#The Manor Banquet Hall | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lixzey · 7 months

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to the moon and back

Once upon a time, there was a wizarding family that was powerful and mighty. Nicholas Selwyn was the last of their family, and he and his wife Calliope had yet to have a child—an heir to continue the Selwyn name.

Then a miracle happened: Calliope had finally borne a child. A child born of the Selwyn and Rosier bloodline, the heir for whom they have waited so long. On the summer solstice of 1962, a daughter was born. And she was given the name Y/N, a fitting name for a princess. Families from the Sacred Twenty-Eight came from all around to offer gifts and praise for the little girl.

Among those families were the Blacks. Walburga and Orion Black had two sons. An almost two-year-old Sirius clung to his father's leg, hiding from everyone else. While the almost-one-year-old Regulus was sitting comfortably in his mother's arms.

“Oh, Calliope, you are glowing!” Walburga Black praised the new mother, balancing her son on her hip. Walburga peered over the little girl that was bundled in a pink swaddle in Calliope's arms. “She's a darling!”

“Yes, she is.” Calliope agreed with a wide grin. “The sweetest angel I've ever seen.”

Calliope looked up at the tiny hand that was a few inches away from her daughter's face. Six-month-old Regulus had his tiny hand over the newborn's face, seemingly admiring her.

“It looks like Regulus likes Y/N.” Walburga laughed, beaming at her son. Suddenly, Regulus' smacked Y/N square in the face.

“Regulus Arcturus Black, you do not hit women!” Walburga scolded the boy in her arms, who had no idea what was happening. Meanwhile, the little baby in Calliope's arms was screaming her head off, her face red as her cries echoed in the banquet hall.

Calliope soothed her daughter, an amused smile on her lips as she glanced at the little boy who had just hit her child.

"Oh, hush, Walburga. The boy doesn't know any better; he's just a boy.” Calliope chuckled. “I think he just really likes my daughter.”

“Regulus has great taste, then.”

“Maybe one day they'll fall in love.” Calliope mused, a twinkle in her eye as she looked at the little boy who had his eyes locked on her sleeping daughter. Walburga laughed, shaking her head. “We'll see.”

June 21st, 1968

Selwyn Manor was filled with colourful decorations, bright pink and lavender ribbons, and balloons lining the parlour and hallway. There were beautiful floral arrangements in tall vases, and even pink and purple flowers have been planted in the garden outside.

It was Y/N's sixth birthday, and she was beyond excited. Her mother and father opted not to throw another lavish party, but the house elves insisted on decorating the manor according to their young mistress' desires. Calliope and Nicholas proposed that instead of a party, they would take her on a summer trip to France as a gift for their daughter's birthday.

“Mummy, how do I look?” Y/N asked, twirling around as she modelled the dress in front of her mother. She was wearing a frilly lavender-coloured dress made by Miffy—their house elf—that doted on Y/N far too much.

Calliope beamed proudly at her daughter. “You look enchanting, mon ange.”

The little girl furrowed her eyebrows. “Mon ange? What does that mean, mummy?”

Her mother chuckled. “It means 'my angel' in French, my love. This summer, I'll be teaching you French, alright?”

Y/N nodded eagerly, nearly jumping with excitement at the mention of learning another language. “When are we going? When, when?”

“We'll just wait for your father to finish up at the ministry, my love. After that, we'll go ahead.”

“Okay, okay. Can I go to the garden now, Mummy? I want to play with Miffy.”

Calliope laughed. “Alright, alright. Just don't get messy, okay?”

Y/N nodded before darting out of the room, the little house elf hot on her heels. Calliope shook her head at her daughter amusedly. Her little girl is going to get along quite nicely with the youngest Black son.

“Both of you shall be on your best behaviour for the whole summer in France; do you understand me?” Walburga reminded her sons, her gaze narrowing at her eldest. “Do you understand me?”

Sirius tried his best not to roll his eyes at his mother, but he failed miserably. “You've told us that at least ten times this week, Mother.”

Walburga glared at her eldest, letting out an annoyed sigh before turning to her youngest with a smile. “Do you understand, Regulus?”

The boy nodded, not wanting to get on his mother's bad side, like Sirius always did.

Walburga beamed at her youngest son, patting him on the cheek. “We are to leave eave at six in the evening, after your father gets done with business. You two better be ready to leave before five.” She turned to her eldest, snarling at him before turning and walking away from the young boys.

“Reggie, wanna go play in the garden?” Sirius asked as soon as their mother was out of earshot, a mischievous grin on his face. Sirius was often the troublemaker between the two, always rebelling against their mother's rules. Sirius despised their parents' belief in blood supremacy. It was a load of dung, according to Sirius, who loved watching muggle children play out in the streets in Grimmauld Place.

“But mother said to behave, Sirius.” Regulus hissed at his brother. Regulus hated it when Sirius got in trouble with their mother, usually persuading Sirius to go along with their mother's wishes in order to keep him from getting punished, but his brother was one stubborn git.

“Come on, Reggie,” Sirius urged, wiggling his eyebrows. “It'll be fun! We can pretend to have wands and duel.”

Regulus rolled his eyes at his brother. “If Mother-”

“You're goody-goody with the elf; ask him to zip his mouth.”

Regulus scowled. “That elf has a name, you know.”

Sirius waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah. So, are you coming or not?” Regulus sighed before giving in and following his older brother outside. As soon as the two boys got outside, Sirius looked around in search of a branch they could use as make-believe wands.

“Aha! Here you go, baby brother, a wand.” Sirius grinned, passing a thin branch to him. Regulus eyed the branch in his hand. “Do all wands look like this?” He asked, his nose scrunching in disgust.

“I dunno, s'pose so,” Sirius shrugged. “Bella's wand looks like a wonky twig, though.” Regulus cringed at the mention of their eldest cousin.

“I don't like Bellatrix.” Regulus muttered.

Sirius chuckled. “Who doesn't? Bella's a bit...mad. Glad we're not spending summer with them this year.”

Regulus smiled at the thought of spending the summer away from London. It was going to be their first time in France, and both boys were ecstatic. They have heard so much about the Black estate in France from their uncle Alphard, who spent all of his summers along with his siblings in the estate. Sirius and Regulus could not believe that their mother was once a happy child, much to Alphard's amusement.

“You think Mother and Father will leave us alone in France?” Regulus asked, fiddling with the stick in his hands.

“They do it every day, Reg.” Sirius rolled his eyes at his younger brother. Walburga Black was not the maternal kind; she had no patience for things related to child care. She decidedly left it all to the house-elves to care for her sons.

“Right,” Regulus cleared his throat, “so are we duelling or not?”

Sirius gripped his wand and waved it around. “Prepare to duel!” He grinned mischievously, aiming the faux wand at his brother. “Jelly legs!”

Regulus pretended his legs had turned to jelly and stumbled around clumsily. Making Sirius burst out into laughter. Regulus quickly turned and pointed his wand at his brother. “Tickles!”

Sirius twitched his nose and looked around himself, pretending that he could feel the invisible tickles. He aimed his stick at his brother again. “Eat slugs!”

Regulus fell to his knees, pretending to vomit on the ground with a smirk. The garden was filled with giggles from the two boys as they duelled each other.

“That was fun!” Regulus laughed, trailing behind his brother as they carefully walked back inside the house.

Sirius turned to look at his brother and grinned triumphantly. “Told you.”

“You two look filthy!” Sirius and Regulus turned around, only to see their mother glowering at them.

“What did I tell you?” Walburga seethed at her sons. Regulus hid behind Sirius, who stood defiantly in front of his mother. “We just went out to the garden, Mother.”

“Kreacher! ” Sirius and Regulus flinched as their mother's shrill voice echoed through the house.

There was a loud popping sound, and the elf appeared next to their mother. “Mistress be wanting Kreacher?”

“Take the boys and make them look presentable. After that, pack their trunks for the summer.” Walburga ordered the elf before yanking Sirius by the arm and pushing him to Kreacher. Regulus whimpered, shifting under his mother's gaze, before walking to his brother's side.

“Keep them in line, Kreacher. We leave at six sharp.”

The elf bowed. “Yes Mistress. All shall be done, oh yes, shall be done.”

“Oh, for Merlin's sake! Hurry up!” Walburga screamed for her children. It was already five forty-five in the evening, fifteen minutes before the Blacks had to leave. She turned to her husband with an annoyed look. “Go get your children.”

Orion let out a loud sigh before turning to walk up the stairs to the boys' room. “Bloody woman, treating me like a dog.” he muttered under his breath.

“What was that!?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Orion quickly ran up, evading his wife's anger.

“Boys, what's taking so long-” Orion opened the door to his sons' room, expecting them to be slacking, only to see Sirius fixing his brother's hair.

“There you go, Reggie!” Sirius declared proudly, handing his little brother a mirror. “You look good, if I do say so myself.”

Regulus took the mirror and looked at himself. His curls were slightly slicked back, with a few tendrils hanging loose and framing his face perfectly. Regulus grinned, passing back the mirror to his brother. “You should do my hair often, Sirius.”

Orion smiled at the sight of his sons. He never had that kind of bond with his own brother. He opened the door and stepped inside, the smile gone from his lips.

Orion cleared his throat, making both boys jump. “Boys, come on. Your mother's waiting downstairs, and you know she's not fond of waiting.”

“Yes, father.” Sirius turned to Regulus, taking his hand in his. “Come on, Reg, summer awaits!” All three of the Black men descended down the stairs. Walburga scowled at the sight of her oldest son's hair.

“I said to look presentable, Sirius.”

Sirius smirked, running a hand through his black mane. “I am presentable, Mother."

“You little-” Walburga raised her hand to strike her son when her husband cut her off.

“Just get in the fireplace, Sirius, Regulus,” Orion sighed, shaking his head. When they didn't move, he lightly pushed his eldest. “Now!”

Both boys scrambled to the dusty old fireplace, Regulus gripping the ends of his brother's robes. Sirius had a grin plastered on his lips, provoking his mother further.

“Get a handful of floo powder, Sirius,” Orion ordered. Sirius turned to the pot of black powder on the side of the wall, taking a handful of it in his small hands.

“Now you must say this clearly; otherwise, you and your brother would get transported to the wrong place. Black Manor, Dinard, loud and clear, Sirius.” The seven-year-old boy nodded, clearing his throat before loudly speaking.

“Black Manor, Dinard!”

Green flames engulfed the two brothers as they were transported into a beautiful sitting room. The smell of wood and spice immediately invaded their nostrils as soon as the two boys stepped out of the fireplace. Sirius and Regulus were awestrucked. The manor in France was far better than Grimmauld Place.

It was a sight to behold. It had a grandiose feeling, as if it had been lifted straight from the pages of an old French novel.

The walls of the elegant room were a deep forest green, the shade of which had been carefully matched to the hue of the lush gardens outside. In the centre of the room was the focal point, a large emerald green velvet sofa that seemed to invite anyone to sink into its depths. On either side of the sofa were two matching armchairs, upholstered in the same emerald velvet. The cushioning was studded with silver buttons that shone when the sunlight hit them, and the legs were carved from dazzling marble. Behind the sofa, the walls were lined with large, dark wood bookcases and cabinets filled with fine silver trinkets and antique books. An old-style grandfather clock was tucked away in the corner, counting down the minutes with its sombre ticking. Rich tapestries hung from the walls, and Persian rugs covered the floor.

For illumination, several grand candelabras rested on the tables and were held aloft by marble pillars, which were intricately carved with rococo details. Each candelabra was adorned with five burning white candles that cast a soft, golden glow over the room.

A grand piano sat in the corner by the arched window, while a gleaming bronze chandelier hung above it. There were gilded mirrors on the walls with silver frames that gave the room an extra sparkle. There were huge windows around the room, with rich green velvet curtains in a silver pattern parted in the middle to let light in.

A place of true elegance and sophistication. It was as if every detail was chosen with care, from the luxurious green and silver brocade that draped the walls to the gleaming marble floors and the grand mahogany-framed clock overlooking the room.

The flames roared again, revealing their parents. Walburga stepped out and immediately screamed for a house elf.

With a loud pop, a small elf appeared. It looked better than what Kreacher looked like. The elf wore a tea towel around its waist and a huge green ribbon atop its head.

“Mistress be needing Dilly?”

Walburga turned to her sons. “These are my sons, your young masters. They will be spending the whole summer here. I trust that my sons will be taken care of.”

“Dilly will take very good care of her young Masters; yes, she will. Only the best for the heir of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.”

Walburga nodded curtly before turning her attention to her sons. “You both shall be on your best behaviour for the whole of summer. Do you understand? If word gets out to me that you two show anything less of what I have taught you, there will be consequences.”

Regulus visibly gulped, shifting under his mother's gaze. “Yes, mother.”

Sirius looked unaffected by their mother's gaze. “Yeah, yeah, behave and all that.”

Suddenly, the fireplaces erupted into green flames once more. Out stepped a little girl with long (y/h/c) hair tied in pigtails and bright (y/e/c) eyes dressed in a frilly lavender-coloured dress. She was clutching a white-stuffed bunny in her arms as she looked around.

“Greetings, little one.” Orion greeted the little girl, who gave him a small, shy smile. Y/N fiddled with her hair as she stood by the fireplace, waiting for her parents. A little while later, the flames erupted again, revealing Nicholas and Calliope Selwyn. Y/N quickly hid behind her mother, clutching the skirt of her robes.

“Walburga, Orion, it's been so long,” Calliope greeted, taking a step closer to the Black matriarch, leaning in for a hug.

Y/N eyed the older woman curiously. She had aristocratic features, high cheekbones, and full lips, making her look regal and elegant as she stood. The little girl tugged on her mother's skirt. “Mummy!” she whispered fiercely, tugging on her mother's skirt harder. Calliope pulled away from the raven-haired witch with a chuckle as she looked down at her daughter.

Regulus looked at Y/N with an unamused look, scrunching his nose in annoyance. “She looks like a spoiled brat.” he whispered to Sirius, who nodded in agreement.

Walburga smiled down at the little girl, which shocked Sirius and Regulus. “You must be Y/N.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow at the older woman. She looks scary, Y/N thought before promptly hiding behind her mother's back.

Walburga chuckled. “She's a bit shy, I see.”

Calliope laughed. “Oh no, my daughter is anything but shy.” Her gaze then fell onto the two boys huddled in the corner.

“Sirius, Regulus, come forward and introduce yourselves,” Orion instructed. Both boys stepped forward, standing tall and proud.

“Sirius Orion Black, the third at your service.” Sirius grinned proudly before bowing, his long hair falling over his face.

Calliope laughed at the young boy's enthusiasm. “You've gotten bigger since the last time I've seen you, young Sirius.”

“My name's Regulus, Regulus Arcturus Black.” Regulus smirked proudly, bowing like his brother.

“My, my, such well-mannered boys.” Calliope praised.

Walburga beamed proudly. “I taught them well.”

Sirius snorted, making Regulus chuckle. Their mother did not teach them anything because she threatened them if they did not comply with all her rules.

"Y/N, darling, introduce yourself to Mr. and Mrs. Black, my love."

“No.” Y/N huffed behind her mother.

“Come on, darling. Introduce yourself; tell them how you love dressing up.” Nicholas chuckled, nudging his daughter from behind his wife. Y/N reluctantly stepped out, a scowl etched on her lips. “Y/N Artemis Rosier Selwyn.” She introduced herself with a curtsy.

“Sirius, Regulus, go ahead and kiss Y/N's hand like a true gentleman.” Walburga urged, pushing Sirius slightly.

Sirius grinned mischievously as he took Y/N's hand and softly placed a kiss on her knuckles. “I am pleased to meet you, my fair maiden.”

“Likewise.” Y/N gave him a small smile.

Regulus rolled his eyes at Y/N. She looked like a girly girl. And he hated those kinds of girls. His cousins Narcissa and Andromeda were like that, and it wasn't fun. The two older girls would always drag him and his brother into whatever they pleased. And it annoyed Regulus more than it annoyed Sirius.

“Go on, Regulus,” Walburga urged her youngest son, who scowled.

“Hello, Y/N. I'm very pleased to meet you,” Regulus said, his tone annoyed.

“Pleased to meet you, Regulus.” Y/N curtsied. Regulus walked back to Sirius, only to be stopped by his mother. “Ah, ah, ah!” She urged her son, pushing him to kiss Y/N's hand.

Y/N raised an eyebrow as Regulus' face contorted in disgust. He looks conceited, and Y/N wanted to punch him in the face just because of it. Regulus reluctantly took her hand, scrunching his nose in disgust before kissing her hand as quickly as he could.

“So happy you could come.” Regulus sneered.

“So happy to be here.” Y/N said with a sickening sweet voice, rolling her eyes at the boy.

“She's a darling, Calliope. Such a fine young lady!” Walburga complimented the little girl with a smile.

“Yes, she is.” Calliope chuckled, beaming at her daughter.

“But don't let that innocent face fool you. She has the famous Rosier temper.” Nicholas laughed.

“Ah yes, the famous Rosier temper.” Orion agreed. “I do believe we all know what that temper is capable of.”

“Ah, so you've been a victim of it?” Calliope asked with a smirk.

“Cygnus' wife, Druella.” Orion laughed. “Let's just say that I couldn't utter a word for a week.”

All the adults burst out laughing, leaving the children confused. Regulus perked up at the mention of his aunt Druella, whom he liked the most because she gave him the most sweets.

“I remember that! Drue was absolutely furious that you called her fat once when she was pregnant with her first.” Walburga snorted, almost forgetting about her manners.

“Mummy, can I go play?” Y/N asked, interrupting the adults' laughter.

Calliope looked down at her daughter. “Why don't you ask Mrs. Black, mon ange?”

Y/N scowled, much to her father's amusement. She then reluctantly turned to Walburga, with a pleading look in her big, bright eyes—a look her father knew so well.

“Can I please go and play, Mrs. Black?” Y/N asked, her voice sweet and innocent.

Walburga chuckled. “Yes, my dear. After all, the manor will be your home for the summer. Go ahead and play in the garden with Sirius and Regulus while your parents and I catch up.”

“Thank you!” Y/N grinned before running out to the garden.

Sirius chuckled while Regulus groaned. “What a total bummer.” He couldn't believe he was going to be stuck with her all summer long. Regulus was sure she didn't like anything that he and Sirius liked to do, like quidditch or playing in the dirt. She looked so stuck up, and it made Regulus want to run away from her. He'd rather get chicken pox than be in the same room with her.

Walburga cocked an eyebrow at her sons, telling them to go and follow Y/N. Sirius ran outside to the garden with Regulus hot on his heels. The boys spotted Y/N sitting on the grass as she looked up at the starry sky.

“Whatcha lookin' at?” Sirius asked as he sat beside Y/N.

“What do you think I'm looking at?” Y/N said sarcastically, not batting an eye at the two boys who were beside her.

“Ouch, venomous.” Sirius grinned, scooting closer to Y/N. “You looking at the stars? Looking for me, huh?”

Y/N rolled her eyes at the older boy beside her. Her eyes then landed on Regulus, who had his lips curled into a scowl, as if it were normal.

“What are you scowling at?” Y/N snapped at Regulus.

“Nothing,” Regulus sneered, turning his gaze away from Y/N. He couldn't stand her; just looking at her made him want to vomit. Y/N rolled her eyes, wanting so badly to just run away and never come back.

“Your brother's a git.” Y/N whispered in Sirius' ear.

“He'll grow on you.” Sirius promised with a smirk.

“Regulus looks conceited.”

Regulus' ears perked up at the mention of his name. He was conceited!? How dare she!?

“What did you say?” Regulus snapped, stepping closer to Y/N.

Y/N smirked. “You heard me.” She then turned back to face the stars.

Regulus huffed, his annoyance towards the girl turning into anger. He walked up to the flower beds and scooped up a handful of mud before walking back to Y/N and Sirius.

“Oi, Y/N!” Regulus yelled. As soon as she turned around, Regulus threw the clump of mud at the younger girl.

“My dress!” Y/N shrieked as mud splattered across her face and dress. She tried to wipe it off, but it was of no use. She glared at Regulus, who was smirking. Y/N balled her hands, clenching them into tight fists before storming up to Regulus and punching him square in the nose. Regulus stumbled back as he clutched his bleeding nose.

“You git!” Y/N screamed angrily as she tried to land a punch again. Regulus then pushed Y/N into a nearby bush. “I hate you! I hate you to the moon and back!” Y/N screamed at him, standing up and running back inside the house.

Sirius and Regulus burst out in a fit of giggles. That girl is certainly a spoiled brat.

“Mummy! Mummy! He threw mud at me!” Y/N shrieked as she approached her mother from the Black's back garden. Her dress was covered in mud, her pigtails were dishevelled, and she had twigs and leaves stuck in her hair. “Mummy! Regulus threw mud at me!” Y/N yelled again, tears forming in her big, bright eyes.

Meanwhile, the boy in question was snickering from behind the large oak door.

“The little spoiled princess got what she deserved.” Regulus grinned triumphantly at his older brother, who was trying his best not to burst out laughing at the sight of little Y/N Selwyn, stomping her foot at her mother and father, demanding that they do something about Regulus' behaviour towards her.

This was not her idea of fun.

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piplupcola · 1 year

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#polls #poll #tumblr polls #aesthetic #cottagecore #dark academia #beach #log cabin #dream house

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otakusparkle · 1 month

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Identity V Chinese 6th Anniversary Character Congratulations Messages (Part 2)

Part 1

Part 3

Axeboy : Thank you so much! I have never eaten so many delicious foods, nor have I seen so many beautiful decorations! It would be great if my sister could come too...

Wildling : Hello, um...Excuse me, can I use this apple? Ah, no, not use... A good friend of mine needs it...

Evil Reptilian : I heard that an unknown species of scaly creature had been seen here, so I accepted the invitation and came. I didn't expect there would be such a wonderful banquet. So, have you seen the creature that was rumored?

Acrobat : Hey! Happy anniversary! This place is awesome, big stage, and there's a lion outside! It's as lively as one of my favorite places. Here, this is a gift for you, take it!

First Officer : Long time no see! Is your trip going well? As for me, I am doing fine! New route, new partners. Do you want to join us?

Bloody Queen : Hello, happy 6th Anniversary. The setting is very nice, it is a grand and gorgeous party.

Barmaid : Cheers to a wonderful 6th anniversary! I'll make whatever you like to drink! Just be careful not to drink too much!

Guard26 : Nice to meet you, I'm Bonbon. Please accept this bouquet of flowers.

Postman : Hello, this is a letter for you! It’s an invitation to the 6th anniversary party of Oletus Manor. My partner Wick and I will also be there. We look forward to meeting you!

Disciple : Thank you very much for your invitation. I wish Oletus Manor a happy 6th anniversary. Let us pray for the future together for the success of this anniversary party.

Grave Keeper : Sorry for being late...I am honored to be invited to the anniversary party. Are the irises on the table the ones you prepared for me? Thank you, they are very beautiful.

Prisoner : Hello, thanks for the invitation, and happy 6th anniversary. This lively scene always reminds me of the past... If you don't mind, can I use this piano for a while?

Violinist : Oh, what a beautiful hall, bright lights, delicious food... How can such a grand 6th anniversary party be without wonderful music? Let me play this song for you!

Entomologist : Happy 6th anniversary! I brought flowers for you. Do they smell good? Thank you for your love!

Sculptor : Thank you for the invitation, happy 6th birthday.....This banquet is full of various kinds of art, I feel their soul.

Painter : Congratulations on the 6th anniversary. Are you here because you think the banquet is too noisy like me? Good taste, these are all famous paintings that have been collected by the Oletus Manor for a long time.

Undead : What a magnificent feast! Everyone's face was filled with hope... Nothing can make people crazier than hope.

Batter : Really, every year they use the excuse of “there’s a great cricket match here” to call me here! Of course, I’m not against such activities… but isn’t it too much?

Breaking Wheel : Where is the butler? Where is the butler? This year, there are three seats... but why are they children's chairs?

Toy Merchant : Please accept, I brought some lovely little gifts, I hope you like them. Happy 6th anniversary!

Naiad : Thank you very much for your invitation. Although I cannot travel to attend the invitation, I can fully feel your desire to share the 6th anniversary with me. I have picked up some beautiful shells and flowers, you can decorate the venue with them.

Psychologist : Thank you for inviting us. Happy 6th anniversary to Oletus Manor. Emil is a little tired on the journey. Can we borrow a guest room to take a rest? We will come back later.

Patient : Thank you...it's a pleasure to be here with Ada. Happy birthday.

Wax Artist : Happy 6th anniversary. My wax figure exhibition is also opening nearby, you are also welcome to attend. Hmm? Visitor, let me see your face.

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labuenosairesfrancaise · 1 month

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Althorp House, Northamptonshire

Hi guys!!

I'm sharing Althorp House, the seat of Spencer Family. This is one of the most recognizable states in the UK, whose owners have a rich family history.

House History: A hamlet named Althorp existed here in medieval times, believed to have been situated on the southwest side of the park, east of West Lodge. It was first mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as having a population of ten at the time, and being part of the parish of Brington.

In 1469 John Spencer's uncle – also named John Spencer – had become feoffee (feudal lord) of Wormleighton in Warwickshire and a tenant at Althorp in Northamptonshire in 1486. The family's administration of their Northamptonshire and Warwickshire estates gained them admiration and a following throughout England, and their sheep-rearing business earned large profits.[12] After beginning construction of Wormleighton Manor the previous year with some 60 relatives, John Spencer bought Althorp in 1508 for £800 from the Catesby family.

King Charles I is documented to have visited Althorp during his reign. The drawing room was built and the main hall enlarged for the occasion, with £1,300 spent on the banquet, an exorbitant sum for the period.

Robert Spencer built the current house in 1688 and made a series of changes to Althorp park.

More history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althorp

This house fits a 64x64 lot and features the following rooms:

Wooton hall

The painter's gallery

South Drawing room

Billiard room

Long Library

Marlborough room

Sunderland room

State dining room

Principal salon (1st floor) and Spencer's gallery (2nd floor of the salon)

Picture Gallery

Private chapel

The great room

9 Bedrooms/bathrooms

This time I decorated most of the rooms for picture purposes. Hope you like it.

Be warned: I did not have the floor plan for the 2nd floor (Just for the gallery, great room and chapel) The distribution is based on my own decision.

You will need the usual CC I use: all of Felixandre, The Jim, SYB, Anachrosims, Regal Sims, TGS, The Golden Sanctuary, Cliffou, Dndr recolors, etc.

Please enjoy, comment if you like it and share pictures with me if you use my creations!

Early acces: 7/15

#sims 4 architecture #sims 4 build #sims4 #sims4play #sims 4 screenshots #sims 4 historical #sims4building #sims4palace #sims 4 royalty #ts4 download #ts4 simblr #ts4 #ts4 gameplay #ts4 legacy #ts4cc #the sims 4 #sims 4 #ts4 screenshots #althorphouse

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sluttyten · 1 year

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UNHOLY - Chapter Twelve

full masterlist || UNHOLY chapter index

genre: supernatural au

characters: fem reader, yuta, ten, winwin, mark, others mentioned

tags: polyamory, smut, threesome, double penetration, poly negotiations, angst

length: 21,009

summary: with the help of renjun, the three of you finally get closer to reconnecting with yuta and ten

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The Watcher is still there the following morning. Stationed outside the rooms they put you, Mark, and WinWin up in. He’s sitting casually in one of the seats in the nearby lounge area, but he’s there regardless. Just as he was when you and WinWin went down to the Banquet hall for supper last night. He’d resumed his position when you returned from supper, and now here he sits still.

You’re sneaking out this morning.

WinWin was still asleep when you pulled yourself from the bed. Mark was gone, though you had the vague memory of him telling you before you fell asleep just a few hours ago that he was going out to explore the House again.

Curiosity was calling out to you, and it wouldn’t wait for either of your companions. You’d manifested a new outfit, one similar to what you’d worn yesterday, and you’d quickly pulled it on, laced up your boots, and walked out the door into the dawn light of the manor. Pleased with yourself for being so sneaky, you were disappointed to find that damn Watcher.

He lifts his hooded head when you step out, but other than that, he doesn’t move.

You close the door quietly, and without another glance in the Watcher’s direction, you take off down the spiral stairs. You all but run down them, hoping to outdistance the Watcher if he chooses to follow you. Maybe he’s not here for you; maybe he’s watching WinWin or Mark. Regardless, you run down the steps, zip around a corner, take a right, and bolt down a hallway. If he’s following you, he’d better be fast to keep up with you, but when you slow down and look over your shoulder, there’s no sign of him.

You slow fully to a walk, your footsteps muffled on the thick carpet of this hallway. Large windows look out over rainy fields of golden wheat; luscious red velvet curtains are pulled to either side of each window, doing nothing to mask the bright flash of lightning shooting across that sky. The thunder never reaches you, though you’re sure that wherever in the world that window is looking out on, the resulting boom must have been quite loud.

Turning away from the windows, you look at the doors that open off of this hallway. Many of them are shut, some are open only slightly, but each of them calls to your curiosity. Yesterday had only been a little taste of what this house holds. WinWin hadn’t let you go poking your nose through too many doors, but today you want to test them all.

The first door you try is locked, as is the second. The third opens into a completely dark room with furniture draped in dust covers. You continue down every room in that hallway, finding that the closed doors are all locked, and the doors partially opened have nothing of import inside. Disappointing, but you continue on.

You walk along a stretch of hallway that is open on one side with only a handrail keeping you from tumbling down what looks to be seven floors, meaning somehow you’ve gotten from where you were on what had felt like possibly the second floor to now the eighth floor of probably the school wing of this place. A short distance on, you open a door and find an empty auditorium or theater. You find open doors to rooms that are occupied, though you skirt quickly by those, and there are closed doors that you can hear quiet voices behind. And then there are still many, many empty rooms in this place.

You pass no one. The house is silent mostly, and you wander until the sun is rising through the windows that look out onto Purgatory.

Just as you’re considering calling your solo exploration at an end, planning to start the journey back to either the Banquet hall or to your room, you hear the sound of movement behind a closed door to your left. Shuffling footsteps, a thump.

Normally, you would leave it alone, except that you swear you hear your name.

Instantly your mind goes to Mark. It goes to the bully Watchers from yesterday. You’re not sure exactly what you can do against them, but you’re not about to stand idly by if it is Mark inside that room.

You push open the door and find yourself in a strangely completely empty room. It looks nothing like any of the other rooms you’ve seen here. The floors are just unfinished planks, and the walls were once apparently covered in plaster, though now the wooden slats show more than anything else. A mirror hangs crooked on one wall, along with an old sun-faded photograph of a handsome man smiling in front of the sea. There is no furniture unless a rug tightly rolled, covered in dust, and shoved against the wall beneath two windows counts. The view from this room looks out to an overgrown lawn, and through a wall of trees, you can barely make out the sight of a city street beyond. But it’s snowing out there, just on the other side of the window. Some of it has piled on the ledge, and it’s beginning to accumulate in the overgrown grass.

But the room is empty, though you know you just heard someone in here. There’s only one door, the windows firmly shut.

The silence feels less than still, as if someone had just left. You spin in a circle, but the empty shadows and the dust hide nothing.

“What are you doing?” A voice, right at your ear.

You jump, spinning around in fright.

Renjun stands there, smiling peaceably, his hands folded behind his back. “I always find you in strange places. Is there something I can help you with?”

You feel perfectly within your right to eye him suspiciously. “Where did you come from?” He hadn’t made a sound, though you can see his footprints right beside yours in the thick dust covering the wooden planks.

“I saw you come in here. Thought I’d see if you were looking for anything in particular or if you’re just wandering about like yesterday morning.” Renjun bounces lightly on his toes, then suddenly he walks towards the window, tracing his finger over the glass. “It’s pretty out there, isn’t it?” He glances back over his shoulder at you.

You nod. “I miss the snow. It used to be my favorite time of year when I would wake up one morning and the entire neighborhood was covered in untouched snow, just sparkling in the sunlight, waiting to be played in.”

Renjun looks at you for a moment longer before he faces the window again. “I’ve never played in the snow.”

“Never?” You walk forward to stand with him at the window. “That’s an experience I believe everyone should have at least once.”

“I don’t get out of the House much,” Renjun admits. He suddenly turns his back on the window with a sigh. “Can I show you something?”

You’re all about the exploration mindset today, so you don’t hesitate to agree, ready to go along wherever Renjun wants to take you.

He leads you out of the room and down the hallway. You find, as he begins taking twisting turns and stairs and even some of the secret passages hidden behind tapestries and portraits and false walls, you think you have a good idea of the general direction he’s taking you. Even though everything rearranges, you already feel like you’ve got somewhat of an understanding of how this place works. Renjun is slowly leading you down toward the ground floor, somewhere towards where he’d first found you yesterday morning in the unused ballroom.

Renjun brings you out to a long stretch of corridor where the walls are completely covered in tapestries and murals. At the far end of the hallway is a statue of marble that gleams in the sunlight coming through the windows placed sporadically along the hall. From this distance, you can’t quite tell what the statue is, but you can however see the nearest tapestry.

It’s not unlike one that you would have seen at Church or in the monastery your mother took you to visit. There is a male figure clearly representing God situated in the middle of the tapestry, and all of creation spreads out around him. Stars and moons, the planets, the Earth with all of its plants and creatures and people. The work is nothing abnormal, though it is very finely done.

“Is this what you wanted to show me?” You ask Renjun, moving by this first tapestry to the next. “Watcher artwork?”

“Not just artwork. It’s history. Watcher history.” He keeps pace with you. “Like I said, I don’t get out of this House much, and this tapestry hall has always been one of my favorite places. I like to see the stories that I’ve only heard about.” He lifts a hand to brush his fingers along the fabric of the second tapestry, but he stops just shy of making contact. “Do you want to hear them?”

You watch Renjun’s pretty and fine features — the way that his eyes lift to trace familiar patterns on the fabric, his lips twitching with a gentle smile — and then you see the glint of his silvery blond hair beneath the dark top layer, and the way that his eyes flicker between silvery and hazel when he looks over at you. Renjun cocks his head slightly to the side, as if to repeat his question.

You nod. “Tell me.”

Renjun smiles, and he points back over at the first panel on the wall.

“In the beginning was God,” he says.

“I’ve heard this one before,” you bump your shoulder against his. “I was raised religious, so the story of Creation is one that I’ve heard –”

Renjun cuts you off. “You haven’t heard this one.”

He lifts his hand, this time actually tracing the shape of a fox woven into the first panel. His history lesson resumes with, “God created the Universe, filling it with marvels of fire and ice, of gas and rock, of planets and moons and stars that glowed in vivid colors. The Universe was beautiful, but He was lonely. Thus, He begot the Earth. A treasure planet of His for the way that it gleamed in the light of its nearby Sun, warm and damp, ripe to bring forth life. He filled the world with plants, with animals, with people, with experiments and ideas. For a while the Creation entertained Him, but, as any great inventor or creator, He grew bored with His project. Watching the minutiae of life developing no longer interested Him, and therefore He created the Watcher.”

Now Renjun returns to the second panel, and you see the God figure now accompanied by a smaller figure, cloaked and hooded. The taller of the two has his hand held out, as if he’s gesturing towards the woven trees and birds and four-legged creatures.

“First came the High Watcher.” Renjun says, “A companion to God more than anything else. He listened, he learned, he understood his power and his responsibility. All was well. For a time, anyway.” Renjun walks along the wall, and you follow, studying the tapestries that he passes by, but doesn’t linger on. They depict the High Watcher’s study at the right hand of God. Sometimes there are people, just grotesque renditions of humans, and sometimes there are animals or other beings that you can only assume belong to the supernatural realm. You recognize a satyr, a mermaid, a winged woman.

“Pleased with the High Watcher, God took a step back to entertain Himself elsewhere. He left the High Watcher to watch over Creation.” Another few panels showing the cloaked and hooded figure of the High Watcher among God’s creatures on Earth. Slowly, you watch as the images woven into the panels shift. Suddenly there are fires, and then fighting, war and bloodshed. Renjun pauses in front of one that looks particularly brutal. The tapestry consists of a lot of reds, browns, purples, and oranges with minor splashes of other colors.

“The experiments of God and the humans did not get along. They fought each other, destroying each other.” Renjun folds his hands behind his back, gazing up at the wall hanging.

You look as well, regrettably. There you see some kind of beast that closely resembles a werewolf with its claws speared through a human, dripping gore to water the ground. There are carrion birds mixing with harpies in the sky. Small devilish red demons surround humans. Humans tear apart what at first glance appears to be a large cat until you realize it has the face of a woman. “If the High Watcher was meant to be watching over God’s creation, how could all of this happen?”

You close your eyes, just listening as Renjun explains, “There was only so much that the High Watcher could do. He was powerful, but he was only one Watcher. He couldn’t be everywhere, couldn’t see everything. When he witnessed the destruction the humans and the others were wreaking upon each other, he petitioned God for assistance.”

Renjun taps your shoulder, and you move forward, looking to the next tapestry. The High Watcher kneels in petition before God, hands held aloft with a tablet being offered to the taller figure. The next shows God and the High Watcher accompanied by several more figures. “First, God created Hell. He took the demons from Earth, and He gave them Hell, a place to reign and to punish. He created Heaven, a place of peace for those deserving. Lastly, God created the high-level Watchers to assist the High Watcher. These He trained as He had the High Watcher before them. They listened, they learned, they understood their power and responsibilities. These high-level Watchers received the freedom of control over their assigned areas of surveillance. They were intelligent and powerful, yet they aspired for more.

“This second generation of Watchers pooled their knowledge, they experimented with their powers, growing and developing until they possessed almost more power than the High Watcher himself. As the Watchers grew, so too did humanity and the experiments of God. They grew in number while the headcount of Watchers remained unchanged. It grew difficult to oversee everything, even with their abilities. The high-level Watchers went to the High Watcher, and once more he petitioned God for help.”

You watch the story playing out on the tapestries as Renjun leads you along, amazed to watch as the world and the people within it develop and expand. You look at depictions of the high-level Watchers descending towards the people on the ground, and they look every bit like an angel might, glowing golden, radiant. You see the high-level Watchers experimenting with their powers to transform shapes, to create things from nothing, they fly and they breathe underwater. To you, it seems that they’re attempting to possess all of the powers that God endowed on his experimental supernatural creatures.

“God created the low-level Watchers now.” Renjun continues without pause, “These He did not train. He passed them into the care of the high-level Watchers to train as they saw fit. The second generation of Watchers did not wish for their juniors to be able to overpower them. They wished for the new Watchers to remain their subordinates, therefore they passed on only as much knowledge as they wished to disclose while they still secretly developed their own knowledge, withholding their discoveries from the High Watcher and from God.

“In time, even the power of all the Watchers that were at that time was not enough to prevent the Wars Between the Races. The High Watcher was already old by this point, blinded by his visions of overlapping time – the past, present, and ever-changing future – and the high-level Watchers were buried in their endless pursuit of knowledge and power.” Renjun points at a painted mural that now takes the place of the row of tapestries. You see black cloaked Watchers on the ground among the warring humans and supernatural others while the high-level Watchers sit above in their glowing halos of gold, and the High Watcher sits shrouded in a dark corner of the image.

“The low-level Watchers were overwhelmed, so they bridged the divide between themselves and God, pleading with Him for aid in this War Between the Races wherein His Earthly creations were destroying each other.” A new mural, and this time a cluster of the black-cloaked Watchers climb the Heavens to lay their appeal before God, the next shows the Watchers in black standing once more on Earth beside Watchers in silver. “The Soldier Watchers were born,” Renjun explains.

You can’t help gasping as your eyes finally come to rest upon the statue here at the end of the corridor. You can’t believe you’ve already reached the end.

“Terrifying, right?” Renjun comments at the sound of your surprised gasp. “Soldier Watchers, arrayed in their silver, their dazzling crowns, wearing sun rays as weapons.”

Together you look at the statue that is exactly as Renjun has just described. The statue is carved out of some sort of gray stone, possibly granite, though the cloak is polished to an impossible shade of silvery gray, the folds of the cloak are embellished with actual silver. A jagged crown of obsidian, pearls, and diamonds sits atop the effigy’s head, and rays of sunlight pour through the window just behind this marvelous piece of art, radiating around this Soldier Watcher in a way that visibly mimics blades.

Renjun bows his head slightly, and it takes you a moment to realize that he’s not performing the motion out of respect, but rather he’s looking at the base of the statue. A hemispherical base that is artistically and intentionally cracking, fracturing in places. “The Soldier Watchers tore the world apart,” Renjun’s voice is quiet as he says, “They split the natural from the supernatural, or the humans and the experiments. God divided the World, the Life and the Afterlife. Heaven and Hell already existed to some degree, but He created a new realm: Purgatory, the land of the Watchers, to observe safely from a distance, a place in which to decide judgment. He created a city on Earth for His supernatural children to live in peace, apart from His other children.”

Hell City.

Renjun turns to face you, and he startled, looking beyond your shoulder. Quickly you twist around too.

A dark figure is skidding around the corner, running along the hall towards you in a blur, and it’s only when he slides to a halt right in front of you, that you recognize Mark. You have only the briefest moment of recognition before his hand is around your wrist, and then you’re flying too. The world blurs around you in an uncomfortable sort of way, and then it resolves into a mass of gray in front of your eyes, which has you confused for a moment until you hear Mark’s breath beside you. You’re crouched right beside him, and when you turn towards him to find that there is a window behind you looking out over a sunny seascape.

Mark is panting, his hair windswept from his run, and he’s clutching your wrist tight enough that you can’t feel your fingers.

“Mark, what is—?”

He releases your wrist just to cover your mouth with his hand instead. “Quiet. I was being chased by a herd of Watchers.” He holds a finger to his lips.

As you listen to the silence, you do hear the distant thunder of racing footsteps, and then you hear Renjun’s voice just on your other side, a whispered, “Why’re we hiding?”

You spin around fast enough that your neck aches. Renjun crouches there, close enough that you’re shocked you didn’t know he was there before he spoke. You see that his fingers are curled around the edge of a stone plinth, and then you realize that Mark dragged you behind the statue of the soldier Watcher, where Renjun promptly joined you.

And then Renjun hears it too.

The footsteps and the voices.

His eyes go wide and his mouth forms an O of surprise. He scoots just a little bit closer to you, more securely hidden behind the statue. Mark tenses up, pulling you closer, a bit further away from Renjun.

None of you say anything or move at all as the Watchers come closer. You feel Mark’s cool hand still covering your mouth, his other hand rests at your waist. The Watchers rumble by and you hear their grumbling, rude voices — “What did that leech think he was doing?” and “Free to wander? Vermin like him should be locked up or just exterminated,” and “Next time I see that vampire, no questions asked. I’ve never met a vampire that wasn’t a piece of trouble.” — and it makes your stomach curl with horror to realize that they’re talking about Mark. You cover his hand at your waist, squeezing his fingers lightly.

Luckily, these Watchers seem to be young ones, and despite the fact that they’re called Watchers, they’re not very observant. They all run right towards the statue, but they take a left where a new hall stretches forward. Not one of them thinks to check if anyone is hiding behind the bulk of the Soldier Watcher’s statue. You, Mark, and Renjun watch in silence as the whole herd of Watchers run down the other hallway, and then they plunge together down a staircase to the floor below.

Mark lets out a breath, slumping down to the floor.

“Fuck,” he curses, squeezing his eyes shut and pressing his cheek to the floor though he still clutches your hand in his. “Damn, I thought I was a goner when they started chasing me. I couldn’t run fast enough, I felt so sluggish.”

“That would be due to the animal blood,” Renjun says quietly. He’s not looking at either you or Mark; he’s still looking at the spot where the Watcher horde disappeared. “We don’t have human blood, so the blood the kitchen’s been sending up has been animal blood. I’ve read studies on vampires, and all the experimental studies show a decrease in the power of vampire skills is a result of the alternative diet.”

Mark opens his eyes slowly, red irises peeking out from half-opened lids. “I’ve never heard that before.”

Renjun shrugs. “How many vampires who drink animal blood do you know?”

You can read the answer plainly on Mark’s face. There aren’t many, if there are any at all.

When Renjun moves closer to you again Mark bares his teeth and hisses. Renjun actually rolls his eyes and sighs. “I’m not one of them!” He insists. “I promise you, I don’t care that you’re a vampire. I’m not like the Watchers who have such a deep-seated hatred for vampires, hating your kind more than they hate anything other than a demon, maybe. You being a vampire doesn’t make you any less of an actual person, not to me. I don’t think it makes you evil or vile. So stop acting like I’m about to treat you like they do.”

Mark stares at him. “How can we possibly trust you? How are you not one of them? You live here, don’t you? You passively sit by and let them do everything they do, don’t you?”

Renjun’s lips form into a tight line. He stands up, still looking down at you and Mark, and then without another word, he walks away.

“Way to go, Mark,” you groan, pulling your hand away from him. “I like him! He’s nice, and he was teaching me about the Watchers. You and WinWin need to pull your heads out of your asses, honestly. He’s not a bad guy.”

Mark looks at Renjun’s empty spot, his eyebrows slightly furrowed as he blinks. You wish you could know what he was thinking, but mind-reading is yet another skill that Yuta and Ten had failed to teach you before their arrest. Looking at Mark, you try to follow the instructions you’d received in one of the few lessons your demons had given you in mind-reading, but you get nothing more than maybe the slightest hazy vision of yourself from Mark’s perspective on the floor, but that could just be your own imagination’s conjuring.

After several moments, Mark sits up. “Do you really think we can trust him?” He asks. “Not to sound like WinWin, but you have been known to trust blindly too quickly. Don’t go,” Mark says quickly when you start to stand up. His hand falls on your knee, keeping you hidden behind the statue with him so he can say, “I just mean, I can see why you like him. He’s got a pure, trustworthy face. He does seem nice and friendly. I just… I find it difficult to believe that we can trust someone who lives in the House of the Watchers, who seems so comfortable here?”

But does Renjun really seem all that comfortable here? You feel like every time you’ve seen him he’s trying his best to be quiet. He seems secretive. And he hid when you and Mark hid, he seemed just as surprised and scared of the passing Watchers as you and Mark had. Yes, he knows a lot about the House, the Watchers and their history, but that doesn’t seem something that could make him untrustworthy. He’s been nothing but helpful since you first arrived.

“Why don’t we just try to find our way back to WinWin?” You say, and you do stand up this time. Peering around the edges of the statue, you see nothing but the empty halls, the murals and tapestries, and your shadow stretching along the floor from the light behind you.

“What about them?” Mark asks, rising to his feet. “You heard what they were saying. If we cross paths, I’m not at full strength.”

“Are you scared, Mark? Don’t forget who you are. You’re that badass boss from Hell City. Don’t let a few bully Watchers make you think that you have to cower behind a statue. Even at half strength, I’m sure you could beat them in a fight.” You shake your head. “We’ll be fine.”

The look on Mark’s face tells you that he doesn’t believe your words, but he follows you out from behind the statue regardless.

Navigating your way through the House isn’t as difficult as you would have thought. You recognize some of the spots you pass by, and while you know that they could have possibly reconfigured since you passed through, you and Mark seem to be making your way back towards the area where you’re fairly certain your spiral staircase up to your rooms is. Mark does make you hesitate at every corner to make sure there aren’t any Watchers lurking, which does slow down your progress a bit.

You feel like you must be nearly there when the sound of the bell calling the Watchers to breakfast sounds through the place. The gonging echoes along the corridors, vibrating the windows, and Mark grabs you and pulls you back against him. His back is pressed to the wall, and you’re pressed against him, your hands trapped between your chest and his. For a moment, you stay like that, frozen by the heat of his eyes locked on yours, your breath tangling with his as close as you are. It takes several long seconds until you gather your wits and pry yourself away. Mark’s fingers grapple with your shirt to pull you back, but you knock his hands away.

“It’s fine, Mark. They’re all going to be down in the Banquet Hall eating, not searching for you.” You turn around to look at Mark while you back away. “So let’s go while we can still make it back to the room without any of them seeing you. Once we’re there, you don’t have to leave again until the trial, if that’s what you want. But they’re all down at the Banquet Hall, so let’s move be—”

Your shoulders bump into something. Firmer than the nothing that you were expecting to be there, yet softer than a wall which is what you’re hoping for. And then you feel fingers curl against your arms. A chill creeps up your spine, especially when you see the pale, bloodless look of Mark’s face.

“We’ve been looking for you,” drawls a low voice.

You’re ready to put your fighting lessons with Mark and WinWin into effect. Your muscles tense, ready to break free of this man’s hold, to spin around and take him down so you and Mark have time to run.

Before you can do that, the Watcher forcibly turns you around to face him.

You see the black robes, the glint of silver at his shoulder. It’s that damn stalker Watcher. You squirm, trying to shove him away, but he doesn’t let go. Behind him, you can see two other black-cloaked Watchers.

“The High Watcher would like another audience. Please, stop struggling.” He releases you suddenly, and you stumble backwards. You likely would have hit the floor, except that Mark is suddenly there, arms around your waist while your shoulders brace against his chest. The three Watchers just look down at you, their veiled gazes burning against your skin, or maybe that’s just the feel of Mark’s icy fingers where your top has come untucked from your waistband, his cold skin against yours.

The stalker Watcher extends one hand, gesturing at you and Mark. “He will allow, this time, for your companion to come as well,” he announces. “Especially if it will make you come along more willingly.”

Is this some kind of a trick? You glance up at Mark, and he’s already looking at you.

“I don’t think WinWin would be too happy with me if I let you go with them alone,” Mark murmurs. “And I don’t see them letting us not go with them.”

He makes some valid points. It’s decided. You’ll go with them.

The three Watchers form a triangle around you and Mark, and they lead you back to the court room where you’d convened with the High Watcher just the previous morning.

Mark gasps audibly, a familiar reaction, as the Watchers bring you into the room.

The seats along the sides of the room, as well as the High Watcher’s throne, are vacant. Now three seats are positioned in the middle of the room where yesterday there had been only one, and you can’t help wondering if they’re dragging WinWin to this, or if the third chair was just an eventuality. You and Mark are herded right to the seats, and wordlessly, you take them.

Two of the Watchers drift back towards the doors. The stalker Watcher, however, remains. He stands close guard on the two of you, so close that you dare not speak, not that you think Mark would be listening anyway. His head spins on a swivel, eyes wide and mouth agape in awe of the room, of the rose window behind the throne, the dazzling shimmering light.

He’s still observing the room while you observe him, when the doors of the court room reopen, and the stream of Watchers and the High Watcher enter the room.

Several of the Watchers look rather annoyed, and you wonder if they got the chance to eat their breakfasts before the High Watcher pulled them away. He looks mild, pacing the length of the room steadily, expressionless. He doesn’t even spare you and Mark a glance until after he’s climbed his throne and seated himself as comfortably as that seat can possibly make him. His strange eyes stare out at you, but his gaze seems distant and distracted, seeing you and possibly seeing more.

You can’t help thinking of the tapestry hall, of Renjun’s stories. Looking at this wrinkled old Watcher, you can hardly believe that he’s so old, as old as Creation itself essentially. This man has convened with God, has observed humanity since the earliest days. He has lived through every great moment, every tragedy, the highs and the lows of time.

“You are probably wondering why I have summoned you back here today, aren’t you, my dear?” The High Watcher says in his raspy voice. Mark startles beside you, as if he’d expected to hear a different voice, or perhaps he hadn’t expected the High Watcher to speak at all. The High Watcher doesn’t even acknowledge Mark’s presence as he says, “We were curious about you. What can you do, dear girl?”

Something in his voice makes you sit up a little straighter. You put your hands on your knees and clear your throat. What does he mean by that: what can you do?

Your silence fills the room.

“Surely,” the High Watcher sighs, “Surely you understand your power? We would like to see.”

What do they want from you? A light show? Didn’t some of them already get a show of that yesterday in the library?

“Why do you want to see that?” Mark asks, and his voice sounds surprisingly croaky. He clears his throat. “I mean, she does what any basic demon can do with fire.”

You want to pinch him to tell him to shut up, but you can’t without making it obvious. The High Watcher’s gaze has gained some clarity. Every single other eye in the room is trained on the two of you. The stalker Watcher is still standing close at hand.

“I can produce fire, though I’m sure you’re already aware of that.” You lift a hand from your leg, summoning a flame hardly bigger than a spark to dance across your fingertips. It’s barely visible in the bright light of the room.

The High Watcher at last smiles, though it’s a grim rendition. “Yes, the incident yesterday. A mistake, on all sides.” He waves a hand in the air, as if trying to erase the event from your minds, but you can’t so easily forgive the Watchers that intended harm. “Your fire was quite a surprise, as you might imagine. And while it wasn’t welcome in our library, there isn’t much here to burn, if you wouldn’t mind a demonstration. We haven’t had much of a chance to witness demon fire in quite a long time. Some of the brothers haven’t ever had the opportunity to amaze at it.”

So you’ve been brought here as what? Some kind of circus freak? As an experimental study, like the studies on vampires that Renjun had mentioned earlier? And although there aren’t any books in this room, and not much here might be flammable other than the clothes you all wear and the chairs, there is one particularly flammable thing close at hand.

Mark sits beside you, staring over at you when you push to your feet.

Vampires and fire don’t mix. That’s one thing you’ve learned since arriving in Hell City. They’re quite flammable, and fire is the one thing that they can’t come back from. If the High Watcher wants to witness you going all-out with your demon fire, you’re not about to do it when Mark is in any sort of proximity to you. You won’t hurt him, just as you wouldn’t do it if WinWin was beside you, nor anyone else that you’ve met, excluding Ten or Yuta. If the High Watcher would be so kind as to bring the two demons out and have them stand beside you, you would do anything he asks of you, even if it meant turning yourself supernova.

“You just want me to show off a little demon fire?” You ask as you raise your hand again, this time summoning a ball of fire to roll around in the palm of your hand. It slowly expands until it’s swallowed your fingers, licking wild flames at the edges, like the corona of the sun. The heat of it kisses your cheeks, producing a faint breeze that plays with the loose hairs around your face.

The High Watcher’s smile twists into one of delight, and you can see your golden flames reflecting in his eyes. The Watchers along the ages of the room murmur in low voices to each other. Behind you, the stalker Watcher twitches, taking a step closer before he falls back again. You don’t know what any of this means, why they’re possibly so delighted by your relatively little light show.

Once the light fades, the heat in your palms all that remains of the small fireball, the High Watcher sits forward. “And what else can you do?”

You wish you could say that you didn’t spend all morning standing there in that long hall, testing the limits of your power for the amusement of the Watchers. You wish that Mark didn’t have to sit there beside you through it all. You wish that they would at least have brought you something to eat since you were feeling drained the longer it went on.

After a while you were exhausted and annoyed, and when new tricks were requested, you began to be openly hostile. You threw darts of fire towards the Watchers, slung around ropes of fire.

For the most part you kept yourself in check because you didn’t want to show them all of what you can do, so you kept your ability to teleport a secret. Some of the little tricks that Yuta and Ten had taught you, you kept those close to your chest too, but many other things you showed them because the High Watcher kept pressing you for more. He wanted to see it all, and the look on his face read like a child enchanted by a magician’s tricks at a party, enraptured as he watched you succeed in some minor shape-shifting as you stretch yourself taller into an almost ghastly shape, towering and curving forward with a leering grin.

It’s only when you finally collapse backwards into your seat, heart hammering, and the world growing slightly hazy at the edges that Mark leans over you, his cool hands on your cheeks.

“That’s enough,” Mark calls, twisting his head around to look over his shoulder. “You push her any further and you could kill her.”

“Yes, yes,” the High Watcher rasps. “We’re done for the day.”

When he looks back at you, Mark is the only thing you can see. His vibrant eyes are a dark shade of red, closer to brown. His eyebrows are drawn with worry, wrinkling the skin between. His hands push at your hair, touch your heated cheeks. “Don’t pass out, okay? WinWin will kill me if I bring you back unconscious.” He looks up behind you and says, “Can’t you get someone to bring her some food or something? She needs to get her strength back up.”

You hear the rumble of the court of Watchers getting to their feet, filing from the room, and you suddenly remember something very important. You find the strength to lift your head, and you peer around the room until you see the hazy shape of the High Watcher stepping down from his high seat.

“High Watcher!” You manage to push the words out. “One thing, please, before you go?”

You hear shuffling footsteps and the gentle thump of his staff on the ground, and then there he stands before you, hunched and ancient. The wrinkles in his face are deep canyons, and this close you can see that his eyes appear so strange because they’re glazed with age. His voice is still a hoarse rasp when he answers, “Yes, child?”

“Some of the Watchers, the student ones, they’re threatening my friend, Mark.” You gesture to the vampire in question, continuing, “Based solely on their prejudices, they are threatening serious harm to him if they cross paths with him. Can’t you do something about that?”

He nods. “I will make it known, that is not permitted. Guests are to be treated with respect. Causing undue harm has never been permissible for Watchers, nor for anyone.” He nods once more, and then looks behind you to who you can only assume is your shadow — the stalker Watcher. “Find the girl some food, and make sure they return safely. Good day to the two of you.” He bows his head and shuffles away, looking every bit the average old man.

Although WinWin was a bit pissed when the stalker Watcher silently returns you and Mark to the suite of rooms, he’s more grateful that you’re okay. He spent a good ten minutes or more hugging you, checking you over for injuries as Mark recounted the events of the morning. You felt fine since an elf runner from the kitchen had delivered food to you and a bottle of blood to Mark in the court room.

Most of the next few hours was just spent in the common room. Mark and WinWin confer in quiet voices while you doze in the window seat, basking in sunlight. You don’t really have any idea what they’re whispering about until you briefly wake from your light sleep, and you overhear WinWin say, “Their scents were strongest around that spot. So surely they must be keeping them somewhere around there, right?”

“Maybe.” Mark sounds deep in though, but you don’t dare to lift an eyelid to take a peek. If either of them notice that you’re awake they’ll get quiet again. “I still think they’ve got to be keeping them somewhere super secret. Like, somewhere that the fucked up rearrangement algorithm of this place would keep totally hidden unless you had, like, a key or the secret password.”

Their voices fall again, and sleep is pulling you back under, the kiss of the sun on your cheeks. You drift in and out for a while, but when you finally fully wake, you find yourself wrapped in warmth, cushioned on the sofa in WinWin’s arms.

He’s spooning you, face tucked against your hair, arms twined around you. His heart thuds against your back, but you can tell he’s not asleep. Mark sits across the room, feet propped up on the coffee table, reading a book by firelight. The sky outside is caught in the range of twilight, dim with heavy night falling fast.

As nice as it feels to lie here wrapped in WinWin, there’s a conclusion that you came to while you napped. You need to find Ten and Yuta, and you need to get out of here with them. Leaving sooner rather than later is ideal, especially after how today has gone. The chasing and threatening of Mark. The trial of your abilities by the Watchers. Their obvious dislike for Mark and WinWin both, while being apparently fascinated by you. You don’t like any part of this, and you want to find your demon boyfriends and get the fuck out as soon as you can.

After overhearing Mark and WinWin while you were supposed to be sleeping, your drowsing mind had done some thinking.

If you can find the dungeon, if you can locate Yuta and Ten, maybe you can teleport them out of here. You can get all of you out of this House, you can jump back through that pond in the forest, and you can run from it all, run from the Watchers and the trial and everything.

You don’t really want to just do research anymore. You want to break your boyfriends free.

So you bring that up right then, while WinWin hugs you a little tighter, while Mark looks up at you from over the edge of his book. “Let’s break them out,” you suggest. “Tonight.”

WinWin snorts. “Good idea, princess. And I’d be fully on board if we had even the slightest idea of where the hell we’re supposed to find them. We don’t know where they’re being held, do we? Mark and I have been theorizing, and we don’t know. And even if we did know, how are we supposed to find it? Everything in this House is confusing and constantly moving. Getting to them feels impossible, but even if we did get to Ten and Yuta, then how do you expect us to be able to get out of here without being caught? Do you think the Watchers don’t have measures in place for eventualities like that?”

He’s right. They probably do.

“But there must be something we can do?” You slip flat onto your back, staring up at the ceiling in here, which you’ve not yet realized it was so intricate until now. It’s crisscrossed with painted vines and flowers, some birds and butterflies tucked in between. “Don’t you think they’ve probably got a record, somewhere in that massive library, of where they keep their prisoners, and how the place is guarded?”

WinWin sighs, lowering his forehead to rest against the side of your head. “Do you want to go to the library? Do you want to look all night, will that make you feel better?”

“It’s got to be better than doing nothing!” You slide away from him and then sit up. “I don’t want to be here anymore, but we can’t just leave without actually trying to help get Yuta and Ten out of there.”

Mark snaps shut the book in his hands. “So we’re taking a night trip to the library?” He sits the book aside, “What are we waiting for?”

Truly, you’re hardly even surprised when halfway to the library, your stomach begins growling. Your last meal had been hours and hours ago, and you can still feel the effects of exhaustion from using so much power for all those hours this morning.

“Detour to the kitchen?” WinWin asks, his voice teasing and light. “I’m sure Miss Boa will have something for you.”

Mark, who you’d made sure to tell all about the kitchen adventure after you returned to your rooms the day before, agrees to a kitchen detour.

It takes a little bit of attempting to navigate and then mostly relying on WinWin’s nose to get you there, but soon enough you’re spit out into the hallway that holds the kitchen. The doors swing open easily enough when you step inside, Mark and WinWin following behind you. Only a few elves are working, kneading bread and working over the large fire. It looks just as cozy and smells just as comforting in here as it had before, and it takes only a few seconds before Boa appears.

Her face breaks into a smile. “Look who’s back. And you’ve brought your friend now.” She doesn’t hesitate to welcome your trio to the back of the kitchen, fussing somewhat like a mother hen when she hears your stomach loudly grumble. “Take a seat, take a seat,” she says, fanning you through the kitchen towards the dim corner where the tables are.

The kitchen isn’t nearly as bright as it had been on your first visit. The fire isn’t burning nearly as high and there’s no sunlight to pour through the windows, but even so, you can make out the shape of someone already sitting at the tables. At first glance you assume it’s the ancient elf still, but as you draw closer you realize that you are wrong. It’s not an elderly elf sitting there, but rather a young one.

“Renjun!” You slide down into a seat at his table before anyone can object. He looks up, first at Mark, then WinWin, before his gaze settles on you. A light smile rises to his lips.

Mark sits beside you, offering Renjun a smile. You suppose maybe he’s decided that Renjun isn’t so bad after all. WinWin, however, harrumphs a little and still shows Renjun a cold shoulder as he takes a seat as well. Boa returns to the table, bringing still-warm bits from dinner, some wine, some pastries. Renjun’s already picking at a plate, which he returns to while you and WinWin serve yourselves from what Boa has brought over. She excuses herself after dropping off enough food to feed you all more than enough, and she returns to her cooking duties, and Mark watches as all of you eat in silence.

Mark can’t seem to stand the silence, so after a moment he begins talking, and in his talking, he tells Renjun about your plan to visit the library. He doesn’t tell him exactly what you all are looking for, and Renjun doesn’t ask, but he does however agree to help you three find your way to the library.

“It’s better to go around this hour, or any time through the night. The novices, they don’t visit much after dark. They’ve got other Watcher lessons then, like astronomy and stuff.” He pops a cherry into his mouth, then says, “So there shouldn’t be anyone there to harass you this time.”

WinWin doesn’t seem to like the idea much of Renjun tagging along, but you point out to him that it’ll be much faster to have Renjun guide you through this House that he clearly knows well, than for the three of you to wander the halls aimlessly until you happen upon it. So, after you’ve eaten your fill, Renjun leads the way out of the kitchen, waving goodbye to Boa on the way.

The library, as well as the hallways on the way there, is dark. Night has fully settled in around the House, and although some of the windows offer you different views, it’s dark in all of them. The library at least has orb-lights at the ends of the rows and at each of the little study tables to provide enough light to see by. The rows of bookshelves appear entirely empty, as if all of the Watchers have disappeared for the night, not that you mind.

You all divide to look through the shelves, similar to the day before, though this time there’s no stalker Watcher lingering in the aisle with you as you search, and this time WinWin allows you to put at least an aisle between you and him, though you know he’s keeping an eye on Renjun, not trusting him enough to let him out of his sight while you’re freely wandering. You end up with a stack of books once more, and when you bring them to a table to begin flipping through them, Mark and Renjun are already sitting there, poring over the books.

“They guard their secrets well,” Renjun is telling Mark when you arrive. “But I’m sure there are records of past trials, Watcher laws and mandates, and all that sort of stuff here somewhere. I’ll be back.” He flits away from the table, darting towards a winding, narrow staircase that leads up to the second level.

WinWin joins the table after a few more minutes with his own stack of books as well as a couple rolls of parchment, all of which he spreads out at one end of the table and begins to quietly peruse. This is how the next couple hours pass, filled with the silent turning of pages, the occasional scribble as one of you finds something interesting to jot down on the bits of note paper that are provided on the table. Renjun returns occasionally to drop off something new, never lingering long, and you’re fairly certain it’s because WinWin glares at him each time.

You’re not exactly sure how much Renjun knows about what you’re looking for. You don’t know if Mark told him the truth, a partial truth, or if he just drew his own conclusions about what the three of you are trying to find here in the library, but you appreciate his help regardless.

On the few occasions that the doors of the library do open through the night, Renjun makes himself scarce, and you wonder what his personal aversion to the Watchers is. You understand because you hate the way that they look at Mark and WinWin, the things they say, and how they look at you too, especially after the impromptu showcase you’d given the High Watcher this morning. Luckily, no one bothers you three in the library, and you ignore all of them anyway, too intent on your research to care about what’s going on around you. Surely, somewhere in all of this vast repository of knowledge, there’s some record of where you might be able to find where the Watchers keep their prisoners.

Mark seems to be looking mostly at trials through history, WinWin’s books and scrolls cover a little bit of everything. You’re mainly focusing on the architecture of the House, mixed in with other historical tidbits. None of you seem to be making much progress as the night goes on.

At one point, when both Mark and Renjun are away, WinWin sighs loudly and lays his head down on the book he’d been flipping idly through. He doesn’t lift his head, but he does turn his head so he’s looking at you. His eyes glitter in the low light.

You lay a hand on his cheek, and WinWin’s eyes flutter shut with an exhale.

“I’m tired,” he admits.

“Then sleep. We’ll wake you when we leave,” you tell him, but WinWin shakes his head. “Do you want to go back to our room?”

That makes him crack an eyelid to take a look at you. A small grin starts to form. “Will you come with me?” One of his hands slips down from the table to rest on your knee. “You know, I’ve found I sleep much better when you’re there beside me.”

It’s a weak attempt, but it makes your belly flutter a bit. “I’m trying to research, Win.”

He sighs and turns his head just enough that he can brush his lips along your wrist. You slide your hand away from his cheek, fingers curving over his neck instead while he smiles softly at you. “Mark and that guy will still be here. We can return in the morning. But I wanna sleep, and I wanna sleep with you.”

“Oh, okay, this was a weird point to come back to,” Mark grumbles as he appears from nowhere to drop into the seat across from you.

You pull yourself away from WinWin who sits upright, but he keeps his hand on your knee beneath the table. It’s distracting, really. Even once WinWin has turned his attention back to the texts in front of him, once Mark is thumping open a dusty, heavy book, you can’t bring yourself to focus on the words in front of you anymore. It’s some boring diary of a Watcher who studied architecture, and although you’d thought it seemed promising when you pulled it from the shelf earlier, it mostly seemed to be him talking about minor details and how to make new, modern additions — such as a refrigerator in the kitchen. He did, at least, write about the shifting windows, explaining it as some Watcher magic to be able to look out into the human world, to keep an eye on things.

It’s not long before your eyes are drooping, head bobbing as you dip off to sleep for seconds at a time. Mark notices first, before anyone else at the table, and his foot nudges your leg beneath the table.

Your head snaps up, and you blink until the world isn’t so hazy anymore. Mark’s eyes are wide, dark in the dim library lighting, just as soft as his affectionate smile. “Why don’t you and WinWin go back to the rooms, go to sleep?” Mark suggests. “Renjun and I can stay up a bit longer.”

Renjun sits brightly at the end of the table, looking totally refreshed and awake, smiling a bit when he looks up at you. “I’ll make sure that Mark gets safely back to you. We’ll take secret passages and the like so no bully Watchers try anything,” he promises.

That’s good enough for you. You nod, agreeing to go. You could definitely fall asleep right now if you laid your head down on the table.

“Let’s go,” WinWin says as he pushes his chair back from the table. His warm hand takes hold of yours, swallowing your hand in his to pull you from your seat before you can change your mind about going. WinWin doesn’t let go of your hand, not once you’re on your feet, not when you’re leaving the library, and not at any point after that. He simply holds your hand and strolls with you through the candlelit or moonlit corridors. You pass by Watcher night classes, by a wood paneled room where it seems several of the black cloaked Watchers are having a meeting, by a disturbingly accurate and life-sized portrait of the High Watcher that looks so realistic in the moonlight that you swear his eyes move, by a room with a closed door that you can hear metallic clashing and thumping sounds that really make you want to take a peek inside, but WinWin pulls you away.

You find it surprisingly easy for you and WinWin to navigate your way back to your rooms. Soon enough, you’re walking along the hallway that meets the top of the spiral stairs, the door to the common room right there. As soon as you’ve stepped over the threshold, your drowsiness returns in full force.

“Come to bed,” WinWin singsongs, tugging lightly at your hand to bring you through the door of the yellow bedroom. You follow. You pull your outfit off in pieces until you’re clambering into the bed in nothing more than your underwear. A moment later, WinWin climbs in on the other side, the heat of his bare skin meeting yours.

He hesitates to touch you more than just a simple brush of limbs beneath the sheets.

You sigh, reaching over, and you pull his arm around you as you scoot closer. There’s a dip in the mattress that pulls you fully against him, not that you’re complaining. It feels nice to be so skin-to-skin with him, just the barest thinnest layers of clothing preventing every inch of you from being in contact.

“Tomorrow,” WinWin promises with his lips against your hair. “Tomorrow we’ll find them, I’m sure of it. Then we’ll get the hell out of here and go home, all five of us.”

You press your cheek to WinWin’s chest, over his steadily beating heart which beats a little faster with your breath making condensation against his skin. “I hope you’re right, WinWin.”

He kisses your head, wraps his arms a little tighter around you, and slowly you let your drowsiness overwhelm you at last.

The windows in the morning fill with bright sunlight. It paints the insides of your eyelids the color of honey and amber, kisses your lips and wraps you in its warmth. You’re reluctant to open your eyes, not wanting to break the cozy spell you’re in, don’t want to ruin the moment. But it’s the sudden sound of a voice outside the yellow bedroom’s door that does it.

Your eyes snap open.

WinWin groans.

His hand presses flat against your belly, dragging you back towards him. His forehead nudges your shoulder. “Don’t move. Let’s stay for a little longer.” His lips touch at your bare skin. “You disappeared on me yesterday morning, don’t you think you should stay with me just a few moments longer?”

You stay, but it’s not because of his persuasive skills.

You swear you can hear distant birdsong. There’s the closer sound of a voice speaking out in the common room, and it’s Mark’s familiar tone, and although you wonder why he’s out there talking, the subtle heat of the sunrise pairs nicely with the less-subtle heat and press of WinWin’s body at your back.

You stay like that until you become aware of the vital need to relieve yourself — just a small nuisance one moment, and then all you can think about the next. WinWin whines when you first try to push his arm away so you can get up. He holds you closer.

“Stay,” he sleepily pleads.

“If you don’t let me up, I’m going to piss on you,” you hiss, struggling to push away his iron grip.

WinWin lets you go, but as you scurry over to the en-suite bathroom, WinWin calls out, “Was that a threat or a promise, princess?”

You only glare at him over your shoulder before closing the bathroom door, his laughter sounding from the bed.

When you re-emerge from the bathroom a few moments later, WinWin is sitting up on the edge of the bed, his arms stretched above his head as he twists from side to side to crack his back and stretch his muscles after sleep. You stand captivated, watching the way his muscles move, the way the sunlight runs along his spine. WinWin tilts his head, and it takes you far too long to realize that he’s watching you watching him.

He’s on his feet in an instant, crossing the room in long strides to stand in front of you. WinWin cups your cheeks in his hands, tipping your chin up. “You look so pretty this morning,” he says softly, his eyes molten amber in the sunlight, melting against yours. “Cute when you’re flustered.”

You let your gaze drop. “What makes you think I’m flustered?”

His fingers brush over your cheeks, heat rising to meet his touch. He doesn’t answer your question aloud, but he does step away from you and gesture towards the door. “Why don’t we go see if Mark found any answers while we slept?”

You look away from WinWin, pushing down the wave of wanting that fills you right then. You want to hold his hand against your cheek a little longer. You want to lie in bed with him. You miss proximity and intimacy; you miss that warm glow of being in love, the sensation of feeling full in a way that you haven’t felt since Ten sent you away on that Hell City street. With WinWin, you’re starting to feel that cold spot start to warm up again, each day allowing yourself a little closer to him.

WinWin walks ahead of you, swinging open the bedroom door to the common room.

Mark lifts his head, a smile already on his lips. And beside him, perched on the edge of the window seat, is Renjun. WinWin immediately tenses up, stepping in front of you to block you. A growl rumbles from his chest.

“What’s he doing here?”

“I let him in,” Mark says plainly. “We’ve been—”

“You let him in?” WinWin interrupts, pulling away from you to stalk toward Renjun sitting in silvery sunlight on the bench seat. “This is meant to be a safe place, Mark, do you not remember what we’ve discussed before?”

You step around WinWin, leaving the doorway behind you.

Mark shrugs. “I remember. I don’t think it applies to him.”

“Like hell it doesn’t.” WinWin is all tense, muscles wound tight. “We’ve been here for days now, and when have any of them shown us even an ounce of respect? We’ve seen a dozen examples of how much all of these damn Watchers hate us. They are rude, violent, watching us and just waiting for the chance to pounce.” His eyes flare as he stares at Renjun. “Even after your High Watcher welcomed us, they’ve all been dicks.”

Renjun stares back with a flinty look in his eye. “He’s not my High Watcher. I’m not a Watcher, not really.”

WinWin snorts derisively. “You live here, don’t you? That makes you one of them.”

“I think you’ll find it doesn’t.” Renjun’s eyes change colors, pulsing between hazel and silver, flickering back and forth for a moment. “They dislike me just as much as you, but they keep me here to keep a close eye on me.”

Again, WinWin opens his mouth with a retort sharp on his tongue, but Mark interjects.

“I think he can help us.” Mark lifts himself from his seat, stepping in front of WinWin to stare the werewolf in the eye. “If you would shut the fuck up for a second, maybe hear him out, you might agree with me for once.” Mark pushes at WinWin’s shoulders, propelling him toward an open armchair, which he collapses into the moment the backs of his knees make contact.

You walk deeper into the room, settling on one end of the cushy sofa Mark is sitting on. Renjun looks at you, a faint smile turning up the corners of his lips. His eyes settle, one left silver, one brown to match the two-tone color of his hair. You know that WinWin doesn’t like Renjun, and up until probably last night, you’re pretty sure that Mark didn’t like him either. But you like Renjun, you enjoy his company. He always seems nice enough, if a little odd.

“Tell them what you were telling me,” Mark says to Renjun.

Renjun nods. “Well, like I said, I’m not really a Watcher. My father was a Watcher, so I was raised here and given an education by the Watchers. But they don’t want me to become one of them, and I don’t want to either. These people are so strict in their thinking, it’s like after thousands and thousands of years of policing the world, they’ve let the power go a little too much to their heads.”

He takes a breath, and you can tell that he’s about to plunge into a story, like he’d done the previous day for you in the tapestry hall. “The history of the Watchers is vast. They’ve ended civilizations as easily as starting others. They sank Atlantis, relegating the merpeople of Earth to live beneath the sea after their relations with humans were growing too close. They unleashed diseases to wipe out a village of magic-makers a few hundred years ago. They’ve basically forced all supernatural beings to live in just your Hell City, partially out of convenience so it’s easier to keep an eye on you all, but also as a way to suppress your people. Originally, God intended the city to be a safe haven for the supernatural, but He didn’t consider that it could just as easily become a prison with the Watchers as the wardens. They abuse their power. I’ve been a witness to that here, in the way that they force the elves here in Purgatory to do labor for them, imprisoning them for decades if they refuse.”

WinWin silently watches Renjun, his eyes fixed on the elfin man, watching his face closely for any signs of this story all being a lie.

Renjun continues, ignoring WinWin’s scrutiny. “They’re not all bad. The Watchers. But for every good Watcher that would help you to your feet when you’re down, there are ten more that would knock you back flat on your ass. For every one that sees the value of a life inside of us all, there are a dozen that just sees a monster to be put in its place. My father, was a Watcher, and I like to think he was one of the good ones. In some regards he definitely was, I mean, he fell in love with my mother.”

You’ve been curious about Renjun’s story since that first morning, and you sit up a little straighter, full of anticipation to finally hear it.

“My mother was an elf from a small village deep in the mountains and far to the north in your world. My father and a few other Watchers were sent to demand labor when God finally created the separation between Earth and Purgatory. You don’t get a place as extravagant, ever-changing, and indefinitely growing as this House without a little indentured servitude, and the elves were being brought in to Purgatory on the belief that they would receive the protection of the Watchers, would be received here in safety from those that would destroy them in your world—the humans hungrily encroaching on their territory, the supernatural creatures that ran to the mountain ranges to hide and thought that slaughtering elven villages was a good idea. So the elves, including my mother, were promised safety here in Purgatory for labor, freedom from the monsters.

“Of course it wasn’t long before many of them grew to understand there are monsters here as well.” Renjun’s hands ball into fists, and he draws his feet up onto the bench seat, making himself appear very small as he wraps his arms around his legs, his knees against his chest. “The Watchers quickly showed their lack of empathy for the plights of the elves. Elves are strong and immortal, but we have our limits. Working endless stretches of hours for days on end, performing manual labor to quarry stone for this house or forging iron railings or imbibing hot glass with magic. The Watchers were demanding, unrelenting. They beat those that attempted to take a break, and it was very quickly apparent that coming here had been a mistake.”

“Why didn’t they leave?” You ask, finding your voice.

Mark glances over at you. “How could they? I’m sure the Watchers had a tight hold on them, always working them or watching them.”

Renjun nods. “Some of them had easier jobs than others, some of them were just happy to live in ignorant bliss of how they were being wronged by the Watchers. Millenias passed, and each day the elves grew a little more broken down, a little more crushed beneath the heavy boot of the Watchers. Until finally, a few of them did escape, though. They broke free, slipping away in the night, and running as fast as they could through the forest. Elves are faster than any Watcher. They weren’t even sure they were being pursued, but they ran until they came upon a clearing, a pond perfectly centered in it. Back then, that’s all it was. Just a pond, shallow with a muddy bottom and roots. But elves have magic, powerful magic, and in a great moment of need, they can do amazing things. The four escaped elves pooled their magic, and they opened a portal back into the world they had once known. They emerged in your Hell City, which was a nightmare and a blessing in equal measure. Suddenly they were surrounded by all of the creatures they had fled this world to escape, but also they were in a city full of beings that hated the Watchers. Somehow, this feared place was a safe haven, offering safety in sheer numbers, and the elves went into hiding in the city.

“My mother was among them, in case you couldn’t figure that out from me having all of these details,” Renjun says, “and my father was one of the Watchers sent out to hunt down the escaped elves and return them. You can’t break an indenture, you know. So my father hunted through your Hell City, high and low for any sign of the elves. He had more reason than the other Watchers to find them. He was looking for her.”

Outside the common room’s door, you hear voices rising up the stairwell, a group of them. Renjun freezes, shrinking even more into himself, staring at the door in clearly-felt fear. A group of Watchers climbs up the spiral stair, approaching this room, and you all sit in quiet, waiting to see if they’re coming here.

Their voices luckily pass the room, continuing on through the space out there, down along the hallway that curves out of sight. Renjun sighs, resting his forehead on his knees.

“My mother never told me exactly how or when my father and her fell in love, but it was while she was here in Purgatory, and she insisted that it was love. It wasn’t forced on either end, it wasn’t an arrangement made out of proximity or convenience. They fell in love in the middle of all of that, and she discovered at some point shortly before the escape, that she was pregnant. She had only just told my father the morning before she and the other elves made their escape. So when he came into the world, he wasn’t searching for escaped indentured elves, he was searching for the elven woman he loved and me.”

“Sounds like a fairytale,” WinWin remarks quietly, a tone of bitterness in his voice. “Or a story I’ve heard before. How do we know you’re not making all of this up?”

Renjun’s gaze turns sharp, directed exclusively at WinWin. “Why would I be lying about this?”

WinWin shrugs. “To win our trust.”

“Stop it. Let him finish.” You reach over, knocking your hand against WinWin’s arm.

Renjun continues after a moment, saying, “When he found us, it was months later. The elves had spent over half a year hiding in Hell City. I had just been born. My father said he found us based off a paternal guidance, a Watcher’s knowledge meeting a father’s intuition. For months afterwards, he misdirected the attentions of the Watchers, steering them far away from us, hinting at rumors that the escaped elves had fled the city to return to their mountain villages. All the while, he would visit as frequently as he could, doting on me, caring for us.

“But Watchers take a vow of celibacy and a vow of antifraternization. Of course, the celibacy vow is broken semi-regularly by Watchers. I’m sure you’ve heard the stories of gods and angels and aliens coming down from the heavens to have relations with human women and men, sometimes even producing offspring? That’s one thing, when it’s only human, when the child produced is only human. The tales of demigods are exaggerated, wishful thinking of the mothers. But a Watcher and an elf? That hadn’t happened before in all the recorded Watchings of history. I was special.”

At that, Renjun grins a little cocky and pleased. Mark laughs, you smile, and WinWin just rolls his eyes. But Renjun continues with his story.

“Watchers don’t fall in love. They don’t have families, even when they do happen to procreate. They certainly don’t fall in love, have a baby, and want to create a family with an elf of all things in the goddamned world. His absences from Purgatory began to become noticeable. Stretches of time where he couldn’t be accounted for. Half-caught glimpses of him by the other Watchers who oversee Hell City. Eventually, it was all put together.

“The Watchers came for us when I was three years old. They imprisoned my mother, imprisoned my father, and they took me in as a ward. I was an oddity to the Watchers. Half-elven, half-Watcher. They had to keep a very close eye on me to make sure that I didn’t slip away through a mirror portal or appear as a divine baby to a congregation of humans on earth. Apparently I did slip away quite a few times, always found in the dungeons visiting my parents, somehow slipped inside their cells despite the wardings on the bars. The blend of powers inside me was giving them surprises. The encouragement of both my mother and my father only made it worse for the Watchers. They would find me in the cells early in the mornings, after I’d been in there all night, learning elven magic from my mother or being whispered the secrets of the Watchers by my father. Eventually, one of the Watchers figured out a warding so powerful that it could actually keep me out of the dungeons entirely, cutting off my access to my parents.”

“And where are they now?” You ask. “Still down there?”

The slump of Renjun’s shoulders answers your question first. He shakes his head. “No. To the Watchers, there are only two results in a trial: innocence, which means life, or guilt, which means imminent death and destruction. My parents received their guilt sentences when I was five years old. My father was stripped of his rights as a Watcher, and the expulsion from the order crippled him until he was but a shadow. Literally. I was forced to watch,” Renjun says, his voice taking on a hollow tone, and his eyes fall into shadow. “My mother’s death was quick, my father’s was long. He withered, fading from existence, writhing in pain. That is how a Watcher dies, stripped of immortality.”

Empty silence reigns for a few moments. Even the fire in the fireplace doesn’t make a sound. Raindrops that spray against one of the windows only run silently down the glass. Eventually Renjun sighs and picks up his story again.

“After that, the Watchers kept me under tight surveillance. They kept me away from the elves in the kitchen for as long as they could. They took on my education, I think in an attempt to brainwash me into blind loyalty. But they had killed my parents. I wasn’t likely to forget that. They hated me for being different, but their curiosity is what has kept me alive. They’ve studied me all these years, like a specimen that they would gladly dissect and tear apart at the first opportunity. They don’t get the chance to study half-breeds like me very often. In all of history, there have only been a handful of people that are half-Watcher and half-supernatural. The human ones hold little interest anymore. I only know a little bit about the halfbreed history, since the Watchers don’t talk about it much, preferring for me to believe I’m alone, just a freak or an oddity.

“So, all of that whole long story is just to say: you should trust me. I have no loyalty holding me to the Watchers. I’m a prisoner here only slightly less than your friends in the dungeon are. So, do you trust me?”

This last question Renjun directs to WinWin, the pair of them staring each other down. You and Mark exchange a look, both of you wondering what WinWin’s answer will be. The silence stretches, uncomfortable and awkward once it hits the one minute point. Mark fidgets in his seat, opening his mouth after a while to say something, but WinWin beats him to it.

“Can you show us to the dungeon? Even if you can’t get inside?” WinWin asks.

Renjun nods quickly. “Yes. That’s something that Mark and I were just talking about. If you’d told me before that the dungeons are what you were looking for, I could’ve taken you there last night instead of wasting time in the library. The warding against me was lifted after my parents were sentenced. But the entrance to the dungeon is tricky. I’m sure you’ve noticed that things tend to move here. Hallways and staircases and all that. The rooms stay constantly in their set hallways, as do the tapestries and statues. But the entrance to the dungeon is a bit different. It’s hidden for good reason, and because it’s hidden so well, it often moves locations around the House.”

Mark nods, then says, “Just like we suspected. Why wouldn’t they hide it in an even more complicated way than the rest of this house hides its secrets?”

Renjun looks at him, then WinWin, and finally at you. “It is hidden, but it’s actually not all that difficult to find. They have the doorway hidden behind a life-sized portrait of the High Watcher.”

Simultaneously, you and WinWin turn to look at each other. He’d just seen that portrait on your way back from the library. You’d both passed right by it, unwittingly missing Ten and Yuta by meters.

“We saw that. Just last night.” WinWin stands up. “Will it still be there?”

Renjun shakes his head. “No. The house is rearranging constantly. On average things move once a day, but some of the more, um, secure areas move probably every hour or two. Some sections of the house stay more constant, like the entrance hall with the banquet hall and the solarium. Those have only changed once in my time here, just like the staircase outside here. If things changed up too much it would confuse everyone. But there is a pattern to the madness though. Wait long enough, days or weeks maybe, and something will be right back to where you first saw it. Sometimes things will move to the opposite side of this place or just shift one hallway over. The House has many secrets, and I’ve been working hard these last twenty years to uncover all of them.”

“So are you saying we have to wait days or weeks to find the entrance again, or can you show us to it?” WinWin growls, his irritation resurfacing. “We have just two days before they go to trial. We still don’t even know what they’ve done. What damn good are you if all you can do is dangle a little hope in front of us before ripping it away?”

“WinWin,” you keep your voice low. “Go cool off. He’s helping us, so stop jumping down his throat.”

WinWin turns his hot stare towards you, softening the moment his eyes meet yours. “Don’t you want answers? They’re your boyfriends.”

Of course you want answers, and Renjun is offering the answers to you. You just have to be a little patient. “Go cool off,” you repeat.

WinWin stands, stalking over towards the closed door of the unused blue bedroom.

“I wouldn’t use that one if I were you,” Renjun calls in warning as WinWin’s hand touches the doorknob. “Mirrors have powers here. Those are Watcher mirrors filling that room, so you never know what’s going to come in through them or get pulled out through them. Or who’s listening or watching on the other side. I would advise keeping that door closed at all times while you’re here.”

WinWin turns on his heel, crossing the common room back to the yellow room you’d slept in last night, but he freezes in the doorway, turning back to look at the three of you. He hooks his thumb back over his shoulder. “What about the mirror in here?”

Renjun shrugs. “I don’t trust any of the mirrors in this place.”

WinWin steps back, snapping that door shut, and he walks over to the open doorway of the green room. You watch as WinWin looks around cautiously from the doorway, then he takes a step inside, looking around some more, and finally satisfied that the green room has no mirrors, he walks inside and disappears into the tiny en-suite bathroom.

As soon as WinWin is gone, Renjun sighs, unfolding himself from the tight knot that he’s worked himself into while telling his story. “So, to answer his question, it won’t be weeks or days. I do have an approximation of where the entrance probably is right now, where it’ll be tomorrow at various points throughout the day. But, I also know that with the three of you here, they’ve got guards stationed everywhere. There’s one that pretty much follows you lot every time you leave these rooms, and he would definitely stop you before you could reach the dungeon entrance. You wouldn’t stand a chance at getting in to even see or speak to those demons, let alone break them out or whatever you intend to do.”

“I just want to see them! I want to talk to them. I know breaking them out has got to be nearly impossible, but just getting the chance to be with them before their trial? There must be something we can do.” You stand up, unable to sit still right now. Not now that you know what the entrance to the dungeon looks like. You want to leave this common room, to search the entire House for it, and damn the Watchers who would try to stop you.

Renjun and Mark both watch you pace back and forth in front of the fireplace.

After a while, Mark finally sighs and looks at Renjun. “You can get her to the dungeon right? Even with that Watcher that follows us everywhere, if he was taken care of, could you get her inside? Down to see Yuta and Ten?”

Taken care of, he says, and those words make your blood run cold. In what way would he take care of them? Sometimes it’s so easy for you to forget who Mark is, that he’s the boss of a whole coven, the operator of a dozen different underground establishments of Hell City. You know he’s probably had to take care of problem-people before, but you’ve never really thought about it. The idea of what he might be thinking of doing to this Watcher admittedly scares you.

Renjun nods, a slow grin growing on his lips. “Yeah, I probably could. What are you thinking?”

The next day, the plan rolls into motion.

You, WinWin, Mark, and Renjun have gone over the risks of your plan, such as the potential consequences of getting caught sneaking down to the dungeon cells. The rest of the previous day was spent sequestered in the common room, only once did Mark and Renjun make an excursion to the kitchen to fetch food back to the common room, and then you and WinWin had gone down to supper in the Banquet hall when the bell rang to signal the meal. The stalker Watcher had been sitting out there each time that any of you departed, and he’d followed until you returned to the common room. Every other moment of yesterday had been spent sharing hushed plans and arrangements for today.

Renjun had everything planned out to the minute. He knew exactly where the portrait of the High Watcher that acts as a hidden entrance to the dungeons will be, and he knows exactly where the dungeon will spit you back out when your time is up and the portrait has moved location. You avoid listening to the detailed parts of the plan that involve WinWin and Mark dispatching the stalker Watcher.

For half the night, you couldn’t sleep.

In part, the restlessness was due to the whispered sounds carrying into the bedroom from Mark and Renjun out in the common room, running over the plan aloud between themselves, again and again. Also, your mind refused to let you relax, stressed and excited in equal measure about the plan, and the most important part, which was finally getting to see Yuta and Ten again.

You spend a while envisioning scenarios of the moment you’ll see them again. Your chest aches, your fingers itching to touch them, to smell their fiery brimstone scent, to see the flames burning in Yuta’s eyes, Ten’s wickedly charming grin. You miss the sounds of their voices, their laughter. You miss all of their silly little habits, even ones that had somewhat irritated you before. So, for at least an hour or two, you imagine scenarios of finding them again, before those scenarios start to shrink from bright and happy to the darker side of your worries.

So, instead, you turn to WinWin. You spend a good portion of your sleepless hours lying there in the bed watching him sleep – the soft motion of his eyes beneath his eyelids, his lips parting to breathe out quiet sleepy sounds.

After Mark falls silent since Renjun has probably left for the night, and after watching WinWin begins to feel more creepy than anything else, you tuck yourself with your back against WinWin’s chest. He makes a little hum, squeezing his arms around you so you feel secure and safe against him. Lying with him like this reminds you of your nights together during his rut, of those few hours when he’d not been overwhelmingly horny, when you’d been locked together by his knot, cuddling and dozing.

At some point, you fall asleep.

The sun hasn’t yet risen when you wake up. In the predawn darkness of the green bedroom, you can’t see anything. Even the firelight in the common room is extinguished. All you know is the feeling of WinWin warm all around you.

Specifically, you feel his lips resting against the side of your neck.

“What are you doing?” You sleepily mumble, lifting a hand to uselessly flutter your fingers over WinWin’s hair, his head bowed over you.

“Just allow me this,” he replies, sponging another kiss a little higher on your throat. “Mark and I are going to war for you today.”

You smile, brushing your fingers through his hair. “That’s a little dramatic.”

“Is it?” His lips touch your jaw. “Who knows what might happen?”

You hate the truth behind his words. None of you really know what might happen. To what lengths will the Watchers go to punish such an infraction if you’re caught sneaking to the dungeon? Or if Mark and WinWin taking care of – or distracting – the stalker Watcher goes badly?

“I need you both to be careful.” You twist around in WinWin’s arms, tugging at his hair lightly so he pulls his lips away from your skin.

He blinks slowly down at you, his gaze lowering to your lips. “If I promise you we’ll be careful, can I get a kiss?”

You push a hand against his chest, but you don’t pull it away and WinWin doesn’t budge from over you. He smiles, still looking at your lips, waiting. You sigh, “I want both of you to be careful, WinWin, please. Keep an eye on Mark. The Watchers hate him more than anyone else. Don’t let him get carried away with whatever you’re planning, okay?”

WinWin groans playfully, lowering his forehead to your shoulder. “Now you’re just taking all the fun out of it. But, sure, I’ll make sure Mark stays in one whole piece so you can keep playing with him.”

“I’m not playing with Mark.” You roll your eyes, pushing again uselessly at WinWin’s chest.

“Okay, sure. I’m not blind, I see the way he looks at you, the way you’ve been all moon-eyed over him lately too.” He huffs out a heavy breath, his voice muted as he says, “But I’ll return him in one piece for you.”

You rake your fingers through WinWin’s hair with a sound of frustration until he lifts his head. “Win,” you say, holding eye contact, imploring him, “You come back in one piece, too.”

WinWin dips his head, kissing your cheek. “I promise.”

You slide your hand from his hair to his cheek, pressing your fingertips just enough that he gets the message, shifting his lips from your cheek to your mouth.

This kiss is slow, tender with all of the emotions and the need for today to go right. WinWin props himself above you. You stroke your fingers lightly over the side of his face and down his neck, over his bare shoulder. His heart pounds beneath your touch. His full bare body presses against yours, and if you weren’t still wound up with the stress of the coming day, approaching quicker with each rising degree of the sun outside, maybe you would finally give in and take this a little further once again.

But then you think of Ten and Yuta, down in the dungeons.

You think of Mark probably still out there in the common room.

WinWin tries to dip back in when you pull away from the kiss. You allow him one more peck, and then you’re sliding out from beneath him, leaving the bed to wrap your arms around yourself as you face the sunrise.

The old bed frame creaks beneath WinWin. “Everything will be okay. We’ve planned. Renjun knows this place better than anyone else, probably,” he says, lifting himself up after you. His hands are warm when he places them on your hips, drawing your bodies close again. “Can you promise me, too? That you’ll be careful?”

“It’s not the same, WinWin.”

He rests his chin on top of your head. “Just promise me.”

You tilt your head back, sighing, “I promise. I’ll get myself out of there if anything goes wrong. Teleport or burn my way out.”

“Good.” He kisses the top of your head, and then he’s gone, walking away towards the bathroom. “You can join me in the shower, if you want. That kiss felt a little… hungry.” He’s teasing, grinning at you.

“Go away, oh my God,” you groan in embarrassment. You turn back to face the window, feeling your face heat up.

WinWin just laughs, and you watch him walk away in the reflection. In the rising sunlight, all of his bare skin reflects just fine in the glass. The bathroom door closes behind him, and you focus on the image of the world beyond the reflection. This morning it’s the Parisian garden you’d first seen from the empty ballroom. Your eyes follow the curling paths, the swirls of colorful flowers in full bloom, the arcs of sunlight catching on fountains.

And then you catch sight of a face in the window’s reflection.

You spin around, summoning your fire to your fingertips already.

“Hold your fire,” Mark says, lifting his hands in surrender. “It’s just me.”

“Sorry.” You lower your hands, extinguishing your flame. “I’m just on edge.”

Mark comes deeper into the room, slowly approaching you like he’s a little worried that you might snap on him. “That’s reasonable… to be jumpy. Are you ready?” He comes to stand beside you, his arm touching yours. His hand bumps against yours, and you feel a spark jump between your hand and his, a little shock that startles you both.

That little shock becomes a full pulse of energy when Mark suddenly takes your hand, holding it in both of his. Mark doesn’t say anything, just holding onto your hand, looking into your eyes. You get it, even without him saying anything. He’s worrying for you, worrying for himself, worrying for how this day is going to go.

“Do you remember what I told you? When we were about to come through the Fountain of the Watchers?” His hands feel warm against yours, as if he’s been holding his palm to the flames out in the common room’s fireplace. “If anything feels too dangerous, like it’s going wrong, you can teleport. You can get yourself out of here. That’s what is most important.”

“Mark, I’ll be fine. You two will be fine.” You smile reassuringly at him. “Today is going to go splendidly. You know the plan. Think a little positive for me.”

He pulls one hand away from holding yours, and when he lifts it to your shoulder, his breath coming out an uncertain sigh, your heart jolts in your chest. Mark’s hand slides over your shoulder, fingertips light against the back of your neck before dipping a little lower. He presses against your back, pulling you forward, and your heart thunders in anticipation.

You expect a kiss.

Maybe that’s initially what Mark was going for, or maybe it wasn’t his plan at all.

Mark hugs you, his cheek resting against your head.

You breathe in as your nose is pressed to his shirt. This is the thing about Mark. He might be undead, surviving off of blood, typically cold to the touch, but he always smells so nice and warm. Like clean cotton and orange blossom. He crushes you against him in this hug, and you wrap your arms around his waist, gripping his shirt at his lower back so you’re both pressed as tightly together as you can be.

Their worries are totally unwarranted, you’re sure. You and Renjun are going to be out of danger, just down visiting the dungeon cells. Your worry for WinWin and Mark makes sense. Renjun has made it glaringly obvious to the three of you that the Watchers, though they are High Holy beings of the supernatural variety, have a deep-seated contempt and sense of superiority over all other supernatural beings. Mark and WinWin are going to be out there providing a distraction so the stalker Watcher stays out of the way for you and Renjun. But what if that Watcher – or any other, for that matter – decides to just attack the vampire and the werewolf like other Watchers have made it clear over the past couple days that they’re willing to do.

It’s not that you don’t trust the High Watcher, but you don’t believe that the lower-level Watchers are going to necessarily stick to the request you made to the High Watcher that Mark and Winwin be left alone. If you’re not with them, how will you know the Watchers will keep their word? You know that you just told Mark to think positively, but suddenly, you find your mind swirling down a dark path of worry.

“I’ll promise you what I just promised WinWin a few minutes ago.” You lower your head, your mouth brushing the curve of Mark’s shoulder through the thin material of his shirt. “If I feel like anything is going wrong, if I’m in any danger, I’ll get myself out of there. Teleport or burn my way out. But you two keep each other safe, too, okay?”

Mark sighs softly, clutching you a little bit tighter. “I just hope we don’t all end up in cells before the day is over.”

“Think positive,” you remind him.

Mark just holds you tighter.

You wish this meant something. You like Mark just as much as you like the others. Like WinWin had pointed out earlier, you are playing with Mark a little bit, but it’s not intentional. You’re inviting him more than just playing with him; he’s the one that’s not accepting the invitation from you to come make this a little more than friendship. Like this hug, for example. He could have kissed you. You would have welcomed a kiss, but Mark went for the hug.

It’s a comforting hug, for sure. You feel nice with his arms around you, safe and secure. You would happily stay there for a while longer, wrapped up in a hug with Mark, the sunlight warming you as it spreads even brighter through the room, but then there’s a knock on the common room’s door.

Mark lets go of you, stepping away and turning his back quickly so you can’t see his face as he hurries out to open the door. You linger in the doorway of the green bedroom, watching Mark open the door out into the rest of the House.

Renjun stands outside, smiling brightly when he sees both of you.

“Are we all ready?”

After WinWin emerges from the bathroom several minutes later, fresh and fully clothed, there’s nothing else left for the plan except for the perfect moment to commence. Due to the portrait of the High Watcher’s location, you have to wait for an exact moment to begin. If you’re too early you’ll draw the Watchers’ attention and this could all be over before it begins. If you’re just a little too late, the portrait will be in an entirely different location on the other side of the House.

Renjun watches an old mantelpiece clock that sits on one of the bookshelves in the common room, the hands ticking slowly around the clock, and the moment that the hands point out to being half past seven o’clock in the morning, the booming sound of the breakfast bell rings through the House. That’s the sign you’ve been waiting for. Renjun gets to his feet. He strides to the door of the common room, looking back at the three of you. You stand to follow.

WinWin grabs your hand. “Are you positive we can trust him?”

On your other side, Mark has stood up as well. He just brushes his hand against the small of your back before continuing around you to join Renjun at the door. You squeeze WinWin’s hand, leaning back in quickly to kiss him. “We can trust him, WinWin. Why do you doubt him so much?”

WinWin stands up, casting a glance over at the other two. “Because you’re going with him. This could all be a trap he’s planning.”

Renjun rolls his eyes as he pulls the door open. “It wouldn’t be a very good trap and an even worse plan. Now, please, if you don’t come along, we’re going to miss our window of opportunity.” He steps out, leading the way. Renjun doesn’t look back even once to check that you and the others are coming.

You trust him fully, so you follow.

Mark and WinWin are both right behind you.

Immediately, once you’re outside of the common room, you notice a slight flaw in your plans. The stalker Watcher isn’t outside your room.

“That’s good, though, isn’t it?” WinWin asks in a hushed voice once you’ve pointed it out. “We don’t have to do anything about him if he’s not here.”

Renjun looks back over his shoulder at WinWin as he starts to climb the spiral stair up to the next floor. “But then we don’t know where he is, and I have a feeling that he’s usually got a pretty good idea of where the three of you are. Watchers do have powers, and some of them are gifted in tracking; usually that’s just the soldier Watchers, but some of the others do as well.” He looks around, keeping an eye out for any Watchers who might be wandering the House instead of down at breakfast with the rest.

“Maybe he’s at breakfast,” WinWin suggests.

Renjun makes a sound of disagreement.

Unfortunately, according to Renjun, the location of the High Watcher’s portrait is near the entrance hall this morning. That takes you dangerously close to all of the Watchers that you’re trying to avoid, but there’s no other choice. That’s what role Mark and WinWin are serving today: the distraction. In addition to taking care of the stalker Watcher, their responsibility in the plan is to make sure that no other Watchers come towards the dungeon’s hidden entrance while you and Renjun are still inside.

The path to the entrance hall and the banquet hall is a longer one this morning, and you’re not sure if you’re grateful for the extra time or not. Your bones itch to just be with Yuta and Ten again, to get these preliminary actions out of the way so you can see them once more.

Already on edge, it’s no surprise that you jump, nearly startled out of your skin when WinWin’s hand lands on your shoulder, pulling you back slightly towards him.

His eyes are focused ahead, a burning amber color.

“There he is,” he growls.

You look forward, following his gaze along the hallway Renjun is leading you along. Up ahead, having just rounded the corner, is the stalker Watcher. His familiar black robes and the silver jewelry on his shoulder make him easily distinguishable. His gait as he walks towards you is also familiar.

Renjun hesitates just a few feet in front of you. He looks back at the three of you. “It’s go-time.”

WinWin’s eyes stay hot, flashing dangerously as he angles a grin at Mark, a surprising tone of excitement in his voice when he says, “Our audience awaits.”

“You don’t have to sound so delighted about this, you know.” Mark stands on your other side looking over at WinWin. He presses a fist into the palm of his other hand, cracking his knuckles. “Is the prospect of fighting with me the only thing getting your rocks off these days?”

WinWin rolls his eyes, his lip curling slightly. “Oh, there’s plenty else that gets me off, Mark.” His hand shifts on your shoulder, and you swat him away, putting a little distance between them and you, standing closer to Renjun.

Mark snarls, and the two of them begin arguing.

Renjun just smiles, all light-hearted and unaffected by the bickering men behind you. “If they can keep that energy up, this should be easy.”

As much as you tried to not listen to the exact details of their plan to get the stalker Watcher out of your way, you had heard some small parts of it. Mostly this: they were planning to get into a brawl in front of him, hoping that he would deem them a bigger threat than whatever you were getting up to, and he would follow them as they took their fight through the halls of the House. You know that they won’t actually hurt each other. Probably.

Unfortunately, they’ve probably got a lot of fuel to keep this fire going for a while. They’ve always been alright with each other's presence, but since WinWin’s rut and then especially since they lost the buffer of Yuta and Ten between them, there’s been a tiny bit more animosity between them. Coming here to Purgatory and the House of the Watchers, it’s only gotten worse, though you’re pretty certain that’s due to the unfamiliar environment, the near-constant surveillance of the Watchers with their clear disdain, and the fate of their friends and your boyfriends that remains up in the air.

The stalker Watcher approaches from the other end of the corridor, his black cloak fluttering around his legs.

Mark and WinWin, despite it all, do know the plan. Therefore, as you and Renjun begin taking small steps forward, continuing forward as if the sight of the Watcher isn’t a problem, the other two walk a little faster. Soon, they’re outpacing you and Renjun, drawing ahead of you, putting themselves between you and the Watcher. With each step, their quiet argument grows in volume. Their voices echo around the corridor, off the glass ceiling of a solarium filled with honey-bright sunlight and strange plants that sit along one side of the hallway.

The echoes distort their words, making it difficult to actually understand much of what they’re saying, but the wild gestures of their hands tend to stray in your direction, so you think you may have an idea.

As they approach the Watcher, Mark yells something and pushes WinWin. The werewolf stumbles, and he knocks into the Watcher.

WinWin rights himself, a growl ripping through him, ready to throw himself fully into this fight with Mark.

You’re sure that they would begin the violent fight imminently, except for the sharp sound of your gasp.

When Mark pushed WinWin, he left long bloody scrapes from his nails along WinWin’s arm, but it’s not the sight of the blood that’s taken you by surprise. Rather, it’s the way that when WinWin stumbled into the Watcher, he knocked the man back against the wall, and in doing so, his hood fell away from his face.

Other than during mealtimes in the Banquet hall, you’ve hardly seen the Watchers with their hoods down. Most keep them up all the time, though the novices in white do shirk away the given anonymity of the hood even when they’re in their worst behavior. But the fact remains that the majority of the Watchers, you’ve never really seen their faces, and now you’re faced with this Watcher’s bared features.

The first thing you notice about him is the ragged curl of his lips, the pink canyon of a scar along his right cheek. His left eyebrow, eyelid, and his nose are all marred by jagged scrapes that can be nothing other than claw marks. The twisted, shiny scar of a burn covers his jaw on the left side, extending across his throat in the shape of a handprint. And under it all, you make out the facial features of someone you know.

WinWin comes to the realization at the same time as you.

A deep growl rumbles from his chest as he turns his back on Mark, crouching as he glares at the unhooded Watcher before you.

Hansol.

The damage to his handsome face is startling, but without a doubt, it’s him. You see now what vengeance Yuta, Ten, and WinWin had exacted on him that you’d never truly wanted to see. Once, they’d told you that they’d left him and your pastor alive, their memories modified, but they hadn’t mentioned this: how they’d shredded Hansol’s features to nearly the point of being unrecognizable.

He grimaces as you make eye contact.

“Hello,” he says, and at once you realize that you’d recognized his voice from the first moment you heard it. You just hadn’t ever considered that he could be here, so you hadn’t made the connection.

“Don’t talk to her,” WinWin growls.

Mark, confused, looks between the three of you. Renjun shrinks back against the wall.

“I’ll talk to her if I damn well please, dog.” Hansol’s lips twist grotesquely, his gaze flicks away from you, over to WinWin. “You don’t have the demons here to protect you now.”

A shiver unfurls along your spine, calling to the eternal fire inside you. Sparks jump on your skin, your hair rising. WinWin’s whole body tenses up, his eyes shifting from a warm amber brown towards a lupine shade of yellow-gold.

“What the hell is going on?” Mark asks, “Who is this guy?”

All you can say is, “Hansol.”

No need for the superlatives of ex-lover and exorcist, Mark immediately understands the context just from his name alone. He has heard the stories from your boyfriends, from WinWin. He’s heard the name muttered from your lips on a few rare occasions. Even if he hadn’t you’re sure that the demon handprint burnt to his throat as well as the werewolf claw marks tearing up his once-handsome face should have been indicative that this was no friend. Mark’s stance shifts immediately, eyes blazing bloodred, his fangs emerging along with a hiss.

“Surprised to see me?” Hansol asks, that demented grin still on his face.

Of course you’re surprised to see him. For that period of time that you knew him, you’d thought he was only human. Not anything more or less than just human. You stand frozen in your spot, staring at him. Your mind is whirring to compute and catch up, to just comprehend that your ex-lover certainly wasn’t killed by your boyfriends, his memory wasn’t erased like they’d told you they’d done, and he’s just a disfigured version of the man that you’d once known.

He takes a step towards you, only managing the one step before WinWin’s shoulder collides with Hansol’s chest, slamming the Watcher back against the wall.

“Don’t fucking touch her!” WinWin’s clawed hand presses against the burned handprint on Hansol’s throat. The tips of his claws create indents on the skin, but they don’t break through, just held there as a threat. “You’re not allowed to touch her anymore, bastard.”

Hansol rolls his eyes, and with a flick of his hand, WinWin is flying backwards. He crashes against the opposite wall of the corridor, rattling old framed photographs on the wall. Hansol shakes his sleeves out, brushing a bit of lint off the front of his black cloak.

Then Mark charges him.

Having witnessed Mark’s vampire strength and speed before when he and WinWin sparred each other in your apartment in Hell City, you feel confident in his attack. You’ve seen how quickly and easily he’d pinned WinWin, laughing as he’d held his fangs above the werewolf’s neck. But now Hansol matches Mark’s speed; you remember what Renjun said the other day about the animal blood dulling Mark’s abilities, and you see that clearly now as Hansol gets the better of Mark, hurling him down the hallway.

Mark skids and tumbles over the carpet, coming to a stop several meters away. Closer at hand, WinWin rises to his feet, his limbs shaking with barely contained fury now.

You take a startled step back, closer to Renjun now where he’s pressed to the wall. You watch as Mark and WinWin both vibrate with the heat of the fight, as Hansol forgets your presence, focused only on the two predators defending you against him. Both of them begin moving towards him at the same time, and Hansol readies himself for the impending attack.

Their bodies meet violently.

Mark’s hand goes to Hansol’s throat, and WinWin slashes his claws across Hansol’s chest, cutting ribbons out of his shirt. Hansol leans in against Mark’s hand. From your vantage point a safe distance down the corridor, you can’t clearly see Hansol’s face, but you can see his lips are moving, that he’s forcing some words out even as Mark chokes him. You see the expression on WinWin’s face fall for the briefest moment, his eyes lifting to catch sight of you. Hansol says something else, and WinWin’s focus jolts back around; a sneer curls Mark’s lip.

Renjun grabs your arm, his hand resting against your forearm, startling you in your tense state. You look over at him, at his eyes flickering back and forth between silver and hazel, which you’re beginning to understand must be related to his level of adrenaline. “We need to move,” he whispers, “If we go now, we’ll be there before the Watcher even realizes we’re gone.”

It’s a yelp and a roar of fury that draws your attention back to the fight just in time to witness WinWin exploding into his wolf form. His fur drips blood from the suddenness of his inner wolf bursting so quickly through his human skin. This transformation is entirely different from the last you witnessed back beside the fountain in Hell City. This one was instant and seemed less painful, though you wonder if the emotions he’s feeling sped up the experience.

His emotions are certainly high.

The second that WinWin’s four paws hit the ground, his teeth are bared, body bristling as he shakes off the blood. He glares at Hansol with his yellow eyes. Mark is also utterly transformed. You can see the vivid red glow of his eyes, the veined shadows that fracture the skin around his eyes, and the vicious length of his fangs and nails that have grown into claws. You can hear Mark hissing, WinWin’s snappy growl, and the low challenge of Hansol foolishly egging them both on.

You don’t want to watch, not really, but it’s that morbid fascination. You can’t look away even though you know that you’re not going to like what you see when the fighting actually begins.

Renjun tugs on your arm again, trying to pull you away from the growing tension, but you linger for another moment, watching the three of them as WinWin prowls closer, as Mark sinks into a fighting stance, and Hansol just retains his demented grin, arms held out wide as if to welcome them in.

“We can’t stay!” Renjun whispers, and with one last tug, he pulls you away, running back along the hallway from the direction you came.

You hear the sounds behind you as you and Renjun rush down along a side hallway. You hear the smack of bodies against each other behind you, hear the growling and vicious guttural sounds of contact being made. There is crashing, glass breaking, the crunching of a body being thrown into something. You hear the sounds moving, growing more distant as the pair of you and the fight move farther away from each other. Mark and WinWin are on the move, the rough tumbling and rolling thunder of growls grows distant faster than you and Renjun are moving.

Renjun throws a door open to a secret passage, a set of stairs that leads upwards, and with his hand still tight on your arm, he hauls you up the stairs behind him. You come crashing through a hidden door at the top into a dark hallway. No windows allow natural light here, and if there are lamps or candles mounted to the wall, they’ve all been extinguished. The only light comes from the open ends of the hallway—one at what appears to be the entrance hall and the other end overlooks a small staircase that leads up to somewhere bright and sunny. There’s only just enough light in the middle of this hallway for you to be able to see the hulking shadows of a few statues, the ornate frames mounted on the walls that appear empty as you pass them in the dark.

Renjun throws his arm out to stop you as you near the end of the hallway by the stairs. You’re both still fully hidden in the shadow of the hallway, but Renjun pulls you sideways into the recessed doorway. He attempts to pull you fully into the nook, out of sight of anyone who might pass down this hallway, but you peek out, wanting to know what’s just set him on guard.

A second later, a small group of Watchers passes by the end of the hallway that opens onto the entrance hall. They walk quickly, not even sparing a glance down this hallway, their voices confused murmurs of a language that you don’t understand, but something in their words causes Renjun to tense up beside you. He buzzes with silent energy, staring down towards where they disappeared, waiting for the sounds of their voices to fade away.

When you can no longer hear the echoes of their voices, when there is nothing but silence, Renjun moves.

“Now!” He whispers, and his hand slips into yours, pulling you out of the nook.

You both run, moving quickly towards the sunlight at the other end of the hallway, turning the corner, and you find yourself face-to-face with the portrait of the High Watcher. To your delight and relief, there truly is no one standing guard in front of the portrait, just an empty stretch of sunlit hallway.

Renjun’s palm slides with nervous sweat against yours, as you come to a halt in front of the portrait. He doesn’t let go of you, instead using his free hand to search along the edge of the frame, muttering under his breath in what you believe sounds like a countdown.

His hand stops.

“Fuck,” he sighs in relief, pulling his hand back, holding a little tighter to yours. “Okay, here we go.”

There’s a clicking sound from deep behind the portrait. A creak, a pop, a groan, and then the frame swings out from the wall just enough the Renjun can haul it open a few inches further before he’s slipping in through the crack, dragging you with him.

The air inside tastes dusty and stale on your tongue. The walls and floor and ceiling are all made of the same tightly fit-together gray stone, heading straight in for a few feet before turning sharply down into a steep set of stairs. For the moment, it’s all very well-lit. A series of mirrors are placed along the walls, reflecting the light coming in through the open portrait down along the dungeon’s stairs.

Before you can take a step towards the stairs to hope for a clear look down, your vision goes black.

“Shh.” Renjun is right there. His hand is still on yours. He’s just shut the portrait door, closing out all of the natural light. He whispers, “Don’t move. I don’t want you to fall. I need to just find…. where the damn light is.”

You don’t need a light.

With your hand that’s not clamped on his, you call your flames, settling on a hot white bulb of fire that rests comfortingly in your palm.

“That works.” Renjun nods beside you, his face even more pale and silvery in the white light of your flame.

You feel a shift, feel like the walls shiver around you, and a low rumble similar to blood rushing in your ears fills the air. Renjun reaches a hand out to steady you, “It was just the House rearranging.” He had timed everything perfectly so there would only be a minute at the most from the time that you were behind its secret entrance to it moving to its new location elsewhere in the House. “Follow me. Be careful. There’s no handrail and it’s very steep.”

The steps are narrow and uneven, and the way your flame flickers makes the shadows dance, only enhancing the difficulty of descending the stairs. But Renjun moves steadily downward in front of you, so you just follow his shoulders, keeping one hand on the wall and the other hand aloft to light the way.

You notice unlit candles in sconces along the curved walls, so as you pass them, you lift your hand, briefly touching the wicks to light the candles behind you. The candlelight reflects in the mirrors, making the tunnel even brighter.

The deeper you descend, the damper the air grows. The walls develop a slick look, a cool feeling to them, like they’re seeping moisture, covered in lichen and moss.

“Careful,” Renjun whispers when your foot slips on a slick step, and you’re forced to catch yourself with your hands on his shoulders. “We’re nearly there.”

You wonder how things are going up there in the House. Your thoughts linger with WinWin and Mark, and a small part of you wants to leave the dungeons, to go find them and make sure that they’re alright. A bigger part of you is dedicated to what you’re walking towards, toward seeing Yuta and Ten again. That part of you grows with every passing second, every beat of your heart. You’re going to see them again and all of this is going to be worth it. You’re going to talk to them, come up with a plan on how to get them out of here or at least get them out of the trial with a verdict of innocence.

“Here.” Renjun steps aside, revealing the way that the stairs level out into a smooth tunnel that curves around to the right. An arched doorway opens onto the dungeons. You can see a single pale light glowing, reflecting off the iron bars and a puddle in the first cell. “Go ahead. I’ll wait here,” Renjun whispers.

Frozen, you remain there for a moment. This is it. The moment you’ve been waiting for, but you’re scared. The fear bites deep into your bones. What if you walk in there and all the cells are empty? If Yuta and Ten aren’t actually here? What if WinWin was right and this has all been some elaborate fucked-up trap by the Watchers? Or worse, what if you walk in there and you find Yuta and Ten, but not the way that they were when you left them?

After a moment, you take a tentative step forward, then another. You pause again in the doorway, reaching out a steadying hand to the wall. You can’t see anyone, can’t hear any signs of life. Only a distant dripping sound somewhere down the block of cells. There’s a clang deep below you, and you glance back at Renjun. Surely he wouldn’t leave you to venture forward alone if there was anything dangerous lurking down in the cells?

Renjun nods reassuringly, following a few paces behind you. He looks hesitant, a bit frightened, and you wonder if being down here is just making him think of his parents. Maybe it wasn’t very kind of you to ask him to bring you down here. But he’s here with you, and when he offers you another faint smile, you decide that he wouldn’t have brought you if he truly didn’t want to be down here.

You face forward again.

“Yuta? Ten?” Your voice wavers, echoing, doubled back at you as you take another step forward.

There, the tiniest sound from midway down the block of cells. A shuffle, a clink of a chain. There’s the smallest sound of a groan, and your heart leaps in your chest, propelling you forward through the doorway. A small puddle splashes under your foot.

The first stretch of cells are completely empty.

“Yuta?” Your voice rebounds at you from the darkness.

A few more empty cells, and then your footsteps falter as your flames reflect off something shining in one of the cells only to reveal a broken femur lying disjointedly from the rest of a chained skeleton.

“Ten?” There’s a tremble in your voice as you continue on.

You pass down the block, all of the cells empty. Your heart thuds in your throat, your flames in your hand pulse in time with your heartbeat. A short flight of stairs leads downwards, and here the walls positively weep. Your self-produced light catches on the rivulets of moisture on the walls, the black puddles on the stone floor. The stairs take a turn, leading farther down, down down. You can lean over the railing and see that the shadows dance into darkness far below.

How far down do these dungeons go? With the ever-increasing amount of liquid drawing out of the walls, are the bottom cells drowned in a black lake?

You hope you don’t have to find out.

“Ten?” Your voice sounds quieter now, and you can’t tell if that’s your own fear muffling your voice or if it’s the dampness in the air swallowing the sound. “Yuta?”

Nothing.

Renjun sighs quietly, and he collapses to sit on a bench built into the wall beside the stairs. He looks up at you, his eyes wide and sad. Your shoulders slump slightly forward, and so quietly that your voice barely rises above a whisper, you ask, “How deep do you think we’ll have to go? What if they’re not even down here?”

For the first time, a new fear awakens in you. What if the Watchers already gave Yuta and Ten their trial? What if they determined them guilty, and they’re just stringing you, WinWin, and Mark along on a false hope? You squash that idea quickly; what reason would the Watchers have to lie to you about that, just to keep you here?

“No.” You shake your head, speaking more to yourself than to Renjun. “Yuta and Ten are down here somewhere. They’ve got to be.”

You walk away, leaving Renjun on the bench, peering into each cell as you pass.

And then, faintly, from a dark cell, you hear a voice.

<-previous || next–>

a/n: sorry for the extra long delay! but it’s a long chapter to make up for it! I hope you enjoyed it, and as always please let me know what you thought! Likes, reblogs, comments and tags are always and forever appreciated

#nct smut #wayv smut #nct fics #wayv fics #nct 127 #wayv #Yuta #mark lee #ten lee #winwin

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hazeltonmanor · 5 days

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parkviewmanor · 4 days

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sylvia-forest · 10 months

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[CN] Shaw's Extrajudicial Hunting Heart Date

⚡Warning: This post contains detailed spoiler's for a Date which hasn't been released in EN yet!⚡

[This date was translated with the help of Google translate and by my lovely friend!]

✧[Section 1]✧

Steward: Sorry, no one can leave the villa until Mrs. Laburnum's family heirloom is found.

Suddenly a dissatisfied commotion arose within the feminine figure, a man took the lead and stood up.

Man: You want to detain us? Do you know who I am?

His subsequent words were forced back by the black muzzle of the gun in the butler's hand. The crowd let out a murmur, but the butler raised his jaw indifferently.

Steward: I know who you are, sir, but you also need to know whose territory this is.

The melodious music flowed in each other's eyes, and I pursed my lips and took a few quiet steps back, looking sideways out the window.

Sure enough, dozens of cars drove up from the mountain road not far away, and surrounded the villa layer by layer.

Villa, theft, undercurrent, treacherous situation…

For a moment, I almost thought I had stepped into some third-rate gang movie.

Flashback starts—

—a week ago.

MC: Ahhh I can't think of it— I am bored–

I lay on Shaw's bed and rolled around in boredom. Shaw stopped typing on the keyboard and raised his eyebrows.

Shaw: What, are you bored with me?

MC: Nah!

MC: I still have a script for a crime movie to write, obviously I listened to the criminal investigation lectures and found the material but I still feel that the immersion is not enough......

MC: It's hard to take a vacation now, and I'm still thinking about it.

Shaw: I understand, so you think your script is too bland, and you want the protagonist's story to be more exciting? MC: That's about right,.....

I just sighed halfway, when my vision was suddenly blocked by a letter that floated in.

Shaw: For you. MC: What's this?

Shaw: Good stuff to inspire you.

I opened the envelope and there was an invitation letter inside. Although the South Asian characters with curved strokes are illegible, I can still understand the Chinese attached below.

MC: Dear Ling Lin, I sincerely invite you to come to Danfei Mountain Villa to attend the birthday banquet of Mrs. Laburnum… MC: Wait a minute, who is Ling Lin? This Mrs. Laburnum, Who is it again?

Shaw: Ling Lin is my pseudonym. As for Mrs. Laburnum, you shouldn't care who she is, it doesn't matter. Shaw: I did an errand for this lady, and she was so pleased with my business skills that she's inviting me as a VIP. Shaw: Round-trip plane, pick-up, and drop-off at the manor, all-inclusive on the opposite side. Shaw: It's a pity that I happened to have something to do a few days ago, and I was thinking about how to push it off. Shaw: If you are willing to attend this banquet for me, then you are Ling Lin.

Shaw moved his finger holding the invitation letter to the side, and nodded as if pointing something, his upturned eyes were full of cunningness.

Shaw: Have a great time, and… make sure not to reveal anything.

—Flashback ends

MC: If I had known, I wouldn't have accepted Shaw's invitation. .... Is this what he meant by spiritualism? MC: Dropping me in a gang villa?

Angrily, I rubbed the little man with Shaw's face a hundred times in my heart. At this moment, the door of the banquet hall was pushed open.

The person who came was wearing a black suit, and the twilight fell on his eye-catching blue-purple hair, which was reflected in my stunned pupils.

?.? [In English]: Chief, your garden is cleaned up.

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ♫ ⋅.} ───── ⊰

✧[Section 2]✧

MC: Apart from not being able to leave the villa, am I free within the villa?

Shortly after the party was over, I immediately called for a waiter. The other party nodded respectfully to me after hearing the words.

Waiter: Certainly. Miss Ling Lin, you are our honored guest, and we will meet all your requirements. MC: Then I need a bodyguard because you guys scared me today.

I raised my head confidently, with a deliberately arrogant tone.

Waiter: Okay, let's arrange bodyguards for you... MC: No, I have a candidate. MC: It's the handsome young man who came to report to your steward this evening. Waiter: These… this list of people was found from outside, a little impolite, not aware of the rules, maybe we should… MC: Is it because they don't know the rules?

I let out a wow sound and slowly stroked the diamond ring on my finger.

MC: What I need... A bodyguard to calm me down. Waiter: …… !!Sorry, I didn't understand Miss's needs, I'm going to ask someone!

The waiter, red-faced, hurried away, and in a few moments came with the man I had asked for.

Waiter: Shaw, this is our honored guest, take good care of her and meet all her requirements, understand?

Shaw: …..

Shaw stood behind the waiter and glared at me, his voice coming through his teeth.

Shaw: I know. MC: Well, you're a good boy, so come on in and have a little chat.

I grinned as I pulled Shaw's tie and led him inside, closing the door with my foot in the process.

Shaw: Hey, what are you trying to do —woo

He stumbled under his feet and I accidentally pushed him onto the bed.

I looked down at Shaw condescendingly, and ground my teeth.

MC: Shouldn't I be asking you that? MC: You asked me to attend the banquet, then you became the guard, what games are you truly playing?

Shaw: Just…the fun game.

Shaw lazily lay back, stretching out his hands.

Shaw: Don't you think what happened today is very interesting, just to provide inspiration for your exhausted script? MC: ——Incredible the heck!

I was so angry that I rushed over to pinch his face, but he grabbed my wrist.

Shaw: Tsk tsk, you’re quite a firecracker, you can catch on instantly. MC: I'm not mad, it's because you didn't say anything… Shaw: Okay, okay, let me give you a little spoiler. Shaw: Didn't I say that Mrs. Laburnum is not important? It's because this birthday banquet itself is a cover, and the real purpose is that someone wants to conduct an underground antique trade. MC: I didn’t understand, they made their deals, why confiscate the guests…. Shaw: Because when the bad guys were clearing out, they realized they were missing one of their Golden Crowns.

Shaw: Although they suspected that some of you distinguished guests might have tampered with something, they didn't dare to say it directly. So, they had to come up with a made-up story to buy some time. Shaw: After all, even though they claimed they couldn't find the family heirloom and wouldn't let us leave, in reality, it's at most three days. If they don't release us by then, things could get much more complicated. MC: ……

I couldn't say the words "that's how it is", because my mind was still dizzy.

I looked at the confident and flamboyant face under me, and vaguely felt that what he "spoiled" was probably just the tip of the iceberg of the whole incident.

And he probably has more scripts than I imagined. I opened my mouth.

MC: So you haven't answered my original question - what exactly are you doing here? Shaw: Me?

Shaw chuckled. The palms clamping my wrists pulled me down, and I couldn't help but fall into his embrace.

Shaw: I'm worried about Miss Ling Lin, so I'm here to be her bodyguard.

Hmph, who would believe it! Big liar!!

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ♫ ⋅.} ───── ⊰

✧[Section 3]✧

Before I knew it, I had been detained here for two days. But early this morning, Shaw disappeared, and he didn't send me a message until just now.

Shaw's message: "If you want inspiration for the script, come to the garden's artificial mountain now. I'll broaden your horizons."

I hesitated for a while, but in the end, I couldn't hold back my curiosity, and while secretly spurning myself, I immediately walked towards the garden.

In the past two days, due to the impact of the theft incident, the manor has been followed by gang members.

There were far fewer guards in the garden, but they were not absent. I forced myself to walk past them calmly and finally stopped by the rockery.

MC: Where is he?

Shaw: Here, I have been waiting for you for a long time.

Shaw peeked out from behind the artificial fountain, gesturing towards me. I circled around and discovered there was a hidden door right in front of me.

He walked into the secret passage first, and I quickly followed, looking around curiously.

MC: How do you know there was a secret passage here?

Shaw: What's the point of being in the intelligence business if you can't find out this much information? Shaw: There are many secret paths in this garden, not just this one. Shaw: For decades, there has been no peace here, and Mrs. Laburnum has expanded her business so much. Just in case, she must keep a way out for herself.

Judging from Shaw's tone, he was quite familiar with the disputes in this area. Could it be that this was also part of the work of the intelligence dealers?

During the conversation, we have come to the side of the secret passage. After he scratched the password, he entered something, and the door opened.

This was indeed a dressing room for VIPs. Shaw pressed the button, and after the wardrobe was lowered, a shelf full of guns rose up.

MC: This is….

Shaw: Weapons room. Do some pre-war preparations and pick the best ones.

Shaw looked at the firearms with prudent eyes, as if he was appraising antiques.

MC: You... still know how to appreciate firearms? Shaw: Of course, I am professional.

Shaw squinted at me and sneered.

Shaw: Would you believe me if I told you I had military training in this area? MC: Really? Shaw: Wrong, all learned from online shooting games. You're so stupid to believe everything I say. MC: …..

At this time Shaw had finished picking, and took down a gun from the shelf. He sat sideways on the cabinet, rolled up his sleeves, and was about to open the magazine.

MC: You are hurt?

Only then did I notice that there was a long wound hidden under his sleeve.

Shaw: ... It might be that I accidentally scraped against something during the morning stroll, I guess. MC: A wound this long, how could it possibly have been scraped without noticing! I'll go look for a bandage, just wait a moment.

The weapon room was well equipped, I quickly found the medicine box, and dug out bandages and potions from it.

MC: Hand.

Shaw obediently handed me his arm, his eyelashes were lowered the whole time, and his brows would twitch suddenly only when the cotton swab passed across the wound.

When I wrapped the thin ribbon for him, he suddenly raised his head.

Shaw: Would you like to be closer to the "stage"? MC: What do you mean? Shaw: Take you to experience something more exciting. MC: ….. Shaw.

I rolled up his sleeve for him before looking at him seriously.

MC: I don't have to ask you what your role is in this, but you can't use me to perfect your "script". Shaw: …..

Shaw opened his mouth as if he was a little surprised that I would say this, then he smiled, did not reply to my words immediately, but took the magazine from the rack.

He casually held the bullets in his mouth, first cleaned the parts with pine oil, and then loaded the bullets neatly one by one.

The black glove caressed the cold gun barrel familiarly, and the hard weapon was like a docile plaything in his hands.

I've seen this kind of expression in antique shops and on the stage, but at this moment, appearing in the bloody weapon room added a touch of charm to his eyebrows and eyes.

My heartbeat inexplicably became a little faster, Shaw seemed to feel me holding my breath, and suddenly raised his gaze.

With a twist of his wrist, the long gun barrel provoked my jaw, which was frivolous and dangerous.

Shaw: Miss, do you want to think about it again? Shaw: I'll be your bodyguard.

—

Under the night, a car slowly drove away from the mountain villa, and stopped beside an inconspicuous forest after lingering on the road for a few laps.

I was taken out of the car by Shaw, and we arrived in front of a warehouse under the guidance of several men in black.

Man in black: Go in.

The chained gate opened with a bang, and the light from inside made me close my eyes, and when I opened them again, I found a familiar person - the steward of the villa.

There were several packed packages around him, and the men in black with guns all around seemed to be protecting these packages rather than protecting him.

The steward stared at me sullenly at this moment, then turned to look at Shaw, and asked something in the local language.

Shaw raised the corner of his mouth and pressed my shoulder.

Shaw: Yes, I've looked into that. Shaw: Among all the guests, only "Ling Lin" was fake, because the real Ling Lin should be a man.

⊱ ────── {.⋅ ♫ ⋅.} ───── ⊰

✧[Section 4]✧

I took a deep breath and looked at everyone in panic.

MC: I...I'm really Ling Lin!

Shaw: Is that so? But according to the information I found, this Ling Lin is not only a man, but also possesses a lightning Evol. Shaw: Last time he relied on this trick to help Mrs. Laburnum solve a big problem... Boss, you are someone close to Mrs., do you have any impression? Steward: I did hear the woman talk about it on the phone. Shaw: Isn't that enough?

Shaw clamped my neck with one hand and held my wrist with the other, leaning against the side of my neck with a dangerous smile.

Shaw: Ms. Ling Lin, show us your lightning Evol.

This guy is a real showman!

I slandered him fiercely in my heart, but the expression on my face became more and more broken. After a few murmurs, I lowered my head helplessly.

Click.

All of a sudden, several guns around the steward were aimed at me, and Shaw quickly waved his hands when he saw this.

Shaw: Hey, hey, don't be so eager to see blood, boss, how unlucky. Shaw: It seems that this counterfeit chick maybe someone who played a trick. Before I find out the relationship between her and the "Golden Crown", my suggestion is not to touch her. Steward: Find out? Where is the time for an investigation now?

The butler raised his voice, his face flushed with anger.

Steward: Tonight, the goods in my hand must be sold! Shaw: So you mean, don't check the whereabouts of the golden crown, and trade directly? Steward: Nonsense, do you know that the transaction has already been targeted by that woman and the police, if you don’t let go, we’re all over! Shaw: This is against the rules. The boss on my side asked for all the goods on the list. Steward: What do you mean?

Shaw maintained the posture of "holding" me, and raised a wanton smile towards the opposite side, and the other hand was filled with electric current.

Shaw: I mean... how dare you do bad things under Mrs. Laburnum's nose?

Click — everyone did not react to the moment, the brightly lit warehouse suddenly went dark.

Steward: —Backup power! Where's the backup! When the light turns on, kill them both!

Chaos exploded in this small space, and when the lights were turned on again, everyone froze on the spot.

Shaw: Just now your old man said, who do you want to kill?

Dozens of pitch-black gun barrels were pointed directly at Shaw and me, but we only had one gun on Shaw's side, but no one dared to attack us.

I was half squatting beside Shaw, holding a blue and white vase in one hand, with an ancient painting at my feet, and looking at the crowd with a smile on my face.

MC: I'm a delicate girl, and if my hand shook when the gun went off, and I accidentally shattered this national treasure porcelain vase; MC: Or if blood splattered onto this ancient painting at my feet, it wouldn't look very good, would it? Steward: ……

The butler's complexion was already so ugly that it couldn't get any more ugly, and the voice was squeezed out from between his teeth.

Steward: Who the hell are you guys? Cops? Shaw: Cops? Hahaha how is it possible!

The broken golden eyes were full of arrogance and cunningness, he pulled the trigger.

boom—

Everyone was startled by his sudden empty gun, and when their gaze returned, they noticed that Shaw had something new in his hand.

It was the locator.

Shaw: I'm wanted by the cops...just a normal bad guy who works for money.

The warning bell rang throughout the stretch of mountains, and the steward was in danger, and was escorted to the other side by several burly men.

—

A woman in a suit came over to us after counting the antiques in the warehouse and saying something to her communicator.

Woman: Mr. Ling Lin, madam is thanking you and your partner. Woman: But Madame has a question. Why didn't you follow her plan? Shaw: Because I don't like to be on schedule. I didn't listen to you when we cooperated last time, didn't we get things done as usual? Shaw: By the way, is it possible to pay now?

Woman: …..

The woman was shocked by Shaw's straightforwardness, she exchanged a few words with the communicator in a foreign language and then nodded.

Woman: Mrs. said that the wrongly packaged golden crown will be repackaged and given to you. Woman: She also said... "Mr. Ling, at your age, you have such vision and skill, maybe she can give you a wider world."

Shaw: Sorry, I'm just a college student tormented by a dissertation project and have no interest in your career.

The person being explored by Shaw’s Tai Chi was hit back, and they smiled with a sense of understanding, choosing not to say much more, then turned around, and left.

[T/N]: In this context, "Tai Chi" likely refers to a martial arts technique or action that Shaw used to counter or respond to the other person's investigation or exploration. It could be symbolic of a skillful and effective defense or response.

I folded my arms and raised my chin at him.

MC: Can you tell me the whole story now?

Shaw: Okay, but there's really not much to say about it.

Shaw: Mrs. Laburnum has already detached from the responsibility, but her subordinates always have people with suspicious moves, therefore she found me to help, checking out who is being so restless. Shaw: She gave me an invitation letter because she wanted me to act as a guest and mix in with them, but I feel that this position was too slow for collecting information, so I might as well send you. MC: Then you became the middleman in the transaction between the two parties? Shaw: Pretty much. Shaw: It's in my nature to have it both ways. MC: By the way, that so-called golden crown...in the end, How did you lose it? Shaw: What do you say?

He winked at me. I immediately reacted.

MC: ——You stole it?!

Shaw: What do you mean, "steal"? It's not nice. Shaw: I snuck into the manor with the antique inventory and found it in one of the least guarded areas, so I hid it. Shaw: If I hadn't delayed them this long, how could we have caught them? MC: ……

Although everything Shaw said made sense, it just made people want to grind their teeth.

Shaw: Why this face? Oh, I forgot to compliment you, you are upset, right? Shaw: All in all, we worked well together this time, and your acting— was sloppy, but you did manage to fool the other side. MC: Tsk, Thank you for the compliment. Shaw: So you have participated in such an immersive game, do you think it was exciting enough, do you have any inspiration? MC: Yes, and I'm going to give you a part in my play.

Shaw: What role... Ugh!

Angrily, I stood on tiptoe, vented my anger, and hit Shaw with my forehead.

Seeing him clutch his chin in astonishment, I couldn't help laughing.

MC: A big bad guy who takes his girlfriend on an adventure!

—

🔫 Call

#I really hate tumblr newest update!#anyways this date contain all the elements which a detective movie have-#and we discovered a new side of shaw which we weren't aware off😎#mlqc spoilers #mlqc cn #mlqc shaw #mlqc ling xiao #mlqc translations #mr love queen's choice #mlqc #love and producer

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hiddenmoonbeam · 5 months

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The Nutcracker

Sirius Black/Remus Lupin | ~4k words | Read on Ao3

Here we are, with my entirely unplanned and belated Christmas gift to anyone interested, an au I never knew I needed. It only exists because Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy got stuck in my head out of nowhere one night when I was trying to sleep, and once the idea had formed it wouldn’t leave me alone: a cursed boy, a mouse king turned grey-backed rat, and a good-hearted hero looking at a thing deemed broken and undesirable, and seeing someone lovely instead. This is the beginning of the story. I might write the ending too, because I keep thinking about it. The fate of the middle is more uncertain, though I do have some ideas for that as well. We’ll see how it goes. But for now, I hope you enjoy this. Have a lovely end of the year, and beginning of the next. 💖

It’s Christmas Eve and every inch of Black Manor shines. First the ice sculptures in the garden, followed by the fragrant evergreen garlands hanging around windows and door frames. Candles flicker in chandeliers leading the way from the gates to the great hall. And in there stands the most beautiful tree, so high the star at its top nearly touches the ceiling. It casts a magical light over the sea of gathered guests, glimmering in the women’s dresses and jewellery. The banquet table overflows with delicious dishes, and servants silently pass through the chatting groups carrying trays of sparkling glasses.

Maybe once upon a time, Sirius enjoyed these occasions. When he was too young to attend, and could spend these endless and magical hours sneaking away from the nanny to spy on the whole spectacle together with his best friend. But that was before said best friend’s parents expressed one too many unorthodox opinions, and the family no longer received an invitation to the yearly party. Before Sirius’s own parents decided he wasn’t a good enough heir, or brother, or potential husband – or person, in general. And now at 16, he would rather sneak away and hide in the attic than play this game of performative small talk with distasteful relatives and their equally bad acquaintances.

Which is exactly what he’s successfully managed to do. Once he’d made sure enough guests had seen him, greeted them and listened to them boast about themselves, countered backhanded compliments with his own, shot back with a smile and such finesse they wouldn’t realise the insult until later – once all that was done, he made his escape. Praying his mother would be too busy acting the perfect hostess to have time to search for him.

He’s been here in the attic for at least an hour by now, reading his book by candlelight between boxes and old furniture. It’s all calm and quiet, but for the sudden scratching sound somewhere to his right. He ignores it at first, but as the noise grows worse, probably because whatever is causing it got company, he gets up to check what uninvited guests have joined his solitude. And much like he suspected he finds the pair of rats in a dusty corner behind an old table, chewing on what looks like a wooden toy. Sirius shoos at the pests, and watches as they skitter back into the dark. He’d ask where the cats are when they’re needed, but he knows they’re probably being fed by the cook in the kitchen.

Sirius’s gaze returns to the toy – a nutcracker, he realises. He sighs as he picks up the battered thing; one arm hangs loose, the paint is peeling off, and long jagged cuts cross the wood, both from time and the rats’ teeth. It’s not much to look at, yet something about it tugs at his curiosity. Like a whisper of something old and forgotten. With all its faults it’s rather misplaced in this Manor, where everything is clean and polished, and Sirius can’t help but relate. He wonders where it came from. The attic offers no answers.

It’s risky to return downstairs, but Sirius can no longer focus on the book he brought with him. So as silently as he can manage he sneaks down to his own floor, intending to retrieve the tool box he’s hidden under a floorboard in his room. Before he can get there though, he sees his mother by his locked door, demanding his presence downstairs. She hasn’t yet noticed him at the other end of the hallway, so he quickly slips into the old nursery instead, hoping no one will think to look for him in there among the covered furniture and toys neither he nor his brother has played with for years. It’s a ghostly room; decorated for Christmas like the rest of the Manor despite its lack of use, yet shrouded in shadows cast by the moonlight outside. The tree stands by the long windowed wall opposite the door, visible from outside, all for appearances. Everything else has been frozen in time, waiting for the next generation to bring life to it yet again.

Beneath a white sheet, a few steps into the room, Sirius uncovers the Clockwork Castle the Black cousins once received from the eccentric old clockmaker and inventor, Mr Lupin. The beautiful creation seems to glimmer with a timeless magic, even after all these years. It’s been nearly a decade, but Sirius still remembers his younger self’s fascination with the mechanics of it all. Mr Lupin showed him how to operate it, as well as the box of tools hidden beneath the silvery swans frozen still on the moat. He’s glad for it now, as he finds what he needs to fix the Nutcracker’s broken arm.

In the light from the candle, he settles in the corner farthest away from the door, not to risk the light breaking through the cracks around it and giving him away. Right behind him the moon shines through the tall windows, reflecting in the glass doors of the old toy cabinet. Close beside it, the grandfather clock ticks past eleven thirty.

While he works he tells the Nutcracker in a hushed voice about how much he wishes he could leave his family and the duties they’re set on forcing upon him. His mother caught him kissing a boy last summer, and now she insists on matching him with a suitable wife before he comes of age. Several of these young women are downstairs tonight, waiting for him to show himself again, to dance with them, and behave like the heir he is. How pathetic they’d find him if they knew he’d instead hidden away in this room surrounded by distant memories and childish toys.

“There,” he says finally, placing the Nutcracker on its feet on the floor with a pleased smile at his handiwork. “As new.”

The grandfather clock in the corner chimes for midnight – once, twice… but the third one falters. Sirius frowns up at the clock, the slowing pendulum. The fourth chime comes out eerie, the muffled music from downstairs suddenly quiet.

At the fifth chime, a gust of wind swoops past, from nowhere; the Nutcracker topples over; the candle flame flickers, dies. A sparkle runs up his spine as Sirius rises to his feet, the comfort from just a moment ago now gone. Accompanying the still slowing chimes of the clock, he hears whispers and scurrying noises growing from inside the walls, like hundreds of tiny feet climbing closer.

Sirius turns, and the room spins with him. Spins and spins, everything in it growing out of proportion while the ghostly chimes echo between the walls, through his head. He stumbles and barely catches himself against an accent table, vaguely aware through the turmoil that the height of it seems wrong; his knees hit the floor and he can no longer reach the edge.

Once everything stills, even the clock now frozen right before the final chime of midnight, Sirius stares up at furniture ten times their normal size, towering above him where he lies on the floor. To his right stands the extinguished candle, now nearly as tall as him. And to his left is the Nutcracker, the toy shimmering as the stiffness melts away, revealing a boy with skin scarred the same way the wood was marked. Sirius stares, mouth agape, while the boy, not quite human but also far from a lifeless piece, blinks back at him, eyes wide. His joints crack painfully as he moves, his motions slower than Sirius’s as they both rise to their feet.

Sirius’s head races with thoughts, one wilder than the last trying to make sense of what is happening. He must have fallen asleep – but that idea even crossing his mind suggests he actually is wide awake. Shrunk to the size of a doll, standing before a Nutcracker-turned-boy. Mind full of questions, but unable to voice any of them.

For a long moment the other boy doesn’t seem to know what to say either. He watches Sirius with a mesmerised expression, eyes flickering back and forth over Sirius’s features. As if it was Sirius who just magically came alive, wood giving way to that adorable face. Then it comes, a low, soft, “oh”. It pierces Sirius’s chest, etches into his core. Oh.

Something sad falls over the boy’s face then, his whole posture, as his eyes trail down to his scarred hands and worn clothes. Sirius knows that look; embarrassment, shame. As much as he hates seeing it, he understands the stark contrast between the two of them. Sirius in his beautifully embroidered waistcoat made especially for the festive occasion, and this boy in a uniform with the red paint peeling off. Because on closer inspection, Sirius realises the fabric isn’t fabric at all; it’s still wood, as are his hands, his almost life-like skin, even the soft curls peeking out from under his hat remain still in the same position no matter how he moves his slightly too large head. Yet he somehow feels more real than any of the guests downstairs.

Sirius reaches out, fingers to the boy’s wrist – and those pretty brown eyes meet his own again. Something passes between them, invisible, curious. Sirius opens his mouth, just about to speak, when a sudden noise from behind him breaks the moment. The boy’s gaze snaps over Sirius’s shoulder, his expression shifting to alarm. Sirius turns, and what he sees freezes the blood in his veins.

All over the other half of the room, from the Christmas tree to the Clockwork Castle, dozens upon dozens of rats have gathered, even more spilling out from the hole in the wall. And at the front stands the largest of them, risen on its hind legs and impossibly tall, a sword in hand, and head crowned with gold.

The boy gasps, fingers clutching the sleeve of Sirius’s shirt – and suddenly the memories hit, old and filed away, of that Christmas when Mr Lupin presented them the Clockwork Castle. Of the Nutcracker found beneath the tree, and the story Mr Lupin told them about how it’d come to be; of far away lands steeped in magic, where toys come alive among gingerbread houses and castles covered in sugary frosting; of the vengeful Rat King and the cursed princess, and the young man finally breaking it by offering her the nut no one else had been able to crack.

And of course; the curse that befell him instead, turned him wooden and ugly. How the princess’ rejection made him shunned by all and cast out of society. Of the Rat King’s oath to hunt him down; the battle and love that must be won to free him again.

Staring back at the boy now, the terror on his face, Sirius’s own voice whispers in his mind from the past, What’s his name? Mr Lupin looked at him, startled and confused. So Sirius, slightly annoyed that this adult didn’t understand his perfectly reasonable question, added with a precocious tone, He must have a name, has he not?

“Remus,” he breathes now, echoing Mr Lupin’s soft response, and all of a sudden he understands the sadness in the old man’s eyes. The Nutcracker boy looks at Sirius with a similarly startled expression, and through the wood and growing age gap, Sirius sees the resemblance. “You’re Mr Lupin’s son.”

It’s insane. Absolutely impossible. Yet Sirius is convinced it’s true – with the ghost of a nod, an illusion of tears in his eyes, the long lost Remus Lupin stands before him, the cursed boy from a bedtime story somehow alive and here in Sirius’s old nursery.

“Are you done hiding, little Nutcracker?” the Rat King calls, his wheezing voice sending shivers down Sirius’s spine. “Will you finally let me end your sad existence once and for all?”

Sirius doesn’t know how he manages to push away from the insanity of it all to act. He scans the room, the army of rats in the opposite end of it moving in on them, and the closed door behind their growing number. Even if Sirius could reach it, there’s no way he would be able to open it while this small. Which only leaves the impossible option to fight, the two of them alone against a murderous army that would have been scary enough at his right size. Now, it’s downright terrifying.

On the floor beside them lie the small screwdrivers he’d used to fix Remus’s loose arm. He dives for them now, desperate for at least some form of weapon; they’re heavy and awkward, and he hears the Rat King’s mocking laughter as he struggles to hold each with only one hand. He pushes one to Remus, who clumsily manages not to drop it. It’s clear it won’t do. They’ll need something better, something more sword-like, something made for their size–

Sirius’s racing thoughts and feverishly searching gaze finally settle on the toy cabinet, and fragile hope leaps in his chest. If only they can get inside, they’ll have an arsenal of swords and rifles, even cannons, at their disposal, though he has no idea how well any of those toys will actually work. But it’s something. He even thinks he sees movement in there, though he doesn’t dare wish for what that could mean.

With a quick glance over his shoulder at the approaching rats, Sirius grabs Remus’s hand, and runs.

“I’m not a fighter, I–I’m only, I was only a clockmaker apprentice,” Remus stammers out. “I don’t know how to–”

“I’m right beside you.” Sirius squeezes his hand, maybe as much to reassure himself as Remus, who stares at him in disbelief. “We will do it together.”

Remus shakes his head, though he looks ill from refusing the help. “I can’t let you–you have nothing to do with this. You might get hurt–”

But I do, Sirius thinks, and he can sense it, somewhere deep down, that it is true. Mr Lupin must have known what he was doing, leaving his cursed son here of all places, all those years ago. There must be more to the story than what he revealed to them back then. There’s a reason this is happening now; a reason Sirius has been magicked into it all, shrunk to fit the missing piece of the puzzle.

When they finally reach the toy cabinet, Sirius sees to his great relief that the movements weren’t an illusion of the moonlight. Behind the glass doors the residents of every shelf now stand up, joining forces to push them open from the inside. As their own rapidly growing side leaps past to the sound of the Rat King’s rage, Sirius can’t help a mad grin from spreading wide. He knows these toys; he gave half of them their personality, and the rest he learned from his brother and cousins. Tin soldiers with many a battle beneath their belts, wooden horses ready to charge, teddy bears with protection sewn into their very seams. Even his cousins’ pretty dolls gather at the rear, brandishing their parasols and purses with determined looks on their rosy faces.

They’re not alone, after all.

One of the toys hands Remus a sword – a real one, it looks like, made sharper and deadly by the same magic that woke them all up. Remus eyes it warily.

“Do you know what’s needed to break your curse?” the doll asks, while a tin general barks orders for the gathered defence now between them and the rats.

Remus looks towards the Rat King who swings at the first toys within reach with maddening force, and his wooden hand trembles a little as he grips tighter around the hilt. “I do,” he whispers.

The doll gives a curt nod. “But you are not yet ready,” she continues. “The Rat King is a great warrior, and tonight you would not stand a chance against him. You must first return home, and learn how to defeat him.”

“Home?” Sirius asks, confused.

She points with her arm, and as if on cue, the Clockwork Castle lights up above the chaos of rats and toys, the mechanics coming alive, a musical hum rising from its core. “Once you’ve entered he cannot follow you that way, as those gates only work for toys and invited guests. It will buy you time.”

“But… the rest of you–”

“We can be mended. We are not fragile like bleeding humans.” She sends Sirius a look at that, before turning back to Remus. “Nor cursed to oblivion should we lose.”

Sirius nods, while accepting another sword from a different toy. Again he scans the scene for their best option. The table with the castle still lies behind enemy lines, but the rats around the legs seem unnerved by the musical tunes, scattering away from it. Still, they will have to fight their way over there. He’s never had to fend for his or anyone else’s life before, not properly, but at least he’s somewhat prepared thanks to his fencing lessons. Remus on the other hand looks ill again; if a wooden face could pale, his would have lost all colour. But meeting Sirius’s eyes, determination still settles over his features.

It’s chaos. Tin cannon balls break through the army from a distance, the firearms powered by what can only be magic. Rats tear into the soft bellies of the dolls and teddy bears, stuffing spreading over the floor like fluffy intestines. The bizarre scenario is made even worse by the sickening feeling of slicing the sword through actual flesh, the screaming rats falling at Sirius’s feet. His hair, loose from the ribbon at his neck, whips into his face as he turns to fend off the next attack.

The Rat King fights to get to them. But the toys do their best to keep him away, shielding Remus while helping to clear a path towards the Clockwork Castle. Sirius doesn’t know why they’re so ready to protect him, or how they’re aware of his foretold and final confrontation with this vicious enemy. But it’s hardly the strangest part of the night, and so he lets his questions slide to the back of his mind, full focus instead on the task at hand.

They reach the table, wooden guards from the Castle already at the edge of it, throwing down a string of yarn for them to climb. Sirius pushes Remus towards it, not allowing him to argue which of them should go last. “I’m right behind you,” he urges when Remus hesitates. “Go!”

Behind them, just as Sirius grabs for the end of the string and the guards haul them upwards, the Rat King breaks through the defence. Sirius climbs as fast as he can, hoping against hope the rat won’t manage to follow after. But it’s a futile wish; he digs his claws into the white tablecloth, pulling himself closer with practised strength and speed. Far too soon he’s at Sirius’s feet, cruel eyes shining with malice as he grabs at his ankle, tugging hard.

Sirius tightens his grip of the string, knuckles whitening, palms burning. He kicks down hard, boot connecting with the Rat King’s ugly snout. He lets out an angry roar, clawing towards Sirius’s leg again. But the force was enough to have him lose his grip of the cloth, and he tumbles back down to the floor.

Heart hammering in his chest, Sirius manages to climb the last bit to the edge. Remus is still there with the toy guards, wide-eyed and reaching down to grab Sirius by the arm. Sirius lets himself be pulled up, and even as the helping guard steps back to let him catch his breath, Remus’s hold on him remains.

One of the guards tells them they must hurry, that the rat is climbing again – and they’re back on their feet, rushing towards the towering, shining Castle now finally so close. They cross the moat, the crystal clear water swirling around the graceful swans gliding over the surface beneath the drawbridge. It’s raised behind them, forming the first solid structure between them and the threat. Cutting it all off like this place in itself is a different world altogether. Or at least an in-between, a break, a moment to breathe.

The courtyard looks even more magical like this, viewed from within rather than observed from above like by a god. Sirius stares, turning in a circle to admire the insane details of Mr Lupin’s handiwork, and how this magical night has spelled it all to life. On every side, figures are moving around, cogs and gears turning in their complicated patterns. Miniature Christmas trees line the roads, dusted with sugary snow and sparkling ornaments. Small lanterns hang on strings between beautifully carved columns, casting the setting in a warm glowing light. To their right a couple of wooden children skate around a frozen pond, a decorative fountain splashing water closeby despite the illusion of cold. To the left, a family of snowmen clad in hats and scarves sway to the tunes of the music. And ahead is the castle itself, front gates glimmering like a portal to yet another realm.

With a lurching sensation in his stomach, Sirius realises that’s because it is.

“The Rat King cannot breach these walls,” a guard informs them. “You will be safe here until the battle is over.” He says the last bit to Sirius, who responds with a grateful nod, though he has no intention to stay behind.

“I cannot thank you enough,” Remus says, also facing Sirius. Not until now does he let go of Sirius’s arm, and he finds he misses the contact instantly. “For all the help to get here, but also for fixing my arm, talking to me…” Sirius’s cheeks heat up when remembering what he’d been saying before all this started. But Remus doesn’t seem the slightest bit judgemental or uncomfortable about it. He’s wearing that mesmerised expression again, eyes flickering over Sirius’s face. “I feel like you even woke me up, though I cannot say how.”

“I can’t take credit for that,” Sirius chuckles, averting his eyes and scratching at his own neck. His gaze trails back to the gold breaking through the opening gates, a strange, invisible pull tugging him closer.

Beside him, Remus adds apologetically, “I wish I knew how to turn you back to normal.”

“We’ll have to figure that out too, then.” Sirius steps towards the gates, a lot less concerned about his own state than he probably should be. He looks back at Remus, who frowns. “What? I’m coming with you, of course.”

An uncertain pause, then, “Of course.” Remus lets out a little laugh, nervous yet so endearing, before adding softly, “I don’t even know your name.”

“Sirius.”

Remus stills midstep, eyes widening. “Like the star.”

Sirius almost responds with a good-natured eyeroll, pointing out that hardly warrants such an awed expression. But then he hears Remus’s added murmur, a whisper from the past, echoing the end of Mr Lupin’s tale.

His fate now lies in the hands of the stars.

Sirius freezes too, unease piercing his chest. Mr Lupin’s mysterious words were spoken with promise, hope, as he placed the Nutcracker with the older Black children. Three young girls then, now all of them married off, while Mr Lupin’s son remains in his wooden prison. And it hits Sirius then, that this role was never meant for him. He’s just the one the magic has to settle for, with the desired options gone. The idea of a part to play suddenly doesn’t feel as welcome anymore. Not like this, not if it means he will wield power over the outcome he isn’t supposed to have. It’s one thing to offer help, to do whatever he can to support and encourage. Another entirely to have the future of this already so mistreated boy laid into his hands, trusting him to somehow make the right choice, the one that will save him. It’s too much responsibility, too easy to fail, to ruin everything. And this time he won’t be able to fix him again, like his broken arm.

Remus eyes him in silence for a moment, head tilted. “You can stay here,” he starts, but Sirius quickly shakes his head.

“No, no it’s not that.” Silence again, while Sirius chews on his lip, his words. “I don’t know how to help you. I don’t know what it means, what I’m meant to do.”

Something soft falls over Remus’s face, a small smile meeting Sirius’s frown. “We will figure it out,” he says, holding out his hand. “Together?”

Ahead of them, the gates stand open. Golden light pulsing within the frames. The pull tightens, whispers wordlessly, their destination waiting beyond the shimmering veil. Remus faces it with his back, his edges shining with the magic. Sirius meets his gentle eyes, looks at the scarred fingers still held out between them. And he realises it doesn’t matter he isn’t meant to be here – wanted or not, he’s the help Remus has been given, and he won’t leave his side out of fear of failure.

So Sirius returns the smile; moves forward; takes Remus’s hand. Gives it a squeeze, to reassure them both. “Yes,” he agrees. “Together.”

And side by side, they enter the unknown.

#wolfstar #my first time posting more than snippets in this fandom ahhhhhhh #will post on ao3 later but only tumblr for now #nutcracker au #my writing #EDIT!! posted to ao3 also!!

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