#the little dust motes in the morning light i am DEAD
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by celebillustrate on twitter | celebillustrate on ig, posted with permission
illustrating a cozy scene from if i stare too long by brawlite & @toast-ranger-to-a-stranger
#harringroveson#stedilly#god i am like#SO FUCKING IN LOVE with this#i cannot stop staring#the little dust motes in the morning light i am DEAD
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Kay, you know by now how obsessed I am with Mindhunter, but maybe basically I’m obsessed with Jonathan Groff and while rewatching Looking the scene when Kevin says to Patrick ‘Do you know how much effort it takes to be around you every day?’ ‘Effort?’ ‘It takes all of my willpower not to lunge and kiss the fucking shit out of you.’ This is just Bill talking to Holden, right??? I should really be sleeping by now 😅
Don’t hate me, but I still have not watched any of Looking lol But this is a great piece of dialogue, and I wish I could be entirely responsible for it. This is also inspired by this astute observation by @mindhunnter. Enjoy!
Late evening sunlight spills in fragmented, yellow fingers across the bedspread as Bill listens to the dial tone hum against his ear. His throat thickens against the taste of smoke going stale on his tongue, his forgotten cigarette dangling against his knuckles and building ash. He drops the receiver to the cradle, appreciates the angry clatter of plastic. He can see dust motes floating through the air against the wash of a beautiful, Alabama sunset.
They’re fresh off the visit to Altoona, the first real exercise of their new skillset. It’s the third week of December, borderline on Christmas, a late evening after road school, and the rest of their day is to be spent in this little motel just off the highway, dead hours until the flight home in the morning.
Nancy was on the other end of the line just before she hung up. No goodbye. No I love you. These long hours are hard on him, but even harder on her. She detests being home alone, and he doesn’t blame her - he has Holden on his side of it to slake the dark pit of solitude, the itch of a dissatisfied heart beating against impending aloneness.
He doesn’t give much thought to Nancy leaving him, only shoves it to the back of his mind; but it’s always there, a distant possibility. Right beside Holden, this odd little square trying to shove himself into a round hole, trying desperately to be something, succeeding in being something to Bill if only a pebble in his shoe. Really succeeding in being much more, a wash of red lathered over the drab grays and blacks Bill’s life has become.
Huffing a sigh, Bill takes his cigarettes and his half-drunk beer out of the hotel room. Down the cracked, uneven sidewalk, the path leads to the gated pool area. The chain link fence does a poor job of blocking off the sightline to the pool, giving anyone walking by a clear glimpse of the half-naked body cutting through the aquamarine blue water.
Bill shoves open the gate, and shuffles across the coarse cement tiles to the edge of the pool.
Holden swims from the other end of the pool in his direction, body cutting a foaming line down the center of the water. He’s pale and sleek in the splash of blue, muscles rippling with every stroke.
Bill sucks on his cigarette until Holden reaches his end of the pool, and comes out of the water gasping in a breath of air. His fingers cling to the ceramic lip of the pool as Bill gazes down at him, taking in the wet, plastered hair, and eyes so painfully blue against the backdrop of pool water and red, bloodshot veins irritated by chlorine.
“Are you going to join me?” Holden asks, wiping a hand over his face and mouth.
“No.” Bill says. “I’m good right here.” I’d prefer to watch.
He swallows hard against the thought, and cuts a glance away.
Holden drags himself out of the water, and onto the side of the pool. His feet dangle in the water, gently kicking against the soft lap of minor waves.
“I’ve been thinking about Altoona.” Holden says.
“Yeah?” Bill grunts as he sits down next to Holden.
He rolls his pantlegs up, and slips his feet into the water. Holden casts him a curious, sideways glance. His mouth purses against a smile. Their shoulders are nearly touching.
“What about it?” Bill asks.
“None of it makes sense. We’re missing something.”
Bill takes a swig of his beer. It tastes bitter against the warm breeze and salty scent of chlorine radiating off of Holden’s bare skin. His skin prickles with goosebumps as tiny droplets of water journey down his chest, barely making it to his belly before they’re lapped up by the humidity.
Bill thinks it must be snowing back home, but here it’s hot - too hot.
“Don’t you think?”
Bill flushes as Holden’s question brings his eyes back up. Holden regards him calmly, eyes serene blue, lips pink and shuddering against the breeze.
Fuck me. Bill thinks. With the memory of his brief conversation with Nancy simmering in the back of his mind, all he can think about is Sacramento, and how he’d told Holden he liked his wife, that he was lucky to have her. He could have said I’m fucking unhappy. But he couldn’t, and now he missed that chance.
“Yeah, we’re missing something.” Bill mutters.
Holden’s shoulder leans into him. A little bit of moisture seeps through Bill’s shirtsleeve from his skin, a latent fingerprint left at a crime scene.
Bill could have stopped himself, but he doesn’t want to. He slips his hand up Holden’s bare, slick spine, his touch light and swift. Holden is shuddering but barely protesting by the time it reaches his nape, and pulls him in.
The kiss is brief and gentle, Bill’s mouth pressing against Holden’s in a desperate, silent cry, the only form of communication that he can manage. I’m fucking unhappy. But not with you. I need you. I want you so badly it hurts.
Holden’s mouth tastes like chlorine and the sweet tinge of saliva. It’s all Bill’s racing senses can gather before he’s forced to pull back, propelled by his own jolting panic.
Holden stares at him, his mouth hanging open, his eyes blinking against the dribble of water making its way across the dark fringe of his eyelashes.
“Fuck.” Bill says, heat rushing to his chest. He can’t mold the humiliation into anything else, so he fashions this flash of fire into anger. “Do you have any fucking idea the effort it takes to be with every single day?”
“Effort?” Holden’s voice is trembling.
“To not do that.” Bill says, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Jesus. I’m a fucking idiot.”
Holden stammers as Bill climbs to his feet, and takes a staggered step back from the edge of the pool.
“Bill, I-”
“No.” Bill says, holding up a hand. “We’re not talking about this. I’m going back inside. Just put some fucking clothes on before you come in for the night.”
He turns and walks away from the pool, every inch of him shaking with a hot burst of shock and shame. He thinks that Holden probably isn’t going to let this go. He’s like a dog with a bone; once his jaw locks, there’s no changing his mind. But Bill has to argue that maybe whatever respect Holden has for him might keep him from demanding answers - for now. The logic feels like a toothpick holding back a storm.
Bill shoves his way past the gate, hearing the quiet splash as Holden slides back into the water.
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Legend of Zelda: Requiem of Power
Happy NaNoWriMo!
Instead of actually participating, I am posting some things I’ve been working on.
This is my Legend of Zelda fan fiction, which I want to finish, but I also want feedback on... I don't want to post it to AO3, or FF.N, because it’s just too big an audience, but I’ve got a handful of followers, many of which may or may not be Zelda fans or Fan fiction readers, so this should only reach a handful of people?
If you do read this, comments are desired and critiques are heartily encouraged; I’ve done a lot of editing, but editing is no my forte, so I apologize for spelling errors.
Gosh, I am 34, I can not believe posting some writing is making me so anxious, haha.
Chapter 1 - The Boy among Ghosts
The sun was just beginning her journey into the pale, scorched sky; the holy valley held the shadows of night tight in her stony hands. Poes drifted from from memorial spire to monument headstone, occasionally stopping to chitchat with one and other, to themselves, or to no one at all. They went about their routine seamlessly, just like they had every day before for decades; some for centuries.
The golden light of morning slid over the cliff top and upon the stone relief over the entrance to the Shrine of the Fierce Goddess; the translucent desert marble glowed in the shadowy gloom. The entryway, still frigid from the windswept night, slowly illuminated as sunlight poured into the valley.
From the temple entrance a tiny green-clad Poe came zipping, whirling and giggling with glee. "Oh my Goddesses! So exciting-- so excited!" she squealed, embers spilling and spiraling from her lantern as she spun recklessly through the air.
The narrow valley was full of grave markers of all shapes, sized and materials. One specific mausoleum was the source of the little poe's attentions; an open gazebo of white marble, aged shrouds tied around the narrow pillars to block out casual peeping eyes and the twisting winds that managed to get into the valley.
"Wake up, wake up! It's time to wake up!" the Poe squealed, passing through the shrouds and diving toward a makeshift bed. She grabbed the top blanket and yanked it away.
The bedding below-- several layers of fraying woven grass mats-- was unoccupied.
"Oh land, life and law, he's gone!" she squeaked. "I lost the Prince!"
"Ghola? I'm right here," came a voice from behind her.
In the center of the small mausoleum, sitting calmly in lotus position, was a young Gerudo boy. His only scrap of clothing was a loincloth, but his ears were lined with golden hoops and studs, and a gold and ruby ornamental crown rested on his forehead. He rolled his eyes at the frantic poe.
"I thought I'd lost you!" The tiny poe, Ghola, squeaked, "she woulda killed me if I lost THE PRINCE!"
"You're already dead, you can't..." he started to explain, but stopped as he noticed that she wasn't listening. She continued to wail and lament her imagined punishment.
He stretched his legs, leaned back and watched her gestures and flailings for a moment, before turning back to his meditations. Instead of returning to the lotus, he rolled backwards onto his shoulders and lifted his feet further and further over his head until his toes rested on the ground. As his weight shifted, the crowd slipped off his forehead, thin golden chains slithering to the floor. He grunted in frustration.
"But I found you! Yay! No one gets in trouble and we can both go see Maman!" Ghola concluded.
"Maman?" He swung his legs back over his head and pushed himself upward, landing on his feet. He didn't stay on his feet, however; gravity and his thin, gawky body conspired against him, and he landed unceremoniously on his rump.
"Ow! Every time," he muttered.
"S'cause your so tall. You were this tall once," Ghola said, sinking to a foot from the floor. She dipped down and grabbed the crown before rushing upward and draping the chains into his unruly hair, "But now you're this tall, big gangly Gangrel."
He ducked away from her tiny hands, quickly sorting out the chains and replacing the ornament upon his forehead. "Don't call me that in front of Maman," he said sternly as he grabbed his pants from the foot of the bed and pulled them on.
"Why, are you embarrassed? Gang-grel?" Ghola teased.
"No, I'm not. I like my name, it's the only one I've got, but Maman ordered me not to leave the valley. Falon's ranch is definitely out of the valley, and 'gangrel' is not exactly a respectable name for a Prince," he snipped playfully, fastening his belt.
"Oh Goddesses, you're right! She's gonna be so mad if I mess up!" Ghola gasped, hiding her face in her hands.
Gangrel slipped his boots on, shook his head, tossed the curtain aside and headed out of the gazebo.
"Okay! I promise I won't mess up at all, okay? Gangrel?" Ghola said, bobbing confidently, then looking around the empty room. "Gangrel, where'd you go?! You need to eat before we go!"
"Are you coming, or not?" He called.
---
The Gerudo Prince ran his dark hands along the cool, softly glowing stone hall. Ghola floated along behind him, watching motes dance in the slim beams of light that drifted from the ceiling. To either side of the main hall stairways wound up to private chambers, long empty. There was an alter between the stairs, and beyond that a long torchlit hall, extending deep, deep into the mountain.
"Wow," Gangrel whispered, "I've never seen the temple lit up and open before. It's a lot bigger than I thought."
"The temple is way bigger than what you see here," Ghola said, lowering her lantern. "There are small prayer halls, sleeping chambers, store rooms and if you keep going down the hall you come to the temple proper. Those lanterns haven't been lit in like ten years. The Poes don't need them, and normals like you aren't allowed any further, so I wonder why..."
"Normals? I am the future King of the Gerudo, I can go where I want," Gangrel informed her.
"You're not a priestess, so no you can't. Only a follower of the Fierce Goddess can enter." Ghola gave a loud raspberry to the indignant prince. "The memories and memorials to Gerudo come and gone are locked within. The secret to entering the temple proper died with the last acolyte. She took up all her courage and for that the Fierce Wolf spared her, but then there was light, and She died. Her secrets were buried in no grave, lost to the dust."
"Ghola, are you... Wait, did you say wolf?"
The tiny poe spun in a circle and bobbed cheerily, "am I what? Courageous and amazing? Yes. I am."
"Y-you didn't really see a wolf, right? It was an illusion, or a dream... It had to be."
"Of course I didn't see a wolf, I wasn't there-- She was, and She did, but She's dead now," she said, twirling her lantern and throwing shadows across the halls. "Maman, there you are!"
Gangrel wasn't able to inquire further before a husky chuckle fell upon his ears as Maman materialized beside him. An enormous poe, easily as tall as the eleven year old Prince and-- lanky as he was-- many times as wide. Her tattered robe had once been of the same sage green as Ghola, but the centuries of ceaseless existing had faded her very essence, making her seem pale. A glimmer-y golden sheen of a crown, similar to Gangrel's own, rested on her shadow-hued brow.
"My Prince," she said, bowing low, "Sister Ghola."
"Maman," he replied, bowing lower.
She swatted the back of his head, nearly loosing his crown again. "A king bows to no one-- how many times must I tell you?"
"For as long as you are my Maman," he replied, looking up at her.
"Humility does not suit a king, you must be strong and stalwart-- but I can not be mad at you," she replied, her thin, bony hand brushing his hair back. "My handsome little Prince. You have said your prayers today, yes? You practiced the holy steps?"
"Of course Maman," he said.
Her eyes burned dim, and her face, though so dark as to be featureless at a distance, was full of concern, and sorrow, and agelessness. "You remember the tenets?"
"Of course, Maman."
"Speak them."
"The Three Goddesses created all," he recited. "They gave us life, the land and the laws. It is our duty to use our skills to protect these sacred things. Those with courage must do all they can. Those with wisdom must teach all they know. Those with power must protect all without. Strive to have these holy attributes. There is no sin in fear, only cowardice. There is no sin in foolishness, only ignorance. There is no sin in failure, only surrender."
"Hold them in your heart, my Prince, the kings of the past forgot them..." Maman said, placing her pitch black hand over his heart. She closed her eyes and began to chant. "Praise the Goddesses, creators of all--"
Ghola coughed, "uh, Maman? Focus."
"Hmm?" The ancient Poe intoned, looking between the two as though she had forgotten they were there. "Oh, my Prince, good morning, you have said your prayers?"
"I understand the importance of the tenets Maman," Gangrel said, hoping to get her back on topic, "but I'm sure you didn't call me here to hear me quote holy words."
"Yes, yes, I recall now. I have an important task for you-- and urgent task. One that will take you out of the valley, far into the desert. Are you ready to explore your kingdom?"
"O-out? B-but you said not to leave the valley-- not until I was an adult," Gangrel said obediently.
"I did, I did." Maman said, her glowing eyes narrowing, "and did you listen to me when I said that?"
Gangrel looked to the side, grimacing, "yes... I listened."
"Did you, Gangrel?" she said. "I know about the goatherd girl, Falon."
His dark cheeks blanched; shame pulled his gaze to the cold, dim floor.
"Oh no! I didn't tell, I swear!" Ghola squeaked, waving her arms. "I promised I wouldn't, and I didn't! Not even a little!"
"I know, I believe you," his eyes turned to the tiny green Poe, and he gave a small smile before turning back to Maman, "I'm sorry Maman. Yes, I listened to you, but I didn't obey you. I tried to stay in the valley's shadow, but once I got into the sun there was so much to see. I had to know what was out there. I made a friend-- and I trust her."
She sighed, a dry and dusty sound. "I will not punish you for curiosity, Prince. I forbade you from leaving for my own well being, as much as for your safety. I worry, greatly, for you my little, little Prince. The world is much bigger, and much harsher, than you know." Her wide, luminescent eyes closed. "I will not punish you for breaking my rules, but time will tell if you will punish yourself for the consequences."
"...Maman?" Gangrel asked softly.
"No, now is not that time," she said. She twirled in the air, summoning her own large, bright lantern. Blackened by time and soot, the lantern was of an older style, different from the oil lamps and candle cages most of the poes carried. Maman twisted the fasteners on the top and opened it, causing the light within to pulse and twist. Holding the lantern with one hand, she reached in with the other and pulled out a long, glowing, indistinct shape-- far longer than the lantern itself. She held the glow out to Gangrel.
"Those with Power must protect those without. Will you accept your duty as a Prince? Will you protect those less powerful?"
"I-I don't have power."
"You are the Prince of the Gerudo, Son of Dragmire. You do have power. How will you use it?" she thrust the light-obscured item toward him again. "Will you protect those who cannot protect themselves?"
Gangrel reached for the proffered items, but hesitated and looked at his own hands for a long moment.
He'd been barely a toddler when he'd last seen another Gerudo-- or so he had been told. They had dark skin and wide eyes, red hair and golden jewelry, just like him, the poes said. The Gerudo villages were always heavy with incense and song. They were happy and peaceful people; studious, strong and brave.
He wanted to say he remembered them; that he remembered something: flashes of color, certain smells, distant voices, anything.
He didn't. He'd never known them. If the words he’d heard outside the valley were true, he never would. He was alone in the world. A boy amongst ghosts.
He remembered fear. He remembered a bright, cold flash and being dropped into the sand, a warm, guiding light and then nothing but growing up in the Memorial Valley.
It made him angry.
It made him furious; a burning hatred festering in his heart toward whomever had done it, whomever had ordered it, for those who had allowed it, for those who hadn't defended themselves, for those that had died and left him alone, for himself not fighting harder-- No.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Violence was not the answer. It was never the answer.
He prayed, for the power to restrain himself, for the courage to keep going, for the wisdom to know that the past couldn't be changed, but the future was open. He pushed the anger down, bottled it up and turned it away.
Opening his eyes, he reached and took the item from her, pulling it close and clasping it in both hands, "I will. I swear, on the sand, the wind and the water, that I will. I will protect those who can not protect themselves. I will be a Prince-- I will be a King-- that you can be proud of."
The glow abated and revealed, clasped in his hands, two swords. Just over a foot each, but so sharp they nearly sang. Etched on the base of the blade was the symbol of the Gerudo and several old Gerudo runes, which meant nothing to him. The hilts were simple time-hardened wood and metal, with long red clothes tied around the blade collar.
He turned his arms and looked at the shining, deadly blades. There was power within the metal.
At his feet the dust began to prickle and sway.
The power to fight.
Power pulsed within him, with his heart beat.
The power to avenge.
The sand gave the power shape, concentric circles of scales dancing around him, crackling with power.
The power to kill.
"No!" He dropped the swords to the stone and stepped back; the dust fell still. "No, I changed my mind, I don't want it!"
With a sharp flash of light, the blades returned to him, materializing in two scabbards hooked to a belt around his waist.
Maman sighed heavily, "it was never truly a choice."
"No, life is sacred, I must protect it, not end it! I'm not a killer!" He screamed, pulling the swords from his belt and discarding them again.
"You made a promise to protect."
They returned, again.
"No, no, no!" he whimpered, this time trying to loose the scabbards themselves from his belt, "I won't be a murderer! I'm not a monster!"
Maman simply watched him struggle, her lantern distinctly dimmer now than before. "You must," she said, and nothing more.
Ghola flew to him, "Gangrel, calm down. Hey, look-- look at me-- look at this," she said, holding up her lantern.
Confused and struggling for composure, he looked the lantern; thin braided leather cords bound a cup of green glass; luminescent smoke drifting over the rim and inside a small, but bright orb of light rolled in slow circles. He stopped struggling with the scabbards and his eyes flickered between the lantern and Ghola.
"Hold out your hands," Ghola said.
Slowly, he brought his hands up, cupped in front of him.
She set the lantern in his hands, letting the unnatural warmth from it soothing his shaken nerves. Floating up to his face, she set a tiny hand on his cheek.
"You don't have to kill anyone. Swords are not for killing, they're for protecting," she said, drifting beside him and stroking his hairline gently.
"I don't have anyone to protect," he whispered.
Gangrel went silent, his eyes falling to the lantern in his hands. It was small, but glowed with a fierce, courageous light.
"For now, you just have to protect yourself," Ghola whispered. "Don't worry, I'll go with you. I'll protect you. I'm good at that."
The lantern was heavy in his hands; he'd known Ghola as long as he could remember. Though silly and somewhat carefree, she was the most lucid poe in the valley, always concerned with his safety and well being. She was protective to the point of annoying, always bugging him to eat more, not to climb on things, not to pick up wild animals and insects, and to not have any fun unless she was involved. Whenever he got out of her sight, he always ended up messing up, or getting hurt, and she would have to clean him up, saying nothing, but never forgetting.
"Yeah, you are," he admitted.
"You mustn't dally, you must go beseech the Goddesses for their blessings," Maman said. "The Great Goddess, the Merciful Goddess and the Fierce Goddess. The Desert Colossus, the Oasis Library and the Memorial Hall."
"He's not a priestess, he won't be able to get into the Hall proper," Ghola said.
"He is the Prince. I imagine the Goddess with make an exception for him," Maman said.
Gangrel stuck his tongue out at Ghola, also holding her lantern out to her; she raspberried back, snatching her light back.
"Children, this is a serious time. Please." She twirled, holding a length of cloth as she came to face him again. She wrapped the cloth over his head and shoulders, "this will protect you, from the heat of the sun, and the chill of the moon. Go now. Pass through the Memorial Hall and speak to the Fierce Goddess. Beyond the hall you will find the Haunted Wasteland. The spirit guide there can take you to the Desert Colossus and the Desert Oasis. Go now, and be safe."
Gangrel nodded, running his fingers along the soft, cool shawl on his shoulders, "I will return-- and I will keep myself safe without killing anyone, I swear."
"Do what you must."
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Getting Through The Maze
A story about mazes, monsters and unlikely friends...
Neither Cinder nor Balm knew why they’d been chosen for this imprisonment, but they both knew what it was expected to achieve.
Their captors had made this perfectly clear every morning.
“You will renounce your old lives and help us find our freedom.”
“You will forget your faith and make room in yourself only for learning the Way.”
“You will help us to chain the Beast and claim freedom for humanity.”
Before they had been captured, Cinder and Balm had both lived very different lives and come from very different places.
Cinder had been a scholar of dead planets, and she had learned how to read a world’s whole story from its ashes. She was an augur of histories and a necromancer of societies. Her work was never celebrated as it should have been for the other scholars feared her.
Balm didn’t know where he came from originally, he only knew that he had come as a child to a world of peace that had taken him in as one of their own. Wherever he had come from, he had brought violence with him. It had taken many years for him to learn the calm and empathy that came to them naturally.
At first, the only thing that they had in common was their capture. They had both seen a hole open in the world, through which they had seen the grey faces of the people of the maze. They both remembered their hard, glinting eyes and the hushed whispers as the maze-people conferred.
Then there was only the feeling of falling, and they woke up in their cell, the makeshift bars wedged into one of the maze’s many dead ends.
Then began the daily breaking down of who they were before, the cajoling and coercing into who they should become, and the warnings that if they did not help they would all be lost to the Beast.
They could hear the screams of the Beast sometimes at night. Often, when they did, there would be different People of the Maze guarding their cells in the morning.
They kept each other sane by telling stories and playing games.
...
“Once upon a time, I sifted through the ashes of a world where people occupied living houses that bonded to them like the shells of hermit crabs. I keep a little dust in this necklace here, so they can continue their long slow journeys.”
…
“When I was little, I used to dream of going back up to the stars and finding the world I came from. I used to think I could soothe the anger they left me as my legacy and teach them about peace. It’s stupid, I know…”
…
“I spy with my little eye, something beginning with M…”
“Is it maze?”
“Yes, how did you guess?”
“You always guess maze. You’re so literal.”
“Better than your abstract nonsense. You said H for Hope once!”
“I haven’t said that in a while.”
“No … you haven’t.”
…
In time, Cinder and Balm began to learn a little about how the Maze worked. The People of the Maze were those who could no longer remember anything other than the Maze itself, their long wanderings slowly bleaching the colour from them. Perhaps they had come from other worlds originally (as Cinder and Balm had), and were only accepted as People after the last of their old lives had faded from them. Or maybe they had always been in the Maze and the others that they snatched were simply lost to the Beast after a time.
They had never found the way out, but they did occasionally find ‘not-quite-dead-ends’ that were a kind of doorway to other worlds. These were the strange portals through which they had abducted Balm and Cider and who knows how many other people over time…
It was clear that the Maze was a strange prison, for it touched many others worlds.
After years in which they grew slightly more compliant, but never quite forgot themselves, Cinder and Balm were allowed to explore the Maze a little, but only with great long ropes tied to them. Neither was ever quite sure if this was to help them find their way back or to prevent them being able to escape.
In those years, Cinder found what traces she could of the world that the Maze might once have been. From faded old footprints and the imprints left in crumbling walls and the occasional bleached bone, she began to reconstruct the many stories and journeys that had filled the maze.
Meanwhile, Balm spoke in calm and practised words to the People of the Maze and began to intuit from the gaps between their sentences a little of their hopes and their fears.
The two of them put what they knew together. And they thought that, perhaps, they had an idea of what might need to be done.
…
“It’s this way. Don’t be scared.” Balm led the People of the Maze by the hand, a long chain of grayscale people, passing Balm’s gentle squeezes of the palm down the line.
Cinder led ahead, sniffing the aid. She breathed the motes of dust floating suspended in the half-light deeply into her lungs. She felt them form a constellation inside her and she let those shapes guide her onwards.
“It’s okay.” Said Balm in slow words made out of years of carefully copied care. “We have renounced what we were. We have abandoned our faith to make room. We fear the Beast. We will help you find freedom.”
Balm was lying, of course, for Cinder had always been there to remind him of his story when their imprisonment threatened to turn it to ash.
“We’re almost there.” Said Cinder, leading them round one final corner.
And there, before them, was the Beast.
The Beast was not what either Cinder or Balm had ever expected. They were a door in the wall of the Maze. They were a pair of eyes ticking like clocks along to reality’s heartbeat. They were a mouth that opened when you turned its handle. They were teeth twisted a hundred times around a hundred times into paths that formed a labyrinth.
The door opened. There were stars beyond it.
Every one of the People of the Maze was eaten up.
Balm and Cinder were left behind, holding onto each other and holding onto what they were and holding onto the maze.
“You found me.” The Beast’s voice was quiet. It was screaming. It was the sound of hinges long in need of oil. “Do you know who I am?”
“You are endings.” Said Cinder.
“You are beginnings.” Said Balm, at the same time.
“Yes. I am both.” Said the Beast. “They are the same thing, after all.”
“You are a prison.” Said Balm.
“You are freedom.” Said Cinder.
“And you are the Maze.” They both said.
“Yes.” Said the Beast and a pleased rumble echoed through the floor and through both Balm and Cinder. “It is so pleasing to be known. And a great sadness it will be so brief. Are you ready?”
“Yes.” Said Cinder, taking Balm’s hand. She could read every part of his story in the lines it had left on him.
“Yeah.” Said Balm, squeezing Cinder’s palm. He could feel every beat of her heart through the veins that curled around his fingers.
And then the door opened wider and Balm and Cinder walked (or perhaps they fell) hand-in-hand into the Beast’s mouth.
In some other place, some other world, some other time, they awoke again with no knowledge of who they had been before.
But they will walk through it hand in hand.
And they will come to know its stories and its hopes and its fears through the ashes of its history and through the trembling of its heart.
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Destined
Chapter 4- The Angel’s Mission
Castiel x Reader
Series Summary: “In this life, in every life, I choose you.”
Through the ages he’s loved you, only to lose you suddenly. No matter how many times Heaven punishes him, he seeks you out. With each of your reincarnations, it takes him longer and longer to find you. Castiel has vowed to never stop searching, but will the time come when you no longer wish to be found?
Chapter Summary: Castiel has been tirelessly, and fruitlessly, searching for Y/n. Just as he is about to give up all hope, a fragment of a chance to reunite with her appears.
Chapter Warnings: Angst and canonical violence.
Word Count: 1.2k
Beta’d by: @trexrambling
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
Previously on Destined:
Bartholomew holds the essence of her in the palm of his hand and turns to me with a satisfied smile. “You will never find her again.”
He and the few remaining angels left alive, disappear as quickly as they arrived. I scramble to gather Y/n into my arms. I heal her wounds and she inhales a deep breath. Her eyes flutter open and connect with mine, but her light is gone, only an empty shell remains.
USA - November, 1982 - A warehouse outside of Lawrence, Kansas
“Where is she?!” Despite my fierce attempt to control it, desperation cracks my tone.
The angel strapped to the chair in front of me smirks. “Like Bartholomew said, Castiel, you’ll never find her.”
White hot rage begins to warm my chest, and I sense the glowing of my eyes as they channel it.
“Oh, what? You’re going to smite me because Heaven took away your favorite plaything?” he jeers.
“She is not a plaything! She is… she is everything!”
My power surges, shaking loose the dust from the rafters overhead. The specs float and catch the last evening rays, creating a kaleidoscope of color that contrasts harshly with its dingy surroundings. For a moment, I am reminded of Y/n, my splash of color in an otherwise dreary existence. The dust motes settle, and with it they take their borrowed beauty, dragging me back from my fleeting remembrance.
Asmandrial uses my silence to try and weasel his way out of his inevitable fate. “Isn’t it better this way, brother? No more distractions, no more pining for a life that was never meant for you. It was never our Father’s plan for you to waste your time on a mere mortal.”
“I love her. I was created to love and protect her. My grace calls out to her, searches for her, always. If it were not my Father’s plan for this, then why would it be so?”
“Love,” he scoffs, “love is a construct created by the weak. You were not made for love, you were made for war. You are a weapon, built to carry out Father’s wrath. You were not made to create, you were made to rain death and destruction down upon the pitiless excuse for humanity that our Father created out of boredom.”
“You are wrong, brother, so very wrong. Father loves them. He’s always loved them, even when they’ve forgotten Him.”
“If he loved them so much, then why did he leave them? They flounder throughout their short lifespan, breaking everything they touch, soiling the planet our Father so carefully made, trampling and ruining the most beautiful of creations. And for what… their own amusement?”
“They flounder because we were supposed to guide them, and we haven’t. We were supposed to be their protectors, not their executioners. Father made this planet for them. Without them, it’s just another rock floating through space. Void, like all the others.”
“You sicken me, Castiel. You are not the leader I dreamed of following. Your garrison has become a disgrace; they are as weak as their leader. Smite me and be done with it. Maybe, by killing me, you’ll rediscover your true calling.”
Despite all that he’s done to me, all that he’s helped take away from me, the thought of destroying him unsettles me. “I’m not going to kill you, brother.” The cold celestial steel weighs heavy in my hand as I lift the tip to his throat. “I’m going to give you the chance to discover what it is like to flounder throughout a pitiless existence.”
Panic constricts his pupils, and he renews his efforts to break his bonds. “No! No, you cannot do this to me. Please, brother!”
A thin line of blood wells to the surface. The bright light of his grace floats into the space between us, hesitating, before floating up to join the ether of the universe.
The screams of his despair follow me out of the warehouse. I lift my eyes to the fading sun, ignoring his pleas, shutting off the noise inside of my head and tuning my grace to the memories of Y/n I’ve clung to these long centuries.
The way her eyes shone, not with moonlight nor sunlight, nothing as ephemeral as that, but with the light of her soul. I was there the day it was spoken into existence. It glimmered brighter than any I’d ever seen before, as if my Father captured the very sun from the sky, molded it, strengthened it, and then somehow managed to craft a vessel out of the dust of the Earth strong enough to contain her.
I knew, from the moment her eyes first met mine, that she was made for me. That I would be bound to her for all of my eternity.
Maybe that is where I made my first mistake. In that moment, I loved her more than I loved my Father. With my love, I doomed her to countless lifetimes of suffering, and now, an eternity of torment.
In my times of pondering I have come to decide that love and destruction are not so far apart as I first imagined. Despite all that, what I would not give to embrace her again. To feel the warmth of her touch, to hear the lilt of her laughter, to taste her against my tongue. My grace yearns for her in a way that never ebbs.
Sometimes, at the darkest hour of the morning, between the setting of the moon and the rising of the sun, I wonder if maybe I were to release myself from this plane, perhaps my grace would find her.
“It is a beautiful moon tonight.”
The voice rips me from my thoughts. I spin to face it, angel blade at the ready. “Naomi, what are you doing here?”
“Relax, Castiel. If I wanted you dead, I would’ve ended you long ago. I have a mission for you.”
“I am not interested in your missions.”
“I think you’ll like this one. It has all the makings to be a world changer.” She steps a little closer, “And... if you do as you are told, for once, you might just get a reward out of it.”
Even at the mere hope, my grace sparks. “What is the mission?”
“There is a lovely couple not far from here, and they are soon to welcome a bouncing baby boy to their little brood.”
“You wish me to guard him?”
“He is already spoken for. I need you to pay special attention to his older brother. God has great plans for him, Castiel. Plans that must not be tampered with.”
Naomi steps closer, plastering a smug smile upon her face.
“I want you to protect him as if your life-” she pauses- “No, you don’t seem to value your life anymore, let’s say… Y/n, Y/n’s life, depends on it.”
“What are their names?”
Naomi’s eyes glint with victory. “John and Mary Winchester.”
Need more Cas? Click HERE
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The Walkers pt 4
Forgot I hadn’t uploaded this on Tumblr, sorry!
Fourth installment of ‘The Walkers’, the story of Ullrae and Beorn!
part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4
word count: 4.6k
At first, he sees only one sentence. I am not coming back. He feels numb, sits for hours staring at those words. They make him a failure, more than anything else she could have said, more than running away in the first place. The first duty of a Scildere is to protect those who are weaker, those who are in his care. Papa’s words resound in his head, spoken centuries before, but still remembered with clarity by the man who was once a small boy called Hwelpan, sitting on his Mama’s lap as Papa explained the rules of the Clan’s life.
Mama was the queen, dryhtcwén, she made the rules, bargained with the other lords and cared for the people under her command. Papa was her Scildere, the protector, the warrior in charge of keeping everyone safe. It was the role Beorn had always wanted, though he had barely been old enough to mate when the Orcs came; he had already proven to be a skilled fighter, even though Papa was still better.
None of their training had mattered against bows and the bite of metal blades.
Beorn has killed many Orcs, he knows, still staring at the paper. He is the best chance Ullrae has of safety; he has learned over the years how to defend against their metal weapons, how to use his speed and intelligence to defeat his enemies. He failed to protect Berveig, who was torn away from his side in the mines, but he knows he could protect her. He is better now, better than he was then; he has grown in strength and cunning with age, just like Papa once promised he would, back when the world was still filled with happiness and sunshine and play.
Unbidden, an image of Ullrae loping across the fields in her lynx-body fills his mind; the world still has sunshine, catching on golden fur, still has happiness in the way she laughs when she plays with the dogs. For the first time in many years, Beorn cries, realising what he has lost; much more than when Álmbera left to marry one of the Northmen who rode through his lands as they migrated south. Álmbera was his salvation; she taught him to be a family, taught him how to love again, and yet he had not recognised that the cracks she had made in his stone heart had been wedged open further by Ullrae’s golden eyes – still capable of smiling, even after all she had gone through. A cry of pain rips from his throat, scaring one of the dogs.
I am not coming back.
He stares at the words, traces them with shaky fingers, and he knows. Berveig was taken from him, only three moons after their mating, though he had known her for some years beforehand… Ullrae, however, has left him behind on purpose, after he has spent two decades falling in love with her; something he did not think possible. He has never heard of a mated bear loving someone else after the mate is dead – and Berveig is dead, he knows, Ullrae has never been able to lie to him convincingly – but he knows, knows that Ullrae is his love, feeling more despair at losing her than he remembers feeling for Berveig a century before. Jumping to his feet, Beorn is ready to go out once more, try to find her elusive trail, follow her until he can make her see.
Then he spots Berveig’s name on the paper, rending his resolve in pieces as old pain rears its head once more. As he reads the words, he can see her, fierce and beautiful, strong; a fit mate for the son of the dryhtcwén, Mama once said, pride in her voice as she watched Berveig fight. Ullrae’s words are simple – he taught her how to write and read, but she did not practice often, seeing little need – and yet the words, dark ink on creamy paper, shape stark and vivid images in his head, makes him think he can almost hear Berveig’s roars, smell her blood spill on stone floors. Reading the account of her torture is horrible; Beorn has to leave in the middle, sicking up against the side of the house as he imagines her screams, imagines the Orc’s laughter. He even imagines Ullrae there, wearing the same shackle he had once struck from her leg, staring at the spectacle with the same deadness in her eyes as he would see whenever she thought about the Stronghold and her life there, remembered her family’s deaths. He can’t decide which sight is more painful; knowing how Berveig’s life ended has not brought him the peace he expected when he first demanded Ullrae tell him. He regrets the sparks of anger he has carried since then, knows that she felt them, even when he was not angry with her so much as with himself for worrying at a wound he had thought long-since healed.
He wishes he had not emptied his stomach, reading the brief words that tell him the fate of his son. This time, there is nothing but bile to spill from his mouth, the images in his head cycling in a reel of pain and despair. Dark and boiling hatred rises in him, black like tar and equally viscous, nearly choking the breath from his lungs. It doesn’t matter that he had never even known the cub existed; the loss of his son is mingled with impotent anger at himself, failing to protect what was his to keep safe, anger at Berveig for not telling him about the cub, even anger that he’s the reason Berveig was pregnant at all. If she hadn’t been, perhaps she would have been there on the fortuitous day when a rock falling broke the chains that bound him and an old grizzly told him to go, told him to run, made his escape possible by sacrificing himself to the anger of the Orc overseer.
He wants to rage at Ullrae, as he rages at the furniture he has so carefully made over the years; smashing and snapping, the sound of wood breaking not enough to quiet his screams of fury. He wants to scream at her, tell her she should have kept her silence; it would have been better not to know. He remembers her telling him that, telling him he would not wish to have the images now lodged in his brain and he knows she is right. He wants to scream at her, ask her what she has left out, ask her how she is still sane after witnessing so much horror. He wants to hold her, to never let go, to promise her that he will keep her safe for all the years remaining to him, even if he knows that she is capable of fighting her own battles.
He spends more than an hour yelling at her spectre; the laughing girl who is gone forever, who stole his heart without his knowledge or permission, and left him to live among the broken, jagged pieces of once-happiness.
When he returns to his own mind, he is sitting among a mess of splinters; no thing in the room has remained whole in the face of his raging fury. A flash of pale cream catches his eye; the letter has fallen to the hearth he does not remember lighting.
Scrabbling to pull it from the flames that have already devoured all but one corner, he is left with a triangle of paper bearing seven small words.
All my love,
Ullrae, daughter of Léona.
He remains kneeling on the kitchen floor the rest of the night, crying for all he has lost, feeling broken beyond repair; his heart no different from the splinters that surround him. The dogs eventually dare to approach, but Beorn finds no comfort in the cold noses prodding his bare skin – he thinks he was a bear for some of the destruction, but he does not care that he is naked – nor does he hear the soft whines of his small friends.
The morning sun paints the room with gold, dust motes whirling in the air. Beorn’s tears have dried on his face, but it takes him hours to get to his feet, to begin cleaning up the splintered and broken wood. He walks through the house mechanically, numb, thinking of no one and nothing beyond the task at hand, losing hours staring into thin air.
It takes him three days to leave the fog of numbness, to realise that he needs to find her. He worries about her, though he tries not to, tries to trust that he has taught her the skills she didn’t already have, has taught her well enough that she will survive, even without coming back to their home. He winces at the memory of her screaming at him; she is right, it is her home, too, has been her home for as long as she has been there, her home ever since he woke up to find a wildling girl stumbling through his territory chased by orcs bent on her destruction. He remembers with crystal clarity the giddy way she kissed him, named him hers – how did he not know then, how did he not notice how much it pleased him to be claimed thus? – even the way she bravely faced his anger to ask for what she needed even when he had mistaken her question the first time. Ullrae has always been brave, a fierce little wild thing, and he has to believe that her fierce spirit can carry her through life.
He already knows he won’t find her trail, she’s too efficient a prowler, so his hunt is little more than a token effort to appease his own heartsickness. It does not work, though he slaughters a small band of roving Orcs almost without noticing.
Returning to the cabin – is it still home without Ullrae to greet him with a smile? – Beorn shudders at the sight of the dark house. He takes care of the neglected animals, the goats and the hens, pats the dogs as he moves through his house aimlessly, absentmindedly.
Two hours later, he leaves, the animals free to roam behind him; Beorn barely thinks about the place he has cared for, has called home for so long. The massive black bear lumbers north, his purpose once more nothing but vengeance.
He makes his way to his old home – there’s nothing left of the village after nearly two centuries, of course, but he spends a day saying goodbye to the life he knew there, remembering the fiery red hair of his Mama, the grizzled face of his Papa. He thinks Mama would have liked Ullrae. It is the last time he allows himself to even think her name.
“Gyda is pregnant,” Athelstan reveals one day, staring at the blue sky far above you. It is evening, the chores of the day are done, and you’ve chosen a moment to simply relax, follow the path of clouds racing across the sky.
“From the Blessing?” you ask; it’s a custom that puzzled you the first time Athelstan went to war, and you understand it no better after it’s happened the second time. Athelstan tried to explain it, something about anchoring his soul to the land through the flesh of a woman willing; his guarantee that he would join his ancestors if he should fall in battle, find his way to their halls. He nods, a tight, not-quite-happy move that makes you frown. “Congratulations, my friend,” you say, meaning it. In your Pride, new cubs were celebrated; and though you know Men are different, surely, they, too, find joy in the creation of new life? Athelstan sighs heavily. “Will you marry Gyda?” The cheesemaker in the village is a plump and happy woman, you think she could be good for Athelstan, and if you ever felt a need to leave, you’d like to leave him in the hands of a good woman.
“I cannot pay her bride-price,” Athelstan says, “though I will claim the child. If it is a boy, he will be my heir. If it is a girl, I will set aside some money and things for her.”
“What’s a bride-price?” you wonder. You know what a bride is, and trading with the Elves in the forest taught you about the price of goods… but Gyda is a woman, you think, you can’t buy a woman… can you?
“It is the price I would have to pay her family to marry Gyda,” Athelstan explains, which isn’t much of an explanation. In your world, mating is determined by strength. If a male wants a female, he has to make her submit to his strength, prove he can protect her and any cubs; far more sensible, you think, feeling a shiver of lust at the thought of Beorn. You suppress it ruthlessly, thinking about Rena’s first mating challenge; she lost, but the male had not fought fairly, and your father had challenged him in return. It was rare that such challenges happened, but it was in your laws that, one of the female’s kin may challenge the male if he is considered unworthy or wins through trickery. You subside into silence, determined to speak to Gyda the next time you visit the village.
“You have been gone a long time,” Radagast says, when the bear returns to the cabin he once helped build. The bear looks at him, no recognition in his eyes. “Where is your mate, Beorn?” Radagast asks quietly, “Where is Ullrae?” The bear roars, as though the name hurts him, shuddering until it transforms – slower than Radagast has ever seen, the wizard notes worriedly – into a wild-looking man who falls to his knees.
“Not mate,” he croaks brokenly, voice faint, as though he has forgotten how to speak. “She is gone.” Radagast does not reply, though he helps Beorn into the house, his eyes widening at the lack of furniture. Beorn slumps against a wall.
“How long has it been since you walked as a man?” Radagast frowns.
“Seven winters…” Beorn finally replies, the words slow and hard to find. “I think.”
“Do you want to be a bear for good?!” the wizard exclaims, more than a little horrified. The bear won’t remember how to be human forever, much like staying human too long can harm the ability to shift. “What happened to Ullrae?”
“She’s gone,” Beorn says, staring at his old friend, “I… she left, and it was my fault.” Radagast frowns.
“Gone where?” he asks, somehow finding two cups and pouring a cup of tea for each of them before he sits next to Beorn on the floor.
“I don’t know,” Beorn sighs. The pain is still raw, but he forces himself to tell his old friend everything; Radagast once turned him from the path of vengeance and death, perhaps the wizard can help. Radagast hums thoughtfully, stuffing his pipe. Beorn frowns lightly; he used to grow some tobacco plants for Radagast, but he hasn’t been back here for seven years; the fields are overrun by wild nature and very little remains of the gardens that Ullrae had loved. A storm felled her favourite tree in his absence, the broken stump another wound to his soul somehow; the land is forgetting her presence, making it seem like she was never here.
“She would have gone south,” Radagast finally says, “she wanted to see humans, didn’t she?” Beorn nods slowly; Radagast is right, Ullrae would have gone south, not north like she had pretended to throw him off her trail.
“The south lands are big,” he mutters darkly, “she could have gone anywhere.”
“She would need somewhere safe to go into heat,” Radagast points out mildly, his words making a sick feeling spread in Beorn’s gut. What if his Ullrae has found someone to ease the burning? What if she has mated – he counts in his head; she would have had two heats since she left – what if she had chosen to bear the children of some unknown Man? A snarl rips from his throat. MINE! Resounds in his head, making him jump to his feet, pace across the floor; desperation feeding his soul the image of Ullrae’s naked body writhing beneath some straw-headed Man. Beorn growls.
Radagast goes into the bedroom – how did he not realise what she meant to him when she slept in his arms? – returning with a small box. Álmbera made it once, as a child; Beorn has cared for it for nearly a century, as a memento of his human daughter. Inside he has kept trinkets, small tokens of his life, and Radagast knows it. There is an acorn the wizard once gave him, it has turned to stone, Beorn thinks, a dried flower – more brittle that he likes to think of – from Álmbera’s wedding crown, a scrap from her dress tied around the stem with a lock of her and Tirwald’s hair twined together. The box also holds a strange silvery metal; the remains of Ullrae’s shackle, which Beorn still doesn’t know what to do with; the metal can break, yes, but he feels uneasy leaving it where he cannot check it is there. It is a weapon; one he knows will affect him. If it can still force someone – he broke it in five pieces, but he doesn’t think it is enough to break such a spell – to remain in human shape, the shackle is probably the most dangerous thing he has ever come across. He is strong, even when he walks as a man, capable of living through things that would have killed Men, but he is not invincible. The most important thing, however, is a small scrap of paper, one edge blackened and burnt; definite proof that Ullrae was here, that she cared for him.
“Give me that!” he snarls, cradling the box to his chest. Radagast smiles wistfully.
“I miss Álmbera, too,” he says, trailing a gnarled finger through the air just above the fragile dry petals. “She made you a better man, my friend,” he sighs, “a happier man. I had hoped Ullrae would help you become the man you were meant to be.” Beorn flinches at the name, but he is still filled with a fervent desire – need – to go after her, bring her back, claim her. “You were not created for solitude, Beorn.”
“I know,” he mumbles, closing the lid carefully. The hairs inside have lost all colour, but he pretends he can still see the vibrant red of Álmbera’s curls and the golden wheat of the man who loved her. He doesn’t even have that much of Ullrae, he suddenly realises; he has things she has made, yes, but no physical memory of her beyond seven words on a burnt scrap of paper.
“Go find her,” Radagast sighs. Beorn smiles. He has missed that combination of paternal love and exasperation Radagast excels at, mixed with a dash of distrait but benign madness. “I shall speak to my small friends; Ullrae is not exactly a forgettable woman… someone will have seen her.”
Beorn barely takes the time to put his small box of memories back in its place before he is off, loping south as a giant bear.
“You’ll need some clothes!” Radagast calls after him, but Beorn simply huffs a bear’s growly laugh back at him. He’ll steal something to wear or stitch some skins together himself, make clothes that way. Ullrae won’t care what he wears.
He tries not to imagine what she will say when he finds her – he has no doubt he will – squashes every thought that she might have found herself a husband in the years she has been gone.
You have been with Athelstan for nearly eight summers when he first notices.
“You haven’t aged a day since we met,” he remarks one morning, stroking the obvious grey hairs that have snuck into his brown locks over the last three years. You smile, but it is tinged with sadness, knowing that the words only come because Athelstan knows he has not got many years of life left.
“I am not a Man, Athelstan,” you reply quietly, staring down the road with him. You’re expecting his sister’s son to arrive today from Aldburg; Mildwyn’s son is the logical heir to Athelstan’s farm. He would leave it to you, you know, but you also know that when he dies, this will not be your home. “I do not age like you do. I am…” you think about it; you’re not sure what year you were born, after all, “more than a century old,” you finally say, because that’s not wrong. You were young when you were captured, only thirty summers, and you spent more than a century in the Stronghold. You wonder if you’re closer to two centuries now, but it hardly matters. You will live until you join the Hunt Eternal and reunite with your kin. Athelstan gasps. You look younger than him – even when you first came here, you looked more than a couple decades younger than him – and you know some of the gossips in the village speculate about your relationship with Athelstan. It does not bother you, though you know he takes the words to heart. To you, these people do not matter; when they are dead and dust, you will still walk the land, why should you care what they think of you. You care about Athelstan, because he is your friend, but the rest of these people might as well be sheep to you – or maybe horses, sheep are a bit too stupid to be people, you chuckle to yourself, even if some of the villagers aren’t much cleverer than an ordinary sheep.
“That’s… odd,” he laughs. You wince. His laugh has turned wheezy over the last few years, winter lingering in his chest. You both ignore it with long practice.
“It is the way of my kin,” you shrug, “we grow slowly.”
“How slowly?” he frowns. Athelstan always wants to know more about your kind, the ones he calls Gengende, and sometimes you ignore the pain of discussing your past, regaling him with stories of your sisters, playing with the cubs and other happier memories. You do not tell him about Beorn, though you think he knows that love clings stubbornly in your breast making you sigh when you cast your eyes north.
“I do not know,” you purse your lips thoughtfully. “If I had borne a cub from the first needing I had here,” you begin, though it hurts to discuss a fate that will not be yours, “she would have finished suckling about two years ago, but she would still be small, and I would not let her roam far from the den. Like… a toddler,” you say, remembering the word for small children. Gyda, the village cheesemaker, has a toddler, three-year-old Wilrun. She is also Athelstan’s child, though no one speaks of it. The babe was a result of the Blessing – the fighting against the orcs that had concurred with your needing had not been the last time Athelstan went to war – the old ritual of the Rohirrim. You know he would like his child to grow up knowing him, but though you usually stop by the cheesemaker’s house on market days, her brother always glares darkly at you until you leave again. You do not pretend to understand; Gyda is a widow, and a marriage is not like a mating, she is free to love again, marry again, and she has no other children to care for; in your mind, there is little to hinder her moving to your small farm with her daughter. Athelstan tried to explain it once, but you could not make sense of the concept of a bride-price. Athelstan quirks a smile, though it is edged in sorrow, and you know he too is thinking about little Wilrun.
“When would she be an adult then?” he wonders, shading his eyes as he stares down the road. You shrug. You were not an adult yourself when you were brought to Azog.
“When she was an adult woman, who had grown breasts to feed her young, and wider hips to bear them,” you say vaguely; the concept has always been nebulous to you. You remember Lillia’s coming of age vaguely, but you never had a celebration of your own; you only know that it would have been some time while you were in Azog’s keeping. “The Pride would have a feast for her, and everyone would watch her shift.”
“You do not shift as children?” he asks, making you laugh. He loves your form, especially during autumn when you hunt effectively, ensuring that you do not starve through the cold winter, by bringing home game that means you do not have to feed up and slaughter as much livestock.
“Of course, we do.” You shake your head fondly, “but the first adult shift is considered special, just like the first adult hunt, where the new lynx leads the hunt and takes her first solo kill.” Looking back on it, that would be the night Beorn struck off your shackle, sharing your small kill. You smile softly; the memory is a fond one, even if it is laced with sadness. “A few years after that, she will have her first heat, and if she has not found a mate, she will begin looking. My sister, Lillia, was mated a few years before the Orcs came… his name was Léofwine of the Grasslands Pride. He was a worthy male; even my father said so,” you laugh, remembering the fierce but playful male, “females are powerful hunters and fighters; they will not accept a mate who cannot dominate them with his strength; proof he will sire strong cubs. Léofwine was very strong… many females wanted him, but he wanted only Lillia.” He would probably have been strong enough to take more than one female through heat, the beginning of his own Pride, but Léofwine had not had that sort of ambition, his eyes fixed on Lillia from their first meeting.
“And you?” Athelstan has asked you before, about husbands, but you have always said no; knowing that you found your mate years ago, recognised his strength as yours before you even knew his name.
“I was… a girl.” You mumble, trying to explain it in a way that makes sense to a human. “Orcs came, killed everyone but me and I was a girl then. I am woman now, but still… not mated.” The clatter of hooves interrupts whatever Athelstan wants to say, a young man dismounting with the easy grace of a born horseman.
“Uncle!” he calls happily. Athelstan smiles, moving to welcome his nephew, but you stiffen at the way his eyes roam over you.
“Ordred! Good to see you, lad!” Athelstan exclaims, clapping him on the back. You growl softly in your throat. “This is Ullrae, an old friend who helps me run the farm.” He gestures to you and you make yourself nod, keeping your countenance inscrutable even as your spine crawls with the way Ordred’s gaze follows the curve of your breast, the flare of your hips.
“Mistress Ullrae, your servant,” he claims, bending to kiss your knuckles. His eyes dance mischievously up at you. You have to force yourself not to wipe your hand against your trousers.
“Mister Ordred,” you reply coolly, turning back to the farm with a perfunctory nod. This young man is a predator, you think, recognising something in him that unnerves you. Once more, you affirm your vow; whenever Athelstan chooses to die, you will leave and never come back.
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Happy Halloween! Here’s a spooky Fire Emblem fic!
Title: 31 Days of Hell on Archanea
Author: Rachael D.J AKA LeopardGal6
Pairing: Ogma/Navarre, Marth/Caeda
Genre: Horror, (Dark) Humor, Romance, Hurt/Comfort
Chapters: 3 of ???
Warnings: Zombie guts everywhere, dark humor
Words: 3824 for chapters 1-3
Summary: Five years after the costly war between worlds ended, peace has returned to Archanea. But when a blood moon rises over the land for 31 days, ancient terrors begin to roam the lands and those once considered dead rise again! Along the way lies dark temptations, a second chance at lost love, unethical experiments, one gloomy ghost that simply will -not- pass on, and Entirely Too Many Zombies!
Enter... if you dare!
Rating: M
Read it on FFN and Ao3
“You have a lot of nerve.”
Ogma gave the unwelcome man standing at the foot of the bed his best I’ve-killed-a-lot-of-people-and-you-know-it glare, sorely tempted to revisit his old ways. Waking up at an ungodly hour of the morning with a man standing in his room would have been unpleasant no matter the person. A stranger would have likely meant an assassin or robber- messy, but easily dealt with. An old friend like the little prince- no, king now- would have meant extra work at best and reopening old wounds at worst. There may have been one person he’d have been glad to see, once, who had strolled into his bedchamber with the first morning light, left hand full of flowers, fresh bandages in her right and smile more radiant than the sun, but that little girl had become a woman and then that woman had died, many long years ago.
And yet, there was likely not one person in this world or any other he’d have wanted to break into his house and watch him sleep less than Navarre.
Ogma felt his brow crease as his scowl deepened. The tall man’s dark hair hid enough of his pale face that he seemed to melt into the shadowed doorway, the other edge of his frame blurred in the low light- yet his expensive crimson tunic seemed to glow against the blackness, making him unmistakable. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
Navarre didn’t immediately respond, yet he turned the white shadow of his face directly towards the other man’s. Ogma felt a shiver go down his spine despite himself- Navarre gave off an eerie presence at the best of times, and his hidden eyes gave the illusion of being faceless.
But the man’s next words were far more chilling than anything his imagination could have cooked up.
“You know me?”
Navarre’s voice was quiet, barely a whisper, yet his low baritone seemed to brush across Ogma’s bare skin like a draft. Ogma pulled his blanket close and stood, floor creaking heavily under his weight, yet his legs were unwilling to bring his body a single step closer to the mass of utter Wrongness that stood at the foot of his bed.
A sudden gust of autumn wind chose that moment to slam into the side of his cabin- his bedroom shudders thudding against the side of the building with such force that the entire wall groaned. Ogma started, wincing at the sudden blast of cold. He took a step to shut the window but when he turned, the younger man stood bare inches from his face.
Ogma did not jump back as his reflexes were tempted to do, but sucked in a sudden breath, pure ice filling his lungs. His first thought was that he did not know this man. Despite the oddly persisting blurriness that seemed to greaten with the closeness rather than falter, he could tell that these were not his old rival’s eyes.
Navarre’s eyes always shone cold and hard, every bit as threatening as his blade. On the incredibly rare occasion the man’s guard lowered as far as he would ever allow it, when you could see the ghost of pain in his expression and hear the involuntary shudder in his breath, the threat in his face changed to a perhaps even more dangerous “Don’t you dare pity me.” But who or what stood before him was an entirely different creature, all vulnerability and want and more fearful than he’d ever have guessed possible for that man’s stern face to display.
The man spoke again, rivulets of electric ice running across Ogma’s skin as he did so.
“Who am I?”
Ogma opened his mouth to reply, but the room spun violently for an instant and a blinding flash filled his vision-
Ogma blinked blearily at the morning sun. He groaned and pulled his blanket closer against the morning chill- just a dream. Nightmares were hardly unheard of for him, but rarely of such an eerie nature. He threw his cover off and sat up with a hearty thwack! as his head hit the underside of his bedside table. Ogma let out a guttural curse as he rubbed his forehead.
“Please, don’t incapacitate yourself again.”
Ogma felt his blood freeze at the low, scornful whisper. He leapt to his feet and looked around furiously for the source of the voice- the telltale shadow shifting in the corner allowing him to notice the red blur concealed within. Ogma stared at the corner as his mind attempted to make logical sense of what he saw, as the illusory figure seemed to look not back at, but through him, judgmentally.
“Tell me now, who am I?”
It was a bloodbath.
Medeus was a ferocious threat, all on his own- but none could have predicted Gharnef using the last of his power to rip open the barrier between dimensions as his final bid for victory. The then prince Marth had reacted far better than any man could be expected to, filling in his commanders (what Gharnef had destroyed was known as a Outrealm Gate, the same kind that once allowed access to Zenith,) and redirecting his troops without pause, but there was nothing anyone could have done to stop the thousands, perhaps millions of beasts flooding into Archanea without sacrifices.
The prince was not someone capable of making such a call- anyone who knew the prince for a day could tell that much. However, there were those among his most trusted who were unafraid to lay down their lives for their prince’s cause.
Tiki’s ancient ceremony to temporarily gather the power of the Outrealms in a physical form- it was enough, in the end, to quell the fighting. To save the world.
And the prince was just naive enough not to ask if it would cost the lives of his companions to complete.
Ogma was a simple man. He was not unintelligent in any way- his life had taught him tactics, mathematics, and everything necessary for survival and then after the war, living comfortably. It would not be inaccurate to say he was more knowledgeable than most, despite his illiteracy. But he detested complexities- things such as politics, adventure, romance and religion had brought him nothing but stress. If the world outside his workshop was unpleasant, then he had no desire to bring it into his life.
And that was why, even if Navarre had no ill intentions and was truly in need of help, Ogma found the most complex, stressful, unpleasant and utterly irritating person he’d ever had the misfortune to meet walking back into his life again after disappearing for five whole years… grating.
“Tell me now, who am I?” Navarre demanded.
As if he had the right to demand anything! Ogma stood, unashamed of his unclothed state. Ogma would not be talked down to by anyone, especially this man, even literally. Navarre had always been the more modest of the two- if it flustered him, even better.
Ogma crossed his arms. “Did you loose your memory?”
“I asked you a question.”
“Same here.”
“Who am I, to you?”
“The man I’m about to throw out of my house.”
Navarre let out a low, frustrated growl. Ogma forced back a smirk- everything between the two was a contest, always. Ogma wouldn’t give any more than he was given- they’d lost the delicate balance, the last year before everything went to hell, but it was there once and Ogma had always had confidence they could find it again.
Navarre had told him he’d given up on doing so some time ago, but he didn’t remember that at the moment, did he?
“You’re a guest in my house- either get your attitude in order and step out of the shows so I can see you or get out,” Ogma challenged. In the few seconds of charged silence, he could feel the hairs on his arms stand on end.
The crimson blur shifted. “You will tell me who I am.”
“Wrong answer.” In a move swifter that his bulky form looked appeared to be able to move, Ogma vaulted over the corner of the bed and thrust his hand into the shadow. His fist connected with the wooden wall loudly and painfully, and Ogma swore colorfully. Navarre was far faster than him, he knew that much, yet the element of surprise was on his side. By all logical reason, he should have been able to grab Navarre’s coat and throw him into the street.
Ogma’s brain felt the equivalent of a clock with a broken gear, pressure building as he strained to understand what he saw. Navarre had simply… gone through the wall, as if he had no substance at all. Ogma looked, slack-jawed, out the nearby window, and sure enough, Navarre lay sprawled on the dirt outside. Navarre stood and walked up to the window-
And through the window.
Ogma scrambled backwards and fell heavily onto the bed as the corner connected with the backs on his knees. “Gods! Gods above! What manner of beast are you?”
In the sunlight, Ogma could see the figure for what he truly was- completely translucent, the dust motes in the air phasing through Navarre without disturbance. He left not even a shadow on the room. Navarre raised his hand and looked down at it with an irritated scowl.
“I can remember neither who nor what I am- but from what I can gather, I was assumed dead?” Navarre raised his glowing silver gaze to meet Ogma’s own startled one. “I come to find that assumption… increasingly likely.”
“My name is Navarre, family name unknown. I am a mercenary and a former general in the army led by the man that now is the undisputed king of these lands. I had an apprentice but neither wife nor children. Before joining the military, I was known as ‘The God of Death…’ ”
Ogma poked at his cooking bacon sullenly. He had work to do today, and that didn’t include babysitting an amnesiac monster. “You’re an ass too, don’t forget that bit,” he muttered quietly.
“You there. You! None of this sounds familiar in the least.”
“I have a name. It’s not ‘You.’ ”
“Are you lying to me?”
Ogma flipped his meat and grit his teeth. “Everything I told you about Navarre is true. I have no clue if you’re him or a terror wearing his skin, though.”
“That is entirely possible. Do you consider it likely?”
Ogma felt his throat clench as he turned his head. Navarre- or whatever was taking his form- sat not in a chair but on thin air, legs crossed and one shin halfway inside the table. Ogma swallowed. “Can’t you sit on a chair like a decent person?”
“No, I cannot touch it. Answer my question.”
“You act just like him,” he answered morosely.
“Hmm.”
Ogma felt… heavy. He’d never told anyone, of course, but there was more than one night he’d bent his knee to a higher power and begged Naga to let him see his old friends again. The group that had gone to the dragon’s altar with Tiki- Navarre, Caeda, Cain, Abel, and Draug- had never truly been found, dead or alive. There had been blood and bits of armor and clothing left at the scene, sure, but they’d never found anything that completely proved that the entire group had died beyond Ogma’s deepest doubts. He’d never reasonably thought he’d see them again, not after nearly six years had passed, but a small part of him had still hoped.
But not like this- not as an incorporeal creature that he could not touch and hold, not as a fractured man that held so little ties to his old self that he balked as his own name. Ogma felt heavy with guilt that he’d ever asked for Navarre to come back.
And though he’d never admit it, even more so for being disappointed that the one to return to him wasn’t his beloved princess.
Navarre turned his head towards the window, a thoughtful expression on his face, his long hair trailing out around him weightlessly. He really was beautiful- the sun catching on his cheekbones and long lashes illuminating the gentle curves of his long face. He’d always looked like he didn’t quite fit into the mortal world- like he was a marble statue that had come to life and was disappointed in every bit of the filthy humanity he saw. He’d laughed one drunken night, when he’d told Ogma how it had hurt when the people of the town he’d grown up in had feared he was a god of death taking the form of a child, how he’d reclaimed the name years later to help his career as a mercenary, how doing so had made him feel powerful. He’d asked Ogma that night how anyone could have seen him as a creature of the underworld when he was only a plain man, and Ogma had looked into his eyes and replied “Ridiculous,” even though he saw the same thing those scared peasants had seen, he could barely picture the man slumped against his shoulder as human himself. Ogma couldn’t tell him the truth was that Navarre could be as otherworldly and eerie as he’d like and it would make Ogma see him as no less than he did now, that he’d still be beautiful in his eyes, because that was the wrong answer and it would hurt Navarre more than a sword through the gut ever would. Navarre lay his head against his shoulder and Ogma had thought that Navarre was intoxicated enough that he’d gotten away with the lie, but then Navarre had disappeared into the night after Medeus was slain without a word, and when next they’d met Navarre with more than half-mad with anger, voice breaking as he’d hissed how they were the same.
Ogma couldn’t bear to look at the man’s face any longer. He gazed down at his nearly charred breakfast with a solemn frown. The day was showing no signs of getting better.
Marth, holy king of the continent of Archenea, heir to the divine blade Falchion and last living son of the bloodline of Anri the Great, was scared of few things. He’d seen too much, felt too much, bled for king and country and precious companions far too many times. He’d lost all he could not bare to lose and more- there was very little left in this world for him to fear.
That said, he held very little love for the basement of Archanea Palace. Marth pulled his cape tightly around his torso as he made his way through the dreary halls- perhaps he’d get the thing lined with fur one of these days. It was very important that such a powerful man look that part in all but his bedchamber- he had to set an example for all his people at all times.
“I don’t care. I want a coat! A fuzzy one!”
Feena, damn her, had said “No. That’s not in fashion,” and turned on her heal to leave.
For the supposedly most powerful man on the continent, Marth felt he had very little control over his subjects. Or maybe just Feena. Probably just Feena.
Not that he would ever want to have a meek, spineless sycophant for a consort- but some more respect would be nice! It wasn’t as if her position was so utterly solidified that she was forever beyond replacement. She liked pretty princess dresses and shiny jewels and fancy dinner parties with stuffy royals and being able to dance for the people of Palace City without threats of rape from every depraved nobleman with two coins to rub together. Marth liked the fact the she openly admitted that she did not love him and swore to ask for no more than she gave (and promised to get him out of as many obnoxious state dinners as he asked. That was a good bonus.) Feena had no interest in leading the people in any more that fashion trends, and Marth liked being able to rule his people without an inexperienced noble's daughter he barely knew as his right hand. It was a good deal for both of them, but if Marth wanted to, he could kick her out in a second. He wouldn’t actually do it in reality, and Feena knew that, the sly girl, but Marth allowed himself his dark thoughts as slimy, smelly ceiling water dripped on his exposed head. Marth wrinkled his nose. “Next time she wants something out of the vault she can get it herself,” Marth said aloud.
“Don’t kid yourself,” said a voice from far, far too close to the king’s face.
Marth let out a noise that he assured himself was a very manly shout.
Much to the girl's credit, she didn’t laugh.“You’re too much of a gentleman for that and you know it,” Kris said, stepping into the candlelight. “Did I startle you, my liege?”
Marth crossed his arms. “What do you think? And I told you to call me-”
She bowed her head. “I apologize,” she interrupted, as she always did when he tried to get his friend to call him by his given name. She raised her head, a sly smile on her lips. “This is what my lady requested, is it not?” she asked. She held out the jewel-encrusted golden bangle.
“Yes. Kris, you’ve saved my life again.”
“Nonsense! I did no such thing, my liege.”
“Are you saying that I lie?” he growled quietly.
“Wha- I... No, I- I mean-”
Marth ruffled the sputtering girl’s hair. “I’m teasing you, Kris. I’m the one with the weight of the world on my shoulders, you should lighten up!”
“I think it is inappropriate for my liege to torment his servants,” Kris grumbled.
Marth swung his arm around Kris’ shoulders. “And I think my lady would do well to grow a sense of humor.”
“Right away, my liege.”
As the two walked back, Marth’s arm slid off Kris’ shoulder and he intertwined his fingers with hers. He smiled- there were few left among the living he could count as true a friend as Kris. He did not love her any more than he loved Feena, but there were not infrequent times when he wished he’d successfully convinced his general to join him beyond the court as well.
She’d told him that he should wait until he found love again to take a consort, not to settle for a friend. Marth dearly wished he could have taken that advice, but it was impossible to do. He was a king before he was a man, and though the love of his life was dead, he’d eventually need an heir. Such was his fate.
“How is your research progressing, Kris?”
“Quite well. Lord Merric is making decent headway into translating the ancient tome.”
“The one Queen Celica brought back from Thabes?”
“Yes, the one than cost us half of Altea’s wheat crop,” Kris said sourly.
Marth sighed. “The Valentinians were in the midst of a drought, we were not. I am aware the cost was higher than its worth, but it was more an excuse to send aid that the counsel would allow than an actual trade. We've been over this,” he said pointedly.
“She found it on Archanean soil. There’s a reason some call her the Thief Queen.”
“Kris, I’m quite sure you’re the only one that- hold. The torches have all gone out twenty feet ahead.”
Marth released Kris’ hand to reach for his hidden blade- one couldn’t be too cautious, even in one’s own castle. “Is someone there?”
Footsteps- not steady at all, drunken and dragging roughly across the stone. The torchlight behind them flickered on something ahead, then-
“My liege! My lady!”
Marth released his blade’s hilt with a sigh of relief. “Wrys, old friend. Why did you put out the lights?”
The old man’s head glinted. “I was down here looking for some mana herbs- quite potent medicine they make, you know. And impossible to grow on a farm, yes, quite tricky. Where was I? Ah, yes, I was down here looking for herbs when the lights went out and I became terribly lost. It is quite drafty down here and-”
Marth was only half listening when the old man let loose an ungodly scream and fell fully into the light, bleeding from his arm.
“Wrys! Kris, take care of him!” he shouted, grabbing his dagger.
“Aye!”
Marth saw it again, the golden glint of metal. Marth stepped forward, and quickly stabbed above Wrys’ prone from, his blade easily meeting its mark. He twisted and pulled, a horrid wet sound echoing as he eviscerated the attacker. Marth kicked the body back into the darkness, the feeling of the attacker's ruptured intestines rubbing along his hand as they fell making Marth really wish he’d brought something a bit longer. Marth flicked his blade. “Hang on, Wrys. I’ll get you to the in-”
Marth’s breath was knocked out of his lungs as he fell, painfully. The attacker had an iron grip on his sword hand, and Marth felt an incredible pressure around his neck. In less than ten seconds, a blinding flash of light and heat blasted the assailant off of him with an unpleasant squelch.
“On your guard, Kris! There’s likely more of them.”
“No, that…”
Kris looked as if she’d seen a ghost, and did not raise her tome.
“What is it?”
“That was the same… woman…”
Marth picked a bloody tooth out of his damaged pauldron. It was a good thing Feena had convinced him to march around the castle in full battle armor. For once. Even a broken clock was right twice a day, he supposed. “What do you mean, the same woman?”
Kris had no time to warn him- her eyes grew wide as Wrys whispered “Oh dear,” and Marth whirled on the threat.
The thing that was once human was back on its (her?) feet somehow, shambling towards them. She was still on fire and missing an arm (and logically a few teeth, though Marth wasn’t close enough to see which ones, not that he particularly wanted to know,) and the hole Marth had made in her gut continued dripping foulness. The only part of her that looked as if it should still be functioning was a mask- polished stone, or perhaps metal, with a repeated eyeball pattern yet no actual eye holes- only a joint for the grinning mouth.
For a horrible moment, the three were frozen in fear.
Wrys’ shouted “Oh dear!” broke the spell and the young king grabbed each of his companions by the arm and dragged them through the darkness as quickly as his panicked feet would allow. Marth later heard that the screams could be heard throughout the castle- and that he’d accidentally grabbed Wrys by the bad arm.
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Side Session - 27/08 - Critical Hugs
Dave N - DM
Stu – Hendel – Barbarian
Dan – Darvin – Sorcerer
Dave R – Galath – Ranger
Andrew – Eriden – Druid
John – Dwon Fai – Monk
Missing
Alex H – Chance – Bard
Alex D – Fyvel – Fighter
(DM Note; the group had to miss a session 24/08 due to myself being on holiday, at their request as they didn't want to miss out but equally not wanting Fyvel and Chance to miss out I agreed to host a “side” session which would tie into events loosely, but not effect the outcome of the main story chain.)
As the group rested around the campfire Galath’s favorite pigeon fluttered back into camp and landed nearby after some communication Galath turned to the group.
“Lassie tells me there’s danger back in Phandalin.”
“What about Fyvel and Chance?” Eriden asked.
“Lassie didn't tell me about that.”
There was an almost audible sigh and a mutter, probably from Hendel, about how fucking useless pigeons are. “Come on then, we best get back to Phandalin then.”
“Ooh there might be more Owlbears.” Darvin chirped up.
As the group headed south trailing the line of the Neverwinter Forest once again they were through cheery sunshine and clement weather which was a change to the recent rains and mist. The journey was passing mostly uneventfully apart from Hendel who had decided he had a singing voice which drew a few irritated “shut up!” shouts from his companions. As the group were passing between a low line of hills to their west and the forest to their east there was a rustling from the forest line. Galath managed to raise an arm in a brief warning but the group barely had time to react before a half dozen zombies came shambling out from the undergrowth, in amongst them was a huge, dead Owlbear which came moaning and roaring its way toward Hendel slamming him to the ground with a mighty swipe of his paws. Eriden roared “flame on” (DM Note; in pretty clear trademark violation) and a flaming sword appeared in his hands as he charged into combat smiting the nearest zombie, Darvin for his part fired off a magic missile before retreating to the relative safety of the hillside. As Galath, Dwon and Darvin sniped at the zombies Hendel rose to his feet and boldly declared “I’m going to downgrade this Owlbear to full dead.” Before charging straight into and slamming both axes into its dead form. Then diving forward with a scream of “somebody love me!” Hendel slammed into the Owlbear armor first driving it to the ground (DM Note; critical hit on his spike armor hug!) As the Owlbear stumbled away from Hendel’s loving embrace Darvin destroyed it with a well aimed Magic Missile which blew its head from its shoulders. With a gesture Darvin’s Mage Hand appeared and gave the enterprising Sorcerer a high five. Not to be outdone Hendel dived on another zombie demanding love, sadly for Hendel instead of finding love his spikes killed the offending zombie. For his own part Dwon launched a spear which took a zombies head off ending up with it pinned to the tree (DM Note; another critical) as Eriden finished off the last zombie.
Hendel turned and surveyed the devastation “Who wants a celebratory chest bump!?” He demanded, strangely no one accepted the offer from a mad, spike covered dwarf.
As the group were gathering their supplies Galath and Hendel looked up and noticed a figure, dressed in a black, all concealing robe, standing just inside the forest line watching them. When noticed he turned and disappeared in the trees, Galath was unable to track the mysterious figure…
As the group marched onward through the low hills to the west of the Neverwinter forest they were once again waylaid, this time as they were foraging whilst making forward progress on the morning. Dead wolves came howling out from the hills quickly surrounding the group, dead flesh hanging from their bones and their glazed eyes glaring balefully at the adventurers who stood their ground (DM Note; apart from Galath but this is no longer a shock)
Hendel and Eriden dived into combat with Eriden once again committing trademark violation as they engaged the wolves head on slaying one each quickly, Galath sniped from range as Darvin faced down a charging wolf he cupped his hand, whispering phrases known to few into his palm motes of light appeared and flashed at the wolf cutting down its charging form. Hendel cut down a second wolf as Dwon dived in with the old one two and the undead wolves were now dead wolves, the group looked round perhaps surprised at their own efficiency in dispatching the wolves but dispatched they were (DM Note; they were not as shocked as I was, I don’t think I have ever seen the group end a combat encounter in only two rounds!)
The group continued for one more day and despite the oppressive atmosphere which seemed to pervade the very air itself, the howling wind and what became an almost constant overcast drizzle the group eventually reached the outskirts of Phandalin. From the village they could hear the screams, the odd clash of combat and smell the smoke of burning buildings, moving at a faster pace, whether to reach warmth or for the concern of their peers, the group sped up and perhaps fell unaware of their surroundings and once again they were caught off guard on the outskirts of the village as skeletons clawed up from the earth and assaulted the group.
One of the skeletons charged straight toward Darvin and Hendel bellowed “It’s because you’re wearing a dress!” as he got stuck into combat. Darvin turned and unleashed a mighty flurry of magic missiles which blew the skeleton to pieces and turned to Hendel, standing over the smoking bones “I am not, wearing a dress.” He proclaimed.
Hendel snorted and got stuck back into combat his axes as useless as ever he dived at one of the skeletons “love me!” he screamed catching the skeleton in his grasp he bore it to the ground and it dissolved into unanimated bones (DM Note; a perfect critical hug kill!)
Another skeleton charged toward Darvin “He’s trying to get into your skirts!” Dwon quipped as Darvin lashed out with a dagger missing, luckily he was saved by an arrow from Galath which took out the skeleton from behind. Hendel, clearly desperate for love ran at another skeleton as fast as his little legs would carry him and whilst his axe took a chunk form the skeleton once again it was an overbearing hug which bore the skeleton to the floor and ground it into dust, pointy armor and all. “It’s the power of love.” Dwon shouted now clearly feeling he was the groups comedy voiceover. Dwon was clearly distracted by his own antics and missed his own skeleton but Darvin calmly walked up behind it and stabbed it in the skull, cleanly killing it. (DM Note; a critical hit with a dagger from the parties sorcerer was not how we expected a combat encounter to end!)
The group looked round at the devastation and considered whether or not to take a rest and decided against it. “We haven’t the time and what’s the worst that can happen?” Was the general consensus. (DM Note; Mwah ha ha haaaaaaa)
Moving stealthily through the town outskirts the group closed on Barthen’s Provisions as they approached a junction in the town paths just north of the town square itself.
“Maybe they have some potions.” Eriden suggested.
“Well we can’t afford them.” Hendel muttered sullenly.
“I’m sure they won’t mind us taking some if they are dead.” Dwon.
“Or we could, you know, save him and perhaps he will help us.” Galath suggested, perhaps too reasonably.
“I think that's reasonable” Eriden agreed.
“I think we should just take them when he’s dead.” Hendel muttered mostly to himself.
The group were perhaps not wise to their own actions that moving stealthily was generally not a wise decision when Hendel was in the general vicinity and he proved this as he clattered into Darvin and the two of them went down in a cursing tangle of limbs in the midst of the jungle. The rest of the group looked on with bemusement turning to a mixture of amusement and worry as a horde of skeletons and zombies came shambling up the road toward the two prone, and still arguing, figures.
As the zombies came toward them (DM Note; and somehow managed to leave Darvin alive) the group stormed in to the rescue. Eriden unleashed a Thunderwave sending zombies, skeletons (and almost Darvin) pin wheeling through the air in the percussion Hendel tried to catch a flailing zombie in another lunge for love but was clearly confused by the pirouetting figures and instead face planted into the turf, sticking thanks to his spikes (DM Note; a critical miss hug is still a critical hug!)
Gaining stock of things the group quickly got to work with Dwon, Galath, Eriden and even a recovered Hendel cutting down the zombies and skeletons in another alarmingly good showing of how well the group can actually fight when it suits them.
Abandoning all pretences of stealth the group charged over the road and burst into the flaming Barthen’s Provisions to save the proprietor (and get their hands on some potions) there were skeletons shambling toward the poor man “save me!” He shrieked and the group quickly put the four skeletons to the sword. As the last one threatened Barthen, Eriden jumped to the rescue “Here comes the coal train!” someone shouted as Eriden, in all his Halfling might, stepped up and kicked a flaming table into the zombie pinning it to the wall and the flames quickly spread from the table up the zombie itself consuming it and sending its charred corpse to the floor. (DM Note; a critical roll on a strength check to kick the table, a top roll on damage from the improvised weapon and a top damage roll on the fire damage was a magnificent sight)
As the group rushed to get buckets to put out the flames for the desperate proprietor Darvin lounged against the door and set his mage hand to work carrying buckets and throwing water over the flames as looked smugly at his sweating companions.
“Thank you for the help good sirs.” Barthen, still looking half panicked and singed thanked the adventurers.
“I’m sure you could thank us with some potions…” Galath suggested.
“Of course good sirs, take what is left, I will be taking my money and fleeing for safety. I am not a fighter.”
Barely had the words left his mouth when Hendel was pulling the remaining potions off the shelves. “Six free healing potions!” He exclaimed.
“Give them here.” Darvin demanded sternly.
As Barthen fled for the safety of the hills the group moved down the road toward the Inn to rescue their missing companions.
“Hang on a minute.” Galath spoke up “Do we really want to try and move stealthily forward with Hendel again.”
“Leave him here.” Darvin suggested helpfully.
“Do we really want to leave him alone?” Eriden asked thoughtfully.
“I'll go scout.” Galath suggested. “Me too.” Darvin added.
They reached the inn and the roof was on fire, inside a merry blaze was churning away, bodies littered the floor.
“Go and get the others, I’ll keep watch” Darvin said and as Galath came back Darvin was still peering through the window.
“Anything?”
“Just a big fire in the middle of the room.”
“We’re going in.” Eriden proclaimed.
“I’ll just… keep watch at this window.” Darvin suggested lamely.
Eriden kicked in the doors and strode in boldly, Galath followed him “Umm hang on a minute.” He said realizing what he was doing and backing toward the door as the blazing fire in the middle of the inn turned and revealed itself to be a towering Fire Elemental which turned toward the party and roared like the bellows.
“Hendel?” Everyone asked, he duly roared back and charged forward swinging his axe. Things did not quite go to plan for Hendel (DM Note; as usual) as whilst he wounded the beast with his magical blade in return it gently caressed him and he burst into flames. Eriden in wolf form came bounding past and bore the creature to the floor as Darvin, bravely, peaked over the window frame and fired magic missiles from the safety of a wall in between himself and a fiery inferno. A brutal melee broke out (DM Note; with Hendel as usual being the one who was being painfully abused) and as the fight swirled the elemental had not noticed Dwon, who came up behind him weaving underneath the weight of a full keg of ale which he smashed over the Elementals head, it turned to him, eyes baleful “Oh shit…” Dwon managed and dived for the bar and another keg as another of Darvin’s magic missiles slammed into the creatures flank. It flickered, black smoke pouring off it and Hendel did not even have time to say “Oh shit” as Eriden wisely ducked for cover the creature exploded launching Hendel through the air, flaming once again to slam into the wall…
(DM Note; This was intended to be a single session adventure but once again the groups amazing ability to attract trouble brought about 3 encounters I had not planned for which delayed things, as well I had not realized that they would also be focused on loot as opposed to helping the town and as such rushing off to Barthen’s Provisions as fast as their legs could carry them!)
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The Dead & The Damned ■ Alice & Dorcas
“He said we should wait for backup.”
“That’s fucking hilarious.”
“Exactly what I said.”
--
With a CRACK! and a CRACK! Alice and Dorcas placed themselves approximately 10 kilometers away from the coastal village of Walberswick. They had agreed that if they were indeed going to go on this Order recon mission without any back up, they may as well take this simple precaution.
The wind of Walberswick was harsh. Alice expected the unkind, dry weather that was associated with the village, but she didn’t expect it to bite so much. A particularly cold blast hit and Alice pulled her coat tighter around her. From the corner of her eye she could see Dorcas trailing along next to her.
The walk itself was uneventful. Hindsight would later tell them there was a reason for that but, at the moment, in the dreary hours of the northern morning, nothing seemed out of place.
The sun rose. The silence grew more and more oppressive. Alice and Dorcas closed in on Walberswick. It was only when they were on the doorstep of the village did the downright quiet register as something eerie.
It was hardly 7 in the AM but they should have seen someone. Anyone.
The witches made they their way through the hamlet, taking cursory glances through shop windows - only to find darkened storefronts. A quick walk told them all that they needed to know: an owlery with empty cages; a grocery store with itemless shelves; outdated issues of the Prophet scattered here and there.
Alice was never a fan of ghost towns. She couldn't speak for Dorcas.
In her coat pocket, the young woman firmly gripped her wand. They'd come here purely based off whisperings from the Order. The consensus of the clandestine organization had been to leave the town be for now till they could spare a dispatch of more than just a couple of members. But when had Alice and Dorcas been ones to wait? The two women had quickly talked themselves into taking a quick peek at the village - seeing what was up, reporting back. That sort of thing. What was that saying? Better to beg for forgiveness than ask permission? Yeah. That. Alice and Dorcas were masters of that.
It wasn’t long before they came across a warehouse of sorts. High darkened windows made it hard to see inside and the wooden walls did little to belay what lay beyond. Alice was drawn to it because of the way the breeze made the dilapidated shutters clack.
She pointed. Dorcas nodded. They apparated inside.
They had to use 'lumos' almost immediately. What little light filtered through the windows was cluttered with dust motes. The glow of wand light lit up the cavernous floor and Alice turned around, mapping the entirety of the space mentally. Parts of the ceiling had caved in, giving the cluster of rooms a maze-like quality. Some rooms you could see straight through because of the holes in the panelling. Others barely had four walls. Shadows creeped across the floor, draping most corners in total darkness. But if this was it - Alice couldn't wait to tell the Order. ‘Just a ghost town, nothing to worry about, really.’
That's when she felt Dorcas still. She turned to look.
There, right at the end of what was once a corridor, slouched against the wall, were four corpses. A sickly grey color stretched across their skin. They carried the familiar stench of death. Alice stood there for a moment, before opening her mouth to speak to Dorcas. If they could just -
Turns out, whatever Alice was about to suggest, it didn’t matter. One of the corpses shifted. Unnaturally. The floorboards creaked. There was the rasp of what sounded like sandpaper scraping sandpaper.
It was no surprise that Alice was a trigger happy woman. Her wand hand jumped in front of her. With a swish she cast 'Confrigo.' The first Inferi burst into a plume of flames. The three surrounding it sprung to life, awakened by the heat and light. They hissed and their wild, dead faces turned to the two witches. Next to her, Dorcas took a similar fighting stance.
The burning corpse lit up the warehouse, bringing light to all of those darkened corners. Very quickly, the flaming Inferi forfeited its spot at the top of Alice’s “Things In The Immediate Area To Be Worried About” list. As the Inferi fell to the floor to writhe in flames, Alice was forced to look down. The fire she had just lit illuminated hundreds of predatory eyes beneath her feet, peering up at her through the cracks in the wood. The hiss of the awakened dead was deafening. The floor beneath Alice and Dorcas’s feet rattled.
And then - there was the a thunderclap of a crack. Alice heard it behind her but did not have the time to stop it. The floor gave way and Dorcas fell. Alice was sure she called out to her friend, but the cry was drowned out by the noise of the damned.
@lyinginthemeadowes
#YO AFTER WRITING THIS IM READY TO KICK DOWN A DOOR LETS GO FIGHT SOME MONSTERS AND DARK WIZARDS#the dead & the damned#dorcas meadowes
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I liked the idea of Anson being Karnaca’s Resident Curmudgeon so much that I decided to let him escape his overseer interrogation with his life. So here, have Anson aging gracelessly.
Somewhere in the apartment, a clock ticked softly. Motes of silver dust spiraled in the sunlight that filtered between the window blinds. A fan rattled in desperate combat against the humidity that cast a haze throughout the rooms, and the spiced smell of wood sitting in the heat for too long rose from the floorboards.
From the bedroom in the back hall, a faucet creaked, rust tinged water tumbled into cupped hands, and Anson splashed it across his face.
His reflection scowled at him from beneath the blotchy patina of the water-stained mirror. There was a speckling of age spots across his skin, where the Serkonan sun had been particularly unkind. He pressed his fingertips to his temple to trace his receding hairline and then dragged his hands down his sandpaper jaw.
“I’m getting old.” He sighed to himself.
Standing in an undershirt he was already starting to sweat through, Anson braced his palms against the sink and scrutinized his wiry frame in the glass with pursed lips. Not much different from the days when he could claim to be thirty, but he was certainly going softer in places, sagging in places. It was enough of a blow to his vanity to send him spiraling into a myriad of self criticisms every morning.
“And fat.”
Something brushing against his calf brought his eyes downward, where a lanky, hairless cat had entered the room. Tail held up in an inquisitive curl, the feline wove a figure eight between Anson’s legs before looking up at him. She meowed, pointedly.
“I am. Don’t try to argue with me.”
The cat meowed again, flashing her needle-like teeth.
“I know how things used to be.” Anson sniffed with disdain. “I have certainly had,” He paused to sweep what was left of his greying hair back from his brow. “More glorious days.”
Seemingly disinterested in continuing their conversation, the cat turned and padded back out into the hall. Anson watched her go.
“Such an unbothered little thing.” He called after the cat. “All you have to think about is which patch of sunlight to lie in.” How he longed to be unbothered.
He took his left hand in his right, laying one set of fingers to the twisted wounds of where the others used to be.
The little finger was entirely forfeit—severed by the flash of an overseer’s knife clean at the first knuckle. The ring and middle fingers were salvageable, with enough of a joint to attach the decorative silver prosthetics he had made from salvaged, scrapped together funds. They were cold and hollow, a reminder of how far he had fallen.
“No matter…no matter.” He muttered to himself, shaking the gloom away with a jerk of his shoulders.
He took up his corset from the bed, eying it. Years ago he had pinned back the silhouettes of the aristocracy, and now he was only pinning back his own slumping form. Everything circled back around to a boy in a one room apartment in Drapers Ward, listening to the hum of his father’s sewing machine and the uneven drop of his injured foot on the treadle. Everything circled back around to a young man who had clawed his way out of that tenement, a charming fraud rubbing elbows with the gentry. At the height of his success, and in his less moral moments, he wondered whether or not his father would have been proud of him. Now he didn’t wonder about his father at all. Now he asked what a younger Anson would think of himself: a tired old man, a poor crippled tailor, slipping off into obscurity in a dusty corner of the world. It all circled back.
He jerked the laces of the corset more tightly than he used to. His breath hitched, and he went through the laborious process of drawing back his age with each pull of the intricate lacing. What had once been swift second nature to him was now slow and cumbersome without the full use of his hand.
Several minutes later Anson looked back at a more satisfactory reflection. He pulled on the rest of his clothing, still impeccably tailored by his own hand, dabbed vetiver oil upon the back of each wrist, and tied his cravat in a stiff bow. That bow would undoubtedly wilt in the heat as the hours passed, and blood and dust would mottle the hem of his trousers, but that was no excuse to let himself go.
He strode out into the front room where his cat had found a pool of sunlight to sprawl in.
“Ahhh, Thimble.” He said as he stepped over her. “I see you’ve made your most important decision of the day.” Her ears twitched but she made no move to get up.
“I’ll be back later.” Anson added before walking out the door.
The stairwell was dingy. Drifts of trash gathered in the corners, fliers for mistreated miners, warnings about parasitic flies looking to take advantage of any bloated corpse. The wallpaper peeled off in rolls as the glue came undone in the merciless humidity, and the floors were only partially tiled, as though whoever was laying them left for a lunch break one day and never came back. The landlord had yet to respond to Anson’s numerous needling requests to get around to fixing the place. In fact, the man seemed to always conveniently vanish the moment he saw Anson approach. The coward.
Anson tripped on one of the loose tiles on the way out, cursing through his teeth, and then stepped out into the burning white light of Karnaca at noon.
The familiar but odious stench of fish viscera hit him immediately and he retched. He suspected he would never get used to it. The atmosphere was heavy with it, along with the droning of flies drawn to the dead sharks hanging over drip pans that rippled ruby with each sluggish drop of blood.
Barely recovered, Anson looked over at the man next to him who was sawing into one of the creatures. Its guts bubbled out of the cut made in ropes of purple and red, and Anson choked back his bile.
“I—“ His voice cracked. He swallowed and started again. “I take it you lost.” He said to the worker.
The man stopped in his butchery to look up at Anson. He sniffed, dragging a heavy forearm beneath his running nose.
“What?” The larger man asked, with narrowed eyes.
“At your dice game last night. Heard you cursing about it terribly. At two in the morning.”
“Yeah, and I heard you bawlin’ out the window like a little piss tellin’ us to shut up.”
That was indeed true. The alleyway was directly beneath his bedroom window. Equipped with a moldering couch, it was a dreadfully comfortable gathering place for the dockworkers’ nightly games.
“Look at me.” Anson said to the man with a sigh, shifting his weight to one side. He pointed at his drawn face. “Don’t I look like a man who needs sleep?”
The worker laughed and plunged his hand into the carcass to pull out the offal. “Stuff some cotton in your ears or somethin’ tonight, because Jackie’s bringing cards.” He said, as Anson sourly buried his nose in the crook of his arm and stumbled away from the man.
Blood everywhere, in the Campo Seta dockyards. The water endlessly bloomed with it as the gutters spat out their waste, and it was tracked on the soles of every pedestrian in town. Storage hatches were crammed to capacity with all a manner of sea creatures, split open and rotting in the heat. When he strolled to the wealthier districts in his more wistful moments, he still couldn’t look at the cans of fermented red shark displayed in their luxury storefronts without feeling a roiling nausea, since he was so intimately acquainted with the process.
Anson lit a cigarette for himself as he weaved past the activity of the dockyards. Longshoreman hauled sacks and barrels of goods. Ships were caulked in the harbor. An idler cast a line into the water for the hagfish.
Leaning at the other end of the docks, a ramshackle bar nailed together out of shipboards and corrugated metal cast a merciful patch of shade. Anson walked over to it and draped himself upon his familiar barstool.
“‘Lo, Anson.” The bartender said while polishing a dingy glass.
“Afternoon.”
Not many people had known Anson on a first name basis in Dunwall. Few had been acquainted enough to be considered friends. He made sure of that, out of fear of his petty circle learning that he was not truly one of them.
But now, the only lie he had left was the measure of his waistline. There was a certain freedom in that.
“What’ll you take?”
Anson’s order was caught beneath the thick hacking cough he had been developing over the years. He beat a fist to his chest and spat off to the side. “Damn dust.” Anson muttered around the cigarette. “Just a Padilla.”
The bartended nodded cheerily, sliding a small green bottle in his direction. Anson gave him a grateful nod, stubbing out his cigarette and washing the ash down with the bubbling taste of pear. Lukewarm, but better than nothing.
Amidst the cries of gulls and the hush of the waves, Anson heard the wheedling tone of a fiddle slightly out of tune behind him. He twisted on the barstool to look at the young woman playing with a bow where the horsehair hung in strands. Her companion sat alongside her upon an overturned fruit crate with a guitar in hand, calloused fingers dancing across the strings. For all Anson’s outward bitterness, he cracked a smile. Something uplifting among the stench and gore of the neighborhood.
He slid off the barstool and pushed the soda aside, walking over to the musicians in the loose jointed way that characterized him in easier days. The man took a moment to get a sense of the flow of the music and then angled his ankles in the fashion he had been taught during the local Morley Nights in the district, when the raucous laughter and jaunty session songs tumbled from the windows of local pubs late into the night. It was an event he never would have attended, in his old life, but now one that he delighted in.
With the upward sweep of the melody Anson lithely danced upon the balls of his feet with a timing and grace that belied his age. The girl laughed, high and good natured, and Anson returned it. Fifty two, he wasn’t old at all. Certainly life had carved the lines on his face with a much heavier hand than on most, but he still had something in him. Despite the midday sun he kept a bouncing pace, grinning when he heard the bartender behind him clap his hands in time, to give him a beat to strike his heel against.
Never would he have danced in the gutter in Dunwall.
But no one knew him here, and so it was here where he allowed people to know him.
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Smaug and Bard
The following is written as part of The Infinite Loops metaverse of fanfic. Smaug has been looping for ... a while; I don't know if this occurs before Smaug covers the Eagles at the Black Gate or after.
This is Smaug characterization practice for a later thing.
After breakfast, he opened it.
To Bard, of Lake Town,
A matter has arisen which desires your involvement. Namely, your assistance is required in dispatching the Dragon, who once slept in the Lonely Mountain but is now awakening.
Three days from now, please present yourself at the front gate of the Lonely Mountain with yourself, your bow, and your Black Arrow. You will be met by an accomplice who will assist you in this task.
Your discretion in this matter is appreciated; Lickspittle's spies are everywhere. If you ask me about this letter, I shall deny it and have you thrown out of town.
Sincerely yours,
A Conspirator.
And so Bard made some preparations, and three days later he was at the gate of Erebor. A rumbling came deep from within the mountain, and a creaking, and a grinding of chains. Slowly, achingly, the gate ground upwards. Fifty feet above the pavers, it stopped rising.
Bard saw no sign of the promised accomplice.
Some more thumping and banging came from within the mountain. A wheel-shaped chandelier the size of Bard's house rolled out from the depths of the gate, crossed the courtyard, and made an attempt at crossing the bridge over the River Running before finally falling over.
"Drat." The voice that boomed in the deep was definitely not human.
Well, if his accomplice was to be a troll, it would be better to know sooner rather than later. Standing up from behind his rock, Bard yelled, "Hello!"
More metallic crashing inside the Mountain. Then came a slithering, and finally a monstrous head emerged from under the gate. Glistening red, coated with dust, a thousand scales glittered in the partly-cloudy midday sun.
"Good morning! A mister Bard, I presume? I'm sorry that you're seeing the Mountain in such a mess as this; I didn't think you'd arrive until this afternoon." The fearsome head turned both eyes, both nostrils, all of its teeth upon him. Bard quailed in his boots, just a little.
And then he climbed on his rock, and unshouldered his bow. "I am Bard, last of the line of the kings of Dale."
"Oh, good, I was hoping I remembered your name correctly. Do come in; it'll start raining in an hour and I wouldn't want you to catch a cold." Smaug closed its fang-filled mouth for a moment. "Don't worry, little human. I won't harm you, and you can still harm me with your Black Arrow. Would you like some tea? Rhûn sells some excellent blends." And with that, the fearsome beast's head disappeared into the dark hall.
The slithering of the withdrawing wyrm paused again. In an over-the-shoulder sort of way, Smaug said,"Oh, and if you don't come, I shall be quite disappointed."
Figuring himself quite stuck in the predicament, Bard clambered down to the courtyard. He walked under the gate, which was ten feet thick if it was an inch. A miracle of Dwarven engineering, and all he could think about was what if it were to fall.
The main hall was as wide as the pool in the middle of Lake Town, the ceiling impossibly high up in the darkness. At the far end was a huge arch, standing fully as tall as the Master’s Great House in Lake Town. The arch opened onto a T-shaped passage, lit from the left by a light that sparkled and glowed. With no sign of the dragon; Bard walked towards the light.
And walked.
And walked.
It was a really long hall.
A few hundred feet from the end, he heard the Dragon's voice coming from a side passage. "You can go through the big door, but there's a chair in this room sized for you, and I can pour you tea here." The door the voice came from was open, and also lit with that same shifting golden light. Just less of it.
He walked into the room, which despite being in a Dwarven city was appointed with furniture sized for Men. There was a Man-sized armchair, a settee, a table with a tea set, some bookshelves, and a small fireplace. Where one would normally place a lamp on a hook in the ceiling, there was instead a contraption of rods and pulleys that speared down towards the table, ending in a pair of leather gloves. The contraption shifted with purpose; the gloves were making a pot of tea. And over all of this played that golden light.
The wall he had just walked through had a door. The wall to his left had a bookshelf. The wall ahead of him had a fireplace, burning merrily. And the remaining wall was no wall at all, just a broken hole in the mountain, opening on the a cavern filled with gold and gems and motes of dust floating in the air.
Atop the pile was the dragon; its huge foreclaws tangled in — no, pulling on a number of iron hoops. The hoops hung from the ceiling by fat ropes, which looped across the ceiling on pulleys to massive arrays of springs, and then ran as narrower ropes to smaller springs, and thence to the cables that disappeared in the wall above this room. Smaug's claws wriggled in the hoops; the arms hanging from the ceiling extended a cup of tea and a saucer towards Bard.
Bard did the only thing that made sense to do, and took the teacup.
The dragon withdrew its claws from the rings, and turned to face the man. "I must admit, I have misplaced my Rhûnish tea. This mix is called Daughter of Fishes, and comes from a very, very far-off land. Please, have a seat."
Bard took a sip. It was adequate tea. He sat.
"I should introduce myself," said Smaug, destroyer of Dale. "I am Smaug, fire-drake, chiefest and greatest of calamities. You, I hope, are Bard, captain of the guard of Lake Town, and direct descendant of Girion, Lord of Dale. Did my letter reach you alright?"
"... Yes."
"Oh, good. I was worried that the shepherd would pocket the gold he found with his sheep and not pass on the letter. But, to business. I wish your help, mister Bard, in deceiving the world. In seven days' time, a band of dwarves will arrive in Lake Town. The Master will feast them and send them up the river, hoping that the prophecies will come true. How does the song go? 'His halls shall echo golden to songs of yore re-sung. The woods shall wave on mountains and grass beneath the sun; His wealth shall flow in fountains and the rivers golden run,' or words to that effect.
"These dwarves and their burglar shall oust me from their home, and I shall fly in fire and fury to Lake Town and make to attack it. This is the point where you come in. Would you like a biscuit?"
The first attempt did not work, of course. Bard shot Smaug with the Black Arrow and ended the Loop.
It was twelve Loop restarts before Smaug was able to get the conditions right to make Bard amenable to Smaug's offer. (Really, the number had been more than a thousand, but Smaug was only counting the Loops with the same mix of loopers.)
That night, when Smaug flew over Lake Town, glittering in the torchlight, the Thrush that landed on Bard's shoulder expressed surprise and alarm. "Wait! Wait!" it said to him. "The moon is rising. Look for the hollow of the left breast as he flies and turns above you!" And while Bard paused in wonder at the talking bird, it told him of things that Smaug had predicted would occur.
As the fearsome beast breathed flame into the air over the town, setting the tower of the Great house aflame, Bard saw a painted circle on the dragon's breast, like that on an archery butt. It was not over the hollow of the left breast, but on the hollow of the right breast. Remembering his promise to the dragon, he drew and fired, while the Thrush sqawked indignation.
Smaug screamed, long and ear-shattering. Its flaming stopped; its wing-beats stopped just as he flew over the Master's barge. With a crunch and a splash, the calamity fell into the Lake. There was a great hiss as the Lake flashed to steam, and a fog sprang up immediately.
Bard shrugged, and went to see to the evacuation efforts that were ongoing. Smaugh had not targeted Lake Town proper, but a number of houses were accidentally on fire, and the Great House's fire was in danger of spreading.
Under the Lake, Smaug gloated, holding his breath. And then he stepped between, and disappeared to a land far in the cold North of Arda. He had spent twelve loops trying to get the setup right. And now that Lake Town believed him dead, the rumor mill would fly as usual. Olorin would not be expecting Smaug's appearance anywhere in Arda.
Smaug had spent a long time thinking about what to do with a Looping Gandalf, unaware of a Looping Smaug. Showing up at the White Council meeting in Rivendell had been done before. He'd been an accountant in the Shire. He'd taken out Barad-Dûr ahead of schedule. He'd flown with the Eagles of Manwë. He had deposed both Saruman and Denethor, and once ruled the corsair fleets of Umbar.
This time, Smaug was going to start a business. He'd need to drive some technological advancements, but snowshoes weren't terribly out of canon. Architecture would be a problem, but the Looping dragon already had blueprints and snow maps, from that one Loop where the Valinorean Winter Games were held in Rivendell. All the downhill events had been in the Misty Mountains. Smaug knew the slopes, the snowpacks, and indeed he knew where he could find several million board feet of lumber. He would have to hire some blacksmiths and carpenters, of course, but as long as he hired only from the settlements of Men on the eastern side of the Misty Mountains, and primarily worked through proxies, he would be able to pull it off.
And as for out-of-Loop techniques, he supposed that the worst he'd need to do would be to use shadow clones for snow-clearing operations once the snow sheds and avalanche galleries were built. Maybe some dynamite, if he wasn't going to hire Dwarves for tunneling. He could run this operation as close to baseline as possible, and as long as Smaug kept the operation small and quiet, Gandalf would have no inkling of it coming.
Smaug was going to make a toll road over Caradhras.
References:
The glove machine: No reference here; I just liked the idea of assistive technology for dragons.
Daughter of Fishes is the name of a fancy, very scarce tea from Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series.
The quoted poem is directly excerpted from The Hobbit book.
Between-jumping is the teleportation trick of the dragons of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series. Bilbo and Smaug have looped to Pern together in the Dragons loops complilations.
Wikipedia: "A snow shed, snow bridge or avalanche gallery is a type of rigid snow-supporting structure for avalanche control (avalanche defense) or to maintain passage in areas where snow removal becomes almost impossible. They can be made of steel, prestressed concrete frames, or timber. These structures can be fully enclosed, like an artificial tunnel, or consist of lattice-like elements. They are typically of robust construction considering the environments they must survive in."
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Who Wants to Live Forever
(CW: Grief)
She knew Mourat was old. In fact, she had never known Mourat to be anything other than old. As a girl, she had even wondered if he had always been old. He had a way about him that made him seem timeless, frozen, as if he had always existed and would always exist in the same suspended state of oldness. But time was cruel and constant, and so, it seemed, was death.
Aviva unlocked the door and quietly let herself into the darkened shop. She considered lighting a candle or a lantern, but instead she removed an oud from the pile of instruments in the window to allow a few shafts of sunlight to peer through. He would have preferred it.
For a time she simply stood, the oud hanging by its neck from her hand like a dead game fowl. Motes of dust floated through the thin strips of sun, contrasting with the utter stillness and silence of the shop. Everything sat in its place, every instrument, supply and scrap of paper arranged in a complex system that had only fully made sense to one man. It looked just the same as any other day.
By the gods, she needed a smoke.
With her free hand she produced a small cedar box from a pouch at her belt and contemplated the cigarettes inside. Mourat had heartily and vocally disapproved when she had started smoking, despite his own fondness for the sweetness of pipe tobacco, even going so far as to forbid her from smoking inside. She had protested, as her chosen mixture was not half as noxious as others. It was light and spiced, and it soothed her throat rather than burning it. But he had insisted. She petulantly reminded herself that he wasn’t there to scold her, but the thought stopped her cold. She put the box back in its pouch.
The oud needed a place to go that wasn’t the window. Aviva scanned the shop, trying once again to discern Mourat’s master plan for organisation, if even there truly was one. Ten years it had been her second home and still she knew so little. Perhaps it could live on some of the open pegs near the violas on the wall, though its body might be too long for that area. Her eyes wandered down to the oud itself and she suddenly noticed the tuning pegs were loose. That would not do.
Retrieving a stool from beneath the keys of the harpsichord in the corner, she sat, setting the oud in her lap and plucking at the strings as she turned the pegs. Once each one had achieved its proper pitch, she strummed aimlessly, half-formed melodies coming and going. Her mind wandered.
At six, she had come under the old man’s tutelage, still raw and reeling from the loss of her father. At ten, she had manifested her first magic, channelled through song and biting word. At twelve, she had played her first public performance on a street corner near the Academy. At thirteen, she had started to use her surname when asked who she was and where she had come from, a decision Mourat had helped her make. By fifteen, she had developed a persona around the name Lux, a glittering feylike creature who was water and fire, fluid and passionate. And now, at sixteen, she was lost once again. Mourat had given her direction, focus, purpose. He had shown her music, encouraged her to wrap herself in it, to use it as solace and protection. But for all his wisdom and all his teachings, he had never told her how to continue on without him.
“So.”
With a start, Aviva looked up, her fingers falling away from the strings. An old man in the dark robes of mourning stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the morning sun. A Human. His gaunt face was pale, his eyes unkind. He wore no expression.
“You’re the stray my husband took in.”
Suddenly feeling as if she were six years old again, Aviva held the oud slightly closer to her chest, an unconscious gesture. “You must be Thomas,” she started slowly, moving to stand. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet--”
Thomas waved his hand sharply as he stepped inside, cutting her off. “I did not agree with his decision to train one of your kind. I discouraged him whenever I could. You’re bad luck, you all are. But he insisted. He was fond of you, he said. He thought of you as his protegee. Imagine.” He scoffed, fixing her with a cold stare. “He shared something as divine to him as the gods themselves with one born of the greatest blasphemy. And he paid dearly for it.”
Aviva blinked, opened her mouth, closed it again. It took her several long, incredulous moments to find her voice. “I… I am not what you think of me, sir. I did nothing to harm Mourat, I could never. He showed me kindness when no other would. He meant the world to me; I loved him as I would my own grandfather.”
“Do not presume to tell me of love,” Thomas hissed as his hands balled into fists. “Your kind is not capable of it. You can dress a dog in silk, you can teach it to dance and please its master, but it’s still nothing but a dog.” He made a shape with his hand that Aviva knew well: a protection against evil. Against her. “His caring for you shortened his life, I’m sure of it. He had such spirit! We could have had many more years together, good years, happy years, but he threw them away to devote his time to you.” Thomas’s voice cracked, his eyes welling up with furious tears. He was in pain. He had lost someone he loved. He was looking for someone to blame.
A cold, stoic calm came over Aviva. She had weathered such abuses before and well knew how to divorce herself from them. Her heart was like her cigarettes, safely hidden away where it would not be hurt. It was clear this old man had already made up his mind. She straightened her back but did not rise from the stool. “What will happen to the shop?”
Thomas glared at her. “It won’t go to you, if that’s what you’re hoping. I’ll sell off the pieces and shut it down. There’s nothing left for us here.”
With a curt nod, Aviva stood. “I won’t keep you, then.” She began to move brusquely about the shop, gathering a variety of instruments. The oud, a bouzouki, a small hand drum, several extra bows and packages of rosin and spare strings. Anything she might need. She arranged them atop the harpsichord and added up the costs in her head, her fingers fluttering in the air as she calculated. “I’ll take these off your hands.” She pulled her coin purse out of her pouch and, without counting, tossed it onto the harpsichord’s wooden lid. It landed with a thud that sent a dull, funereal echo through the body of the instrument. She knew there would be enough coin to cover her costs, even without the reduction in pricing Mourat would have given her. There was no point in further reminding him of her favoured treatment.
Never slowing her businesslike pace, Aviva placed the smaller items delicately into a ratty canvas bag and swung the strap of the bouzouki over her shoulder. Grasping the neck of the oud, she breezed past the old man, who instinctively made another warding gesture. He was a full head shorter than she, and in that moment, he seemed infinitely small.
She paused in the doorway and turned to look Thomas in the eye. “I’m sorry for your loss.” Then she left.
Aviva had no interest in taking the main roads today. She kept to back alleys and side streets, avoiding the city’s other citizens as best she could. Her bones and muscles knew where to go when she needed to be alone. She walked mindlessly, deliberately, and it was not until she stopped to light a cigarette that she discovered she was shaking. She had been shaking since she stepped out of the shop. She couldn’t stop shaking.
As she went to slide her cigarette box back into its pouch, she discovered something else: she had forgotten, or it had not occurred to her, to return her shop key. She stared at it for awhile, turning it over in her palm as if she had never seen such a shape before. The key to a place she was no longer welcome, owned by a man who no longer existed. A memento mori. She considered getting rid of it, dropping it in the gutter or throwing it into the sea, but something inside her made her hold it tight. It was hers. It was hers and it would always be hers, just as the knowledge and the training and the memories would always be hers. She slipped the key back into her pouch.
Mourat would have liked that.
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