad of emotions pass over her face, and Jaebeom does his best to count them all, the youth of her features rising and falling between her fear, her amusement, her apprehension. Eventually, she settles on curiosity as her eyes rake him up and down, one hand resting on her chest, perplexed yet surprised.

Rolling his eyes, he turns away from her and moves through her home, heading towards the wooden staircase. ‘They’re not for me.’

Byeol follows close behind, hot on his heels. ‘You’re telling me you…’

There’s too much excitement in her voice, the sound and volume of it making him close his eyes as if bracing for a storm. In one fluid motion, she rounds in front of him to block his path, eyes wide in delight as she makes an inappropriate gesture with her hands.

‘No!’ he scolds, though he finds he must swallow the early threads of a laugh. ‘Not that either.’

Resting his hands on her shoulders, he feels a slight flush creep into his cheeks as she giggles in childish glee. Gently easing her to the side, he continues up the stairs with heavy thuds of his feet. It always amazes him how easily, and how quickly, Byeol can manipulate the atmosphere in the room, her energy always barely contained and always terribly infectious. Questions are burning at the back of her throat, and she follows closely behind, the bounce in her step echoing around the house behind him.

Just like their mother, she will not let this go until she is satisfied, will not let him leave until she has received at least one answer, and so he releases a silent sigh as he reaches the landing, turning down the hall towards her room. He should be commended, he thinks, for the bravery he must assume to endure her interrogation.

‘There’s a woman -’ he begins slowly, only to be cut off.

‘You bastard!’ she exclaims delightedly, slapping his shoulder blade with enough force to make him stumble.

She takes his slight hesitation as an opportunity to run ahead of his once more, the glee in her eyes wild and bright, a look he once found vindictive in their youth. Spreading her arms wide, she presses her hands into the frames of her bedroom doorway, full of impish joy as she stares him down. The love he feels for her blurs together with his frustration, the affection in him rising like a tide.

‘Would you stop?’ he pleads, though now he does not bother to stop his laugh. ‘I just need some stays. A chemise and some trousers, too, if you have them.’

Standing to her full height, she raises her head elegantly, full of self-importance and authority, swallowing her smile for a serious expression of warning. ‘You can borrow them on the grounds that you give me her name.’

Exasperated, he looks away, letting his gaze move to the side and into the small rectangle that is Sun Hee’s room. It’s messy, the bed unmade and several books piled onto their mother’s antique rocking chair. Atop the books, her stuffed crochet kitten rests, presiding over the chaos like a queen. Along the walls, sepia portraits of his mother and father hang beside cross-stitch pieces his sister did while pregnant: one a rabbit, another a bundle of wild flowers, one a vestige of the sea. In the center of the wall, above her small wrought iron bed, a portrait of her father is framed and hung, the frame a silver gilded edge that catches all the light, even when the clouds threaten to block the sun.

When he looks once more at his sister, he sees how his silence and avoidance has riled her further, her wry grin returned once more with all its damning inquisitiveness.

‘Do I know her?’ she presses, narrowing her eyes.

He shakes his head, and offers a small shrug of his shoulders. ‘No,’ he explains, ‘I actually don’t know it.’

Jaw dropping, she reaches forward once more and slaps his arm. ‘Jaebie!’

Dropping his head, he presses his fingers into his eyes and wishes, with all of him, that her assumptions of his perpetual loneliness and solitude were not such a concern. Wishes, more than anything in this moment, that Sun Hee did not frequently ask for an auntie to play with, her lack of a father rendering her wishes for a sibling obsolete. For any other man on Indolon, a woman in his home, let alone his bed, would hardly be news, would hardly warrant any discussion at all, but Byeol has watched him try, and fail, over the years to find a woman who loves as ardently, as openly, as intensely as he does.

She has watched him resort to his life by the sea, watched him spend days alone on his boat, returning at sunset and smelling of brine and salt. All her life she has watched and she has worried, alluding to the full weight of her concern only in jest.

‘Can I please just have them?’ he groans weakly.

Lowering her arms from the doorway, she steps to the side and welcomes him through. ‘Yes,’ she acquiesces. ‘Take what you need from the closet, but this isn’t over. And be quick, I’m on my way out.’

Jaebeom tosses her a silent expression of gratitude over his shoulder, moving through her room with quick steps. ‘Where are you going?’ he asks, sliding open her wardrobe and taking things he knows she keeps but does not often wear, certain she will not miss them. ‘Isn’t Sun-hee already at school.’

Byeol moves behind him, gathering her headscarf from atop her bed and tying it with a hum of confirmation. ‘I’m going to Mala Green’s. Her husband’s ship was meant to port two days ago. It never made it.’

Jaebeom stills, clothes draped haphazardly over his arm as he turns to greet her eyes. Together, they regard one another in silence, a cold chill seeming to overtake the room. He remembers the look he sees in her eyes now, remembers the bone deep anxiety and the way she did not sleep for weeks, not even months. In a single moment, it is four years ago and they are both bereft.

‘The Pyxis?’ he murmurs, remembering how he and his sister and his niece, and all the town had watched it sail away from port eight months ago, waving until it disappeared from the horizon.

She nods minutely, a small motion almost imperceptible had he not been watching her intently, looking down at her hands where she nervously picks at her fingernails. ‘She is thinking the worst.’

Dropping the clothes to the bed, Jaebeom takes a few strides and comes to stand before his sister. Letting his hands rest on her shoulders, his thumbs press idle, reassuring circles into her muscles, hoping his expression looks hopeful, at least. ‘It could just be delayed.’

Taking in a shaking breath, Byeol nods but does not lift her eyes to his, gaze trained instead on the unsteady motions of her hands.‘We always like to think that, but…’ Falling quiet, she glances towards her vanity, a distant expression of longing painting her features. He knows she is looking at her wedding photo, but he does not mention it. ‘A woman always knows, doesn’t she?’ she finishes, finally looking at him with an empty smile.

And just like that, in the length of the shallow stretch of her lips, they fall back in time to Port Vela. She clutched his hand as the Aquila departed, the strength in her grip enough to turn both their knuckles white. The intensity of this touching reminded him that to love is to open the heart to grieving, that to love means to welcome the notion of losing, and so he pressed his fingers against hers with the same force, joining her in solidarity.

Even before the missionaries declared him dead, she knew he was lost. The tears she shed in childbirth were not those of bodily trauma but those of heartbreak, once more holding his hand and begging for him to tell her why Dong Hyun wasn’t there with her, why the missionaries were forcing her to believe he was still alive. She said it hurt to know they were teasing with the heart of a widow, that moment perhaps the last time he ever feigned trust in the gods and their mortal vessels.

Dong Hyun had left to deliver a group of missionaries from a nearby port, and they were angry for weeks at their failed return, citing a growing population that needed more help. Jaebeom never knew why they didn’t come to the funeral, his sister and his newborn niece crying in unison against an empty coffin while he pressed his feet into the wet grass. He wanted them to see what their selfishness had done, the rage in him putting a sheen of sweat on his neck, the most angry he had ever been.

‘He’ll be okay,’ he states, pulling them both out of the darkness of their thoughts. ‘They will all be okay.’

It’s a nice thing to say, he thinks, something that sounds reassuring and optimistic, but he wonders, quietly in the back of his mind, to whom he is offering this confidence.

Byeol startles slightly, eyes glassy and slightly glazed over with memory as she takes him in. ‘Yes, well,’ she begins, stepping out his hold to gather her things. ‘It will be good to be there for her.’

Jaebeom watches her move towards the door, hands balled into fists and pressing his nails into his palms. It’s more visceral now, somehow more tangible than ever, the unease he feels when he thinks about their blue cloaks - their endless, royal blue.

‘Launder those when you’re done please,’ she says, coming to a halt and pointing her long index finger at the clothes piled on the bed. ‘I don’t want to be wearing any of your remains -’

Jaebeom’s eyes widen, the spell of his thoughts broken by Byeol’s teasing giggle. ‘Byeol!’

She simply steps into the hallway and moves down the stairs, her laughter carrying through the house as though the sadness had never been let in.

It was only when you said you were leaving, announcing the date of your expected departure with wild eyes and ink stained hands, that he thought maybe, horribly, he had not told you he loved you enough.

You showed him the boarding papers, the crew notes, the bonds list and you were laughing, disbelieving that good fortune could shine on the persistent. Years of work had culminated in this opportunity, and you could not tear your eyes away from the King’s signature, it’s black script so formal you pressed your fingers to your lips to hide the ferocity of your smile. He loved you most then, burning in silence and struggling to find the right way, the best way, to tell you that his love for you demanded he become monstrous, too many hearts in his chest to contain the totality of this wanting.

‘It will be the longest we’ve ever been apart,’ you said, chancing a look at him, and the briefest flickers of grief walked across your face. In an instant, you tucked them away, smoothed your smile over and put the light back in your eyes, hiding from him the very thing that could bring him to his knees.

‘I’ll send a hawk to woo you,’ he offered, the smile tugging at his lips only half genuine, only half true.

He was certain you knew it, too, but you simply chuckled, arched one perfect brow and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

‘You’ve already done that.’

He only had a week to show you that he loved you beyond reason, beyond the human capacity for emotion. One week, and you would be gone, drifting away from him at sea, and he would be waiting, always waiting.

‘Then I’ll do it again.’

Again and again he would do his best to win you over, holding you tightly against his chest and reminding you there was nowhere as safe, nowhere as sacred as against his skin, against his heart. You leaned up to kiss him, always eager and impatient for the things you wanted most, but he breathed against your lips, let your twin exhales unify your heartbeats and reminded himself that you were still here.

He could feel you. You were still there.

Jaebeom wakes with a start, hairline dampened with warmth, stress, and confusion.

The dawn breaks through the sheer curtains of his bedroom window, the heat in the room oppressive and stifling as the embers within the furnace strain to match the gleam of the sun. Curled in a ball atop the lambskin carpet at the foot of his bed, the joints of his knees and elbows are aching, having been forced into one position too long. Tentatively, he stretches his limbs with a low groan, elongating his back against the floor and does his best to remain quiet in his relief.

When he’d returned home, you were still sleeping. Unchanged and in the exact position he had left you, a brief anxiety overtook him at the sight of your too relaxed face and the weakness in your limbs. There was a fragility in you that frightened him, a treacherous sort of quiet that promised great annihilation consuming the room and reaching down, deep within his ribs, compressing his lungs. He would have shed tears for you, would have unleashed an expression of grief so holy and so silent it would have broken worlds - but you moaned, almost regal in your suffering, and, for a moment, he was weightless.

In the tense tranquility that followed he slumped into the reading chair beside his bookcase, head buried in his hands, and sighed. With his eyes closed, he could pretend things had not changed, that he was still himself, that he still belonged to himself. It was as though there were two of him, battling within his blood - the one that knew nothing, that craved the assurance and predictable simplicity inherent in the life he had built for himself.

But the other is violent, a torrent against his bones reminding him this life is not his, that you are his life, and the passion in him is pushed into madness at the notion of not being able to follow where you have gone.

‘All this?’ he lamented into the rough skin of his palm. ‘All this over the desire to be loved?’

The moon was midway through its journey across the sky when he fell asleep, nestling into the rug at the foot of your bed - at your feet, though still giving you the distance, giving himself the distance. And all night he had seen you, felt you, let his whole world become enamored with you.

Pressing the base of his palms into his eyes, he groans, letting the dark become coloured with reds, whites, and purples under the pressure. Rustling from somewhere in the room makes his heart stutter in its rhythm, motions still and muscles tense with the effort of not moving, simply listening. His is not the only breath in the room, and when he takes his hands away from his eyes, his vision adjusts to see you - your face framed by your hair as you lean over the bed, regarding him curiously.

Startled, Jaebeom sits up, head dizzy with the sudden movement, and he presses a hand to his temple though he does not close his eyes, fearing he might still be dreaming. A dark night lives in your irises, hungry for everything that comprises his very being, and even as he lets his vision focus, lets himself recline into the intensity of your stare, he feels as though you are burning inside him, tearing your way through his sinew, the most voracious thing he’s ever seen. You regard him, unblinking, studying every detail and nuance of his features with tension in your brow and parted lips.

Briefly, he wonders how long it has been since someone looked at him like this, looked at him as though he is both the universe’s greatest secret and its most coveted answer.

‘You’re awake,’ he manages, throat dry and voice constricting beneath such coveted attention.

Instantly, he curses himself for such a simple and obvious statement. All night he had imagined hundreds of first conversations with you, knowing his first words with you would ultimately be the most important, and already he has betrayed himself. You’ve taken all the power from him, left him in such a state of shock, he supposes his words have withered, nothing in the world as sacred as your eyes on him.

But the smile you offer him at the sound of his voice could combat the sun, the world brightening around the fullness of your cheeks and the pleasure you keep at the corner of your lips, like a secret. A blush burns at the tips of his ears, and he is glad it does not immediately live in his cheeks, pleased he has learned, somehow, to not give himself away all at once.

‘I am,’ you nod in affirmation. A chill walks down Jaebeom’s spine, the sound of your voice an echo of his dreams, exactly as he heard it all night long. ‘You found me.’

Seconds stretch between your bodies, an infinite eternity between your last syllable and his first breath, his eyes on yours like a pledge of loyalty.

‘Were you looking for me?’

Hope invades his words without his permission, helpless against their desire to be the thing you sought most, to be lucky enough to be your prize. His fingers press into the soft strands of the carpet beneath him, and he watches as you fall back against your legs, shoulders slumped as you look around the room. All at once, emptiness overtakes you, the light in your eyes dimming as you search within yourself for an answer.

‘I don’t know,’ is your whispered reply. Looking at him once more, he feels as though you are rooting within his soul, continuing the expedition within him. But still, you are lost, voice adrift and lost at sea. ‘I can’t remember.’

He smiles encouragingly, wanting you to know, more than anything, that it is okay. For himself, he reminds you both that everything is okay.

Inching along the carpet, he clears his throat as he rests his arms on the bed, gazing up at you as though he is making wishes on the moon. He wants to be close to you - more than he’s ever wanted anything, Jaebeom wants to be in your orbit, close enough he could taste the salt that still lingers on your skin. Biting his tongue, he swallows all his rushed, messy emotions and clears his throat, choosing instead the words of logic, the words of practicality.

‘What is your name?’

Little by little, your smile slowly fades, burned by this simple question. Still, you remain calm, perplexed and unsure of how much of you has truly been misplaced. ‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s okay,’ he reassures you gently. ‘My name is Jaebeom.’ In saying his name, he waits for a flicker of recognition, a response that would confirm all he has spent the night feeling, but you simply regard him blankly, glad for the conversation. Shaking his head, he sighs. ‘How did you get here?’ he tries, keeping his voice calm so you find no reason to panic or run.

Now, your smile disappears completely and all that is left behind is you, your sadness, and the way it clings to your body like a shadow. The smallness of you in this moment puts an ache in his chest that feels like an inheritance - something he has been owed, that you owed one another having vanished in the completeness of your unknowing, and, together, you grieve. With a slow shake of your head, you confirm there is a void surrounding the nature of your being and the reason for your arrival, and the longer he looks the more he sees how this torments the deep desire that quakes inside you.

He knows nothing of you, knows only that you are here and you are tangible and you are emptied, but still he can sense you are a wild, impossible beast of a woman. The storm in you could tear the world asunder, and so he tries a different tactic, choosing to ask what is felt rather than what can be recalled, wanting to hold onto as much of you as he possibly can.

‘Are you hurt?’

For a long moment, you consider his question, as if thinking through the concept of hurt, the very notion of it, rather than the truth of it. Running his eyes over your frame, he notices that some bruises on your arms have already faded, as if the midnight sky was your healer. You are far healthier and far more whole than the person he found yesterday, but there is a strangeness to the way you look at him, to the way you think through his questions that gives him the passing sensation that you are not there at all.

He fears, all the way down to his marrow, that if he were to look away, you would disappear completely.

‘It does hurt, yes,’ you admit finally. Offering him a small nod of confirmation, your eyes grow wide as though you yourself are surprised by the experience, the ability to truly hurt a clandestine experience.

Jaebeom had feared this. Always, the most lethal of wounds are the ones not worn on the skin. ‘Where?’

Slowly, you lift a hand to your chest, right above your heart. Pain etches itself on your face, the turmoil of bewilderment and confusion, the misery of things long lost, making a home of your soft features. He watches your brow knit together as you regard him, a slight downturned frown tugging at your lips as you silently beg him for answers.

Reaching a hand forward, his fingertips nearly graze the smooth skin of your knee, exposed between the ripped threads of your silk dress. When he’s close enough he can feel the warmth from your skin, he remembers himself, retreating back to curl his hand into a fist.

‘Did a man hurt you?’

He hates the way the words taste, sour and acrid on his tongue, but he supposes this dress is your wedding gown and he’s seen more than his fair share of broken hearts around town. This, of course, would be the worst he has ever seen, but he chooses not to worry you further, keeping his voice soothing and calm.

‘No,’ you shake your head, looking beyond him into a distance that is both contained within and expanding outward. ‘Not one,’ you continue with a dark whisper. ‘Many.’

Jaebeom does not think himself a man prone to violence or aggression but, in a single moment, he feels his heart is a weapon. His spine straightens as he rears back slowly, relying entirely on the support of the floor beneath him. His hands are no longer his own, knuckles taught with the desire to tear his way through flesh and sinew. There is no limit to the monstrous creatures he would face standing up for you; he’s burning, fully ablaze alongside you, and it surprises him how quickly kindness can burn away.

‘We can report it when you are well enough,’ he announces, clearing his throat in the effort of remembering himself. As much as he would go to battle for you, he similarly does not want to frighten you. ‘When you remember the details we can report it. They won’t get away with it.’

Shoulders relaxing, your hand falls away from your chest as you find comfort in his words, and a small sense of pride prickles at his ears and neck. With anyone else, he’d be sheepish that he is giving himself and his emotions away so quickly with you, but he can’t help it, he thinks. Not when you look at him like this, like he’s the part of summer you’ve been anticipating most and are pleased by the mere sight of him. People don’t look at him like this, especially the people he wishes would look at him and want to continue the mere act of seeing him. You make him feel like someone, and he is more with you than he ever has been on his own.

Keeping your eyes on his, you shift so you rest on your hands and knees, crawling across the bed towards him. Jaebeom leans back, pushes himself away from the bed and it is only when the heat from the still burning furnace threatens to sear his chemise that he pauses, looking over his shoulder to pout at the proximity. Your hand presses against his foot, stopping his movements and he returns his focus to you once more, all breath and blood flow halted in his veins.

You’ve climbed off the bed, settled on the floor with your hand on him and a glimmer behind your eyes that says you know he has longed to be touched. Has he been real before this moment? Has he truly existed until the moment you placed your hand on his skin, a paradoxically cold warmth that sends a chill up his legs and into his groin. Until this moment, he has been afflicted with the strangest sense of object permanence, but only of himself - himself and his relation to you, the only thing that has ever truly mattered.

‘You won’t come close to me,’ you explain, sounding terribly sad.

Deflating, he leans forward and places his hand on yours, finally, running his thumb along your knuckles. The salt from the sea has turned your skin into the softest thing he’s ever touched, and he applies just enough pressure to remind himself you are tangible, real, present.

There’s something familiar and, simultaneously, ephemeral about the way his hand moves over yours. He finds it impossible to look away as he explains, ‘I wanted to give you space.’

‘I’ve had enough,’ you counter, and the sharpness in your words has him taking in your lips, your cheeks, your face in wonder. You are every bit the tempest he knew you would be, and he smiles, amused and gladdened by your confident vehemence.

Pulling your hand out from under his, you raise it to the side of his face, tucking strands of hair behind his ear and letting your fingers glide along his cheekbone. The intimacy leads him, momentarily, to believe that he is completely naked, exposed to you in all the ways that could truly break him. Once more, he feels you searching within him for something you can almost grasp. Words live and die on his tongue, answers he too craves fading before he has the chance to truly process them.

You are unified in this complex looking, the act of remembering both a mysterious and a fact.

‘You’re familiar to me.’ Cocking your head to the side as you speak, the childlike curiosity you exude has him pressing his hands into the carpet, reminding himself it is still too early to take hold of you, too early to hold you against his heart as he had done in his dream.

‘Have we met before?’ he offers gently.

Excitement colours you, has you straightening as you pull your hand from his skin. ‘Do you know me?’

It’s his turn to shake his head, his turn to smother hope with little disappointments. ‘No.’

‘Then I suppose not.’

With a slight shrug, you return your hand once more to the side of his face, palm cupping his cheek to trace the contour of the bone. Little by little, your eyes soften and a silent yearning overtakes your features. Jaebeom wants to tell you everything when you look at him like that. Things he’d never breathe to another person, things he had long since forgotten rise up in his throat and he nearly chokes on them, wanting you to have absolutely everything.

Running your thumb over his bottom lip, a blissful sigh escapes from the center of your chest, eyes slightly glazed as you luxuriate in the texture of his skin beneath your finger. ‘I don’t mind, though. I like looking at you.’

How like a child he feels when he is with you - suddenly restless and impatient and young, the boundaries and the calculated logic he has spent years cultivating in his adulthood dissolving the moment he learns you are pleased with him. In his dream, he somehow knew your kisses were a hurricane, all raindrops and wild winds that made his skin feel electric. The way you seem to tear through him now is a confirmation he was correct, the summer in you so immaculate he thinks it is always the bloom of July in your soul.

Were he to look elsewhere in the room, he is certain it would be a betrayal - the treachery of looking away from the gods’ sky. Jaebeom is calmed by the sight of you, the anxious itch in the back of his mind dormant simply because you have decided he is worthy of being adored. He wonders where he has been looking all this time, if he has truly seen anything at all until this moment, the colours of the world infinitely more rich because of how you choose to wear them.

Clearing his throat, he looks briefly at your hand where it holds his foot like a cross and trembles. ‘I like looking at you, too.’ It feels so silly and unimpressive, repeating your words back like a parrot, but he means it - there is more conviction in those small words than any other promise he has ever made and, when he looks at you again, he hopes you can feel it.

Your answering smile is so rich and full, he finds his thoughts are rendered unintelligible, and so he lowers his gaze to the ripped dress that does its best to maintain the echo of its former shape.

Clearing his throat, he slowly pulls his foot out from your grip, skin tingling from the loss of contact. The warmth from your hand still lingers, and he frowns, regretting his decision even through his commitment to the choice. Pressing his hands to the floor, he rises to stand and brushes off his trousers, looking for ways to keep his hands busy.

‘Can you stand?’ You look up at him, expectant and congenial. ‘Are your legs strong enough?’

Copying his earlier movements, you press your hands into the floor and, unsteadily, lift yourself to a stand. For a moment your knees wobble, but you keep your eyes on his, shoulders rolling back as you take in a slow inhale. Finding your balance takes focus, brow knotted together with the effort of standing on weakened muscles, but you keep your feet planted, hands spread at your sides to aid in maintaining your center of gravity. And when you stand, stable and sure, at your full height, you nod proudly, delighted you have surprised yourself.

‘Good.’ The most natural thing in the world, he finds, is praising you; a long dormant habit awakening once more ‘I’m actually not sure what I’d done if you couldn’t,’ he admits sheepishly.

Amidst your infectious giggle, Jaebeom finally has an opportunity to truly take in the state of your clothes. He wonders what torment you have seen, what hell you’ve walked through that has torn the silk and chiffon down to the essence of their threads. The bodice hugs your waist, but the whalebone corset is torn at the ribs, threatening to expose your skin. There will be no saving the sleeves that hang limply off your shoulders, falling behind your back like a ragged cape. Sea water has stained the silk to a tarnished, bleak yellow, the sand of the seabed nestled deep within the folds of your skirts.

Still, too much of your skin is visible to him. The skirts have pulled away from the bodice and a large portion of your thigh remains bare, the other leg free of clothing from the ankle to just above your knee. Standing before him, he sees you as a survivor of a slaughter that bore no claws, and he aches to pull you close, to keep you safe, to remind you that you are whole.

Perhaps, he thinks, the reminder is mostly for himself.

‘I brought you some clothes,’ he announces gently. Gesturing vaguely to the wardrobe in the opposite corner, his nerves get the better of him, words becoming bashful. ‘You look like the size of my sister, so they should fit.’ Running a hand through his hair and gripping the strands to alleviate the tension in his wrists, he pulls himself out of your orbit and heads toward the wardrobe. ‘We need to go into town anyway to see the medic, so I can get you some if these don’t fit properly. I just…’

Opening the doors, he pulls out the clothes he borrowed from his sister- stays for night time, two pairs of trousers, a woolen skirt he remembers buying for his sister one solstice that she has never worn, and three chemises he hopes will fit you. He lays them out delicately on the bed, arranging them into outfits he hopes you find comfortable. Fixating on the trousers, he looks at them too long as his stomach drops. Indolon is one of the few islands where women wear trousers, their propensity for skirts just as enthusiastic and common. He hops the sight of them will not offend you.

‘Thank you.’ Approaching the bed with light, careful steps, the smallness of your voice does little to mask your immense gratitude, hands coming to graze the myriad of fabrics he has selected.

Something about the feel of them between your fingers astounds you, a stunned silence turning adding a weight to the room that did not previously exist.

‘These are beautiful.’ Your hand moves to the skirt, the difference in its texture putting a glee in your eyes that makes his heart swell. ‘Thank you for caring for me,’ you finish, finally looking up at him once more.

Time bleeds past him as he falls into you, falls beyond himself and into a love that consumes him. Around your body, light seems to vibrate, uncertain how to hold you and so it holds all of you, and none of you, at once, bending around your back until he wonders if the very nature of this conversation is merely an illusion. Should he look away, he worries you would vanish, that he might forget, and so he steps near enough that he might touch you.

Keeping his hands forced at his sides, he drowns momentarily in his wanting before he speaks. ‘Anyone would do it.’

Lowering the skirt, you reach up to cup his face, forcing him to look at you. A shiver walks down his spine, followed swiftly by an unfamiliar heat in his blood as you speak. ‘I don’t remember much of the world, but I do remember that is not true. Not everyone would do as you have done.’ You lean into him, close enough your breaths touch between your bodies, his entire existence narrowing to this single moment. ‘I’m grateful for you.’

All of him craves giving in to the boundless lust that rages within his chest, memories of his dream resurfacing to haunt his bones. There were other memories within that dream, memories of your body wrapped beneath his, memories of your lips and the way you always pressed hard against his mouth, ensuring he would feel you long after you had departed. Jaebeom wants to live in those memories now, wants to force them into his reality so badly his hands and his sides start to shake.

But in those memories, lives the texture of your skin and the way his fingers have mapped every node of your spine. And it is only when he recalls the distant blur of this experience, so foreign to him it is as though it belongs to someone else, that he remembers there is nowhere in his home for you to undress.

When he had selected this house by the sea, he had assumed his life would contain the dawn, the dusk, the ocean, and little else in between. His home is merely one large square, the kitchen bleeding into his open bedroom and the sitting area tucked into corners he felt would be comfortable. There is, fundamentally, no element of privacy, and this is the only thing, he thinks, that gives him the strength to pull away - the desire to keep you comfortable and to be polite his only saving grace.

‘Sorry,’ he mumbles, taking one small step back. It is enough for his head to become clear, enough for the sadness in your eyes at the separation to not sting like a bullet. ‘I can leave you to change.’

He moves around you, not really certain what he would say should you inform him you will need assistance with your bodice and corset. They are torn enough and ruined enough he imagines they will not be a problem, but the mere idea of his fingers accidentally caressing the smooth expanse of your back puts a tightness in his chest the magnitude of which has him both frightened and bewildered.

Jaebeom does not want people like this, certainly does not want them this badly and with this much conviction, and so he walks through the bedroom and into the kitchen, the cool metal of the doorknob a balm against his skin. And it is only when he is outside, eyes closed as he lets the breeze overtake his heart, his spirit, his soul, does he feel like himself once more.

It is only when he is in an entirely different location, far enough away from you he cannot feel you, that he remembers to breathe.

The walk to town, by your side, is among the most eventful experiences of his life.

Having roamed the island roads all his life, he has grown used to the view, the unchanging scenery resulting in him finding it to be rather dull and grey. He cannot remember the last time he saw this world with fresh eyes, the last time he took in the trees, the slope of the land and felt joy - the last time this world brought him pleasure. You however, combat the very essence of his ennui with your inherent enthusiasm, taking in every sight and every sound as if it is, not the first time you have witnessed them but, the first time you have reunited with them after many years away.

In you, a language of reconciliation is being cultivated - one that only you will be able to understand, and one that makes Jaebeom cast you curious side long glances as you press your hands together in consternation. Your scrutiny of each detail slows the walk considerably, your presence somewhat distant and hollow as you struggle to define the essence of familiarity within you. Each time, it fades miserably and quickly, leaving you momentarily disheartened only for new wonder to replace the frustration once more.

Through you, he begins to see the town as something eternal, something so long lasting and sacred that, even if it is forgotten, it is still unchanged and important enough to be missed. Selfishly, he ponders what place he held in your old life, if he held any place at all, aware that, sometimes, you look at him with this same questioning fixation. In his own life experiences, you appear missing, but the way you look at him and touch him assures a small, needy piece of his heart that he is remembered, and therefore not ephemeral.

Still, he is certain you have been here, on Indolon, that this is your home and nowhere else. Having decided to forgo the shoes he had taken from his sister in favor of your bare feet, claiming it felt more natural to feel the earth beneath your toes, your steps are confident as you walk. Your eyes take everything in with too much intensity, but your steps are sure, certain of the placement and used to the cracks and the gravel that line the journey. When you are not focused on a building, a face, a view, you do not follow behind him. Instead, you are perhaps just a hair’s breadth ahead of him, relaxed in your inherent certainty.

‘Is any of this triggering your memory?’ he quietly tries, hoping he does not completely disrupt your train of thought.

‘Yes, but at the same time no.’ Your lips continue moving even as your voice dies, murmuring mysteriously to yourself as you look around. ‘It’s like I’ve seen this before in a dream, but then anything can look like anything if you want it to badly enough.’ Offering him a sly smirk, you peer up at him through your eyelashes. ‘I still like looking at you the most, though.'

Heat paints pink smears along his cheeks, and he glances down to his feet momentarily to smile at himself, flattered and, helplessly, twitter-patted. With you beside him, so close, his fingers dig into the pockets of his coat, gripping the cloth in the effort of stifling the desire to reach for your hand.

'Thank you,' he begins, his smile unwilling to fade. Still, he does his best to warp his features into a serious expression. 'I'm glad I'm more interesting than trees and brick.'

The music of your laugh is an eruption, the juicy fullness of it breaking over his tongue and filling his mouth with unprecedented gladness. You are unshy with your laughter, endearingly liberal and letting it echo through the air, demanding everyone hear your pleasure. Jaebeom swallows thickly, feeling almost as though he can taste you on the wind, in his mouth, and he holds his breath wanting to keep you inside him just a moment longer.

'I'm serious,' you tease, nudging into his side

Passing the field of pink and blue wildflowers, you become transfixed by a group of small children playing amongst the grass. Holding hands, they jump and dance in a circle, their laughter interrupting the song they are singing in broken unison. He recognizes the nursery rhyme of Ciperion immediately, remembering how his sister and some of the older children would make him play this game with them, dancing in a circle until the song ended and they had to remain completely still. Always, one of his sister's older friends, usually the boy she had a crush on, would play Ciperion, choosing a victim to steal away from the group. Only then would the circle continue dancing over and over until only one player remained and they had to outrun Ciperion to win.

He chuckles at the memory, how petulant he always felt at being the first one out - always, and without fail. Now, he realizes it was merely because of his strong reaction to being taken that made it more entertaining for his sister's friends, his cries and yells something they would tease him about for days.

‘What are they singing?’ you ask softly, interrupting his thoughts.

Jaebeom hears your voice and looks to his side, finding you are no longer with him. Turning, he finds you have come to a halt alongside the edge of the field, watching the children with a dark fascination that runs a chill down his spine.

He approaches you slowly, looking between the children and you, finding the tether of your fixation to be unbreakable. ‘The song of Ciperion,' he explains gently.

When you look at him again, your inquisitive expression is marred by such a sincere sense of aloneness his throat runs dry. Your prying eyes demand more from him, demand explanations and answers, so greedy and so painfully hopeful he wonders what the word wounded in you.

‘It’s an old urban legend on the island,’ he begins, looking back at the children who have now stilled, a little girl roaming behind the group with her hands raised like claws. ‘Everyone knows it, primarily because we grow up hearing it from friends or parents. It’s really just a ghost story. Parents tell it to make sure their children don’t go too far near the shore if they can’t see them, and kids tell it amongst friends just to see who is the most brave.’

Mystified, you keep your eyes on the group of children. ‘And it’s a song?’

He shakes his head, meeting your eyes on the raised arms and laughing faces of the children, hoping this contact of just your twin gazes is a comfort. ‘Not really, no. It’s a story, but it’s so old it’s become a nursery rhyme.’

‘Tell me.’

Jaebeom hums, trying to remember the way his mother told him this story when he was small. ‘Centuries ago, there was a ship called Ciperion that was meant to arrive at Port Vela.’

At the word Ciperion, you bristle, eyes widening slightly, though if in terror or recognition he cannot tell.

‘It was commissioned by the King, back when there were Kings,’ he continues, watching your reactions in the corner of his eye. ‘In those days, it was the fastest ship ever created, and had been assigned one of the largest crews - they called it the jewel of the sea. The crew was composed of experts in every field - cartography, cosmology, anthropology - and the ship’s sole mission was exploration.’

When you finally look at him, the heat from your gaze puts a fire in his veins, the sheer fervor and earnestness of your attention making him shudder. Swallowing thickly, he continues.

‘Legend says that they reached an island and saw how corrupt the Indolon King had been, how far reaching his power and torment really was.’ In the field, a little boy is taken by a young Ciperion, his scream of surprise mingling with the relieved laughter of the other children. ‘They rushed home to stop him from destroying their land, but the ship never made it. No one knew where the ship had gone, especially because the waters had been calm the night of their intended arrival.’

‘So they all perished?’ Even as the words leave your mouth, your focus turning back to the children, he knows this question is not meant to be answered, a small voice in the back of his mind advising him you already know this answer. Its rhetorical nature is anguished, lost, full of a yearning he presumes no language could ever express.

Coughing to clear his throat, Jaebeom nods knowing you cannot see him, and continues. ‘The lighthouse stayed on for weeks, even on clear nights. But still, Ciperion never came back.’

The silence in you is a sea, and once more he presses his fingers in the fabric of his jacket, warring within himself to keep his hand still. Your own hands look lonely, hanging limply at your sides as though you have been defeated by something much larger, and much more complex, than just your lack of memory. As he studies your changing expression, he counts the emotions that swim over your features - anger, fury, loss, grief, and, strangely, happiness - before you settle on none of these, choosing instead to remain empty.

But the magnitude of this choice renders you disheartened, tears pooling in your eyes, and he watches you swallow, fighting them back to the depths within your heart.

‘There’s never been any proof that Ciperion was real,’ he offers, hoping this will aid in bringing you comfort. It was never real, he supposes, and so there is no need to mourn the loss of made up things.

Yet, this consolation does not help, only serves to insight frustration, hands at your side curling into small fists as your eyes narrow.

Looking back at the children, Jaebeom combats the ever creeping flush at his neck and ears with the rest of the story. ‘Some say that every twenty years, on the anniversary of its port date, you can see the ghost ship Ciperion sailing along the horizon, looking for ways to dock. Only if the night is clear, that is.’

‘And if it isn’t?’ you question, a bitterness biting at your words that takes him aback.

‘If it’s cloudy,’ he offers delicately, ‘the fog along the water is so thick it blocks the lighthouse altogether. It moves up from the water onto the shore, looking for ways into houses or into town as if it has a mind of its own. And if it touches land, you can hear screams in the clouds themselves.’

As if they never happened at all, as if, all along, you nothing of this story had touched a bleeding wound within you, the tears in your eyes seem to dissolve. Your hands unfurl from their fists, and a touch of pink warms your cheeks. There is contentedness all over you, and you turn to face, a pleasant smile tugging at your lips.

‘That’s a nice story,’ you say, simply, blinking up at him in genuine interest.

A laugh bursts from his chest, one that comes from nowhere at all and instead is a bark of surprise rather than a logical expression of amusement. Furrowing his brow, he laughs to himself through the fear and the confusion, waiting for your earlier expression of grief to overtake you once more. But when it does not come, when you giggle along with him merely because it is something to share rather than an honest or sincere experience of humor, he silences himself with a low grumble and kicks the stones at his feet.

‘Yes,’ he agrees quietly. ‘It’s just something we grow up hearing, but nothing ever comes of it.’

‘Is it the anniversary, then?’ You smile up at him, seeming happy to be included in a story, happy, too, to be sharing his company, and you press your bare feet into the stones, making little shapes with your toes. ‘They’re singing with so much fervor.’

‘Yeah,’ he hums in confirmation, watching you draw circles into the earth. ‘Actually, I think it’s tomorrow.’

‘And will you look for the ship?’

Cocking his head to the side questioningly, he studies your face as he speaks. ‘Would you like to?’

‘Are you asking me?’ you press, tilting your head to the same angle as his. The sight of you makes his breath catch, your beauty always somehow the most arresting, the most bewitching, but watching you mirror his position creates an uncanny sense of unease in his belly. ‘I’m not sure what I would be looking for,’ you finish, uncertainty lacing your tone.

‘I’m not either,’ he laments, furrowing his brow as he takes you in. There are so many things he’d like to say to you, only to you, so many things he’d like to ask, but starting feels painful, complicated, as though he’s attempting to speak a language he does not yet understand, so he swallows, drawing the same circles as you with his shoe. ‘I haven’t gone looking for it since I was a kid.’ Your circles are so clean, while his are oblong, and he is unsure why this matters, but he is excited, fundamentally, that there is so much he can learn from you. ‘The last time it was here, I was eight, and even then we didn’t see anything.’

Nodding in understanding you hum, knitting your brow together in consideration of his words. ‘It would be...fun?’

‘If you want to, we can,’ he chuckles, peering at you through his lashes, still waiting for another response of sadness, of melancholic heartbreak to rise up in you again. The legend of Ciperion stirred something in you, touched pieces of your spirit denying access to all else, and he thinks, perhaps, it is the tragedy of lost life and torn wood that triggers memories of spilled blood. Anyone would weep at the horror of this, and so he clears his throat, remembering true horrors are the ones humanity can touch.

‘But,’ he begins, loud enough the children in the field turn to look at them, worrying their play will be halted before continuing to sing once more, ‘you washed up on the rocks.’ Looking at you fully, he feels his chest tighten, remembering the shredded silk and the way your hair wound over the rocks, latching into deep crevices just to keep you safe. ‘People don’t just come from the sea. If there’s a shipwreck somewhere, we’d have to tell the medic and the council. That’s a more pressing ship to be looking for.’

Biting your lip, your eyes grow distant and glassy as you retreat inward, mind racing towards shadowed images that render your voice small and soft. ‘I don’t remember where I was before this.’

‘Sometimes that can happen with trauma,’ Jaebeom advises, and it strikes him that your admission does not bring despair, only annoyance at your failing memory.

Through all of this, not once have you expressed fear at the notion of death, unafraid for your own mortality even after the very essence of it has been threatened and challenged. It hits him now that the only time you have ever been afraid is when confronted with the notion of others experiencing a fate meant for you. One tale of a shipwreck, and so soon were you unmade into a dark beast, woven together by sorrow.

Kicking the stones away from his feet, he tilts his head encouragingly, wordlessly advising that you continue alongside him. ‘The medic is one of my old school friends,’ he explains with a small grin, readying for Stefan’s loud laugh and teasing sarcasm. ‘He’ll be able to tell you more once he can run a few tests. You’ll like him. He’s quite funny.’

Walking beside him, there is a bounce to your step. ‘I remember that I like funny people,’ you announce, tossing him a playful smirk. ‘Maybe I will like looking at him as much as I like looking at you.’

Jealousy tightens itself around his ribs, the selfish desire for him to be the only thing that brings you pleasure rising in his throat like bile. It is an entirely new experience for him, the notion of love that one must remember its fragility, the sacredness of a lover's admiration more divine than the gods. Already, every breath he takes is heavy with you, body and soul hypnotized by your existence, and, in the effort of appearing aloof and affable, he grits his teeth through a humorless laugh.

‘Better not,’ he teases, though the jovial nature of it is almost nonexistent. As soon as he says it, he becomes upset with himself, the statement alone so preposterous and out of his character he shivers to shake the sound of it off his skin.

You, however, do not seem to notice, nudging into his shoulder once more as you continue on the journey.

Jaebeom has not seen the entirety of Isle Indolon, his ability to travel limited by his small income and the availability of everything he needs being centered to the town. However, he has never truly felt the need to explore, their small city of Sunridge Keep the capital of the island and therefore so full and bustling with activity he finds it impossible to muster the desire to leave. Orange red brick buildings decorated with limestone columns line the road, the gravel and dirt of the path turning into smooth cobblestone, warmed by the light of the blazing sun.

Hissing slightly as your toes touch the warm stones, you pull your foot back in surprise, only to place it back down with careful movements, mind racing once more as you take tentative steps forward. Immediately, your eyes are everywhere, touching everything all at once. You are hungry for absolutely everything, reading names of shops, studying faces of strangers as they pass, watching the florist hand out daffodils from her wicker basket as though nothing has ever been so marvelous. The bread maker offers you a warm sticky bun, and you look instead to the man’s face, not to the pastry held in his large palm, studying him as though his name might arrive on your tongue.

Jaebeom guides you away, offering the vendor a dismissive wave of his hand, only to find your eyes latched onto something else. He grows light headed watching the trajectory of your focus, your wild discontent and ravenous hunger gnawing you into a frenzied state of almost savage inquisitiveness. There is not a single thing your gaze does not touch, and occasionally you stop in front of shop windows to look in, eyes searching ever deeper for something familiar.

The center of town always smells the sweetest to Jaebeom, and so he leads you in this direction, hoping that the star shaped expanse and its wide angles will ease some of your tension. Childishly, he plans to acquire some roasted chestnuts, certain their candied deliciousness will provide you comfort even if it does not inspire remembrance. The throng of people eases as he approaches town center, the citadel bell chiming the late early hour, and you pause, looking up into the sky in awe. He’d always loved the bell tower - even if he did not trust the missionaries, even if he made himself believe it was deception that lurked behind their irises and not concern, he always appreciated their music.

Leading you to the large fountain directly in the center of the star, he settles on the warm marble and gestures for you to sit beside him. The rushing water calms his erratic heartbeat, and, yet again, with his eyes closed he can pretend he is small, little more than a boy who belongs completely to himself and to his mother, the whim of his will the only thing that stirs his reason.

‘We have a bit of time to rest here,’ he says, leaning back and closing his eyes as the sun cascades over his skin. It warms him from within, the magic of his childhood returning on the breadth of a sunbeam. ‘I always like to sit here a while before I run my errands. One can never deny music, can they?’

Jaebeom awaits your response, what feels like his very spirit existing in anticipation of you. But when it does not come, his skin begins to tighten amidst another wave of unease, and he opens his eyes to find you have retreated so far within yourself the shock of it lives on your features.

Hands in your lap, your back is rigid and straight, gaze flicking between the citadel tower and the people mingling at its base - up and down and back again, rushing between each as though you will never have your fill, teeth chewing at the inside of your cheek. Your fingernails pick at your skin before pressing crescent shapes into your palms, adrenaline putting you in a state of anxiety so severe he finds he, too, is sitting up straight and watching the crowd for familiar faces.

‘Do you recognize something?’ It takes work to keep his voice calm and soothing, doing his best not to startle you.

‘There’s something wrong with this,’ is all you whisper, and Jaebeom scours the crowd for a sign of injury, panic, even an out of place cart, but he comes up empty, finding nothing untoward in the surroundings.

Once more, he studies every face that passes, every horse drawn carriage that moves past, wondering which of these is the culprit for your turmoil. It is only when your hand moves to his thigh, gripping tightly enough he comes to see your grip as a vice, that he notices what it is that has you so undone.

At the base of the citadel, the crowd has started to dissipate, the smiling faces of mothers and their children departing after receiving their blessings. A group of four missionaries stands, handing out pamphlets and greeting passerby with neutral, unreadable expressions. Their royal blue cloaks catch the late morning sun, the velvet of the fabric gleaming in all their expensive glory, putting cerulean shadows on the limestone behind them. In this way, they are glowing, ephemeral visions that at once are otherworldly and oppressive, the sort of power in their light that would bring one to their knees.

As always, he shivers at the sight of them, but your grip on his leg tightens and when he looks at you again you are murmuring to yourself and he feels his jaw go slack.

‘Murderers,’ you hiss, softly enough that only he can hear but you say the word over and over, voice rising in pitch until your voice dies altogether.

You watch them, unblinking and repulsed, the fear and loathing in you so great he sees you now as a mere apparition of the woman you once were. A great tremor has started to creep through your limbs, body rocking back and forth as though you are at sea, your center of gravity warped as you continue to look and look.

Running his hand up and down your back in an effort to calm you, Jaebeom feels his own voice start to waver. ‘What is it?’

You say nothing, merely shake your head, unwilling to speak for fear that they may hear you. All his question manages to do is inspire another round of mumbling, calling them murderers only to yourself and only to Jaebeom, simply because he is close enough for your voice to reach. His eyes scour the crowd for a discreet way to remove you from the fountain, looking in the direction of Stefan’s practice only to drop to a disappointed frown. In front of the pathway, at his end of the star,a group of people have gathered to inspect a vendor of Veruvian silk.

‘Murderers,’ you say again, and this time it is loud enough that a young boy passing by hears your voice, his eyes widening in surprise.

Jaebeom grimaces apologetically, waving the boy along as he pulls you into his side, holding you close. Even in his state of panic, his heart breaks that this should be the first time he holds to him, the first time you would be able to remember, the comfort his arms reduced to merely a time and a place, and not a feeling. The trembling in your muscles is palpable, tangible enough his hands feel as though they are gripping something monstrous, something absolute in its knowledge and power. In a single moment, you have become something Other, shaking against his ribs with enough violence he fears you may tear the marble of the fountain asunder. Your hand leaves his thigh and comes to grip your seat, fingers pressing against the stone until your knuckles turn white.

He’s certain the missionaries must see you, certain this will turn into something holy and something wholly unwelcome, but they seem to pay you both no mind, their attention devoted instead to the good and to the whole.

And just when he thinks he may be able to ease words out of you, the noise of you reduced to slow, deep inhales between your parted lips and the shaking in your muscles coming abruptly to a halt, you bed over, eyes wide in shock, as you vomit sea water, seaweed, and, most horribly of all, blood at your feet.

Author’s Note: lord god, im telling you i thought this was going to be a very short story but here i am...all this with so much more to go. im just really in love with this world and actually really proud of it? ive never done anything like this and ive been in love with fisherman!jb ever since the dye preview pics came out. ive had this in my mind since i messaged @imdifferentshadesofpurple in may about it and im just so glad it lives. did i make an entire story out of that one promo pic and the oyster dress by alexander mcqueen? sure bet but you cannot blame me.

tag list: @red-exo @heatofmyexoheart @majci @yehet-me-up @lamichellee @ahgishaman @softly-savage-mint-yoongi

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tyra-greydawn · 3 years

Text

Dragoons Kill Monsters

Crimson Forest, Drustvar Some time later.

Tyra tried to scream. She choked on water instead. She was underwater, freezing, and trapped. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t think straight. All that mattered was breathing. Her right arm flailed through the bloody water. She found a root and pulled. She moved. That was something. She did it again. Grab. Pull. Grab. Pull. Her snout finally broke the surface of the water. Tyra lurched up onto a muddy bank, and forced herself onto her side. She vomited the water she had swallowed. She cried and her body shook painful sobs. Everything hurt but she was alive. She sank into the mud. She thought she could reach one of her stones and call for help. Then she’d only have to wait. That would save her for sure. But there was something tickling her mind. That wouldn’t be fast enough for…what was her name now?

Lucia.

Tyra closed her eyes. She wasn’t a good druid. She didn’t talk to animals or plants. She didn’t worship at moon wells or sleep in barrow dens. But she knew shapeshifting. Tyra concentrated. Chips of ruined bone were expelled through her skin as she rebuilt her left arm. She screamed. Her skin struggled to close around the bloody wounds, so Tyra forced it to do so with an act of will. After an eternity she was able to move it again. It ached but it worked. She finally looked above her. Nooses dangled from the tree she had emerged under. A nearby wicker monster stood motionless, no doubt waiting for a witch to seize control and send it on its way. The water she’d pulled herself from was dyed a deep crimson. It was dusk. Lucia still might be alive. She could save her.

Piece by piece, Tyra reconstructed her shattered body beneath the beneath the tree of hanged men.

Rhys let Claus to eat well that night. The dog had done his job by finding the travelers. Well, traveler now. He’d tied the survivor up against the wall of what passed as his cabin. Rhys would have just killed her on the bridge with the other girl, but the druid had to go and be defiant. Now this one would suffer for it.

“Everyone needs a hobby.” Rhys said to no one in particular. He spread his tool roll out on a decrepit table. The items inside were the only thing he went took care of. The centerpiece was a flensing knife he had taken from a troll in the last war. He smiled. He’d let this one drink tonight.

Claus barked at the door. Rhys’ temper flared at the interruption but he listened to the dog’s instincts. Rhys drew his revolver, stomped over to the door, and eased it open. Claus charged off into the darkness. Rhys heard a thump, the sound of something sliding across fallen leaves, then silence. He thumbed back the hammer of his pistol.

The woods were quiet. Something flitted by the edge of his vision. Rhys fired but only struck a tree. He cocked the gun again and waited. He heard footsteps in the darkness. He stepped out to get a better look. There was no point in talking yet. Anyone who tried this wasn’t interested in conversation.

Rhys felt a sudden, stabbing pain in the back of his head. He whirled and raised his pistol in time to see a bird vanish into the trees. He cursed under his breath and pressed his free hand to the wound. It came away bloody. He ducked as the bird swooped down at him again. As before, it disappeared into the darkness. He closed his door, put his back to it, and waited. Moments later something shattered the door and sent him sprawling. He landed with a grunt of pain. His gun fell to the ground beside him. He rolled over to see his attacker. What was once a bear was shrinking into the worgen girl he’d killed on the bridge. She loomed over him. “Give up.”

Rhys spit at her feet. “Fuck you. You killed my dog.”

“No I didn’t and you didn’t like him anyway. And you killed Adam.” Tyra said as she stepped closer. She pointed her spear at his chest. It wavered in her grasp. Rhys watched. “Give. Up.”

“Nah. I’m still faster than you.” Rhys sneered. He snatched his pistol from the ground and fired in the time it took Tyra to shift. The bullet shattered against the bear’s stone chest as she reared up. Her strike sent him flying. He hit a tree headfirst with a sickening crack and. Tyra counted to 30 while she waited for him to move. He didn’t. She resumed her worgen form and went into the house to recover Lucia.

Lucia was certain she was hallucinating. She was being carried through the Crimson Forest on the back of a stag. Their only escort was a tall, scrawny dog. The world swam around her when she lifted her head. She decided not to, and let herself be taken wherever they were going.

“You’re going to be okay.” The stag said. Lucia blinked.

“T-Tyra?” Lucia asked. She looked around, regretted it again, and finally realized it was the stag that was talking. Right. Tyra was a druid. “Where are we?”

“We’re going to Arom’s Stand so you can see a real healer.” Tyra carefully rounded a turn in the road. Balancing Lucia and avoiding the dog was harder than it looked.

“What happened? I remember shooting. And screaming. Then I was here.” Lucia said. She started petting Tyra’s fur. In her current state she didn’t notice Tyra tense up.

“I killed a monster.” Tyra said simply. The trio travelled in silence. Lucia slipped in and out of consciousness. She lost all track of time. A call for help gave her the courage to open her eyes again. They were at the gates of Arom’s Stand. “I think we’re safe now.”

A burly guard lifted Lucia from Tyra’s back and carried her off to the healer. She had passed out again. The crowd followed leaving Tyra alone by the gate. That was fine by her. The dog, however, stuck with her on the way to the inn despite her best efforts. Finding someone to take care of him would be tomorrow’s problem.

#tyra #tyras pilgrimage #tyra writing

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sachigram · 4 years

Text

Telescope Now Chapter 4

((click here to read on ao3!!))

When Izaya wakes again, it's dark outside. He jumps, thinking he slept all day, but then he realizes it's just raining again. He feels a bout of nausea from his sudden movement, and he quickly sinks back into the couch with a loud groan.

“You sick?” Shizuo's voice asks. Izaya squints up at him. Shizuo is still here? He's on the other side of the sectional, as if determined to be as far away from Izaya as possible.

“Why're you here?” Izaya asks, letting his head fall. He doesn't remember much of the night before after deciding to go to Sunshine 60. He definitely doesn't remember how he got home.

“Wow. Did you just entirely forget about last night, or are you still waking up?” Shizuo says, and Izaya rolls so he can look at Shizuo without lifting his head.

“We didn't fuck, did we?” Izaya asks, and Shizuo chokes on his own saliva, his face going bright red as he coughs.

“What?! No! What the fuck?!”

“Ah. Then I guess it doesn't matter what happened,” Izaya says. He pulls his coat a little tighter around himself. He wants a blanket, but he doesn't want to move, and he's damn sure not going to ask Shizuo to get him one.

“It matters,” Shizuo says. He's got his feet propped on the coffee table, and Izaya considers berating him for it, but he lets it go. Shizuo must have helped him home.

“How pathetic am I?” Izaya asks, chuckling at his own misfortune. “Reduced to being helped by someone who wants me dead. Is this what rock bottom is like?”

“Stop being dramatic,” Shizuo huffs. “You got drunk. It happens. I'd be wasted all the time if I were you.”

“Ah.”

“I mean— fuck, that came out wrong. It's just that you're, you know, going through stuff, and I'm just saying if it were me, I wouldn't be able to handle it,” Shizuo babbles. Izaya smirks.

“What about any of this makes you think I'm handling it?”

“It just seems like you're the type that can handle anything,” Shizuo says.

“Shizu-chan, you don't know a thing about me. I guess that's commonplace for you, isn't it? Not knowing things.” Izaya tries to glare at Shizuo, but it's more effort than it's worth, being an asshole when he feels this bad. “Why did you stay the night here?”

“It was raining,” Shizuo says. “Also you were...upset. I don't know, I guess I thought it'd make me look even worse to leave before you woke up. I should have, though, since you don't even remember half of what you said.”

Izaya frowns, hating this. What the hell did he say? Surely, even drunk, he wouldn't go professing all his secrets to Shizuo, right? He really doesn't need another reason for anyone to pity him right now, and it's not like he's ever held on to the hope that Shizuo returns his desires. He decided a long time ago that if he couldn't have Shizuo's affesctions, he'd accept all of Shizuo's hatred. This is old news, nothing worth fretting over.

Right?

“What did I say?” Izaya asks.

“Uh.” Shizuo rubs the back of his neck, and Izaya is mortified, on pins and needles as he waits for Shizuo to keep talking. “You cried. Like, a lot. It was kind of concerning. You were even crying while you were asleep.”

“Oh. That's all?”

“That's all?”

“I can live with crying while drunk. Maybe I'm a sad drunk. I don't get drunk often enough to know.” Izaya tilts his head toward the TV and snorts. Shizuo is watching a home renovation show.

“You also passed out in the middle of the sidewalk. I guess you blacked out from the alcohol. I didn't know how drunk you were until we were moving. I should've stopped you from drinking so much,” Shizuo says.

“Stop acting like you're responsible for me. It's annoying.”

“You're annoying,” Shizuo counters maturely.

Izaya is going to tell Shizuo to leave, but it sticks in his mouth, refuses to come out. Shizuo looks nice like this, in the dim light from Izaya's living room, his white sleeves rolled up and his hair tousled from crashing on the couch. Izaya just wishes he could watch Shizuo stuffing his face with food to complete the image. It's like observing a wild animal in its natural habitat after getting used to only seeing images of it hunting. Maybe Shizuo feels the same way about Izaya, because despite his casual demeanor, he doesn't seem very at ease. Maybe he thinks Izaya is about to attack when in actuality, Izaya can barely lift his own head.

“Do you need something?” Shizuo asks suddenly. Izaya realizes he was staring.

“No.” Izaya watches a woman on the TV have a breakdown about her counters being too dark. Everything about this situation is so bizarre that Izaya can't grasp it's actually happening. “Am I still asleep?” he asks, expecting his sisters to emerge from somewhere.

“Stop being weird,” Shizuo says with a grimace, and Izaya laughs.

“I think maybe I've finally gone insane. I don't recognize dreams from reality anymore. They all just blend together.”

“You mentioned that before.”

Izaya grumbles, tries again to remember the night before. He recalls bits and pieces, knows he was an emotional wreck. It's possible he spilled his guts to Shizuo and Shizuo is just being nice about it. Then again, Shizuo has never been nice about anything before, so Izaya doubts it.

“Can you do me a favor?” Izaya asks suddenly, and Shizuo blinks at him. “Well. Multiple favors, actually.”

“What?”

“Can you go to the medicine cabinet and get me some ibuprofen? It's in my bathroom upstairs. Also a glass of water— and a blanket. It's freezing in here.” Izaya shivers in emphasis.

Shizuo narrows his gaze at Izaya before standing and shuffling away. Izaya hugs his coat tighter around himself. It's really too cold, and he wants to adjust the heat, but he doesn't want to move. Asking Shizuo to adjust the thermostat would be like challenging the gods. Izaya has no doubts Shizuo would break the thermostat into something completely unrecognizable, an avant-garde masterpiece.

Shizuo returns with a grunt. He tosses a heavy blanket over Izaya's head, and sets the pills and water on the table. Izaya adjusts, recognizing the fabric of the blanket.

“You brought the duvet from my bed,” he says, amused.

“How the fuck am I supposed to know where you keep extra blankets?” Shizuo asks, defensive.

Izaya hums and lifts up to grab the pills. He pauses, groaning as the room spins around him. Carefully, he sets the pills back down and stands, hurrying to the bathroom where he collapses in front of the toilet and vomits until his stomach is even emptier than it was before.

“Now this is rock bottom,” he murmurs, leaning back and flushing the toilet with his foot. He stays on the floor for a few moments, trying to decide whether he should throw up more, or risk taking the pills now. He stands and leans against the counter, looking at himself in the mirror. His reflection seems to blur around the edges, almost as if he's just an illusion. He sneers at himself. “I don't have time for this today. Not while he's here. Torture me later.”

“Are you talking to yourself?” Shizuo's voice asks, muffled from the wood of the door.

“Does that make you feel left out?” Izaya asks.

“Nah, knock yourself out. I'm gonna order food. You don't have anything here. What do you want?”

Izaya pauses, looking at the door in disbelief. He opens it, and Shizuo stands there, scowling at him.

“Well?” Shizuo barks.

“You're having food delivered here?” Izaya asks, giddy in spite of himself that Shizuo isn't leaving any time soon. “Get whatever you want. I don't think I'll be eating for a while unless I want to keep barfing.”

“Eh, soon enough you'll be craving something greasy. Tom-san always eats a lot after a binger.” Shizuo reaches in his pocket, pulling his phone out. He looks at Izaya closely. “Will you turn your nose up at a burger?”

Izaya grimaces, feeling nauseated at the thought of something so unhealthy. “If I do, you can just eat it yourself.”

“Fair point,” Shizuo says, and then he walks back towards the living room.

“What the fuck is going on?” Izaya asks his reflection. “Shizu-chan is hanging out with me.” He starts brushing his teeth. “Am I still dreaming?”

“Nope!” Mairu hops up on the bathroom counter, kicking her feet out as she watches him. “You've been asleep so long. I'm bored, you know?” She reaches out and pokes him. “I think Shizuo likes you.”

Izaya cuts his eyes at her. This is the first time he's actually seen either of the twins outside of his dreams. He looks around for Kururi, finally sees her hiding slightly behind Mairu.

“He seems worried about you,” Mairu continues. “You're way more popular than we thought.”

“You should've seen how many people came to your funeral,” Izaya says after he spits into the sink. “No one came to support me, aside from maybe Shiki-san. Kine wasn't even there.”

“Shiki-san likes you, too,” Mairu says.

“Different from Shizuo,” Kururi adds, her voice small. She sounds upset, and in contrast Mairu sounds too cheerful, like she's trying to make up for Kururi.

“Yeah, I don't think Shiki-san wants to jump your bones. But he might! Oh wow, that'd be something. We'd be loaded for real!” Mairu giggles and waves her arms around. “Hey, get over Shizuo and try to get with Shiki-san instead. Or Akabayashi-san! They're both executives, right?”

“I regret ever raising you,” Izaya tells them. He grabs his headband and pulls his bangs off his forehead so he can wash his face.

“Maybe this is what it will take to make you and Shizuo stop fighting,” Mairu says. “One big tragedy to bring people closer together! It's like a messed up love story.”

“Shizu-chan hates me,” Izaya says.

“Then why is he visiting you?” Kururi asks.

“I don't know. Why are you visiting me?” Izaya counters.

“We're here every day. You need other people, you know, aside from us.” She bites her lip, a nervous habit of hers, and she adds, quietly, “we miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” Izaya says. He looks over at their faces, and his eyes burn. “I don't know how I'm supposed to move on.”

“We aren't going to let you move on,” Mairu says, and she reaches out to take Izaya's hand. He lets go of his facial products in favor of giving them his full attention.

“Is it really you in my dreams?” Izaya asks them. “Sometimes I see memories, but then other times it's like you're both trying to scare me to death.”

“Oh, who knows?” Mairu asks. She grins at him. “Maybe it's your own guilty conscience, or maybe we're just trying to wake you up.”

“You're both rotten. I don't know why I miss you.”

“I wanna talk more about Shizuo!” Mairu says.

“He asks us about you,” Kururi says.

“He does?” Izaya asks.

“Whenever he sees us, he'll mention you. He's kind of obsessed with you, but I guess you know that already,” Mairu says.

“Obsessed,” Izaya repeats, looking at himself in the mirror again. “He probably just feels sorry for me.”

“Would you feel sorry if it was him?” Kururi asks.

“You mean if Kasuka died?” Izaya puts a dollop of soap in his palm and starts his tedious skincare routine. “I don't know. I think I'd be happy if he was in pain. If he was miserable, I'd know he wasn't out forgetting about me.” He rinses his face and looks up to find his sisters aren't there anymore. Izaya takes a deep breath and towels his face dry before applying a moisturizer. Shizuo appears then, his eyebrows rising as he looks at Izaya.

“Wow. Are those cat ears?” Shizuo asks, grinning. He points to the headband.

“My sisters have matching ones,” Izaya says. “Or had, I guess.”

“Food's on the way. Sorry it's more junk, but I can't really cook.”

Izaya pauses and glances over at him. “Shinra told you to babysit me, didn't he?”

“'Babysit' wasn't really what he said,” Shizuo says, and he leans against the door frame. “Look, I liked your sisters. I really think they would've liked for me to...”

“Stop.” Izaya doesn't look at him, doesn't dare. He applies another product to his face and forces his voice into indifference. “Nothing has changed about me, Shizu-chan. So you've seen a glimpse of my personality you don't hate yet, so what? It doesn't mean you and I are going to be chummy.”

“No shit,” Shizuo snaps.

“What exactly do you think you're going to get out of this? My gratitude? Do you think I'm going to stop tormenting you? Allow me to ease your caveman thoughts before you have a meltdown— I'm the same person I always was, and I'm incapable of leaving you in peace.”

“I-za-ya.” When Shizuo says it like that, it's almost like a song, like a prelude to an incoming battle cry. Izaya tenses, can't help it, but at the same time, he's craving for Shizuo to throw a punch. Izaya needs some normalcy, and even if he's enjoying Shizuo's company for some incredibly bizarre reason, a fight would make them both feel so much better. Izaya has a lot of pent up tension, is practically vibrating with it, and Shizuo must be able to tell, because the fury in his eyes evaporates and is replaced with something else, something terrible.

“I don't want your pity, and I don't want your help,” Izaya hisses, glaring at him. He feels such hatred in his body that he thinks he might sink into the ground from the weight of it.

“I don't pity you,” Shizuo says.

“Right. I'm sure some part of you enjoys this. I'm actually proud, Shizu-chan, that's very cruel of you. I didn't think you had the brain power to be so vindictive.”

“I'm tired of hating you, Izaya,” Shizuo says suddenly, his voice rising. He grips the top of the door frame and cracks it. “It's exhausting, and it's stupid. We're too old for this shit.”

“So saving me from myself is going to make me hate you less?” Izaya spits, and Shizuo growls before taking a step forward.

“Where does this end? Tell me that. When you envision your life without me, is it because you've killed me? What do I have to do to get you to leave me the fuck alone?!” Shizuo shouts, and Izaya takes a step back, can't help it. He's cornered, and they both know it. Still, Izaya isn't capable of yielding, and he's even less capable of shutting up, even when it's good for him.

“I don't envision you at all unless it's the idea of you dying in front of me.”

“Bullshit. You're obsessed with me, you won't even let me walk down the street without trying to pick a fight with me. Why the fuck do you hate me so much?” Shizuo asks, and Izaya leers up at him.

“Because you're an idiot, an overgrown toddler who destroys everything in his path the second he doesn't get his way. You spout your incessant drivel about hating violence, but violence is all you are, all you're capable of. You're a hypocrite, Shizu-chan, and I could forgive so many things, but I truly hate hypocrisy.” Izaya slaps another serum on his face and turns back to the mirror. He's well-aware of how strange this scenario is, Shizuo arguing with Izaya while he's grooming and hungover. This is a new one, strange even for them.

“God, just shut up, I'm so tired of arguing with you,” Shizuo says, shoving Izaya a bit. Izaya caches himself on the counter and turns, a knife in his hand.

“Get out,” Izaya says, and Shizuo looks from the knife to Izaya's face.

“No.”

“I mean it, get out. I feel like shit and your questions are idiotic. You're really going to ask me why I hate you? Are you really that stupid?” Izaya lifts the knife to Shizuo's neck, but Shizuo still doesn't back down. Of course he doesn't. “Last time I checked, you hated me just as much as I hate you. Can you tell me why?”

“Because you're a shitty parasite who ruins everyone's lives. You know all the shit you've done to me! You're obsessed, like I said—“

“Stop saying I'm obsessed with you like you aren't equally as hyper-focused on me. Sometimes I don't even do anything! You'd rather blame every problem you have on me than take responsibility for yourself.”

“That's because it is always to do with you, and you fucking know it!” Shizuo shouts, tilting forward. The knife slides a bit, and a trickle of blood flows from Shizuo's neck. Izaya watches it drip down, his lips curling in a snarl.

“If you hate me so much then just leave! I didn't ask for you to help me, I didn't ask for you to save my life, and I'm not asking you to stay now, you fucking monster!”

Shizuo throws a punch, and Izaya moves out of the way before slashing wildly at Shizuo's chest. Shizuo curses and jumps back, and the wall cracks where Shizuo hits it. They glare at each other, hatred clear in their faces, and Izaya can't help but grin wickedly. This is more like it. This is the monster he knows so well.

“God, Iza-nii, do you just have to ruin everything?” Mairu's voice asks from behind him. He whirls to face the mirror, and it's her face he sees instead of his own. She sounds hollow, echoing. Sometimes the twins sound like this, and sometimes they sound clear as day, as if they're really next to him.

“You aren't real,” he tells the mirror. His hand loosens around the knife, and it hits the floor, clattering on the tile. Shizuo looks at it, and then back at Izaya.

“You're really fucked up, aren't you?” Shizuo asks, but Izaya is still looking at Mairu's face. It's so easy to tell she isn't really alive anymore when she looks like this, twisted and contorted. She vanishes, and Izaya sees his own face, hisses and yanks the headband off before he steps past Shizuo and leaves the bathroom.

“Just get away from me, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, but of course Shizuo follows. He watches with a frown as Izaya marches into the kitchen and fishes a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet.

“Is that really a good idea?” Shizuo asks. “You're already sick.”

“Hair of the dog,” Izaya says, pouring himself a serving. He glances at Shizuo, sighs, and then gets out a glass for him, too.

“You wanna share your fancy shit with me?” Shizuo asks. Izaya shrugs.

“Sure, why not? Give you a taste of things you can't afford on your own. It'll hurt that much more next time you're forced to buy cheap.” Izaya pours it and slides it towards Shizuo, and then he raises his own glass. “To you, monster. May you live a long life full of destruction and torment.”

“Yeah, fuck you, too,” Shizuo growls. He takes a sip, and his eyes widen a bit.

“Smooth, right? This is Shiki-san's brand. I don't break it out very often.” Izaya throws his drink back and shudders. His stomach lurches in protest, and he worries the drink might surge back up, but it doesn't. “This is the weirdest day of my life.”

“I've had weirder,” Shizuo says. He leans on the counter and watches Izaya closely. “You never answered my question.”

“I'm sure I'll die of old age before I answer everything you don't understand,” Izaya says.

“Where do you see this going? I mean it, do you really think we can fight forever?” Shizuo asks, and Izaya gazes down into his empty glass thoughtfully.

“I try not to think about you, Shizu-chan,” Izaya says, and there is truth in that. He tries very hard to think about anything else.

“If you don't think of me, then how the hell do you come up with your batshit crazy schemes to piss me off? Why can't you leave me alone?”

“I don't envision my life without you, either,” Izaya says simply, and he looks up at Shizuo's confused expression.

“We can't keep this up forever.” Shizuo takes another sip of his drink. “One of us is going to die if we keep fighting.”

“A hatred like ours won't just go away. Hate is a strong emotion, one of the strongest we're capable of. If you truly hate someone, you hate them forever.”

“I don't buy that. You can stop being an asshole, and I'll stop chasing you down. It's as easy as that.”

“Is it?” Izaya asks. He pours himself another glass before he tops Shizuo off as well.

“You're the one who won't let this go,” Shizuo says gruffly.

“You're right,” Izaya replies, swirling the whiskey around in his glass. “It's not possible for me to stop hating you.”

“What if I just stop giving you the time of day? Stop rising to it, like everyone's always told me I should?” Shizuo asks, his eyes darkening as he leans closer to Izaya.

“Do you really think you can ignore me?” Izaya asks, and Shizuo throws the rest of his drink back before baring his teeth.

“I think I'll kill you if you don't back the fuck off.”

“So then kill me,” Izaya says. “I always imagined you would.”

“You want me to kill you?” Shizuo asks in disbelief, and Izaya pouts as the familiar ferocity leaves Shizuo's features.

“I'd love it if I could kill you, but I don't think you're human enough to die. I'm sure one day you'll go too far, or I will, and then you won't stop. You'll kill me, and everyone will know what you're capable of.” Izaya smiles, but it's not kind, and it's not happy. “I win either way.”

“You're crazy,” Shizuo snaps. He slams his empty glass on the counter, and it shatters. Neither of them look away from each other. “Something's wrong with you, something with your brain.”

“Pot, kettle,” Izaya says, and he gets out another glass for Shizuo. “You asked me if I'd leave you alone, and now you have your answer.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess I fucking do. You're never gonna stop bothering me.”

“And you'll never stop chasing me. Isn't there a comfort in that?” Izaya asks as he pours Shizuo's glass. Shizuo barks a laugh, and Izaya looks up at him, dazed, taken aback that Shizuo could ever seem so relaxed in his presence.

“God. God. Yeah, there is.” Shizuo lifts his new glass of whiskey to Izaya. “Somehow, you're the most stable thing in my life.”

“I do aim to please you, Shizu-chan.” Izaya smirks before he sips his drink. “I bet you're wishing you let me get hit by that truck now, huh?”

Shizuo grimaces as he tosses the entirety of his drink back. “No.”

“Liar. It would've solved all your problems, and it would've been hands-off for you. Hell, you would've had a front-row seat to it! Do you think you would've been in the splash zone?”

“Izaya, fuck, stop. I don't want to think about it, okay? You—“ Shizuo shakes his head, tops off his own glass this time. “Do you really not give a fuck about yourself at all?”

Izaya scoffs, not liking the direction this conversation is going. Shizuo was supposed to like the idea, was supposed to lament saving someone who would never change. He isn't supposed to be looking at Izaya like this, like he actually gives a damn.

“Is that why you were on Sunshine last night?” Shizuo continues, and the implications hang. Izaya snorts.

“You think I was going to jump?”

“Were you?”

“Is that why you're here, Shizu-chan?”

“Answer my question, flea.”

“Answer mine!”

They glower at each other, Shizuo leaning over the shattered glass on the counter, and they both startle when there's a knock at the door. Shizuo grumbles and moves towards it, and Izaya watches him go, considers putting a cleaning product in Shizuo's drink, but thinks better of it.

“How domestic of you to answer my door, Shizu-chan,” Izaya lilts. “Rumors will spread, you know? You can't even blame me for it.”

“Fuck you, it's the—“ Shizuo starts, and then he growls. “Dammit, Shinra, what are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?!” Shinra shuffles inside, Celty in tow, and they both look from Shizuo to Izaya. Izaya's head throbs.

“Great, now there are two monsters in my home,” he mutters, sipping more whiskey. He feels like he'd rather be alone with the ghosts and his looming insanity than deal with all this at once.

“Did you stay the night?” Shinra asks Shizuo, ignoring Izaya and his dramatics.

“Well, yeah, I mean... It's storming and he's...” Shizuo jerks his thumb towards Izaya. “He's losing it.”

“That implies there was something left to lose!” Shinra says, laughing, and Izaya sees red. He throws his glass at Shinra, but Celty's shadows catch it before it makes impact. “Izaya-kun! What was that for?!”

Rather than answer, Izaya picks up the entire bottle of whiskey and pads towards his couch. He feels them all looking at him, but he's too tipsy to care. They're murmuring amongst themselves, and Izaya is busy tuning them out when someone jumps onto the couch next to him, startling him.

“Mairu,” he hisses lowly as she shakes his arm. She feels so real, so heavy next to him.

“Iza-nii! I'm bored!” Mairu exclaims, and the entire couch seems to move with the way she's bouncing.

“You're going to hurt him,” Kururi says, appearing at Izaya's other side.

“Look at him, he's already hurt!” Mairu keeps shaking Izaya, who has to fight to put the bottle on the coffee table before she can make him spill it. “IZA-NII!”

“Get off me!” Izaya snaps, shoving at her. It does nothing, as he just seems to phase through her. He looks at his hands, wondering how she can touch him, but he can't touch her. “You can't be here now, I'm not alone,” he whispers vehemently.

Neither of the twins seem to hear him, or more likely, they're ignoring him. They barely listened when they were alive, so Izaya isn't surprised. He feels himself being tugged by them, by something else, and he closes his eyes as a light blinds him and makes his terrible headache even worse.

When he opens his eyes, he's on the roof at Raijin. Izaya would recognize it anywhere. He used to come up here for lunch and for quiet, though Shinra would often find him anyway. He looks down at himself and is surprised to find he's transparent. He can see the tiles below as if he's not really here at all.

Off to the side, he sees a younger version of himself absorbed in a book. Izaya recognizes the title, The Picture of Dorian Gray. He still has the book at home, and he rereads it pretty often. He watches himself for a few moments, and then he hears movement on the stairs, voices carrying. The younger version of himself scoffs before ducking behind the wall, out of sight. The door opens to reveal Shizuo storming out onto the roof, Shinra chasing after him.

“Fucking drop it, Shinra!” Shizuo yells, his hands in fists. He whirls on the younger Shinra, who throws his hands up in surrender. “I'm not being nice to that goddamn bloodsucker! I'm tired of you talking to me about him; it just pisses me off!”

“I'm sorry! It's just that you're both my friends, and...” Shinra rubs at the back of his neck. “It'd be so much easier if we could all hang out together. I really think you two could be great friends.”

“What did I just say?!” Shizuo takes a threatening step forward, and Shinra howls before jumping back. “He's been sending thugs after me! I know it's him, and I'm gonna wring his scrawny neck until his head pops off!”

“Shizuo-kun, please, he's just trying to get a rise out of you! He's still really mad about you hating him on first sight, and—“

“If you say another word, one more word to me about making nice with that bastard, I'm gonna seriously hurt you. I hate him, and I want him dead. If I never saw him again, it'd be too fucking soon.”

Izaya watches them, and then he turns to his younger self, winces at the expression he sees. He remembers this day, remembers overhearing this conversation.

“I just wish you didn't feel that way,” Shinra says, and then he sighs. “C'mon, don't threaten me! I'm your friend, you know?”

“You're his friend, too,” Shizuo spits, and he crosses his arms. “I mean it, Shinra, I'm gonna kill him one day. You might as well get it through your head. I can't be chummy with a guy like that.”

“It boggles the mind that you're even chummy with me,” Shinra says, grinning wryly, and Shizuo shrugs.

“Yeah, don't remind me. You're just one of the only people who isn't scared of me, that's all it is.”

“Liar,” Izaya says, knowing full well no one can hear him. “I wasn't scared of you either, and you hated me for it.”

Shinra and Shizuo leave soon after, and Izaya is left alone with the younger version of himself, who is fingering the corners of his book forlornly. Izaya wishes he could say something to himself, but at the same time, he has no idea what he'd even say. He doesn't have any wisdom to offer, and as for comfort, every version of himself would reject it.

“This is when I decided I'd make him hate me more than anyone else,” he says aloud, watching as the young Izaya goes back to reading, huddled in a corner, tucked into himself. “I thought if it was the only way to get him to look at me, I'd be okay with it.”

“Does it work out?” the younger Izaya asks, suddenly looking right at him, maybe even through him. “Are you happy?”

“Does it matter? He's looking.”

There's a tug on his arm, and Izaya jerks awake, finds he's flat on the floor beside his coffee table. Shinra is hovering over him.

“Izaya-kun? Hey, it's okay.” Shinra puts a calming hand on Izaya's cheek, and Izaya leans into it, needs to know Shinra is really here. “Do you know where you are?”

“I'm home. Shizu-chan was here...” Izaya looks around wildly until his eyes settle on Shizuo, who is standing beside Celty, a worried look on his face. “Weren't we just at school?”

“School?” Shinra asks. “What did you see?”

“My sisters were here...” Izaya groans and tries to sit up. A fresh wave of nausea hits him, and he curls into himself instead. “You think I'm crazy.”

“I don't. I think you're going through too much for anyone to go through alone.” Shinra leans down, closer to Izaya's ear. “I'm here,” Shinra says softly, and Izaya withholds a laugh. If this isn't real, this is the cruelest trick his mind has played on him so far.

“You're heavy,” Izaya mumbles, and Shinra pulls back, offers a hand to help Izaya up.

“What the hell is this? He's seeing ghosts and passing out? And we're gonna act like it's okay?” Shizuo asks, and Shinra sighs as he supports Izaya onto the couch.

“It could be a lot of things. All of this could still be the mind processing grief, it could be sleep-deprivation—“

“I slept fine last night,” Izaya interjects, and Shinra looks between him and Shizuo, his eyebrows raised.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Shizuo says, narrowing his eyes at Shinra. “You asked me to look after him, and he was freaking out. What was I supposed to do, leave him here alone?”

“It's just above and beyond what I asked you to do, that's all,” Shinra says, and then he turns to Izaya. “How are you feeling right now?”

“Hungry,” Izaya says earnestly. “Aren't we having food delivered soon, Shizu-chan?”

“It's here already. You just had to go and pass out.” Shizuo walks towards the couch, a paper bag in his hand, and he sets it on the coffee table in front of Izaya.

“I'm so happy the two of you are finally getting along,” Shinra says happily. He wilts when Shizuo and Izaya both give him a look.

“Can you leave? I was fine till you showed up,” Izaya says.

“So you were fine alone with Shizuo-kun?” Shinra asks.

“Yes,” Izaya snaps as he unwraps his hamburger, which is ridiculously big. “Look at this thing. How the hell do I eat this, Shizu-chan?”

“You eat it, dumbass. Can you even eat real food, or do you exclusively live off the blood of others?” Shizuo asks as he flops onto the couch beside Izaya. He reaches for the bag, and he hums in thanks when Izaya passes it to him.

“Well, Celty, I think we can go! They seem fine!” Shinra says, and he balks when Celty's PDA shoves into his face. “Really, they're doing great! You heard Izaya-kun, he wants us to go!”

“Celty can stay. You're the one on my nerves,” Izaya mumbles through a mouthful of food. Shizuo's lips twitch upwards.

“Celty and I are a package deal!” Shinra wails, and he looks closely at Shizuo. “Call if anything happens, okay?”

“Shinra really should monitor you. You passed out so suddenly.” Celty's PDA floods Izaya's vision, and he squints at the bright screen, his eyes struggling to adjust.

“I'm fine. You can all go,” Izaya says.

“No. You can relent to letting Shizuo-kun stay, or you can come stay with me. You can't be alone, I'm sorry.” Shinra steps forward and puts a hand on Izaya's shoulder, his fingers squeezing.

“As if any of you care what happens to me.” Izaya tries to shrug Shinra's hand off him, but Shinra holds on tight.

“I do care, and so does Celty.” Shinra frowns and shakes Izaya a bit. “I really think you should come stay with us for a while.”

“He's fine, I'm watching him,” Shizuo says. Izaya grimaces at him when he sees Shizuo is already almost done with his own burger, his cheeks full of food like some sort of monstrous rodent. He glares over at Izaya. “What?”

“Watching you disgusts me,” Izaya says, leaning forward to put his burger on the coffee table.

“You watching me disgusts me!” Shizuo shoots back.

“How am I supposed to look at anything else when you're smacking and—“

“Okay!” Shinra says, his hands going up. “Don't kill each other. I don't have other friends to replace you.” He nods at Shizuo, wordlessly conveying his thanks, and then he's tugging Celty towards the door. Izaya tongues at his cheek, and when he hears the door closed, he turns to Shizuo.

“You can leave now, monster. I don't want you here.”

“Tough shit,” Shizuo replies, wadding up the paper his burger was wrapped in. “Shinra's right, you shouldn't be alone.”

“I don't want you here!” Izaya shouts, and Shizuo stiffens. Izaya rarely raises his voice, hates to lose his cool, but the longer Shizuo stays and acts like Izaya is anything other than an enemy, the more Izaya feels himself slipping. “Get out.”

“So you're just gonna sit here feeling sorry for yourself?” Shizuo asks gruffly, his eyes looking from Izaya to the bottle of whiskey still on the table. “Flea—“

“Out, I said! Out, get the fuck out of my apartment!” Izaya stands, wobbles on his feet, and reaches into his pocket, withdrawing his wallet and a few bills. He throws them at Shizuo. “For your junkfood. Leave before I call security.” He makes his way back upstairs and flops into his bed, too hot with anger to even care his duvet is still on the couch. He doesn't relax until he hears the door close below him, and he's honestly surprised when Shizuo doesn't slam it.

***

It only takes a day for Shizuo to come back.

Izaya is curled on the couch, his eyes on the TV, though he doesn't know what he's watching. He barely flinches when his door bursts open, and when Shizuo comes to the couch to hover over him, he keeps his eyes trained on the TV screen.

“Simon said to give this to you,” Shizuo says, putting a bag next to Izaya. “He said it's your favorite.”

Izaya doesn't look at him. Shizuo growls and kicks at the couch.

“Oi, did you hear me? Are you deaf now, flea?”

“I don't want you here,” Izaya says irritably. He sniffs and pulls his blanket up higher, hiding more of his face.

“Tough shit, I don't care what you want.” Shizuo crosses his arms and stands there. “You think you deserve peace and quiet when you never give me the same courtesy? Fuck you.”

“Then do what you want, just shut up.”

Shizuo scrutinzies him, taps his foot on the floor. “What's wrong with you? You look worse than usual.”

“The urns are here,” Izaya says, motioning to the counter. He put them right next to the broken glass he's yet to clean. “Told you they'd liven things up.”

Shizuo hesitates a moment before he sits next to Izaya, closer than he did the day before. Izaya tosses the remote at Shizuo, who catches it and flips through the channels before settling on some cheesy movie. Neither of them speaks for a long time, and it's Izaya who eventually breaks the silence.

“I didn't look in their coffins.”

“Huh?” Shizuo glances at him.

“I didn't want to see their bodies. I didn't want to remember them that way.” Izaya rolls to his back, and he watches Shizuo's face. “I'm actually a coward, you know?”

“I wouldn't have wanted to look either,” Shizuo says.

“Mm. I wish I had've.”

Shizuo keeps staring at him, a frown on his face, and Izaya laughs softly, shaking his head.

“I'm just not really convinced they're actually dead.”

“Flea.” Shizuo sighs and runs a hand through his messy hair. “They are. They're...gone. Don't do this to yourself.”

“Then tell me why those urns are empty.”

#telescope now #Shizaya #halloween fic #drinking #ghosts #head injury #trippy #2 chapters left! :)#>>>>>:)

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5lazarus · 3 years

Note

Hi Lazarus! from the hurt/comfort prompts: “Hey, just look at me. Breathe.” Thank you!!

this story got completely out of control, but I vomited up 2.5k words from this prompt! thank you for sending it! I had a lot of fun with this little story, and while I don’t think I managed to bring it to a successful resolution, it taught me a lot about pacing!

to recap, you inspired a whole story idea with the first hug prompt you sent me. I was thinking about what Hawke & friends must have gone through, escaping Kirkwall, and how utterly miserable and emotionally shattered every single one of them must have been. what would that emotional catharsis have looked like? then ellie-elfie sent me a few prompts, which I looped into the story you inspired here, and then ended with this. I posted it on AO3 as Catabasis, though I realize I stopped the story before they go back underground. Thanks again for inspiring this. This was a lot of fun!

The warm wet of the woods washes away the ash of the last of Kirkwall. Merrill winds them through the muddy woods. She makes them take their shoes off to confuse their tracks, despite Anders muttering about hookworm and Varric’s hatred of dirt, and routinely casts a spell to shift the leaf litter back over their prints. “It’s going to look like elves were travelling, if they’re looking at all,” she says. “Not four humans, a dwarf, and Dog.” Dog barks merrily at the mention of him and Fenris shushes him. “In Seheron, we had caligo lagoenae,” Fenris says. “Can you do something similar?” “Fenris, I don’t speak Tevene,” Merril says shortly. Hawke puts their hand on her shoulder. She is still irritated over the grammar argument in the cave, and Hawke knows she has refused to learn Tevene as a point of principle. Bethany’s said that the best way to learn old magic is to read the magisterium’s journals. Merrill has said the only elves who know Tevene are slaves and slavers, and she would rather not. She continues, “Do you know it in Common? Or is it a spellword?” Fenris snaps, “Don’t patronize me,” and now it is Anders’ turn to step in and diffuse the situation. “I can work up a fog,” he says. “But you’re better at nature magic than I am, Merrill.” They don’t bother asking Bethany, because Bethany is best at curses and massively destructive rift spells. Hawke smirks to themself. Their family always makes a splash, wherever they go--good thing Merrill knows how to cover it up. Merrill weaves and thickens the humidity of the already cloying woods into a thick fog. Bethany summons a small flame and leads them forward, Fenris at her side, checking for signs that his underground left. Aveline sighs. “Creeping through the forest with a thick fog, as if that’s not suspicious.” She shakes her head. Fenris made her change into a light leather armor and leave her guard’s uniform behind. She looks close to the worn woman that Hawke met, all those long years ago, with the security of Kirkwall of her back. She still clutches her sword. Hawke is sorry they made her throw away the Amell family shield. They cannot help but suspect Fenris took some pleasure out of ordering Aveline out of her uniform. They’ve wanted to do the same for so long too, but they know the only way to balance their friends is to step out of the way. Aveline is an idealist, perhaps even more than Anders is; she finds her disillusionment in her own way. Hawke mutters a curse as they step into a particularly noxious puddle of mud. They’ve pushed her further down it, certainly. “Dunno how you stand this,” Hawke says. “The mud. The bugs. Fungus. Do you ever think you’re going to get infected with, like, mushroom people?” “Mushroom people,” Varric mutters. “That’s a good one. Better than lizards.” “No, really,” Hawke protests, scraping the mud of their feet on a tree. Merrill, irritated, waves a hand and the mud hardens and falls off. Hawke blushes: right, that’s a very clear mark a person was there. “Sorry. But, we’ve all seen some strange things in our time in Kirkwall. Amulets that turn into strange witches who can turn into dragons and eat darkspawn. Trees that turn into angry men-spirit-elf things that guard tombs. An actual ancient elvhen god, living in the sewer.” “You know, it’s not so clear Xebenkeck was one of my people’s gods,” Merrill says testily. “She is referred to as both a Forbidden One in our lore and a Forgotten One in the Chantry’s interpolation of the Tevinter text, and--” “Pedant,” Hawke says fondly. “But given all the weird shit we’ve had to fight, I feel like we’re due for some mushroom people springing up on us.” Merrill says, “That’s not how the Fade works. This is land still roved by the People. Think about it like a garden. A good Keeper prunes back the rot and the overgrowth, and leaves space for growth. And burns it out, when necessary. Kirkwall hasn’t had a good Keeper in a long time.” “Or First,” Fenris says nastily. Merrill says, “That demon took Marethari, Fenris. Not me. And if you’re not able to understand that, I don’t understand how you��re able to tolerate Justice and Anders and not what I did with Audacity.” “Because Justice isn’t a demon,” Anders says angrily. Merrill sighs. “I haven’t the time to argue Chantry propaganda with you. You can lead a halla to the water, but you can’t make him drink. I don’t understand how you can hate the Circles and still impose the way they shape the Fade--” “Oh, come off it, you’re worse than Velanna,” Anders says. “Even you have to admit, that time Hawke dragged us into the Fade, that demons mirror Andraste’s teachings on the seven deadliest sins.” “Only because Andrastians outnumber us now,” Merrill argues. “Because when I dream with my clan, we see spirits inherently different--which implies that there is no set form, as you say. What’s the line between Justice and Vengeance, anyway? Between Pride and Fortitude, Audacity and Courage? Fenris, you must have seen how Seheron feels differently than, say, Minrathous, or Kirkwall, or even Wycombe and the Friendly Homes. Where the Fade touches the Waking World--” “They’re going to go on like this for hours,” Varric says. “And I don’t understand shit. Sunshine, why don’t you ever join in?” “Both of them are far too proud to be fun to argue with,” Bethany shrugs. She pushes the lick of flame over her head and nudges it onward. It warms her tired face. Hawke thinks that she looks like their mother, as beautiful as her too, and Leandra would be furious to see the mess their children had made of their lives, on the run again. But she would be happy that they were alive. They troop through the forest, wet and muddy and irritable, and eventually even Anders runs out of things to argue about. Hawke grows comfortable in the smell of Merrill’s petrichor spells. Though the mud is admittedly unpleasant, they like the feel of wet grass sticking to their feet and legs. The woods are loud, Merrill’s magic feels like a hug from her herself, and they feel like they may just get through this. The ground grows rocky as they climb into the Vimmarks. Varric, though he hates inclined surfaces, argues that it is safer to stay in the mountains and follow a winding path past Ostwick rather than risk crossing them and skirting so close to Starkaven. “Prince Charming won’t think we’ll go up,” he says. “Trust me. One thing Sebastian knows about me, is how much I hate hiking.” They set up camp in rock shelters Merrill picks out. She knows this part of the route better than Fenris. Rain sets back in at night. Hawke wonders if Merrill inadvertently summoned it, with her fog spells. It is hard to gauge what a mage can do, because their friends regularly do the impossible. Varric has plucked arrows out of the air, Fenris can pass through walls like a lyrium-infused ghost, and Aveline took down the eldritch horror of a rock wraith in the Deep Roads. The feel of the caves is fantastic. The air tastes good, somehow, fresh and hungry, and the walls are inscribed with runes, layered through the ages. Some of them Merril can read, and she and Fenris sit down with a notebook and they go over them together, Merrill saying the words aloud and Fenris trying to write them down. Anders sits next to Hawke as they watch them. They are all tired, but the tension has been easing the further they get away from the city. They are not sure any of this can be resolved, but right now, they are too tired to fight. “Has Fenris been teaching you his dialect?” Hawke asks. “Merrill tries with me, she’s very particular about it. Says my accent is adorably shit.” Anders says, “Justice knows Elvhen. I--sometimes I know it when he says it, sometimes I don’t. It’s easier when the Veil is thinner, but gives me a headache.” “Huh. So spirits speak Elvhen.” Hawke turns to Bethany. “How does that work?” She is the Fade expert, out of the trio, though Bethany disengages with grace whenever Merrill disagrees with her. Bethany shrugs. “Dunno. Maker’s first children? Anecdotally I’ve heard that elvhen mages are more susceptible to the Harrowing--” “That’s not true,” Anders interrupts, “that’s because of templar bias and the way they’re discriminated against--” “Let me finish, Anders,” Bethany says, irritated. “As I was saying. There seems to be a stronger pull between elves and spirits, and Merrill thinks is has to do with Dalish cosmology, though that wouldn’t make sense because Orsino--well, no one has actually studied it. And now no one will, not with what’s happening with the Circles. If they don’t just kill us all.” “Fiona won’t let that happen,” Anders says, face hard. “The Liberati have enough of a majority to push for a vote.” Bethany snorts. “Didn’t know you were that engaged in Circle politics.” “I voted,” Anders protests. “Until it was no longer useful for me.” “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Hawke says. “I’m gonna go talk to Varric instead.” The days proceed much like the rest. People talk. Hawke listens. They learn that Isabela, Anders, and Merrill have all met the hero-wardens of Ferelden before. Merrill comes from the same clan as Warden Mahariel, though Sabrae split before the Blight. Anders still corresponds with Surana, who lives in Amaranthine to avoid the stress of warden politics and to support Warden Tabris, who Isabela hooked up with in Denerim. Isabela also slept with the Left Hand of the Divine, they discover, and the King of Ferelden’s lover. “Though we couldn’t talk him into bed with us,” she sighs. “Though Zevran and Tabris and I really tried. He just--I think he got overwhelmed by all the anatomy. Poor boy.” Hawke snickers. The days go on like this, aching their way through the Vimmarks. These are the paths the Dalish take, and escaped slaves, and occasionally mages. They find marks of all three groups overlapping, though Bethany casts enough obfuscation hexes to keep them from intersecting that she collapses in her bedroll at the end of each day, shaking. Likewise cleaning their tracks begins to take a toll on Merrill. She withdraws into herself, focusing on relentlessly hiding their trail, and not even Varric can get her to laugh. “I’m tired,” she says. “And I need to focus. Please stop.” Hawke decides they need a rest day at the border of Hercinia and Wycombe. Fenris knows a cave system that will take them directly to his friends from Clan Lavellan, who promised him refuge the last time they saw him. He claims it will only take two days, but it will be two days without sunlight, and Hawke remembers how depressed Varric got without the sky. They camp in a treehouse built into a grove right below the mouth of the cave. Everyone is quiet, for the most part, curled around the fire. Aveline hums as she patches a shirt for Isabela, and Anders goes through his medicine bag to reassure himself they have enough to heal them through to Wycombe. Varric stares into the fire. “When I write about this,” he says, “I think I’ll keep this for myself.” “Why?” Bethany asks. He purses his lips, thinking. Hawke wraps their arms around Merrill, who is already half-asleep, and enjoys their friends. It is always fun to watch Varric think, he’s the cleverest out of all them, except maybe Merrill. Merrill buries her face in their arms, and they look down, concerned. She is upset, and there is nowhere private to ask why. The fire casts shadows over his face. Varric looks old. They all do. It has been a hard month. He says finally, “Because there’s no romance in it. No one wants to read about the Champion and their friends all fighting, and not really coming to any consensus besides that they want to stop fighting and be safe. There’s no moral in it, nothing uplifting. Just that people fight, viciously. That we make mistakes we can’t fix. And we just have to live with it. It’s not compelling. Not like our story in Kirkwall, which is more about Kirkwall. Who are we without the city in the background? I don’t know. I think I’ll end it in the docks. Or maybe with us watching the city burn. So people can assign us closure. Choose their own happy ending, because I don’t know what ours will be yet.” Isabela says, “Nothing special, just pieces.” She stretches again. “Keep talking like that and you’ll end up a Qunari. Our story doesn’t need a moral, Varric. That’s not how life works.” “I know that,” he says. “But that’s not the point. The story isn’t life. So I can make it work however I want.” Merrill pushes herself up in Hawke’s lap and whispers in their ear, “If they all start arguing again I will either scream or cry, I haven’t decided yet.” The journey has taken its toll on her. Hawkes examines her closely and sees the shadows like smudges under her eyes. She’s paler than usual, and she starts shaking. Hawke inclines to the edge of the treehouse with their head and quickly they move as far as they can from the others. Bethany looks at them questioningly, but they shake their head sharply. Mercifully they are left alone. Bethany is a good sister. She knows exactly when to look the other way and cause a distraction--and that she does, wheedling Varric to read a piece from his book. As the others laugh at the mess Varric has made of them, Hawke turns to Merrill. They ask, “Are you alright?” The fire casts light into Merrill’s eyes like a cat’s. When she looks at them, her eyes shine and Hawke cannot help but remember how otherworldly she is. She bridges both worlds, the Dalish and the human, but sometimes the old magic wills out. Merrill says, “Clan Lavellan doesn’t like me much. Because of Marethari. I don’t get along with their First. And I’m not sure how their Keeper will respond to me.” “Then they’re idiots,” Hawke says, “and we’ll keep moving. Send Aveline to resupply in town, and move onto Rivain. Dairsmuid or Llomerryn, or that Dalish town Isabela talked about.” Merrill is shaking harder now. “No.” Hawke takes her hands, but she pulls away. “I wish it were that easy, vhenan. But there won’t be anywhere to go. Not with the Dalish. Because of me.” “Hey,” Hawke says. “Just look at me. Breathe. That’s not true. Look at me.” Merrill’s eyes flash back to blue. “We got this far, okay? And I’m okay with--I didn’t grow up as nomadic as you, but I can do it. It could be fun. I liked moving, as a kid. Bethany and I are used to it. And if we can get another ship, well, that’ll make things easier. And you know Isabela’s going to get us on a ship at some point. I know everything is changing. If the Divine calls that Exalted March...well, you remember what that dragon lady said.” “Asha’bellanar,” Merrill corrects, lips twitching. “And it was a prayer to Mythal that revived her, there’s something in that.” Hawke sighs. “Well, you remember what she said.” They close their eyes and focus on the words, which has haunted them since--partly because the delivery had been so terrifying. They quote, “‘We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment...and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap. It is only when you fall that you learn whether you can fly.’ And, well, we’re lying up in the sky right now, so I think we’re doing alright.” Merrill smiles despite herself. “How do you remember that?” she asks. “I don’t even remember it like that.” “Varric wrote it down,” Hawke confesses. “And it sounded so cool I memorized it. It’s good advice.” Merrill turns to the fire, where Aveline is holding a book with a luridly pink cover over the fire while Anders and Isabela cackle and Varric jumps, protesting. She says, “I know I shouldn’t have let Keeper find out about Audacity. She thought I was weak, but I knew her pride, I knew her arrogance. And her fear, since Tamlen died. I should’ve written to Mahariel, who could’ve convinced her. Or gone to the Applewood--but I didn’t. And though I lost my clan, I still have you. My aravel.” She gestures to their friends. “Walkers of the lonely path, who never submit.” She smiles sadly. “I think I fell into that abyss, Hawke. And now I’m starting to float up.” Hawke takes her hand and kisses it. Her nails are bitten to the quick. “You’ve been pushing yourself too hard,” they say. “Can you teach Anders that spell?” “No, vhenan,” Merrill shakes her head. “It’s--it was part of my duties as First, to clear the tracks of the aravel. I can’t teach a human that. I love you all, but that is for myself.” They accept that, and all the ways Merrill pushes herself too hard, and hand-in-hand they get up and rejoin their friends at the fire. There is a touch of mania to the conversation. Everyone is utterly shattered, but they do not want to go to sleep. No one knows what the next day will bring, and they are clinging to the routine they have set up. Hawke blinks and pretends that they are at the Hanged Man for a moment, but the bar has run dry, so they are all stuck being sober and chummy with each other. It doesn’t work. It feels dishonest, and the woods smell too good. Finally, Aveline takes charge. “We need to rest. Especially you, Merrill. Those spells couldn’t have been easy. We’ll get up before dawn and head out then.” Fenris speaks up. “And Clan Lavellan will hide us, for however long we need.” He looks at Merrill steadily. “First Lavellan promised me that. They will not abandon their vhenallin. And she owes me a favor, anyway.” Varric says idly, “There’s a story in there.” Bethany groans. “Not more stories, please,” she says. “Aveline’s right, we do need to rest. This part’s nearly over.” She banks the fire to keep it burning low through the night and they set up their last camp before the descent. Hawke is struck by the faith they have in them, going through their nightly routine. They have been two weeks on the road, camping through the woods, and though they have spent it mostly at each other’s throats, they have made it through. So little has been resolved, and there is still so much unknown. As Flemeth predicted, they stand balanced on the precipice of change, and they know they are about to launch themselves off that cliff. But they have their friends to slow that crash, and by this point, who knows? Maybe the witch will turn them into a dragon. Settling into their sleeping roll, Hawke cannot help but grin. They faced down the Blight, the long march to Kirkwall, the Deep Roads, their mother’s death, and the start of a revolution. What could possibly happen next? They whisper to Merrill, “I feel like this world is dying. It’s monstrous.” They smirk. “Monstrously exciting. Can’t you feel it? A new world is trying to be born.”

#catabasis #dragon age #dragon age fanfic #fanfic #hawke #merrill #anders #fenris #aveline #dog #varric #bethany #hawke/merrill #anders/fenris #musetta3

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darkwoods-darkdreams · 4 years

Text

Imagine you live on the edge of town (II)

“Hello!” Nyssa chimed from the front entrance. She closed the door behind her before joining you in the kitchen. She was so cheery despite it being so late. Upon seeing you, she stopped in her tracks. “Are you alright? You look like you haven’t slept.”

You waved off her concern as you transferred a large bowl from the shelf to the table. You had left the mixture of flour and water to ferment. It always smelled a little sour, as it should, but this time it was overwhelming. Your stomach was in knots just from being close to it. Your apron was still sitting differently on you. You were lucky enough that no one had noticed. You tried to angle yourself away from Nyssa. You had seen the looks she had been giving you lately. She knew that something was going on, but hadn’t asked outright.

“Do you need any-“

You couldn’t take it. You turned and vomited into the waste pail hooked on the wall. For a moment, you remained there, leaning over the bucket and trying to breathe through the nausea. You experimentally moved your tongue. You wanted to wash the acidic taste out, but you still felt ill.

Nyssa was by your side in an instant. She grabbed your arm in case you collapsed. “You can’t work like this. You need to see a physiker.”

You swallowed. You couldn’t allow for that to happen. If this was what you thought it was, if you were… You couldn’t let anyone attend to you. No one could know. If they did, you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. You glared at the bottom of the pail. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. It was just the first time you had been caught. “I’m fine.”

“You aren’t,” Nyssa insisted.

“The nearest physiker is in the next town over.” You shakily inhaled. Your eyes closed as you attempted to focus on anything but the nausea. “It’s not like I can walk there this late.”

Her grip on your arm loosened for a moment. Then, it returned to its full strength. “Then you should see my granny. She’ll know what to do.”

You managed to lift your head and look at her warily. You wiped your mouth on your sleeve. Nyssa’s grandmother had a reputation. The children of Fyerdin called her Granny Waxwood or the Waxwood Witch. She lived in a house on the outskirts of town. She was called the Waxwood Witch because she was obsessed with the healing properties of candles and their wax. She would leave candles burning at all hours. She would use the wax for everything. She would bathe in the melted wax and even use it as a perfume, coating layer upon layer onto her skin to the point that her skin looked like the bark of a tree. When she thought no one was looking, she would eat chunks of wax from a small pot she always-

You turned and vomited into the bucket once more. You sighed, knowing that you shouldn’t have thought too deeply about it. You doubted that you’d survive the trip unscathed. You’d probably end up with a set of candles shoved into your arms.

“Promise me that you’ll go,” Nyssa whispered. “I’ll take care of things here.”

You looked to her again. The concern on her face was undeniable. Your expression softened. “…Fine.”

“Good!” She clapped her hands. “Apron off. Out you go.”

You begrudgingly allowed her to take your apron and shoo you out of your own kitchen. You wouldn’t admit it, but the fresh air brought relief. It was a nice change compared to the yeast and booze. Still, that didn’t mean your journey was going to be a pleasant one.

Nyssa’s grandmother lived on the other side of a river. Crossing it was the only bridge in Fyerdin. Technically it existed as a symbol of the town’s limits, but that had been decreed when the town was only made up of twenty-five people.

You approached the bridge. Seeing it always reminded you of the stories your father had told you of trolls and goblins and other monsters. You wished that he had stayed home to tell you more stories rather than fight and die for some distant king.

You kept to the right side of the bridge. You glanced down at the water rushing beneath. The river was wide due to the snow still melting in the north. You raised your head again. Merchants and other travelers used these roads. You didn’t want to get hit by a cart or robbed by thieves.

The house was easy to find. All of the windowsills were filled with candles. The flames danced against the glass. Even the edges of the door were illuminated, as if all of the light was trapped inside and eager to burst free. As you drew closer, you could see Nyssa’s grandmother puttering about. Your brow furrowed as you wondered what she was doing. After watching for a bit longer, you realized she was rearranging the candles in her home. Your pace slowed as you considered the idea that maybe she wasn’t the best person to ask for advice. A pack of wolves howling in the distance forced your hand. You kept moving.

You hesitated when you reached the door. There were countless handprints along the wood. All of them were from frail, thin hands covered in wax. Your attention lowered to the doorknob. It was covered in wax, too. You decided to knock on the doorframe instead. “Hello?”

The old woman stopped moving. For a moment, you almost thought that all of the flames had gone still. Silence. Then, shuffled footsteps coming toward the door. “Who is it?”

“_____,” you replied. “I’m a friend of Nyssa’s. I was wondering if I could-“

The door swung open, revealing the Waxwood Witch in all of her glory. Her nightgown was stained with multiple layers. Her skin was coated in different colours and scents. Her feet were covered in soot. She stared up at you with wide eyes. When she tilted her head, her hair barely moved. There was too much wax coating her scalp.

You tried your best to take a subtle step back. The smell was making you dizzy. “I-I’m sorry if I woke you. Nyssa-“

“You want candles?”

“No, I’m looking for some help.”

“Help from candles.”

Your mouth opened, but you said nothing. You refocused. “No, not from candles. From you.”

She ushered you in. Against your better judgment, you obliged. You lifted your skirts to make sure that they didn’t catch flame. There were so many candles and so much wax covering the floor that it was hard to walk around. Narrow paths zigzagged through the house. You followed her into another room. There were two wooden chairs. One was completely clean. You guessed that it was where Nyssa sat when she visited. You sat down.

The woman sat down across from you. She looked you over. She seemed to be a bit more coherent now that she was back inside.

You waited, anxious. You didn’t know how useful she would be regarding your predicament. You weren’t even sure if she would keep this a secret from Nyssa. At the very least, the Waxwood Witch wouldn’t be able to tell anyone else. Whenever she came into town for supplies, she was avoided at all cost. She got most things for free because the townsfolk were afraid of her. Well, most of the townsfolk. The candlemaker was more than happy to see her.

You leaned forward. “What should I call you?”

“Granny Waxwood.”

You hesitated. “I mean your name.”

“Granny Waxwood.”

“I…I wouldn’t want to insult you.”

“Insult? I like it.”

You stared at her. This was going nowhere.

Her head tilted once more. “Boy or girl?”

Your body went cold. She couldn’t possibly be insinuating- “I’m a girl.”

“I know you’re girl. I mean little one.”

“L…” Your throat tightened. You couldn’t repeat it. “I-I’m- How-“

“Can tell.” She gestured to your abdomen. “I see?”

You didn’t want to, but she was already up before you could refuse. She placed her hand below your navel. Your face burned. The resistance against her hand was obvious. Still not noticeable at first glance, but enough to be felt, and it was growing bigger.

She shuffled away. “Very tiny little one.”

You sniffled. You had hoped that you were wrong when it first crossed your mind. Now, it felt like the weight of your reality was crashing down on top of you. “…What can I- What am I supposed to do?”

“No drink. Careful. Take rest.”

You didn’t know what to say. You had hoped that she would have a more short-term solution. You had heard people whispering about it. Certain herbs that would stop things before they progressed. Then again, you knew that there was a reason those things were whispered.

“River flowers.”

You looked to her once more.

“Crush up. Put in water. Drop of blood. Will glow.”

You hesitated. You hadn’t seen flowers on the way to her house.

“Married?”

You shook your head. You knew it would be a problem as time passed. Soon enough, you wouldn’t be able to hide the pregnancy. Knowing that you weren’t married, the townsfolk would disapprove. You would be stared at. Gossiped about. They would smile to your face but shake their heads when you weren’t looking. And how were you supposed to raise a child? You owned a tavern. You couldn’t have them crying in another room when the patrons were too rowdy. You couldn’t close down. The werewolf was someone in the town. What if he tried to get involved? Your hands shook as you tried to think of a more positive outcome, but you only came up with more worries.

You stood up. You needed to leave. You needed to think of something. “Thank you. Good night.”

You hurried out before she could call after you.

You huffed in annoyance. You had walked alongside the riverbank as it twisted and curved until you were exhausted. The moon was hanging high in the darkness. You stared up at it, basking in the glow. Maybe Nyssa’s grandmother was wrong. Maybe the flowers were from somewhere far away. Your shoulders fell. They probably didn’t even exist in the first place.

The sight of something dark made you go still. It was faint, but you could still see it. Blood. You looked upstream, farther ahead on your path. There was a curve in the river. On the outer side was a dark figure. It was crouched by the edge of the water. Its pink tongue dipped into the river to pull up mouthfuls. Its maw was shining with a dark fluid. The river water was slowly washing it away as the beast drank.

You froze. It was the werewolf. You needed to leave. You watched the beast. If he heard or saw you, you were going to run and hide as fast as you could.

The wind shifted. You shivered as the cold blew over your back. The iciness only settled deeper into your chest when you saw the grass rustle in a slow path towards him.

The tongue disappeared. Ears swiveled. His head lifted as he sniffed the air. Then, he looked right at you.

“_____?”

You flinched. The voice had come from somewhere else. You turned in its direction.

Nyssa was standing a few feet away. Her hands were clasped together.

You glanced over your shoulder. The river was empty. You swallowed. For a moment, you wondered if you had really seen the beast or if you were just consumed by worry. You refocused on Nyssa. “What are you doing out here?”

“Looking for you!” She hurried closer. “You were gone for ages. I thought that something had happened, so I left the bar.”

Your priorities shifted. “You didn’t close down? What if something happens?”

She crossed her arms. “You’re the one in trouble, not-!”

A howl put a stop to your argument. It was close. Far too close. And it was alone. You knew what it was.

Nyssa grabbed your hand. “We need to go back. It’s too dangerous out here. We’ll sort everything out then.”

You allowed her to pull you back into town. Even as the urge to glance over your shoulder grew stronger and the weight of a distant gaze grew heavier, you kept your gaze on her.

The chill of night was being kept at bay by the flame before you. The tavern had been opened for a few hours already. You could hear people singing and talking and laughing. You were sure that every seat was full. It certainly sounded like it. With so many people drinking, you were hidden away in the kitchens making their food. You didn’t mind it in the slightest. You hadn’t been able to find the river flowers. There was no need. You hadn’t bled since the spring festival. The swell continued to grow. You couldn’t deny it any longer, as much as you wanted to. You were thankful that you always wore an apron. At least it made things a bit more ambiguous. But that wouldn’t last forever. You had seen some of the older women give you looks when you were running errands that morning. It wouldn’t be long until speculation became fact.

Your gaze fell. Your hand slipped between the white fabric and your dress. Fingertips ghosted over the curve. Against your better judgment, you gently pressed your palm against it. There was only slight resistance. You mostly felt your own flesh. You frowned. Soon enough, your womb would be full to the brim and it would be firm to the touch. You wouldn’t be able to ignore it.

“_____!”

Your hand immediately withdrew. You turned from the stove.

Nyssa stood in the doorway, panting. “Could you help me for a bit? It’s a madhouse out there.”

“Give me a moment to finish these and I’ll be right out.”

She sighed. “Thank you. You’re a lifesaver.”

You got back to what you were doing, hurrying this time. When everything was plated, you carried the food out yourself. Sliced and buttered bread for the regulars. Meat and potatoes for those with more of an appetite. Your final stop was at a table in the back corner. A few of the younger men were there, laughing. Kelv and Henris were in attendance. They usually stopped by whenever Kelv’s father had given him a bit of money to spend. It was clear that they were all drunk. Even the merchant you had danced with at the festival, Arthur, was slurring his words.

“You’re heaven-sent.” Tomas hunched over his plate the moment you set it down. “What do you put in this?”

You grinned, placing your hands on your hips. “If I told you that, I’d be out of a job.”

“I wish I could eat your cooking every day,” Arthur drawled. “I almost wish I didn’t have to leave at first light tomorrow. Could you make me something for the road?”

“I have some extra pastries that-“ You laughed as all four of them cheered. “I suppose I should bring out one for each of you?”

They nodded.

“Do any of you need another drink?”

Tomas sniffled. “She’s heaven-sent.”

“Nyssa just came by, so we’re all set,” Henris replied.

“Perfect. I’ll be right back.” You disappeared into the kitchen, returning with four more plates. “Can I get you boys anything else?”

“Your hand,” Kelv answered with a hiccup. “Not for me, though.” He gestured to Henris. “Please just get married already. I’m tired of hearing him whine about you.”

Henris’ expression faltered. He immediately sobered. His back straightened. He stared down at his dessert and didn’t say a word.

“The miller’s son and the best baker east of the Hymnals.” Arthur waved his hand like he was directing a music troupe. “The perfect match.”

You were about to go along with their game, but you noticed Henris’ brow twitch. His hand were clenched beneath the table. You relented. “Well, I’ll let Nyssa know that you’ve all had enough to drink. Enjoy the rest of your night.”

You continued down the line of booths. Nyssa flitted up and down the bar to refill mugs. She smiled when your fleeting gazes met. More ale and beer was poured. More barrels were opened.

The second-to-last booth housed some of the heaviest drinkers in Fyerdin. You smiled, though you made sure to keep your distance. Richard was the only one still awake, but his tendency to grope any woman that wasn’t his wife grew even stronger when he was drunk. “Do you need another drink?”

He stared up at you blankly. Then, his attention lowered.

You did your best to mask your disgust. You didn’t appreciate him ogling you on a normal night, but this was even worse.

He didn’t look up. “How about a sip from those tits of yours?”

You scowled. He hadn’t made that sort of comment before. Usually he just asked you to sit in his lap while you poured him another drink. You put your mask back on. Your laughter was a nervous lilt to it. “You and I both know that I don’t keep that in stock.” With that, you promptly walked past him. The booth nearest to the door looked empty. You hoped that it was. You had had enough of drunk men for the night.

Dark clothing came into view as you approached the table. Broad shoulders. Rough hands. It was the hair that gave him away. Black with wisps of silver, like stars in a midnight sky. Nikolas.

Your eyes narrowed. You said nothing. He had never stepped foot into your tavern before, so you weren’t sure why he was starting now. You had invited him countless times when you were still naïve and wanted to be kind to Ilya’s best friend. He always refused and walked off. Ilya tried to comfort you with the knowledge that he was quite nervous around people, but now you knew that he was just the type that didn’t know how to act around others.

Your annoyance grew worse as he didn’t even look at you. He was just staring down at his drink. You didn’t want to get him another one. Knowing him, he’d probably refuse.

Finally, you chose to speak up. “Did you come here to lick your wounds?”

Nikolas’ eyes lifted. He stared back at you.

“What got away from you this time? A deer?”

He leaned back against his seat. “No.”

You exhaled through your nose. The tension hang in the air. You looked to his mug. “Do you want another?”

“I’ll get it later.”

You rolled your eyes. “If you’re that attached to Nyssa, then bother her when she isn’t working.” You then headed farther back into the tavern.

At least, you would have, if Richard’s arm hadn’t shot out to stop you. He had gotten up from his seat and nearly collapsed onto you. One arm was around your waist, pulling your stomach flush against his. His other hand cupped your breast through your dress.

The tray you were folding clattered to the floor. One of the mugs broke with the impact. You tried to shove him away from you, but he was too persistent. “Let go of me!” you ordered.

“Whose brat is it?” He asked. His breath stank of ale.

You went to push him again. Another pair of hands grabbed Richard from behind. In the next instant, he was thrown to the floor. The room went quiet. Henris was standing beside you, red in the face from booze and rage. He turned to you. “Are you alright?”

You nodded. “Thank you.”

His gaze lingered on you, as if he wanted to say something else. He refocused on the drunk. “I think he’s had enough fun for the night.” He then grabbed Richard by the front of his shirt and hauled him up to his feet. Richard was nearly dragged out, his legs wobbling beneath him.

For a moment, you stood there. Your breathing had quickened despite it being such a brief struggle. Your heart was still pounding in your chest. Everyone had turned to look when Richard hit the floor. You hoped that no one had heard anything else. You glanced to Nikolas. He had been the closest. He wasn’t looking at you. He was taking another sip from his mug.

You took a shaky breath and disappeared into the kitchens once more.

Hours later, you closed the tavern for the night. The moment the doors were locked, your body wilted. Your hands slipped behind your back to arch it. Everything felt sore. You didn’t bother cleaning up. You would worry about it tomorrow. After what had happened, you just wanted to sleep and forget.

You trudged up the stairs. You were panting softly by the time you reached the top. Your gaze lowered to your abdomen. It still had so much growing to do. You didn’t know how you would manage. You swallowed. You supposed that you’d find out eventually.

Your bed was a welcome sight. You changed into a nightgown quickly. It sank beneath your hands and knees as you climbed inside. You lowered your head onto the pillow and shut your eyes.

You stirred as a distant noise woke you. You turned to look at the window. The sky was just beginning to change colour. The rooster hadn’t called out to start the day. You got up, mind still foggy. Your hands moved with practiced ease, even though you were still half asleep. You reached for the latch, only to feel that it wasn’t in place. You rubbed your eyes before taking a better look at it. You didn’t remember leaving it open. You gently pushed the panes apart. At first glance, there didn’t seem to be any damage. Your brow furrowed. You peered out the window. Your room was on the second floor. No one could reach the window unless they had a ladder There was no sign of anything like that in the soil. You straightened. You closed the window and locked it.

It wasn’t until you stepped away that you felt something strange. The fabric of your nightgown was sticking to your body. It didn’t make sense. You weren’t sweating. Your hair was completely dry. You grabbed the fabric and pulled it from your skin. The sight of a dark stain made you freeze. Not breathing, you lifted it higher. You whimpered, tears forming in your eyes as the shape came into view. Five marks were the darkest. Fingers from a hand larger than any man’s. At the ends were smaller, triangular stains. The tips of claws. The palm was faint. It had picked up the blood that had dripped from the fingers.

You let go. Your gaze followed the stain. It settled over your stomach once more. Dread washed over you. He had broken in while you were sleeping. He had stood behind you and placed his hand on the growing swell.

You wrenched the nightgown from your body and tossed it into the hamper. You grabbed a dress and began to put it on. You would worry about the stain later. You were far more concerned with how he had gotten in. Maybe there was evidence on one of the doors, or he had used a ladder to get to your room. You hurried down the stairs. The front door was too risky. He would have been seen by someone. The back entrance was much more likely.

When you turned to walk down the hallway leading to the back door, you stopped dead in your tracks. The door was open. Cautiously, you approached it. It was ajar. You couldn’t tell if it had been pulled close to shut by the wind or if the werewolf had moved it on his way out. You leaned down to examine the door more closely. The lock wasn’t broken, but it was covered in scratches. The frame was in the same state. Had he forced it open with his-

A figure moved to stand behind the door. You jumped to your feet with a gasp.

Kelv opened the door. “Did you just wake up?”

You stared at him. What was he doing at your back door? Why hadn’t he knocked on the front or shouted for you? You took a step away from him, your hand over your chest as you tried to calm your heart. “A few minutes ago. Why?”

He hesitated, as if it wasn’t something you should know. “Something happened last night.”

Your hand fell to your side. You steeled yourself. “What happened? Tell me.”

“Jonathan found a body in his fields.”

Your throat tightened. You had a bad feeling about this. “Whose body?”

“Richard’s.”

A second passed. Two. Three. The blood on your clothes. Was it from-

You strode past Kelv. You headed straight toward Jonathan’s property.

“_____, wait!”

“I need to see this for myself.”

He caught up, walking beside you. “You’re not wearing any shoes.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Is something going on? You’ve been acting strange lately.”

You didn’t reply. You just kept walking. Finding the scene was easy enough. Most of the townfolk were already gathered around. Women were clustered behind the fence, hands covering their mouths and tears in their eyes. Children leaned this way and that to get a closer look or played amongst themselves out of boredom. Men were staggered throughout the field, all facing one particular spot. Jonathan was talking to the mayor.

“_____!” Kelv called after you once more.

You didn’t listen. You stepped onto the field, ignoring the feeling of dewy grass and mud between your toes. Your attention shifted to someone standing behind Jonathan and the mayor. Henris. He was farther away than the others. His arms were crossed. He was staring at the ground. You faltered. He had been the one to pull Richard away from you and drag him out of the tavern. It was almost right after his friends had let slip that he had feelings for you. You swallowed. Was this his doing?

You stopped when the body came into view. Your lips pressed together. The smell of blood was so strong that you could taste it. You tried to breathe through the nausea as you looked over corpse. Richard’s body had been torn apart. His organs had spilled from gaping wounds in his abdomen, staining his skin and his clothes and the ground beneath him.

Nikolas was kneeling beside the body. He hadn’t looked up when you approached. His attention was focused on the wounds.

“What do you think?” The mayor moved to stand next to him.

“Too rabid to be a man. Too smart to be an animal.”

“A werewolf?” Jonathan asked. “Like the one that killed my cows and sheep?”

“It’s the same one. They’re solitary creatures. They don’t hunt in packs like wolves.”

“Were the sheep not enough? Has it moved onto humans now?”

“It wouldn’t kill a human if there was a better meal around. This was personal.”

You glanced to Henris. He had moved further away.

Suddenly, he was eclipsed by Nikolas’ shoulder. He was standing now, over a head taller than you were. His gaze was focused solely on you. It only lasted for a moment. Then, he turned away as if you weren’t even there. “The tracks lead into the forest. I won’t be able to trace it back to a source.”

“So you can’t figure out who it is,” you spoke up.

Several pairs of eyes flickered to you, including Nikolas’.

The mayor was the one to speak. “I trust that you’ll be able to sort this out, Nikolas.”

“There are wards I can use. Certain materials that can drive it away. But there’s another problem.”

You tensed. You had a feeling you knew where this was going.

“What is it?” the mayor asked.

“It’s likely that the werewolf is someone in Fyerdin.”

Silence fell over the field. When Nikolas looked to the forest, Henris was gone.

“It would be wise to start a curfew,” Nikolas continued. “You’ll have to get volunteers to stand guard at night.”

The mayor nodded. “I’ll ask around today. I hope that you’ll join them.”

“I will.”

With the decision made, the crowd began to disperse. You walked back to the tavern alone. For once, you were actually relieved by Nikolas’ presence. At the same time, you were worried that someone else would die. The werewolf had only chased off Ilya. If your suspicions were correct and the beast had killed Richard for touching you, he was becoming more territorial. You refused to think of it as him protecting you.

You slowed as you entered the garden behind the tavern. You grew some of your own supplies and bought everything else. Usually you only worried about the things that were too expensive to buy on its own. You looked over the mud and the glistening plants. Some of the stems were broken. There were footprints leading to the back door. You frowned. You brought out a rake and upturned what soil you could. It would look suspicious if you only worried about the pawprints. You wiped your brow when you were finished. You had never thought that you’d be hiding evidence of such a creature. Then again, you hadn’t even believed in such monsters a few moons ago.

You washed your feet off before heading back inside. You glanced to the stairs. You wondered if it would be better to burn the nightgown or wash it.

A knock at the door put a stop to those thoughts. You looked over your shoulder. The sound had come from the back door. You approached warily. The werewolf wouldn’t show up in the middle of the day. Someone would see him. You wondered if it was Henris, or Kelv, or-

Opening the door revealed none of the men you expected. You were instead met with the sight of dark leather. Your gaze lifted. Dark hair. Light eyes.

Nikolas.

#werewolf route #fpreg #live on the edge of town #series

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sprnklersplashes · 4 years

Text

The One Where Robin Gets Bronchitis

Sometimes, true love isn’t always epic kisses, breaking curses, fairytale weddings and romantic dances.

Sometimes it’s pushing your girlfriend away from you because you have viral bronchitis but she has no sense of self-preservation and keeps trying to kiss you.

(fluff, pure fluff friends)

Robin buries her face in her pillow as she hears the door close, Gideon leaving for work. On her bedside sit roughly five different kinds of medicine (she’s far too tired to give a real count) and a litre bottle of water, as well as a basin beside her bed despite knowing she won’t throw up. That’s what happens when her best friend-slash-roommate is an overprotective hypochondriac whose Mum Friend instincts kick into overdrive when someone is sick (especially when that someone is Robin, the girl he’s been looking out for since they were toddling around Storybrooke’s playpark together).

She lets out another cough, pressing her tissue to her mouth.

“You look like St Therese,” Hope says, casually as they can with five hairpins between their teeth. Since it’s entirely their fault Robin is in her tired, fevered, miserable state, Robin Facetimed them once she woke up to make them feel as guilty as possible. Now she’s curled up on one side, away from the harsh light of her window, her phone propped up by a stack of books and wearing the cat onesie she bought herself as an early Christmas present, all while huddled underneath her comforter.

“Who?” she asks.

“St Therese. You know, the French saint who died of coughing blood. Her last words in her diary were something like ‘wow there’s a lot of bubbly stuff on my mouth right now’. Or something.”

“Or something,” Robin agrees. “Anyway, I’m not coughing blood. I’m coughing mucus which is arguably worse.”

“What colour?”

“Hope!”

“What?” they sigh. “My dad said that you can tell a lot by the colour of your mucus.”

“Your dad grew up in the 1800s and wouldn’t know what antibiotics were if you threw them at his face. He probably threw little lavender bags at you when you got sick.”

“You know, technically you’re shit talking your future father-in-law there,” they remind her. Robin pulls a face at the camera as Hope slides another hairpin into their black locks before pulling them apart. “And for your information, it was rosemary.” They look down for a second, biting their lips like a nervous child, which in a lot of ways, Hope still is. Or at least in Robin’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Rob.”

“Don’t worry about it, H,” she replies before letting out another cough, making Hope flinch. “Just hope your date with Melody was worth it.”

“It was,” she replies, a pink blush on their pale cheeks. Robin giggles and looks beyond the phone screen to her bedroom door, where the scarf she lent Hope for her date is hanging on a hook. Hope swore up and down last Friday their bout of bronchitis was over and begged and pleaded (and admittedly, screamed a little) for their parents to let them go out with Melody that night for their two month anniversary. They had agreed, on one condition, Hope wrap up a warm as humanly possible. And since their scarf was lost in her Bermuda triangle of a bedroom, Robin had agreed to let Hope borrow one of hers, only after making Hope look her in the eye and swear they were better now. And they did.

And now she’s here.

“Was there a goodnight smooch?” she pries, giggling again. She’s pretty sure the fever is causing her to regress to a schoolgirl.

“I don’t kiss and tell,” they say coyly, only to have realisation slowly dawn on them. “Um… I’m just going to check up on her. See if she’s… you know…”

“Caught your disease?”

“It’s not my disease!” they squeak indignantly, standing up and putting their bag on their shoulder. “Anyways I have to go. Mom will arrest me if I’m late for class again.”

“Can she do that? Is that in her jurisdiction?”

“No idea and I don’t want to find out,” they answer. “How do I look?” They gesture to their outfit; black and pink hair tucked into a deliberately messy braid, graphic t-shirt and paint-splattered denim dungarees with a plaid shirt over it. Complete with winged eyeliner and dark lipstick.

“Gorgeous,” she tells them. “Gorgeous and gay.”

“That’s the look I was going for. Anyway, chug orange juice and go to sleep. Because you look like shit and I don’t want you to look like that. I’ll see you later, Rob.”

“See you, Hopey.” Hope clicks off the call and the screen goes black. Robin puts her phone to the side, groaning as another coughing fit makes her bed shake and brings up more mucus. Green again. Lovely. She pulls the blankets tighter around herself, pressing her face into her pillow and begging Zeus (who she knows is real, god damn it) to just either fix her messed up body or let her go the hell to sleep.

She hates being sick. She always hated it. When she was younger her mum had to wrestle her from the front door, Robin all dressed in her school uniform and insisting she was going despite her chicken pox/vomiting/fever/whatever was wrong with her this time. She can think up a million and one deep explanations for it or she can be blunt and honest; it’s boring. Storybrooke even on a good day, as much as she loves it, is boring with its small town and days planned out to the second, two restaurants, one bar and one nightclub that barely qualifies as a club. But when she’s sick and confined to her bed, she finds herself desperate for anything to set her free, even just to stand in the woods and shoot arrows at a tree for half an hour.

When it’s clear sleep isn’t coming, she pushes herself out of the bed, her comforter still wrapped around her shoulders like her brother with his cape in the Enchanted Forest. She stuffs as many of the pills and medicine in the pocket of her onsie as she can before grabbing her water and making her way to the living room. She had planned to get a glass of juice from the fridge as well, but all she can do is collapse onto the couch and pant, the short walk from her bedroom to the living room having used up what little energy she had.

She grabs the remote and whacks on Netflix while chugging her water. Hopefully, a season or three of Brooklyn Nine Nine can distract her from herself.

It’s three hours later when Alice comes in and by then she’s feeling at least fifty percent worse. Her chest is aching, her throat is raw from coughing and despite the fact that she’s only gotten up once to get the carton of orange juice from the fridge (the glasses are up too high and getting one would involve breaking her blanket cocoon) and refill her water, she’s spent the last half an hour trying to catch her breath. In short, she’s miserable, and not even the human ball of sunshine she calls a girlfriend can make her feel better.

“Good afternoon, the beautiful light of my life, how are we feeling today?”

“I want to die.”

“No you don’t.” She plops down the plastic bag on the sofa and takes out her so-called remedies. “I brought you chocolate… I brought you headache pills… oh, and Hope told me to get you this.” She chucks a bottle of something blue, wincing a little when it hits her face. “Sorry, my love.”

“It’s fine,” she says. “My reflexes aren’t great right now.” She takes a look at the bottle, grateful when she sees Hope told Alice to buy her a smoothie and not some Enchanted Forest cure-all made from tree bark and frogs or something. “Thanks, Al.” Alice settles herself on the couch beside her, kicking off her boots and tucking her legs up underneath her. “How goes the dog shelter?”

After the whole curse business was over with, it wasn’t long before Alice realised she needed a new job. For one thing, real estate in Seattle is a bitch even when it’s a cursed neighbourhood and your landlord is Michael Banks, but there was more. Alice wasn’t a fan of having nothing to do, and she wasn’t used to it either. Her dad had kept her days in the tower choc-a-bloc full of activities (if her old diary is anything to go by, she barely had time to breathe). And despite how good she was at the beignet truck; that was only part time and it wasn’t capturing her imagination like Sheriffing did for Emma or teaching did for Snow. So when she saw an advert for a vacancy at a dog shelter, who was she to say no?

“Oh, it’s fun,” Alice says. “Lots of little puppers. We think Matilda’s nearly ready to give birth.”

“No way,” she says, taking a drink of the smoothie. Nectar of the gods, she thinks. “I remember when she first got pregnant. And you still don’t know who the father is?”

“Nope. She’s a frisky girl is our Matilda.” Robin chuckles and plays with her comforter. Alice turns to her, giving her the big, sad eyes she thinks only Alice is capable of, somehow wise beyond her years and innocently childlike at the same time. “How have you been, love?”

“Fine,” she sighs fondly, taking her girlfriend’s outstretched hand. “I sent some e-mails, I watched TV, I’ve been staying hydrated, I scolded Hope for making me sick-”

“Oh it’s not her fault,” she tells her. “Not really.”

“Uh, she lied and said she was better and then put my scarf around her bacteria ridden neck,” she points out. “I think that makes it her fault. Speaking of, have you heard from Melody at all today?”

“Melody as in Hope’s girlfriend, Melody?” Robin nods. “Can’t say that I have, why?”

“Because if our little Hopey planted one on her then the little mermaid probably has what I have.” She lets out another cough as if to prove her point. Thanks, universe, she thinks.

“You should really stop meddling in her love life,” Alice points out, opening the chocolate she’s pretty sure was meant for Robin and breaking a square off for herself. She then sheepishly hands her the bar and Robin takes it, unsure if she should be eating chocolate in her condition but hey, can’t hurt more than the bronchitis already does.

“I don’t meddle,” she says through two squares. “I’m just… you know… giving guidance.”

“Of course you are, my darling,” she says. “Now why don’t I make you some tea?”

“Ugh, please,” she sighs, not realising how much she wanted a cup until Alice had mentioned it. “Honey in it?”

“Anything for my honey.”

Not five minutes later they’re on the couch together, Alice pressed into Robin’s side. She feels kind of bad for not putting her arm around her, but again, that would involve breaking her blanket cocoon and she’s just not up for that. She can’t even hold her hand since both of hers are stuck inside the blanket and wrapped around her mug of tea.

If there’s an award for worst girlfriend ever, she wouldn’t win it per say, but she’d be a contender for sure.

Alice doesn’t seem to mind though. Not when she’s pressing kisses along her blanket-covered arms and shoulder and runs her fingers through her hair. Combined with Robin’s own illness-induced exhaustion, it’s almost enough to send her to sleep right on that sofa. Alice must have picked up on that, because she feels her lips, gentle and delicate, against her cheekbone and for a moment it’s nice.

And then it’s not.

“Woah, woah, wait,” she says, half wriggling away from her. Alice draws away quickly, her blue eyes wide, and if Robin wasn’t confined within a blanket, she’d kick herself. Their joint curse may be broken, but that doesn’t mean that the after-effects of what Gothel did to her father’s heart doesn’t hang around Alice and bleed into every other relationship she has. Robin wastes no time in pulling her hand out of the blanket and grasping Alice’s softly and gently squeezing it. “Hey, hey it’s okay. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I’m sorry,” she replies, a telltale flame of anxiety in her eyes. Robin’s thumb moves in soothing circles on the back of her hand, something that tends to bring Alice back to her. “I’m sorry I didn’t-”

“Alice,” Robin interrupts, caressing her cheek. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. It’s just… this is crazy contagious, babe. I don’t want you to catch it.” Alice’s bad mood breaks immediately, her normal, crazy, wonderful smile gracing her face and Robin can breathe.

“Well you know, my love,” she begins, walking her fingers up her arm. “All that time in the tower gave me a wonderful immune system.”

“Did it?” she asks. “I’m not sure that’s how it works…”

“It is,” she says, resting her chin on Robin’s shoulder and looking up at her, all big sparkling eyes that scream “butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth”. Robin wonders how many times Rogers had to deal with those eyes.

“Maybe. But I don’t want to risk you getting sick. Okay babe?” And that’s what makes Alice nod and settle for resting her cheek on Robin’s shoulder, playing with her fingers gently, linking and unlinking them. Robin can’t stop a small noise of contentment in the back of her throat as she leans against the sofa, maybe, hopefully, finally getting that sleep she’s been craving all day.

Until Alice kisses her cheek again. Exhausted as she is, she thinks (hopes) that it’s a hallucination brought on my her drugged up, over-tired mind, until that stupid girl she’s in love with kisses her again, higher up this time, landing on her cheekbone.

“Alice!” she groans, opening one eye. Alice smiles bright as the sun and innocent as a rose. It’s adorable and it makes her briefly forget what she was going to say. Briefly. “Stop.” Her girlfriend pouts as Robin presses a finger to her cheek and pushes her back. “I’m contagious.”

“I’m sure you’re not, Nobin,” she says, rubbing her arm. “And maybe I won’t mind…” Her fingers crawl up Robin’s arm like a spider and before her muddled brain can register what’s happened, Alice kisses both her cheeks and manages to sneak a peck on her lips before Robin slaps her face away.

“No,” she orders sternly, poking Alice in the chest. “Or you’ll get sick too and I am not dealing with you being sick.”

“What’s wrong with me being sick?” she asks indignantly.

“Nothing,” she replies, taking a sip of her smoothie and neglecting to mention the time Alice got the flu and begged Robin to call the hospital, convinced she was dying. It was only her own lack of strength that stopped her from walking there herself. She turns on her side and looks up at her girlfriend, in all her unruly hair, wide eyed goofy grinned glory. Everything she loves. “Al… please. I just don’t want you to catch this. It’s not fun. Believe me.” She strokes a stray lock of hair away from her face and pokes at the dimple in her cheek. “As much as it is taking care of you, I don’t like seeing you in pain.” Her face softens and she leans into Robin’s touch. “Okay, babe?”

“Okay, my love,” she responds, tickling the inside of Robin’s hand with kisses. “Now come her, let me cuddle the nasty bronchitis.” Robin nestles her head into her favourite pillow (Alice’s lap) and sighs as Alice begins gentle running her fingers through her hair. She feels herself slipping further and further away, the sleep she’s been desperately craving finally coming as the sound from the TV fades to white noise. She makes a mental note to thank Alice for coming over to see her.

If she’s not sick by next week.

Robin winces as Alice lets out another hacking cough, followed by a long, pained groan. She sounds vaguely like a wounded animal. A wounded bunny. Robin came over the minute Alice called to cancel their date tonight, letting her dad go off to his shift at the station. She tied Alice’s hair back and even came prepared, giving her the hoodie she just loves stealing before making tea and switching on the TV for her.

She’s going to be such a great wife, she thinks proudly.

“So you’ll never guess who has bronchitis,” she says into the phone teasingly, sitting on the edge of the couch, her phone wedged between her shoulder.

“Okay let me guess,” Hope says on the other end. Of course she called Hope the second she found out what Alice had. “Could it be your girlfriend who, despite repeated warnings that you were a contagious little bitch, smooched your face like there was no tomorrow?”

“I do not have bronchitis!” Alice snaps weakly, burying herself under the blanket. “It’s just a little cold-”

Robin turns her phone on speaker just in time for Alice’s bi-hourly coughing fit, complete with green mucus staining the tissues.

“Yeah that sounds like bronchitis, babe,” Hope says on the other end of the phone. “I would know. I started this whole debacle.”

“Oh speaking of, how’s Melody?” Alice asks, half sarcastic. Robin clamps her hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter. “Papa said he saw your Ariel at the pharmacy yesterday.”

“Melody’s awesome,” Hope says flatly. “Melody’s doing great. Don’t worry about Melody. Anywho I have to go. Lacrosse practice.”

“Knock them dead!” Alice tells them between coughs.

“Do not knock anybody dead,” Robin says sternly. “See you later.”

“Bye. Tell your girlfriend she’s a dumb lesbian.” Robin laughs as the dial tone rings in her ear.

“Hope says you’re a dumb lesbian,” she says as she sits down beside Alice. Alice curls up tighter under her blanket, her face barely peeking out.

“Hope’s the dumbest lesbain,” she says, about as mean-spirited as a kitten eating a lollipop. She groans again, so high and so long that it borders on wining, and Robin tries and fails not to find it adorable. Even if the saddened look on her face does tear at her heart.

“Okay, come here. Come to Robin.” Alice shifts and shimmies in her blanket burrito until she’s semi-upright, enough at least for Robin to cuddle her and kiss the fabric of her hood (not her face, as she knows). Her bony shoulders poke against Robin’s chest as she tries to get comfortable and her hand pokes out of the sleeve to take hers.

“You were right,” Alice admits, playing with Robin’s fingers. “I should have left you alone.”

“Well… not leave me alone, per say,” she replies, nuzzling into her head, feeling the wild mane beneath her hoodie. “Having you around sure helped me get better. And who else was going to make me tea and bring me chocolate?” She feels Alice’s smile, despite her burrowing so far into her jumper that only her eyes are visible.

“Nevertheless,” she begins, her voice scratchy and teetering on sleep. “I promise I’ll listen to you from now on.”

“No you won’t,” Robin says fondly, kissing the tip of her finger and tapping it on Alice’s nose. Her face scrunches up and her eyes flutter shut. Her shoulders drop and Robin knows she’s fast asleep by now, but that doesn’t stop her talking. “And I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

#curious archer #curious archer ff #ouat #robin mills #alice jones #ouat ff

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spidermilkshake · 4 years

Photo

A handy cheatsheet guide to determining if, truly, what you have poppin' out of your local stump are oyster mushrooms or a close relative. While oysters are a good beginner mushroom to forage they do have a number of look-alikes, most of which are also edible mushrooms. However, a few are mildly toxic and should be avoided, and it's always smart to exactly which mushrooms you're eating, oyster or edible relative. Key Pleurotus ostreatus (True Oyster or Winter Oyster) traits: -Always grows from wood, typically hardwoods that still retain some of their bark layers. -Grows out in flat, gilled shelves in dense clusters that often share a stem. -Pale gills, from pure white to cream colored, which run in parallel down the visible stem portion. -Thick, substantial cap flesh and meaty stems which are almost always off-center. Most of the time, oyster mushroom caps and stems will be shelf-like, with no gills developing on the back side at all (this might be different if the mushroom is growing straight up from the top of a log or stump. -Spore print of oysters is always white. -Unusual but pleasant aroma, most similar to aniseseed. -Cap color is usually tan or grey, with a variance in darkness and hue. The cap will always be darker than the stem and gills. -Large size, usually the mature, flattened out caps will be no smaller than 2 inches across. Pleurotus pulmonarius, also known as the Summer Oyster, is a close cousin and is also a very choice edible. The differences are: -Summer species can only be found in, you guessed it, summer months. -Cap is usually somewhat paler than the Winter Oyster. -Prefers growing from the top side of logs and stumps, maturing into almost tubular fan-shaped mushrooms. It is overall a longer stemmed mushroom that does not spread out to as wide a shelf. Another oyster species, not pictured, is the Golden Oyster (Pleurotus citrinopileatus), which is identical to Summer Oysters except for its lovely golden color. Oyster mushrooms, after the common Button Mushroom and Shiitakes, are one of the most often cultivated species in the world with growing them in straw substrate in greenhouses the most common method. They are even reported to thrive in and sprout from old spent coffee grounds! Kits can even be bought online where everyday mushroom lovers can grow huge tufts of tasty 'shrooms from a box indoors. Most cultivated oysters are the winter species, Pleurotus ostreatus. There are plenty of relatives and mimics to Oyster Mushrooms found growing on various types of wood throughout the world, and in the interests of celebrating them and foraging safety I have included illustrations of them on the right side of the page as well. Late Fall Oyster/Olive Oysterling: This mushroom is an edible and medicinal mushroom, most commonly foraged for food in Japan where it is known as Mukitake, though it can be found across the entire northern hemisphere in temperate forests. It is extremely oyster-like in shape and growing habits, and typically appears in, you guessed it, late fall (and sporadically in winter warm spells). They are frequently enjoyed by deer and squirrels as a food source in winter. Panellus serotinus identification traits: -Oyster-like cap and stem arrangement, with branching shelves of caps being the common growth pattern. -Cap color is usually a faint olivey green, though it can also be brownish or tan. -Gills are cream-colored and run to the stem where they attach. Unlike Oysters, the gills do not run all the way down the stem. -Stem is thick and stubby, often branching to form multiple caps. -Typically smaller than an Oyster mushroom, cap size between 1 and 1.5 inches across. -Spore print is cream colored, buff, or light tan. Crepidotus species: Crepidotus species, often referred to as "Creps", are generally not regarded as edible though none are known to be dangerous. They can often be mistaken for small oyster mushrooms by novice foragers but there are many observable differences between the two genera. Pictured is the most common Crep in the Eastern U.S., Crepidotus mollis or Crepidotus crocophyllus, the Hairy Crep which has very obvious wiry hairy structures on the cap and a pale orange to yellow cap. Crepidotus identification traits: -Typically grows on more degraded wood, sometimes nearly disintegrated stumps. -Colors range by species: can be white, tan, light orange, or yellowish. -Almost never grows in clusters, more often in single caps scattered across the log or stump. -Never has a visible stem, but instead attaches directly to the wood. -Many have a slightly hairy or scaly cap skin which is easy to peel from the cap flesh. -Cap flesh itself is very thin and insubstantial, watery. -Gills are typically yellowish colored and do not run parallel. Instead, they all originate from a single central point where the cap is attached to the wood. -Typically do not exceed 2 inches in cap width. -Spore prints are orange-brown to brown, never white. Elm Oyster (Hypsizygus ulmarius): A pleasant edible mushroom that was once categorized as a true Oyster species, it has since been rightfully given its own genus. The Elm Oyster is always found on dead or dying Elm trees and from a distance looks exactly like a Winter Oyster. However, up close it has a few distinguishing characteristics. Hypsizygus ulmarius identification traits: -Always on elm wood, usually dying elms or recently dead trees. -Has an off-center stem which is fleshy, tough, and pale in color with faint vertical striations running down it. -Has pale, cream-colored gills which run slightly down the stem. -Always lacks a stem ring (annulus). -The tan cap, which tends to crack with age and lack of humidity, is slightly convex to flattened. Often has a few small scales or hairs on its surface. -Often grows in cluster, though from individual stems that do not branch. Ghost Mushroom (Omphalotus nidiformis): A toxic mushroom that may be mistaken for Oysters or Elm Oysters in its native regions of Southeast Asia and Australia, but more important to learn lately due to spots of invasive populations in the rest of the world. This fungi is interesting for its non-culinary properties, for while it is toxic it is also a bio-luminescent species that glows a wonderful lime green color in the dark. It is a close relative of the bright yellow-orange Jack-o-lantern Mushroom, Omphalotus olearius--which is also toxic and bio-luminescent! Omphalotus nidiformis identification traits: -Grows on degraded wood most often. -Has a mostly-central stem. Often grows in branching clusters, but never in shelf-like clusters. -Cap flattens rapidly with age, often becoming upturned at the edges. -Cap is whitish in color, typically with a dark stained area towards the center. -Gills are pale and run down the stem somewhat. -Glows in the dark. -Lacks an annulus (stem ring). -Spore print color is white. Angel Wing (Pleurocybella porrigens): Well now... this would have to be my first "controversial mushroom" I cover, as it has sparked some fear due to recent deaths attributed to it in Japan, where it is known as Sugihiratake. To date over 40 people, all in Japan, have reported severe poisoning symptoms after consuming this species of mushroom. However, especially in the Pacific Northwest, this species is foraged and consumed with no incident. I'm not convinced this is the "deadly toxic mushroom" often warned about in top ten lists... I'm actually pretty sure this is an edible mushroom with possibly a high number of allergic people or a variant population in Japan only which is toxic. Another theory is that a certain locality of these Angel Wings is contaminated somehow, and the mushroom is picking up the toxic contaminants. I'm going to go forward saying this is an edible species, provided a forager uses caution and avoids specimens gathered in Japan specifically. Pleurocybella porrigens identification traits: -A purely white mushroom, growing in oyster-like, ruffled shelves with very little to no stems. -Very wide caps with thin flesh, similar to a Crepidotus. -Found often in late summer months. -If it has a short stem, the closely-bunched gills will run down it similar to an Oyster mushroom. -Typically found growing on conifer trees and wood, not hardwoods. -Spore print is white. -Caps are typically smaller than Oysters, between 1 and 2 inches wide (though some have been found as large as 4 inches wide). -Faint, mossy aroma which is sometimes sweet (not like aniseseed). Mock Oyster (Phyllotopsis nidulans): A beautiful but toxic mushroom that is sometimes mistaken for oyster mushrooms by very inexperienced foragers. While it does have a similar growth pattern to Oysters and fruits at the same time, it is rather distinct from true Pleurotus or any of its mimics. Never eat this fungus as it is known to be quite toxic, causing vomiting and painful cramps that may last for 48 hours or more. Phyllotopsis nidulans identification traits: -Pale yellow to bright orange mushroom growing from degraded wood of all types. -Branching, thick stems and growing in large clusters. Sometimes the stems are so fused that they sprout multiple caps from each other rather than the stems. -Sometimes has a foul smell, particularly when it grows in abundance. -Top of the cap has at least one thickly hairy zone (an Oyster will never have hairs on the cap!). -Gills run to the stem, but do not run all the way down it. -Spore print color is pale pink. Happy oyster foraging, and remember the safe mycophage's motto: "When in doubt, throw it out!"

#mushroom #mushroom identification #oyster mushroom #oyster mushroom look alikes #traditional media #traditional art #colored pencils #phyllotopsis nidulans #pleurocybella porrigens #crepidotus #pleurotus #omphalotus nidiformis #hypsizygus ulmarius #panellus serotinus

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red-sterling · 5 years

Text

hey remember forest witch demon Red au idea???? no proofreading we die like men

–––––––––

This one has been visiting for months.

Visitors aren't common to Viridian Forest. Stories are told of a witch that lives in the woods, something that leads even the most experienced woodsmen in circles until they reach its lair, and it eats their souls, or corrupts their life force with its malicious intent, or it disembowels and consumes them, or something, it always depends on who might be spinning tales and who might be a coward that evening around that campfire. It's told that the Viridian Forest is not safe to traverse past sundown, no matter how true or how false that may be. It's told that a witch is the reason hikers go missing out here, and not simply the sprawling nature of the woods and the darkness that enshrouds the ground as early as late afternoon, thick curtains of leaves hungrily swallowing the sunlight before it can reach the trails. No matter how it's told, the forest is reportedly a death trap.

He is familiar with the stories, and he is not fond of them.

Should a Pokémon attack a human, said human calls it self-defense. Should a Pokémon disembowel, said human calls it rabies. Should a Pokémon swallow a human's essence from the mortal realm, said human calls it a freak accident.

Should he so much as look in their direction, he is a beast.

Perhaps, then, he is a Pokémon, and perhaps he is acting in self-defense, perhaps he is rabid, perhaps he is the freak accident itself. It's impossible to fully remember anything else about himself. He is made half of branches and vines, he haunts not simply the forest but this form of life itself, he swirls from one tree to the next as he watches travelers come through the woods and he hopes, he begs, he prays, he desperately pleads to be left alone and to be safe. He begs and he pleads and he just wants to be left alone, and that's all he can remember from a life before this.

Well, that, and his broken voice. He can't remember it, but sometimes he hears stories of a selective mute who went missing in the woods, and legend has it he was eaten by the witch, and he supposes perhaps he is the boy and he is the witch, he is fear and fear itself, he is the experience and the concept, the reaction and the catalyst.

Should it be true, he doesn't know how it came to this. All he knows is he wants to be left alone, for any footsteps in his wood are loud and he fears that noise; and no, it isn't the sticks nor the leaves that make the noise, but the travelers themselves are noisy, their energies are always frantic or arrogant, the souls always scream in fear at the mere thought of him, or they call out fight me you fucking monster and his heart snaps like brittle tinder in a fire.

The witch - and he does choose to call himself such a thing, if it should describe him, if he is fear in its most natural form - he does not like visitors to the Viridian Forest.

But he likes this one.

The traveler's hair is unruly, or perhaps styled to appear so, and its shade matches the autumn leaves surrounding him, so he almost blends in to the scenery in that right. His cheeks and the tip of his nose are always tinged pink by the time the witch sees him; how long has he been traveling through the forest? The witch wonders and receives no answer from the traveler, for said traveler doesn't see him, doesn't hear him, perhaps he knows of the forest's myths but if he does - and this is what caught the witch's attention - he pays them no mind. He walks these trails quietly, and oh, sometimes he acts childish, and he makes noise, he bounces in piles of leaves and splashes through puddles rather than circling around them, he tells stories to himself and the Eevee companion he often carries on his shoulder, he stops to nibble on wild berries while he travels, he smiles and he sings and all the witch can think is oh my I'm afraid that I -

The witch feels something strangely, perhaps dangerously human for the traveler. Some faint recollection of an earthly experience worms its way into his memory, and he feels almost ill at the realization. He feels as if he may vomit, if his form is still capable of such a thing, but it's a sickness he almost enjoys, a guilty pleasure of sorts. It's as if his chest is filled with locusts that eat at his heart and from the holes they leave, flowers blossom and tickle the inside of his chest, and he fears if he were to open his mouth he would spit up petals and their scent would intoxicate him - and perhaps, some yearning recess of his mind says, it could intoxicate the traveler, and he could sing you a song and tell you legends of ancient lovers and trees of life, perhaps such a romantic type of wanderer could - could - perhaps -

With his exhale comes a gust of wind through the trees. He feels like a leaf in his own forest.

"Ah... that feels nice, huh, Vivi?"

"Evoi!"

The witch hears his traveler's voice, and he feels his vines coiling around his arms, he feels himself melt, he both grows and wilts at the traveler's voice and, and -

Oh, he's singing again, a wordless song, just this little stream of notes, and, and - and the traveler comes to pause in a clearing, the sunlight dances over him and sparkles on his amber eyes. It's as if the traveler is made of honey and his bees are buzzing in the witch's chest, as if they build their honeycombs in his heart and he drowns in the sweetness that is this wonderful beautiful absolutely perfect -

He doesn't think when he acts. He can't be seen in this light, but he makes his move anyway, or perhaps that's exactly why he does make his move. He runs his fingers over the traveler's cheek, and oh he giggles and seems to even blush and the witch realizes -

"Huh?"

The traveler merely wonders what brushed against him; he sees nothing, of course, but no fear nor aggression reaches the forest, he's not afraid and he's not malicious, he merely wonders what brushed against him and oh, the witch wishes he could speak.

I'm in love.

It hurts a little. The honey boy's bees sting his heart with some such sentiment of defeat: he cannot see you, he will never know you, if he were to see something between a human and a gnarled tangle of branches, he would fear you, and he would be gone, and your heart would be an empty honeycomb.

And yet, this doesn't convince him to kill the bees. If this honey-dipped traveler is the death of him, the witch will choke on him and decompose in the leaves with this sickening heat in his chest and this sugar on his tongue.

The witch floats out of his thoughts when he hear the traveler's Eevee cry, and oh, what a sweet thing, she's begging for a bite of his meal.

"Not yet, Vivi, it's still kinda hot. I told you this thermos was really good, huh?"

"Evoi voi..."

"Aw, be patient, girl," he grins and ruffles his Eevee's fur. "You can have a bite once it cools off a little, okay? I don't wanna let you burn your tongue."

He's so delicate. He cares so, so much; oh, and the silliest thing about this is that one time, just one time, the witch saw his traveler walking with a girl, presumably a friend or perhaps a sibling, but he saw his traveler put on this fake bravado, some masquerading attitude of I'm so much better than you, look at how brave I am, nothing scares me, I could battle anything in this forest if I had to 'cause I'm Kanto's top trainer, oh it was the silliest thing and it was so much more endearing knowing how he truly is.

What a sweet human. He must be made of honey.

"Vee!"

"We've been here for like, ten seconds, girl! Settle down!" Even when he scolds the Eevee, he's smiling, giggling at his companion.

The witch sits behind him, and he wills the wind to blow carefully through the forest clearing. If even in some tiny gesture that the traveler will never attribute to him, he wants to endear himself to his honey boy.

The traveler seems surprised at the well-timed breeze, but he quickly smiles, feeds his Eevee a bite of the noodles from his thermos, he takes a bite himself and smiles and hums happily and the witch thinks I am certainly in love and even the impossibility of the traveler's requital can't sour the honey in his chest.

He summons another breeze, and he almost runs his fingers through the honey boy's hair. The traveler hums contentedly at the wind and oh, oh, the witch is in love.

–––––––––

It's getting cold.

Green is lost. So lost. He has no idea how deep into Viridian Forest he is now, but he knows it's getting darker and windier and he just wants to get home as soon as he can. He, unfortunately, has no sense of direction after waking up, and so after his midday nap, he's managed to get... somewhere. He's definitely moving around the forest, so he - he's gotta be close to the perimeter, right? He should've known better than that, though, he shouldn't have fallen asleep, even with how inviting the autumn breeze was and how warm the sunlight was on his cheeks. Now it's just cold, the sky is overcast and the wind is pelting him with leaves.

"Evoi..."

"You smell the way out, girl?"

"Evoi vee."

Green sighs. "Yeah, I dunno either, Vivi. Are you cold?" Eevee tries to purr reassuringly to him, but he can feel her shivering. "Come back into your pokéball, girl. You'll be warmer there."

"Voi voi!" she barks in protest.

"Hey, I don't wanna let you get sick! Come on."

She purrs against his cheek one more time, but she does let him call her back into her ball. At least she can be cozy.

...there's a clearing up there.

"Oh, perfect," Green hums to himself and the privacy of the woods. "Maybe I can get my bearings there if the clouds get outta the way for long enough. As long as I can actually see the starts for a minute, I can figure out where to go from there. 'cause, y'know," and Green almost speaks as if there's an audience, as if someone is listening, "I kinda don't wanna sleep out here. I didn't bring a sleeping bag or anything like that."

Part of Green wonders if anyone ever listens to him.

He's torn. As Kanto's Champion, he's often on a figurative podium, surrounded by figurative microphones - or literal microphones, too, the paparazzi tend to flock him if he's in a city for more than fifteen minutes. He knows people are hearing him, and sometimes that's almost too much, but it's never quite enough, either. Everyone asks him everything under the sun, he answers, they hear, but they don't really listen and that's what kills him. Even his own grandfather doesn't listen to him (granted, he hasn't been home in months, but still), and his sister has been up in Cerulean City with her boyfriend, so she's not around either, and a camera doesn't listen, it hears and it spits out sound waves but nothing is truly understood, he isn't listened to, he's a sensation but he is not a human anymore.

Truly, Green feels like the only ones who listen anymore are Leaf and this forest.

Green looks up through the clearing at the sky. The clouds are intermittently thinning and thickening, but they never clear quite enough for Green to see the stars.

"...ugh."

Green just flops down on the forest floor and watches the clouds.

"...and like, I mean that, too," Green continues his thoughts aloud, as if the forest were listening. "I feel like no one actually wants to listen to me, you know? They wanna hear the Indigo League Champion, but they don't wanna hear me. They don't wanna hear Green and it sucks. And like, I wonder how many of them - I mean, I wonder how many people actually know what my name is. All the papers and reports refer to me as Professor Oak's grandson or the Indigo League Champion or... anything other than my name." He sighs. "I guess at least I have a little bit of privacy, but... y'know what? No, I don't even have that. I still get followed around the region. This is the only place no one'll follow me, and I have to keep making it into a like, a I'm brave enough to go into Viridian Forest thing. I just wanna enjoy myself."

Green hears the grass next to him settle, and he rolls his head to the side. He doesn't see anything, though.

"...you know what I mean?" As if someone were listening, as if someone were truly listening. "This is the only place I feel safe anymore. I can actually do stuff I wanted to do when I was a kid that I had to stop doing when I became Champion. But like," he looks back at the sky, and it's darker than before, "come on, who's gonna yell at an eleven year old and tell him to stop jumping in puddles 'cause it's unprofessional, right? That's stupid."

He takes a breath, desperately trying to gather his feelings in his chest. He's sprung a leak, though.

"I dunno, maybe I'm just stupid and I need to grow up. It's been a decade since I became Champion, anyway. I should just..." His thoughts trail off for a moment. "I didn't get to be a kid for that long, though. I just wanna live without having to be this perfect Champion, you know?"

The wind blows some leaves off the trees, spiraling through the clearing, almost dancing around specifically him.

As if something were listening.

As if -

"Do you know what I mean?"

He feels something brush the top of his head, almost like a hand, and he actually shoots up and shouts in surprise - because he's alone out here, that's the only reason he let himself express anything other than a confident type of arrogance.

Nothing is there.

Presumably.

The air stills and he doesn't feel like he's alone.

"Uh..." His pulse picks up. He looks around for any sign of a Pokémon, but he sees none, and that just makes that even weirder. "I guess that was... leaves, huh? Yeah, leaves. It's gotta be leaves."

It's so dark out now. Green is still very lost.

"...fuck."

He just starts walking back the way he came, he thinks. It's impossible to tell exactly where he came from when it's so dark and he's already lost all the beaten paths. Leaves crunch under his feet, seemingly louder than before, now that the forest is so... quiet. He could swear he heard at least a few crickets around before, but now even that white noise is gone. All he has is the rustling of leaves and his own tinnitus.

...wait.

Wait. Wait, there's no wind.

How -

"Hello?" Wow, he hates this, he's starting to panic a little and he, he hates it, Viridian Forest is usually so perfect and so tender and now he's working himself up into a frenzy. "Yo, come on out."

That's... probably the worst thing he could've said, but he's talking on autopilot. He has to tell his Pokémon to come out of hiding fairly often - Eevee, specifically, they all like playing hide and seek but sometimes she's a little too well hidden. Nothing comes of the call, though, so...

"...okay, uh..." I'm gonna go home, but now he's not sure if he should say that. He carries on in the direction where he thinks Viridian City is. He's all turned around now, though, so it's hard to say if he's heading home or towards Pewter City - or maybe he's walking directly east, following the long dimension of the forest, and fuck he's going to be stuck in the woods all night.

"No, it's fine, I'm fine," he tells himself and pretends he believes it, "everything's fine. I'm totally good. I am golden right now." He's always been a good actor. "Nothing's wrong."

He's not as good an actor when there's no audience, oddly enough. It's a touch of inverted stage fright, perhaps.

Green still hears leaves rustling around him, he still hears twigs snapping even when he's not the one stepping on them, and he just... keeps going, he continues walking and he continues calmly because he's not about to let whatever is following him know that he's afraid. A dull memory rises to the front of his mind, a story his grandfather told him to try and keep him in line as a child.

A witch lives out in Viridian Forest, you know, he had said, speaking with the same matter-of-fact tone he always used to talk about his research. It's eyes will drill right through you, and it's got tree branches growing out of its back. It'll grab your wrists and throw you over its shoulders into the branches so you can't escape if it catches you. If you're not in bed by nine, Green, the witch will come looking for you.

What if it finds me, huh?

Then it'll eat you alive.

Unfortunately, that's one of the milder things his grandfather has said to him.

Feeling a bit nauseous, Green shakes the memory off as he comes to a fork in the road - oh, finally, trails! He'll just take the left one and figure his way out from there. The real problem is falling off the trails, truly, and even a few degrees off from your original position will send you hurdling deep into the recesses of Viridian Forest with no way of telling where you are or where you've been, with no way of calling for help, because how do you call someone and tell them to just wander around the woods until they find you?

"What...?"

Something is blocking the path ahead - not really blocking, per say, but something is dangling in the way of the dirt trail, hanging from a branch. He'd call it a Metapod or a Kakuna if it weren't so small - though it could be one of their larval forms, too, just dangling from a string as they do. Green has wandered the woods for long enough to get hit in the face by all of the above before, actually.

"...that's not a Pokémon." He says that to himself as he approaches the object, trying to affirm what he's seeing. "That's not - "

It's a bundle of sticks. Vaguely, it looks to be in the form of a person.

"Okay. O-Okay," he almost laughs, but he's trembling and he can't blame it all on the windchill. Witch echoes in his mind again and he wonders if maybe he should turn back.

Something rustles behind him. He can either turn around and see probably nothing, possibly something, or he can trek towards an ominous albeit harmless something in front of him instead.

A stick snaps just a little too close to him. Green walks forward.

"Okay, it's fine, it's just like... like a wooden doll, or something. Yeah." Pause. "Just a wooden doll tied to a branch from it's neck, that's all." Another pause, as he processes this. "I'm gonna keep going."

As if something were listening. As if something were following.

Green walks around the bundle of sticks, rather than under it, because some neurosis of his swears that if he crosses it's path directly he'll be in trouble - oh, but he already walked past the doll's threshold, so he's fucked either way. He just... needs to keep moving. He realizes he doesn't recognize this trail and the trees are mossier out here than he's used to seeing so he is as lost as a bottle at sea right now, but he's fine, it's fine -

"I'm fine, I'm fine, everything is fine, I'm - "

Hey.

Green's footsteps slow to a stop. His heart is going to beat out of his chest but he stops, he listens, he swears he heard someone, and if someone is fucking with him, he wants to punch them in the face.

"Yeah?"

No answer. Of course. Green swallows his fear down and puts on his Champion mask.

"Listen, if you're fucking with me, get out here and battle me. Don't be a coward."

Hey.

"Get out here!" He's starting to get pissed off, now. "I can hear you, you know. I know you're here."

No answer this time. His chest sinks. He turns and oh fuck there's another doll and it's right in front of his face -

"Fffff - fuck!" Well. He tried act tough.

Wait, he just -

"I was just there." That means the doll wasn't there before, he realizes. That means something put the doll there.

He turns again, expecting to see another stick doll, but he fortunately has no new visitors.

Hello?

"Hello?" he calls back, just - just confused, his heart is still pounding but he just wants to know what the hell is going on at this point. "Y'know what? I'm not even mad. Just come out and let's talk for a second." No answer. Green paces away from the doll (not that it's scaring him, no, shut up) and down the path. "Are you lost, too? I kinda fell asleep, and I got turned around. You shouldn't be out this late either, you know."

I know.

The voice seems to always be just up ahead, but by now, the trail is dead-ending at a mound of earth. "Where are you?"

Something snaps to his left. He turns and sees a shallow cave tunneling into the ground. He swears he hears something croaking in there, not like a frog, but like, like -

"Are you hurt?"

No answer. This is well out of his better judgement, and part of him says dude look at those fucking dolls and tell me this isn't some freaky cult, just get outta here, but another part of him says just look around, maybe they are hurt, maybe you can help, you're the Champion, after all.

"Yeah," he says to himself, to his more reckless side. "Yeah, I am a Champion. If anything goes wrong, I'll send out one've my Pokémon, that'll be fine. Pidgeot can take anything on."

It isn't until he says this, dead-ended at the back of the cave, that he realizes it never occurred to him to fly out of the woods on Pidgeot's back, and he realizes how strange that is, because he's gotten turned around in the forest before and that's always how he's gotten out of it.

"...I'm an idiot."

Green turns to leave.

Something is silhouetted by a dim moonlight at the entrance of the cave.

The first thing Green notices is that he feels dizzy, suddenly very, very dizzy. The earth seems to spin around him and the figure is still, silent. It - It's too tall, dangling, almost, like a stick doll hanging from a tree. Robes seem to drape over the figure, ripped to shreds just inches off the ground. The figure seems to sway, or maybe Green is dizzier still. Belatedly, Green realizes there are tree branches protruding from its back, and then he notes vines dangling from what would be arms, if this is a humanoid being, and he can't tell because everything is swirling and all he can feel is an overwhelming pressure from this thing's presence.

He can't see its face, but he feels eyes boring into him.

The figure makes a croaking sound. It's not a croak, actually; it's creaking wood. The branches seem to be reaching out towards him.

Oh god.

Oh god there really is a witch.

Green tears up and his heart pounds as the witch's cold stare pierces his very essence.

"H... H-Hello?"

The witch floats up to him quickly, but he's already basically against the cave's back wall, so there's no escaping. Twiggy fingers wrap around Green's wrists just, just like that, he didn't even process when the witch got face to face with him or when it grabbed his wrists, he feels bark scraping his skin and oh god oh god oh god he can't break its grip and okay now he's crying because even if it isn't about to eat him alive this is still unbelievable, he can't process what he's seeing, he can't, he can't - fuck he can't even think, the witch has him cornered and the fact that he's not even sure of his fate is what's scaring him senseless -

Nothing is happening.

Green looks up and realizes the witch actually has a fairly human-looking face. Greyish eyes stare back into his through matted bangs, a shaggy black mop of hair that's as coated in dirt as its (or his?) cheeks. His face is almost gentle, round, a stark contrast to the gnarled branches growing out of his back and the spindly vines dripping off the witch's wrists.

Green is slowly regaining control of his breathing as he looks at the soft face of something that's supposed to eat him alive. He stops whimpering and squirming, and the witch's grip on his wrists lightens.

The witch's delicate hold on his wrists is actually comforting. He can't believe he's admitting that to himself, but that really feels nice...

"Um... hi."

The witch smiles.

"Uh - mmph!"

It happens all at once, and then it's over, but the moment seems to linger for hours, though only a few small things seem to happen after the witch smiles, and, and, everything just seems and it's so surreal that Green isn't sure what to believe when he blinks and he's at the entrance to Viridian Forest.

"Wh... What...?" He replays his memories, and they're too clear to be manufactured, but... no way. Does this make any sense? He - no, it doesn't, does it? "Wait - "

Ever since he took his first step out of Pallet Town, Green has kept a journal of sorts (no, not a diary, thank you), just to keep track of what happened when. A little bit OCD, his sister said, but whatever it is, it brings him comfort, so he writes the encounter down and reads and rereads and he still doesn't know what to believe. Taking a nap, is his last entry, and everything else just sounds impossible.

– Woke up; groggy. Got turned around and unsure of where to go.

– Walked. Still lost. Got dark.

– Stopped at a clearing; wanted to see if I could navigate by stars. Too cloudy. Thought out loud.

– Didn't feel like I was alone. Left.

– Found a trail. Followed it.

– Wooden stick doll hanging from a branch on the trail. Passed it.

– Found another stick doll.

– Heard someone's voice. Thought someone was fucking with me. Called out.

– Kept investigating. Found a cave, sounded like someone might've been hurt. Went to search.

– Hit a dead end.

And this is where it gets to the point where Green feels like he's writing a fairy tale.

– Saw the witch.

– Witch saw me.

– Witch approached me. Grabbed my wrists.

– Totally didn't start fear crying shut up.

– Nothing happening.

– I calmed down. Looked up.

– Normal human face. Wearing torn-up clothes. Branches on its/his(?) back.

– I tried to say hi.

– It smiled at me.

And his heart skips a beat in some stupid way when he writes the next point.

– He kissed me.

He kissed me. That thought lingers for a moment longer. He's not about to write this down, but his lips were soft. He tasted like chamomile tea and forest air after a heavy rain and a bit like dirt.

And Green, he - he kissed back. The Viridian Witch kissed him and he kissed him back.

"...no way." Still, though, he still tastes something earthy on his tongue.

– He kissed me. - which he already wrote, but he feels like it warrants repetition.

– Something stabbed me in the wrist.

– I think he asked my name but his voice was really soft and rough and I might've imagined it

– but he has a nice voice

– and I think I told him

– ...woke up at the entrance to Viridian Forest.

– There's a piece of wood lodged in my wrist.

And yeah, it's probably gonna just stay there. Green tries to pull it out, but it hurts like hell. Pulling at it makes him want to scream in pain, it makes him feel like he's going to pass out or throw up or, or something, but removing the wood isn't an option, it seems.

Green just... he flops on his back, staring up at the clouds once again. If it weren't for the wood embedded in his wrist, he would've assumed that was a fever dream. Maybe this still is a fever dream. Maybe he hallucinated it all... wait, what? He's not prone to hallucinations, even when he stays awake for days on end. He's kinda weird, but he's more or less stable.

"There has to be an explanation."

Unfortunately, Green thinks he might have to accept what his memory says. He'll have to play it off like he just slept for... over twelve hours in the woods? Hm. That's not believable, though.

Buzz, buzz. Fuck. Leaf is calling and he doesn't have a cover story yet.

"Yo, Leaf."

"Where the fuck are you?" Leaf asks, her words dipped in irritation over a core of concern. "It's five in the morning and you're not home yet."

...how long did the witch keep him in the woods?

"Eh," Green starts, fails to sound nonchalant. "Yeah, um, I skidded down a gully in Viridian Forest and kinda knocked myself out. I'm fine now," he adds quickly, "just kinda bumped up. I'll be back in ten."

"Where - how hard did you fall? How long were you out?"

"Pretty hard, and uh, I dunno for sure. It was dark when I was trying to get back home," oh, this is actually pretty believable, that's improv baby, "and I just didn't see it, I guess. I was a bit more east than usual."

"Ah." Pause. "Are you hurt?"

"Just a bit bumped up, like I said. I'm not bad, though."

Leaf is quiet for a moment, pensive, and certainly suspicious. "Were you out cold all night?"

"I guess...? I dunno, I, uh," and maybe he can play it off as a mild amnesia, "I don't remember, to be honest. I'm gonna come back now."

"Okay, just... lemme make sure you're not too beat up when you get back to the apartment, buddy, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. See ya."

Green ends the call and sits up. Something, perhaps someone, perhaps someone in particular, urges him to turn back toward the forest.

He sees nothing. The world is quiet. The sun is coming up behind the storm clouds overhead.

Green still tastes the witch on his lips. He knows he made a promise to share all the juicy details of this moment when he and Leaf were younger, but Green isn't sure how to tell her he just had his first kiss.

He's also not sure how to explain the wood in his wrist, and he's not sure how to explain to himself why he kisses it and hopes the witch might be kissing back.

#nameless #sterling content #this got longer than i expected it to and also i made Green really soft #viridian witch au

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