Leaving the others alone for a bit, Nalla grabbed herself an ale and found an empty table. She couldn’t stop thinking about George’s response. She didn’t know how she had been expecting him to respond, but using the group stones was exactly the kind of thing he’d do. Which of course meant she had to explain to the others what was happening. There were congratulations to be had and then they moved on. But not her. Not completely at least. She knew the that elated feeling in her chest would stick with her for quite a while.
A new, yet increasingly familiar voice interrupted her thoughts and Nalla turned to see Dylan next to her. “Oh thank you!” She drained the ale she’d gotten for herself and gratefully accepted the one Dylan had brought over. It occurred to her in that moment that Dylan didn’t have a stone of her own, so she didn’t hear George’s message. “I uh…well I just got engaged actually.” She chuckled softly, the words still feeling foreign to her.
Nalla allowed herself a few moments to look Dylan over. She hadn’t trusted the woman at all at first, maybe she was a spy sent to convince them to lead her to Lex. But after the fights they had and Dylan’s eagerness to jump in, Nalla found herself starting to have feelings of trust toward the other fighter. She gestured to one of the empty seats at the table and smiled at Dylan. “Care to join me? You mentioned having a wife didn’t you? And kids?”
“Oh, well, definitely congratulations are in order,” she reiterated once she knew the actual reason for it. She offered a sincere smile, part of her wondering how something like that would have happened so suddenly. She looked around at the gathering, spotting the other members of the group. One looked surly and moody, the other boisterous and energetic. Both were drinking heavily. “Thanks,” she said and took the offered seat, seeing it as a step in the right direction. “ Is she - he? - uh, your fiancee here?” she asked. A nod at the question, and another, softer smile appeared. “I do yes, both. Two daughters. They are...” Her brow furrowed, the worry obvious. “Well, they should be in hiding by now. A safe place, gods willing.” She could only hope that their plans were sufficient to keep them safe. She was too far away to be of any protection for them at the moment. “Easily the best things in my life. Worth fighting to make a better world for, that much I know. I’m sure you feel the same of yours.”
Dylan looked around the secreted tavern, wondering if, like the temple, she didn’t belong. Actually she knew she probably didn’t, but she wanted to. This was what she wanted to be a part of now, a cause she could believe in, as she once believed in the military system she and her family had served for so long. She sighed and looked down into her ale, watching the small bubbles reach the surface and pop. Nothing would be the same again, she mused. And if that was the case, she was sure she’d chosen the right side (even if it did take her longer than it should have to truly make the change). She looked up and around at the people surrounding her - these were the people she’d sworn an oath to protect; only now she’d have to do it in something other than a uniform.
She spotted the tall, pale fighter on the other side of the bar and asked the bartender for another ale, the largest he had. The mug he pushed over was hefty and the foam ran over the lip and down the side as Dylan walked it over. “Hey, I uh, hear congratulations are in order?” she said, her voice rising, unsure what it was for. But of all of them she’d sensed a particular kind of camaraderie with this one, despite the goliath’s understandable reticence toward Dylan. She held out the large stein. “I’m sorry I don’t know what it’s for, but congratulations.”
Everything seems to happen in a matter of a single fly’s heartbeat: she is circling higher, caught in an updraft, when the ground and the very air around her first rumbles then explodes. Sera, as herself, lands in a breathless heap on a rooftop across the narrow street from the prison they’d been inside, the wind temporarily knocked out of her. It takes a moment for her mind to refill with her own thoughts after the small and vacuous state she was in as a fly. She lays back against the angle of the roof and closes her eyes as she does an internal assessment. Everything hurts, from her head feeling like it’s splitting open as it continues to fill with thought and memory, to the burning of various wounds she received from the guards she fought, to the overwhelming exhaustion from the spells she’d cast after using her wild shape to get into the building to begin with. Her stomach rolls uncomfortably and for a moment she thinks she’s going to be sick. She swallows thickly and it slowly settles.
She hears the voices and boots of many guards and others nearby citizens coming to put out the fires and crawls to the other side of the roof, away from their line of sight but still able to peer over the peak to watch as needed. There are streaks of blood on the roof where she’d landed and she hopes none of them care enough to look up to see it. She eases below the roofline and lays back once more. She has no idea where her friends are, where Lark’ai is (though she knows at the very least her concentration on the spell she’d cast on Sera was broken; that didn’t mean she was dead, only distracted, right?), if any of the prisoners escaped, or what caused the explosion. She’d heard Nalla yell for her to run and before she could do much more than push the last of her spell into the dying guard before her, Lark’ai was there trying to ferret her away.
More sounds behind her; on the ground, more boots, more voices, the splash of water, the hiss as it meets the flames already well stoked thanks to her own spell. She keeps a semi-awareness of the goings-on while she rests and lets her mind wander on its own.
Sera sees the tower in her mind’s eye, remembers what was said about the smoke, how it somehow controls the dragons standing guard over the city. They don’t know how that’s happening, only that it is. So, would they be able to wrest control from whoever is in the tower and make the dragons obey them instead of the orange guards? or would they need to turn it off and, as Nari mentioned, risk the dragons turning on the citizens in their anger and confusion?
What are we doing here? she wonders. She knows the goal - take out the tower, the leaders oppressing the people, the guards - but not the plan. Nari and Thea haven’t been keen on sharing that part with her, which is frustrating. And, she discovers as an ache rises in her chest, it hurts that they don’t trust her with the information.
She tries to assess their options, none of which seem to be very good. If they leave the city and try to regroup, they’ll likely never get back in again. Someone was trying to rally the citizenry, but her brain was still too fogged to come up with his name, let alone how or why he was doing it, or how they would know what to do if and when he managed it. She knew nothing, just like when she was a fly. And maybe, she thinks, it’s better that way. There must be a reason they don’t trust her enough to tell her: she’s not trustworthy in their eyes. Sure, they gave her the warning, but then they ran, leaving her behind (assuming, of course, they actually made it out).
Maybe that’s best. Maybe that’s what they wanted all along. Maybe their plan doesn’t include her - and maybe that’s better for all of them. She remembers the acute feeling of loss after the dream, the panic and fear that sat leaden in her belly that any of it might possibly come true. Maybe that wasn’t a warning so much as a sign that she’s a danger to them, her mere presence and impulses, no matter how well-intentioned, puts them all at greater risk.
The smoke and steam grow thicker around her and Sera reluctantly slides from the roof and enters the shadows of the streets, moving away from the conflagration. For now she’s done thinking, done worrying, focusing only on moving from the back of one building to the next without being seen, trying to sort where to go next. She sees nothing of her friends, hears nothing from Lex, must wait until dawn to even try to use the sending stones. For now, she’s on her own.
Pointy People has a lot of information. She sounds like the books he tries to read sometimes. “Lythari,” she says. She would be a “wolf” but still…her inside?
“That means you are a People Puppy,” Thorn concludes after a moment of consideration. “But not a Puppy People.” He holds up his old drawing again and points. “Is this why you are shaky? You do not have to be shaky because of the moon and nature.” Nature, he had learned, would do what it wanted. He had learned to listen to nature and what it had to say instead of trying to resist it.
Unless nature makes her become a Puppy People instead and those could be dangerous. Maybe that is why she is shaky. Thorn has not seen what she becomes so he will have to wait and see.
He lowers his journal again and the place where he speaks from downturns. He does not feel like a frown but just very watchful. “I will tell People Orc and People Demon. But if you become a Puppy People and try to hurt them or Kitty, I will have to protect them. That is my duty.” It is, as he has heard People Orc say, “nothing personal.”
“But if you are just a People Puppy,” he says after a moment, “we can find you some bones. We saw a lot of them earlier. It will be okay.”
She considers the distinction, as Thorn understood it, and nodded again. “Yes, you could say that. Like a werewolf, because I’ll be forced to change with the moon, but not evil and dangerous like them. Not to you, anyway.” Again she nodded as she continued to move. “I get shaky and restless before the change. It’s the energy building up. I’ll be okay once it’s over.” She hoped she would, anyway. She knew she would be okay, but if the others weren’t, she’d be on her own again, in a place she knew she couldn’t survive without help.
She understood Thorn’s concern, and his mild threat - not really a threat, just the vow of a loyal friend. “I know, Thorn. That’s what makes you such a good ally. I promise you, in this form or as a wolf, I am not your enemy, nor that of your friends, or even Kitty.” She wondered if the large cat would understand that as well as Thorn seemed to, and how much control he had if she didn’t.
His last comment elicited an actual laugh, one that seemed to settle her singing blood for the moment. “I don’t need bones, but thank you for asking. Some meat, perhaps, if we can find it. And I’ll be hungry when I change back, but I have rations. Don’t worry about me, Thorn. I’ll be okay, I promise.” She tilted her head and gave a shy smile. “Thank you for understanding. You are smarter and kinder than people give you credit for, aren’t you?”
As Pointy People speaks (and paces), Thorn can hear Kitty scratching at the closed door from the inside.
“It is sleep time, Kitty,” Thorn says gently through the door. His voice is more a low rumble than the coo he intended.
Pointy People was acting very strange. What is going to happen tonight? Did she lead them into a trap? He steadied his Warhammer Armblade just in case. Then she talked about being more than a Pointy Person and trying to keep to herself. He knew what it was like to keep to yourself. Sometimes that was better than being misunderstood, unless you were around somebody who was nice and tried to explain and understand. Like People Kitty.
But then she said something about werewolves. He stared at her hard as she said the words. He was trying to remember something, back from when he was a soldier. She stared back. Foolish because she could not win what People Kitty called a staring contest - Thorn’s eyes could stay open as long as he wanted because they were not the eyeballs that living things had. People Kitty said the eyes had to close sometimes to water them.
“Ah yes, Puppy People,” Thorn says sagely, finally remembering. He flips to the earliest entries of his journal, which he carried outside with them. “They try to be People Puppy but a lot of times it is hard and they are just Puppy People.”
He finds the page he was looking for and holds it out to Pointy People. It was back from when he was in the army. If his drawings now showed a simplistic rudimentary art style, his oldest drawings were largely child-like. This one was the head of a dog with floppy ears on a humanoid stick-figure body. The dog head’s eyebrows were angled downward at the middle to display anger. Next to that was Thorn’s drawing of himself, his own head strangely square, holding out a bone.
“I know about Puppy People yes,” Thorn says with a close of his journal. He stares at Pointy People again. Were the Puppy People coming tonight? Again, was this a trap? This would be the perfect opportunity. Thorn looked down the halls eagerly, his Warhammer Armblade at the ready.
The large cat on the other side of the door seemed as restless as Laena herself felt. She knew her mere presence contributed to that, just as she was always acutely aware of the cat as they moved through the halls and tunnels. She didn’t know Thorn’s history, or that of his feline companion, and could only hope that tonight wouldn’t make anything worse.
She’d noticed he defined everyone (so far, at least) as some kind of people, and the distinction he made for werewolves was quite astute. She realized he wasn’t quite as simple as he might seem at first glance, only expressed it in his own terms.
“Yes,” she answered with a nod and a smile as she looked at the drawing. It was crude but quite obvious what it was all the same. “That’s exactly what it is. we - they - are both people and wolf. Werewolves are mad, dangerous creatures, aberrations from their true, benign forms.” She noted the tension and set a hand lightly on his blade arm after taking a quick sniff of the air. “It’s okay, we’re alone, nothing nearby,” she assured. When he lowered the weapon and she had his attention again, she continued.
“Werewolves descended from the Lythari. But with them something went wrong. They were banished from the packs, and their numbers continued to increase, until they became something vile, something evil, unto themselves. The Lythari still exist in small packs, out in the wilds. Thorn,” she said, meeting his gaze directly, “I am Lythari. A full moon will rise tonight, soon, and I will...change. I will become a wolf, but not like the werewolves. I will still be me, inside,” she said, tapping her temple, then her chest. “I am not a danger to you or the others. I can still fight by your side, but my monk training cannot help me in that. I will have to rely on teeth and claws. But I need you to know, to tell the others, that I am not a threat, no matter what I look like. Can you do that? Can you tell them that?”
Bedtime again. People Orc and People Demon hide in their bedrolls and close their eyes. Sometimes People Orc makes noises while sleeping. People Kitty called it “snoring.”
Thorn knew his job. He was on watch so he sat at the entrance of the room as usual. Between his friends and anyone who might try to bother them.
“Living” creatures needed sleep. That’s what he was told. Thorn felt like he was “living” but he didn’t need this sleep thing. It was something more than closing your eyes. People Kitty said it was like getting hurt in battle and not seeing anything. But sometimes people who sleep see things…inside of their heads? How could they not see things and also see things? That didn’t make sense. And could “living” things make their eyeballs go backwards to look inside of their heads?
He wished People Kitty was still here. People Orc and People Demon were nice but they were also busy with other things. Like arguing with each other. And eating. And stealing. And fighting. And sometimes sleeping loudly together in a room separate from everyone else. He had more to ask about being alive and People Kitty was always there to explain.
He laid out his bedroll for Kitty. She needed sleep too. But first she looked at Pointy People. Pointy People shared her space with People Demon but Pointy People stood up. Thorn was around living things long enough to know Pointy People was…he didn’t know the word. It was how people looked when they were caught lying to his commanders. Sometimes they would shake and look around more than usual.
He didn’t know if he liked Pointy People yet. He didn’t know if he would listen to her the way he listened to People Orc and People Demon and People Kitty. But she fought with them and did not betray them. She was on their side. When he was a soldier, that was the important thing. Right?
But she was not People Kitty, and he missed People Kitty. But maybe Pointy People would answer his questions if he asked? People Orc and People Demon seemed to like her. It was in a way that they didn’t like People Kitty. If People Kitty were here, he would ask her what it all meant.
“Thorn, I need to go out,” Pointy People said to him. Kitty kept watching her as she approached and spoke. Kitty was always watching her and following her. She never acted like that with anyone else before. Not even People Kitty who Thorn thought was very similar.
“It could be dangerous out there and you need sleep,” Thorn tried to protest. He did not want to be difficult but keeping watching while the living creatures slept were his usual orders.
But she insisted: “If you want to step out with me, there’s something I should tell you.”
He could technically step outside with Pointy People and stay by the outside of the door guarding People Orc and People Demon. Right? Besides, he liked being told things, especially when they were things about living and not things like “Open the door.”
Okay that would be fine.
He nodded. While slowly opening the door, he pressed a hulking metallic finger to the part of his face he talked from and said “SHHH.” It was the quiet signal.
Laena wasn’t sure if Thorn would take her up on her offer to leave the room. He was fiercely protective of the other two - a position Laena hadn’t yet earned, she surmised, not to their level in any case - and this was an unusual request given they’d only just found what seemed to be a decent place to rest. She gave a faint smile at his initial protest. “I don’t need sleep, not the way they do. It’s a...pointy people thing,” she explained.
He seemed to consider a long time, the figurative (and literal?) gears turning options over in his head until he finally relented and nodded. The way he shushed her was endearing more than threatening, despite his size. She nodded and mimicked the finger to her lips and slipped out behind him. Her senses were on high alert, searching the passageways around them, listening intently for sounds of anyone or anything other than them in the area. A quick sniff of the air found nothing unusual nearby, as far as she could tell.
Still, she kept her voice low when she spoke. “Thorn, something is going to happen tonight, something you need to know about,” she started. She tried standing still but kept shifting her weight on the balls of her feet until finally she had to take a few steps. She paced the width of the passageway. “I’m...more than just an elf, a pointy person. My kind, we’re...rare. We usually stay secluded out in the wild, keep to ourselves mostly. Sometimes someone of my kind, they’ll get...they leave.”
Gods was this even making sense? She had no idea how much experience Thorn had in the world, what he’d seen, what he’d been taught, what he knew. She had no idea how much she would have to explain, so she decided to be more direct, let his questions come as they will. “Thorn, do you know about werewolves?” she asked. Those genetic aberrations had flourished outside of the Lythari culture, to the point that more people knew of them than her own kind, it seemed.
For most people, being underground meant losing track of where the sun was, whether it was day or night. For Laena, the moon held an acute pull in her veins and she always knew, even after days below the surface. She could feel it now, fat and heavy and full, creeping toward the horizon. If they were above ground, the sun would still be sinking, the last daylight painting the world in oranges and reds. She could close her eyes and see it, the sheen on the buildings, the faint hint of twilight bruising the sky to the east. She felt her pulse quicken and a quick shiver raced through her. Soon, it’s coming soon.
The room they’d settled in was large enough to accommodate them but to Laena it felt smaller and smaller as the minutes passed. Toni offered for her to share some space, and Laena sat with her for a few minutes with her back against the wall but couldn’t stay still for long. She had to tell them, had to explain what was about to happen - and when she opened her mouth to start she saw Toni was already fast asleep, joining Lux in slumber. Only Thorn remained awake, his steady metallic presence guarding the only door. His large cat companion - the one who never seemed to take her eyes off Laena - lay near his feet, deceptively languid in her posture, though Laena knew the moment she moved the cat would be following her every move. The cat knew, even if the others didn’t, just how different she was, and likely in what way.
She rose from the edge of Toni’s bedroll, careful not to disturb, and restlessly paced the small space of open floor. With the other two asleep, it seemed that Thorn was the one she would have to tell, would have to explain what was about to happen. She sent a brief prayer of hope and guidance into the still air and moved closer to the door. She kept her voice low, barely above a whisper, when she spoke, her own gaze darting to the large black cat now and then.
“Thorn, I need to go out,” she started, her weight shifting from foot to foot. She shook out her hands at her sides, fingers flexing unconsciously. “If you want to step out with me, there’s something I should tell you.” The monks she’d come here with had known, and right now she’d wished they could have made it further than they had together. This group she’d fallen in with was still new, but seemed to be strong and good. She only hoped they could understand her nature. She thought they would, and was kicking herself for not telling Lux and Toni before they sacked out. Another prayer went up that Thorn - the simple but sweet construct - could relay what she told him accurately.
The Gilded Lily is cramped and far from quiet, even in the dead of night. Although the theater proper — the stage, the audience seating, the public and waiting areas — is empty, the dressing rooms, lounge rooms, and private rooms backstage are filled with anywhere between low, murmured conversations and spirited, raised voices thick with the enthusiasm of inebriation.
(Someone unfamiliar to the city would wonder if this is the norm, or if there’s an exceptional restlessness to a city locked down, contained, and kept to a standstill, ready to combust.)
It is amidst this noise that the party members, in whatever states of wakefulness and rest they are in, hears a familiar, serious voice:
“Got into Lossan? If so, what’s the plan now? Look for Ben’s contact if you can. Do you need reinforcements? Let me know. Stay safe.”
Nalla has always been able to fall asleep no matter where she is. It’s a talent that developed when she was very young and has been incredibly useful in her line of work. Another incredibly useful talent is the fact that she can be in the deepest sleep, but when a question is directed toward her, she wakes up immediately.
It is that talent that comes into play when the sending stone next to her comes to life with the sound of a familiar voice. She wakes up with a small grunt and rolls over, picking up the stone to respond.
“Yeah we made it in. I don’t know what the plan is. That’ll be Nari’s thing. Might need reinforcements? There are dragons. Tell George hi!”
Sera had spent too many years honing her senses, even while sleeping, to not notice when Nari got up and padded out of the room. Other sounds she got used to - Nalla’s snoring, the...activities in the other room - and they became part of the general landscape. But movement nearby hit the chord of strange and she shifted from sleep to wakefulness almost instantly. She’d only just sat up to follow Nari when the familiar voice came through in her mind for the second time today. She had to look around to be sure if it was just to her or for the group, and saw Nalla stir and Sera heard the goliath’s reply. She couldn’t help but smile at the last bit, as if George wasn’t part of the stone group to hear it for himself.
She reached into her pocket and found the cooler of the two stones there, turned it over in her hand a couple of times as she formulated her own response.
“We have reinforcements outside, need some inside. Six dragons that we saw. We’re staying in a horny theatre with Thea’s friends tonight. Tell George hi!”
She grinned, not knowing what else to say with the last few words she had left and knowing George would appreciate it. She would have to be careful moving forward, now that Lex had the sending spell and could contact her directly. The message earlier had surprised her; it was far more personal than Lex usually was with the group and Sera thought maybe it had been sent by mistake, as Thea had done not long ago. When none of the group seemed to notice, Sera tentatively replied, watching the group’s reactions carefully before realizing that this time, finally, they had a way to communicate directly that didn’t involve the limited range of animals or using the stones for something the party didn’t really need to be involved in. Hearing Lex’s voice had done wonders for dispelling the effects of the nightmare she’d had, though traces of it still lingered in her mind, the images far too personal and intense to be dismissed so easily.
I have dreamt in my life, dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they have gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind. And this is one: I'm going to tell it - but take care not to smile at any part of it.
― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
I am flying, soaring high over city walls. I feel the warmth of the sun on my back, feel the wind slipping over and under the feathers of my outstretched wings, the air holding me aloft as I soar in broad circles far overhead. I see bridges leading into the city below me. I am confused - wasn’t I supposed to be a horse? Wasn’t that the plan? I look around me to see if the others are with me, here in the sky. I am alone.
I feel the bird’s heart in my chest pick up its pace and I circle lower, keen sight trained on the ground. I get my bearings and find the place we should be and see familiar forms there on one of the bridges - and above them, hidden by the crenellations at the top of the wall, a large force hunkered down, waiting.
They know. They know we are coming, they’re waiting for us. It is an ambush.
I call out and hear only the squawk of the bird’s voice, too high to carry anywhere near my companions, my friends, people I love. I tuck my wings to my body and dive, only to pull up moments later and wheel away with another loud screech as the guards set on the three in a vicious attack and they fall to the ground, growing pools of blood spreading from beneath their bodies. They look up at me with accusatory stares, telling me this is my fault, if I’d only followed the plan they would be alive, we would be inside the city now fulfilling our mission. I scream again in rage and grief. But I can’t remember not following the plan, can’t remember why I’m flying.
I soar past the walls toward the city center, intent on taking out those in the manors. I circle the hilltops and see them all on their balconies, eating and drinking and talking airily as if they had not a care in the world. They’re all right there, right where they should be, right where we knew they would be. I could land right now, cast spells to bring forth lightning and fire, burn them all to the ground - but for the guards surrounding each of the homes.
One of the leaders looks out over the city and gives a flick of his hand. A horn is blown, echoed along the walls. Guards pour into the city streets and begin rounding up citizens, shopkeepers, everyone in the lower elevations that they can get their hands on. They are held in the crook of the guards’ elbows and blades are pulled across their throats.
A clattering draws my attention back to the bridge - not the one with my friends’ bodies, the other one, now filled with half-orcs and dwarves and a handful of goliaths and elves, each with an axe or pick or maul or hammer, some only armed with rocks. They fill the bridge from one end to the other, but the guards are ready. They have casters on the walls and a force on the opposite side penning them in as the spells are rained down on them mercilessly, to the point that the bridge piles with the bodies of the dead and the sergeant orders the bridge itself to be dropped into the waters. And it is done. Those that somehow survived the initial attack were dropped hundreds of feet into the icy waters of the bay. If the fall didn’t kill the last of them the water did.
I want to tell them how sorry I am, that I should have known better, that I should have left them to their rebuilding, safe in their own town, their own homes, their own lives. This was not their fight, it was ours, and how did the leaders know we were coming? How did they know where we would be? There is so much death already, the souls piling one after another onto my conscience and I feel I can’t breathe and I start to fall --
--There, coming up on the remaining bridge, three more familiar figures and my heart soars and I call out LEX! IT’S A TRAP! DON’T GO OVER THE BRIDGE THEY KNOW AND THEY ARE WAITING AND EVERYONE’S DEAD AND I CAN’T LOSE YOU TOO AND GEORGE AND DIANA PLEASE SOMEONE HEAR ME TURN BACK PLEASE
They are allowed to cross with only minor resistance, drawing them in further, until they get past the gates and are taken like the others, like the citizens, somehow neutralized and incapacitated and marched to a gallows set up in the center of the town to show everyone what happens to traitors. This is the resistance, this is what it looks like. See what it will look like in a few days, the rotting corpses of the rebellion being washed away and forgotten. The nooses are pulled around their necks, Lex, George and Diana, and the trap doors released and they fall and I can hear it, I can hear the crunch of bones as their necks break and I watch as the lines twitch and I have one last breath of hope that maybe they found a way out of it, they’ll sneak away at the last instant the way she’s done so many times before. But it is only the body’s reluctance to admit defeat, the last few spasms of lives already gone. The lines go still and are cut and new nooses tied and I see the familiar silver hair and bright blue eyes followed by a pair of younger men I recognize from Ben’s house and I don’t know where they found them, or how, or how any of this is possible. It’s a beast clawing its way through my chest from the inside, the pain is raw and real and I can’t possibly survive this I have to stop it.
I dive to the ground before the gallows, shifting back into my human form sooner than I probably should have and landing with an ungainly thud in the dirt - just as the floors are released once more and I see Ben and the others dangling above Lex and George and Diana and I am too late. Far too late. I am on my hands and knees, unable to stand as the entirety of my world is taken in a matter of a few breaths. My stomach heaves as I sob, tears cutting tracks in the dirt on my cheeks. I try to shift, to fly or gallop or run or scamper away, as I’ve done so much of my life, but I cannot. I try a spell and feel no magic in my veins. Even the fire that I was born with does nothing more than warm my chilled hands.
I feel a hand on my shoulder and lurch away, turning quickly and staring up as I fall on my hind end. I am suddenly small again, a child looking up into these faces that I would know anywhere for the rest of my life, no matter how long I live (a time which seems to be coming much shorter at the moment).
“Did you learn nothing from us, Seraphine?” my mother asks me and I am confused, trying to remember lessons, trying to remember guidance and advice and... “Resistance is futile,” my father says and again I am dismayed that they are here, that they are looking at me like I’ve made a minor gaffe, or was rude or disrespectful. I am looking from one to the other and shake my head no, no this can’t be happening, it can’t end this way. I scramble away from them and under the scaffold to the familiar blue hair and gods her neck is at the wrong angle and please let this work please as I dig in my pockets and pull out a small, clear stone and try to remember the words as I clutch it in my fist and squeeze my eyes closed and take Lex’s hand and it’s still warm gods it’s still warm and I’m waiting for her to squeeze it and trying to remember Nari’s words when she brought Thea back but I was kicking the burned husk and only caught a few of them and I try to say them and there’s nothing and
they’re gone. all of them.
I am on my knees, the diamond is cutting into my fingers I am holding it so tight and I can feel the wet on my cheeks and the ache in my chest is so huge I know it will open its jaws and swallow me whole. I hear my parents calling from behind me and I can’t move. I can’t let go, I can’t stop looking at Lex, at Ben, at George, the other bodies here beneath the boards. They fought for a cause, but they died because of me, because I didn’t follow the plan, because I couldn’t save them, because I wasn’t enough. I lean down and kiss Lex’s temple and squeeze her hand tightly. “I’m sorry, my love,” I whisper. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Over and over.
I hear my name again and somehow let go and crawl from under the boards and into the shadow of my parents and sit back on my knees to look up at them in their disappointment and I have nothing, I feel nothing. They part and the sun blinds me for a moment before it is blotted out once more by another body, another form, another person stepping between them, tall, broad, fat, with whisps of yellow hair arranged in unnatural directions, and my eyes adjust again and widen at the painted skin the color of marigolds and the mouth that smiles to show perfectly straight teeth, then purses to look like what’s under a horse’s tail and I shake my head and murmur over and over “nonononono no it can’t be...”
I watch in shock and horror as Dunghill Kunt wraps his arms around my parents shoulders and I see them smile and start to melt away, sliding slowly down their own bodies until there’s nothing left but a pair of puddles next to Kunt’s shoes.
“You didn’t think this would work, did you? We will always win,” Kunt tells me in his usual smug, self-satisfied way. “Always.” He steps closer and I am frozen in place and sobbing and I see him reach out, his fingers splayed and he touches my forehead and --
~~~
Sera wakes with a jolt, her cheeks wet, choking back a sob. She’s still in her clothes, which are now wrinkled and twisted around her body. One boot is on the floor, the other halfway off and flopping from her foot. She sits up and pulls the thin pillow to her chest and waits for the shakes to pass as the images from the dream replay behind her closed lids. “It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true,” she tells herself, searching for something she can cling to, something to convince herself without a doubt.
Her parents. They gave their lives to this cause - or one close enough to it to be the same. They knew it was possible, that it was necessary. They would never give up on something like this. They knew. They knew the price, they all know the price. Sera saw it paid in spades as she slept. Gods she wanted to talk to Lex, to make sure she was alright, that this wasn’t some twisted, grandiose prophetic dream trying to tell her...what? What’s at stake for all of them?
She takes a deep, shuddering breath and wipes her cheeks with her sleeve. She could still feel the ache of loss in her chest and she rubs at it absently with the heel of her hand, trying to find some relief. She sets the pillow aside and pulls off her boot, letting it fall next to its mate on the floor. She pads to the door and slips into the hall, pausing at the doors of her friends, her team. There are deep, resounding snores from Nalla’s room, soft murmurs and faint clanking from Thea’s room, and Nari’s room stands empty, the paladin keeping watch over the cleric after her ordeal.
The bar below is silent, the familiar scent of ancient ale that’s seeped into the floorboards wafting up the stairs. She returns to her room and closes the door, unsure if she’ll be able to sleep again. She twists her pants back to true and fishes in the pocket. Her fingers curl around a stone there and she feels the warmth radiating from it. She keeps tight hold of it as she stretches out in the bed again, staring at the ceiling. “You won’t win,” she whispers softly through gritted teeth. “You can’t, you’re already dead. And your friends will follow you there soon enough.” Despite her worry, she does fall asleep again, the warm stone held close to her chest.
After seeing Thea, Nari and Ruckus safely upstairs, Sera returned to the bar. She could feel the eyes on her, more curiosity than anything, especially after turning the kid into a frog and chasing the group out. At least, she thought, the clientele were more...consistent now. She ordered an ale (she wouldn’t last the night if she kept drinking the hard stuff) and turned her back to the bar to survey the room again once she was served. She nudged Nalla with an elbow and poked her chin at a table with a goliath among others in the corner. “I’m gonna talk to some of these guys, see where they stand on stuff. You wanna catch up with your tree friend over there, maybe pull them over to the cause?” Sera asked with a smirk. Nalla agreed, tossed back her drink, picked up her second and weaved between the tables to the corner.
Sera sized up the remaining groups, picked a starting point and strode over. “I hear the orange guard made a swing through here. Fun times, right?” she asked with a barely suppressed smile. This was greeted with grunts and glares. She snagged a chair and turned it backwards, squeezed it between a pair of half-orcs. She gave a whistle to the bartender and spun her finger in a circle in the air, ordering drinks for the table. “What if I told you all of that could be over tomorrow, next day at the latest?” she offered.
“I would say you lie, city girl,” one of them cut back at her. Others chuckled at the jibe, including Sera.
“Oh, I’m very good at that, yes,” she admitted with a nod. “Lying, stealing, and many other rather unseemly things. But I’m not lying now,” she added, her eyes twinkling as she took a drink of her ale and wiped foam from her lip with her sleeve. “My friends and I, we’ve got a plan.” She looked them over, one after the other around the table. “You look tough enough to help, I guess,” she said with a shrug. One of them started to come out of their chair. Sera could all but feel the daggers being glared at her as their neighbor set a hand on their arm and they settled in again. “That is, if you’re interested in paying back the orange guard for what they did here.”
That got their attention. And the attention of the table next to them. Sera kept talking, and kept the drinks flowing as she moved from one table to the next. When someone else tried to dismiss her as one of the delicate city folk, she lifted the side of her shirt and started rattling off the scars she bore, much the way she and Lex had done one night. She held up a pinky and talked of almost losing it to a beholder - to which one of the dwarves held up a hand missing the last two fingers. “Yeah, okay, you win that one,” she conceded.
“Perhaps you’re not one of the city dwellers,” one of the half-elves chimed in, “at least, not here. But they built an extra wall around their city, tempting the gods. Look where that got them.”
The 8-fingered dwarf nodded along. “They’ve never come to our aid, not once. They’re always acting like they’re better’n us.” He took a long, snarfling breath through his nose, coughed and spat the expectorated glob on the floor.
Sera neared the bar as she tried to keep their attention, keep them talking. She finished her ale and slid the empty over to the bartender for a refill. She missed the look he gave, one that showed the doubt he held that she would be able to pay for the drinks she’d ordered and consumed, but he filled her mug nonetheless. “They’re not better, they’re worse. Far worse.” All eyes were trained on her now. She hoisted herself to sit on the bar, gaining a little bit of height.
"My name is Seraphine Wakefield. My parents were Kal and Terran Wakefield. They worked in the mines, just like you all. Fifteen years ago they died trying to make things better for mine workers.” She saw a few of them whisper to each other, a hint of recognition at the names. “I raised myself on the streets of Angesco. The rats weren't my friends, they were meals, when I could get them. I have spent my life trying to make things just that much better for people like me, like you. And lemme tell ya, I could steal the treasury and turn it over to you all, and as long as those same people are in charge, and as long as you stay in here with your tankards and your wine, nothing will change. You want things to change? You want a different life for your own children? You have to fight for it. That's what we're doing. We're fighting with everything we've got in us. We're going to cut the head of the snake in Lossan. The body will die more quickly if there are a bunch of you helping hack at it than just the four of us."
She was warming to this as she saw more nods of agreement, especially among the dwarves and orc-folk. Others still seemed resistant, distrustful.
“We have problems here that need to be addressed. We need to do that first before we can even think about helping anyone else,” someone suggested.
Sera turned to the speaker. “Help will follow. Gather your friends, all the resources you can muster. If we can get Lossan out from under orange controle - like completely out, no more orange guards, no Kunt cronies in the houses on the hills - the people of Lossan will help you here for helping them, I can guarantee it.” It was a boast she wasn’t a hundred percent sure she could back up, but was fairly certain she could make it work out...somehow. She looked around, waiting for more questions. “C’mon, what else?” she waved her hands encouraging them.
“Is this just a temporary alliance? Or will there actually be an effort to work together in peace when the hostilities end?” This from one of the other goliaths near the door.
Sera offered a huff of a laugh, her lip curling into a small sneer as she shook her head. "There will be no alliances with those aligned with Kunt. None. We can't go on like we have, with the few lording over the many, the haves gorging themselves in excesses while our children starve and workers like you, like my parents, are crushed by the loads they have to carry. Across this land are the resources to make better lives for everyone. Food, shelter, education, healing. For every single one of us. But the haves are hoarding it for themselves, keeping the rest of us hungry, tired, poor. No, there will be no alliances with people like that. We will tear them from their towers and distribute the resources to provide for everyone. Everyone. The only fighting after that will be to keep anyone from trying to get back into those kinds of overlord positions again."
The voices starting coming from around the room now. “You’re talking about that manifesto that got circulated the other day aren’t you?” and “Is this going to work?”
Sera jumped up excitedly and stood on the bar as she pointed to the first questioner. "YES! Exactly that!" She turned and pointed to the second one. "Absolutely it will work. We can do this, but it's gonna take everyone. There's more of us than there are of them, by a pretty long shot. They're counting on people cowering in fear, thinking they're invincible because they're rich, that they're untouchable because this is how it's always been. But it's not how it's always been. They're not untouchable and they're darn sure not invincible. Trust me, we've vinced a bunch of them. They fall and they bleed and they die just like everyone else." She searched the room for the one that made the city dweller comment to her and pointed to him next. "It's not the city dwellers that deserve your scorn. There are hard working people there just like everywhere, who just want a decent life for themselves and their families. It's the leaders of those cities, the ones with the soft hands and round bottoms and the fear in their eyes, the ones that think they're better than you, than him, than me, just because they shit in a golden bowl, those are the ones that deserve your wrath."
There is scattered cheering and a few “fuck those guys!” The bartender looks vaguely exasperated as he wonders if a bar full of riled-up miners is worse than a table of drunk college kids but he’s digging the speech too and keeps filling the glasses. One guy says, “Huh i’ll drink to that.” Anther asks, “What, so we just storm Lossan?”
Sera grins, downs her drink, hops down from the bar. "You get everyone you can possibly get and be ready. Watch those hills,” she says as she points in the general direction of Lossan from inside the bar. “We'll cut off the heads and set fire to their manors. When you see smoke rising over the walls, from the tops of those hills, that's your signal to storm Lossan, take out the orange guards and free the city. You'll be hailed as heroes!" She didn’t need that title, but these people, they did. They needed the win, they needed the peace, they needed the changes that were being planned. They needed that future.
Nalla rejoined her at the bar and Sera ordered one more round for them, dropping a handful of gold pieces on the bar to cover the drinks for the night. Her head was swimming with the drinks and the adrenaline and the thought of the mines emptying and a parade of miners crossing the Iron Bridge and helping them take over Lossan. She was drunk with all of it swirling around in her head. After the last drink, Sera slid from her stool, laughed as she reeled a bit. Nalla stood and they waved to the remaining miners still talking things over as they headed for the stairs. She stumbled into her room, pushed the door closed (where it slammed loudly and she whispered “sorry” to everyone on the other side), fell onto the bed trying to take off her boot, finally got it off and didn’t have the energy or the wherewithal to remove the other. She fell asleep, sprawled across the narrow bed, snoring loudly and dreaming of an army with spiked weapons and explosives and more than a few rocks.
It is small moments like these, of just laying together, of weaving the serious and heartfelt with the silly and light, that Lex knows she wants more of with Sera. To be able to look forward to something like this after the Revolution is more than Lex could have ever hoped for. “Stick around with me for a while after the Revolution,” Lex offers with a grin. “You’ll have no shortage of words from me. Some combinations will make more sense than others —” — she pauses to laugh and kiss Sera, a smile on her lips for the entirety of the kiss as it grows into a chuckle — “— but all of the ones not spent ranting about justice will be spent listing all of my favorite things about you. Hope you’re ready for that.” She winks playfully; there may seem to be a point where Lex seems like she is just teasing and joking, with how much she talks up Sera, but in truth, she means every word for it.
When Sera provides assurance that she is strong and safe with her group, there is something about that confidence in her own abilities, in the abilities of her team, that Lex knows is well-deserved. Besides, it’s largely that exact spunk, that nerve, that draws Lex to Sera. And yet there’s something dangerous and foreboding in that tenacity that sounds similar to Lex’s ears; she has heard it in her own voice and thoughts, the last thing she hears before doing something wild, reckless, and ill-advised. For herself, such daring is of no consequence. For someone she cannot bear to lose, Lex fears that such brazenness will tempt fate.
“I don’t plan to do anything particularly foolish,” Lex assures her in return. Not since you’ve shown me what life could look like when it’s actually lived. “But I also wouldn’t ask you to take any risks that I wouldn’t be prepared to take myself. That wouldn’t be very leader-like either,” she laughs. The smile fades at the next thought, one more serious. “If I could just be a little selfish about it for a moment, I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you to this fight,” she admits. “I’ve put a lot of people in danger and gotten them killed. A lot has already gone wrong, most of which is my fault. ” Shaela and Enid cross her mind and she stiffens, trying to mentally shake away the question of whether they’re still alive before it overtakes her. “But I can’t let that happen to you.” She tries to crack a smile and maybe gets half of one in. “You and I have a dinner date, don’t forget.”
Sera wondered how many more moments like this they could have, how long they could get them to stretch out, if time wasn’t of the essence, pulling them in different directions. One of the things she loved about Lex is how fully present she was, how they both were, at times like this. As if for just those few rare and precious moments, the world stood still for them, held its breath and waited until they were ready. “Oooh I can’t wait for that. Not nearly enough people sing my praises,” Sera teased. “I’ll take a few of those along with everything else, whatever it is you have to say, I’ll listen.” It was added to Sera’s mental list of things she was very much looking forward to once they could maybe settle in one place for more than a few hours at a time.
“You do realize the whole ‘don’t do anything I wouldn’t do’ argument gives me a lot of wiggle room, right?” she noted. Then Lex’s expression changed and just like that Sera felt the love and concern in Lex’s voice, not just the words, but the tone. “Hey,” Sera prods gently, meeting Lex’s eyes and stroking her cheek. “You’re not going to lose me. We know the dangers, and yeah, like I said, we’re pretty forging strong. But we’re also smart about what we get into. And out of. We’re in this, Lex, for you and for each other, and for this country,” she assured. “You won’t lose me. I haven’t for one second forgotten about that date, or any of the other things that I want to come after it. All of this, it isn’t just for them,” she says, poking her chin vaguely toward the window and the rest of the world beyond it. “It’s for us too. Don’t forget that, okay?”
There’s something nice about being what seems like an exception to Sera’s usual rules. There is also admittedly some pressure there, to make it worth Sera’s while for having taken a chance on Lex. The thought exasperates Lex, given her present state: what she has at the moment to make it worth Sera’s while is being a bumbling mess. The maddening part is that it is unpredictable. Lex has had a handful of articulations of her feelings for Sera that she was quite proud of. There were other moments, however, like now, when words failed her completely. The only consistency seemed to be that she thought much less about it in advance, that she was much more willing to speak freely with Sera. But Sera is patient as Lex tries to find the words, however much longer it takes than usual, and there’s a flicker of an almost imperceptible and soft smile as she waits. Amusement, perhaps, Lex wonders.
“As a former scholar and the occasional manifesto writer, I have to tell you, words are pretty important,” Lex teases. But she gets what Sera means. There is something between them that transcends explanation. They are the only two that needed to understand what it is.
To share something that deep, though, is nothing trivial, Lex knows. But beyond what exists between them, she’s invested in the Sera of it all, of Sera as her own amazing person. Lex clears her throat and rests her cheek to Sera, again appreciating the warmth and comfort of the touch. “I just…uh.” There go the words again. Sigh. “You’re something special. And there’s only one of you. I know I made light of it before, but please stay safe?” It was true what she had said before, that Sera and her team could likely hold their own if somebody ever tried to exploit their connection to Lex, especially Sera’s. Lex is less certain about her own ability to stomach an ill fate befalling Sera. There is not just the prospect of the sadness to cope with, of never being able to touch or talk to Sera again, but the guilt as well. Lex supposes that she has had enough guilt in this area to last her several lifetimes. The reminder of the weight of that guilt makes her frown and sigh again.
Sera offered a smile along with a faint rolling of her eyes. “Yes, I suppose, words can be kind of important in some instances,” she admits, mock-begrudgingly. “And, when they’re important, you’re very good at them. Far better than I could ever be,” she adds with a laugh. Sera had ideas, and she could build on the things that Lex laid out, could find the odd hole here and there and offer suggestions for how something might be made better or could run more smoothly. But the words themselves, the things that would inspire others to buy in and join and support them and see the vision that Lex has for the future, that’s all Lex. “I rather like your words, if I’m being honest.”
They settle together once more, enjoying the closeness, easy in the quiet of their steady breathing. But there seems to be more on Lex’s mind, more that seems to get caught in her head, or her throat, or stuck on her lips. It was the same kind of worry Sera often felt, knowing the kinds of danger Lex would put herself in. The concern warmed her. She knew that Ben cared for her, cared for her safe return from this job or that one. But again, this was different. This was someone she’d started envisioning a future with, not only their own but a whole country’s. “I think we’re both a little beyond ‘safe’ at this point,” she teased, trying to keep it light. She couldn’t stop the smile tugging at her lips. “I know we’re not invincible or anything, but I feel like we’re close to that. I feel so strong,” she noted, excitement creeping into her voice. “The things I can do, that we can do, all of us. I’m as safe as I’ll ever be with them, and them with me, no matter what we’re up against.” She slipped her arm around Lex’s middle and pulled her closer. “You’re the one to worry about. You’re the face of this rebellion, the one with the biggest target on your back. I know ‘safe’ isn’t exactly in the cards, but please don’t do anything foolish, not when you can send in a team like ours instead. Isn’t that what a leader is supposed to do?” she asked.
To hear that Sera had little in her past by way of extensive romantic commitments is unsurprising to Lex. That Sera would prefer to remain free of such constrictions makes sense given the nature of her trade, the secrecy and deception involved, and the far distances it takes her. It’s also reminder of the shared similarities that help them understand each other; long-term emotional entanglements inevitably came with obligations and promises, ones that Lex herself never quite felt prepared to keep. She knew that well enough about herself after everything that happened with Shaela (though something about Sera felt much different, as if a promise like the one she had broken with Shaela would be, with Sera, as easy as breathing).
“I’m sure that’s not for any lack of hopeful suitors who would have wanted nothing more than to get close to you,” Lex teases, with a playful stroke of Sera’s cheek. “I’d bet my right arm that you had to turn down your fair share of those hopefuls.”
Though Sera seems unfazed by Lex’s voicing of Diana and George’s characterization of their relationship, Lex can’t help but feel flustered by having spoken the words herself, nor can she help but feel flustered about being flustered.
“I just…uh…” Lex trails off, unable to speak aloud words that aren’t tripping over one another. Words were usually easy and very much Lex’s comfort zone. She is ordinarily very particular and careful about what she says and how she says it; what better way to make sure that she is taken seriously and that what she says has meaning? And yet none of the words she just let tumble out of her mouth, least of all girlfriend, were uttered with any forethought. Had Lex really become so comfortable, so relaxed with Sera that she reflexively trusted her and just said what came to mind without the usual caution? Even if there was a risk of looking like an ass in front of her? Apparently so, which surprises Lex; it’s a new feeling, one that she had not felt with Shaela, or anyone else before now. There was always the need to seem impressive to Sera, to seem appealing and likable to her (Lex was sure that would never go away), but there was something secure and safe about what they had together that Lex felt comfortable enough to realize she didn’t have to try much harder than just being herself. That seemed intuitive enough; after all, that is what is said of close relationships and what she would advise George if he asked a question in that regard. And yet it still felt new and alien to Lex, who had become accustomed to curating her public revolutionary persona for the past year or so. It was even more alien to the part of Lex that had pared down and restrained the more radical parts of herself for Shaela’s benefit.
She tries again but it’s not much better.
“Wasn’t sure if…that’s…you…what you, uhm. Gods, am I making any sense?“
Her face most definitely feels warm now. She takes a breath and sorts the words out in her head first before speaking.
“I just don’t want to assume that that’s the term you would put to…this.” She nods between the two of them for indication. “I’m not usually one to put names and labels to things like these. Unless you’d like to.”
Sera scrunched her nose and shook her head. “I wouldn’t know. I never stuck around long enough to find out. I mean, there were, I dunno, two or three maybe that I saw a couple times, but it was never anything like...like this,” she finished softly. It filled her with wonder, thinking about the others, comparing them to Lex and what this was between them. It was the difference between dropping a pebble in the water and throwing a boulder the size of a mammoth in after it: everything else was eclipsed.
It was amusing - and, admittedly, a little touching - that Lex of all people was struggling to find the words. Sera knew the feeling well enough; they could banter and jibe together easily most of the time, butt heads about the plans for battles and rebuilding, and neither of them would run out of things to say or ways to say it. But get either of them pinned down enough to talk about the depth of their feelings for one another, the vulnerabilities and fears a relationship like this created, and it left them both stuttering and stammering and reaching for words that seemed to not yet exist. When Lex finally sorts things out and the words finally string together coherently, Sera smiles and kisses her softly. “I don’t care what we call this. I really don’t care what someone else calls this. I get to call you mine, and call myself yours. That’s all that matters to me. The rest is just...” Sera waved a hand dismissively, “...words.”
For all of her advance planning and the myriad of calculations she runs in her head before walking into most situations, Lex still somehow finds herself disarmed when Sera asks further about Diana. It is less about the subject matter itself, but more about how Sera stumbling over her words is such a stark contrast to the fluidity of their usual banter. By now, Lex is not unfamiliar with Sera’s occasional need for assurance when it comes to matters of the heart. But it still surprises Lex to remember that Sera, for as well as they fit together and understand each other, cannot read Lex’s mind and see how completely devoted she is to Sera. She holds Sera closer as she continues.
“Nothing is happening there now,” Lex says firmly of Diana. “She and I have been friends for years and she looks out for me. But that’s it now.” It was true. A playful and teasing attraction had been a constant undercurrent of hers and Diana’s close friendship and otherwise platonic chemistry, but it was not a line they crossed when their hearts belonged entirely to someone else. It took exceptional grief and a longing for escape to get them to that point before. The current circumstances could not be more unlike that.
“It’s like I said before,” Lex says, tipping Sera’s chin upward to kiss her softly, “you are all I see.” She kisses Sera again, more deeply this time, trying to convey a sincerity and a promise that she hopes will hold weight and assurance for Sera.
It was funny, really, since Diana herself had observed (and joked about) Lex’s complete lack of interest in her after Lex told her about Sera. “I would say you could ask Diana yourself, but I don’t know if I could handle the embarrassment,” Lex laughs. “She sees how I am about you and won’t stop teasing me. She and George are intolerable. ‘Your girlfriend this, your girlfriend that —‘“ Lex freezes as the term leaves her mouth. The words were not her own, they were Diana’s and George’s, and still it felt strange to say them and hear them in her own voice. It is perhaps too soon to put words to whatever she and Sera have together, if words could even truly capture it. The term seems pedestrian or plebeian for whatever it is they share. And in any case, Lex still does not want to assume that’s how Sera would want to frame things. Lex can feel her face warming now and hopes there is no redness rising in her cheeks for Sera to see.
There is as much assurance in the touch, in the way Lex pulls her closer, as the words themselves. She allows for the tilt of her chin and is grateful for the kiss, even more than the words. She returns the kiss, allowing herself to succumb to it. Her hand comes up to curl around Lex’s wrist and she can feel the pulse under her fingertips, solid and sure as anything she’s ever known. When the kiss tapers to small pecks, Sera smiles. “Thank you. I feel kind of silly asking,” she admitted. And she did feel silly, especially after the reassurance Lex gave. Of course there was nothing going on, of course nothing would happen; Lex wouldn’t let it. What was she so worried about? “I’m not...I don’t have anyone like Shaela in my past. No one I’ve gotten that close to. When I wanted to, you know, I would just find someone to spend a night with,” she admitted with a slight lift of her shoulder. She raised her eyes and pulled back to focus on Lex’s face, to meet her gaze. “I haven’t even thought about anything like that since we met. Not with someone else, anyway,” she added with a small laugh. “Thought about you quite a lot.”
Sera chuckles and her fingers slide along Lex’s forearm. “Oh I might have to ask just to see that.” Lex seems to stiffen and Sera’s not sure why. The word that nearly lodges in Lex’s throat floats over her head without raising any alarms. For Sera it’s a simple enough term that conveys what they are, even if it seems less than adequate to describe how she feels. “What is it?” she asks, the word already dismissed in her mind, wondering what could make Lex cut off so quickly.
Lex finds herself endlessly fascinated with all the different sides of Sera that exist, especially the ones that seem to conflict. In one moment Sera could be a fighter and warrior, in another moment, an agent of mutual lust and passion, in another, vulnerable and in need of assurance of Lex’s unwavering devotion. In one moment, emotionally prescient, in another, putting all sentimentality aside to make decisions that others would usually shy away from. The way all of these parts of Sera come together is a constant source of wonder to Lex.
Lex is particularly grateful in this moment for the tenderness and care with which Sera regards everything Lex has to share right now, especially the good and bad feelings it stirs up. It is everything Lex needs, and Sera seems to know that effortlessly and intuitively. That Lex felt an instinctive pull to trust Sera, an instinct she had trained herself to resist, makes all the more sense in moments like these.
“I somehow managed to hide my injuries when I got back from The Golden Trident,” Lex continues. “Which wasn’t easy - the damage was, as you can imagine, knowing me, pretty extensive.” Her chest and body rock slightly in her laugh, carrying Sera slightly with the motion. “She had already caught me a few times before then. Some unexplained nicks and bruises, maybe some extra coin in my pockets that I didn’t get to stash away. She wasn’t happy, but she let those go eventually. But I ended up crossing a line to her that was understandably unforgivable.” She sighs. “I was… unfaithful,” Lex admits. “It by no means excuses my behavior, but I felt so constricted by then, I was looking for any sort of outlet for everything I had been holding in. And it just so happened that Diana — yes, that Diana, we’ll get to that — was in town and her husband had just died. We were reminiscing about old times, about the importance of direct action, and…well, I’m sure you can gather the rest.” Lex is not quite at one of the worst parts of this whole ordeal, but the Diana part does make her wince slightly, knowing how it must seem, having Diana traveling with her now. But Lex knows she cannot omit that part of the story, that she must give Sera the full truth.
Sera gave a small chuff of a laugh, knowing exactly what kind of scrapes and injuries Lex has come out of things with. “Uh huh,” she murmurs, a hint of teasing and irony in her voice. “I know exactly.” That Lex’s personal rebellion extended so far as her being unfaithful to her relationship didn’t exactly surprise Sera; even the person she named and the circumstances surrounding it were, to a point, understandable - the pair of them seeking comfort and being the ones closest at hand. No, it didn’t surprise her, but it did give her a slight queasy feeling, a tightness in her stomach that made her shift next to Lex to try to get it to go away. Her teeth caught the inside of her cheek and gnawed at it while she processed this information.
Sera was the one who’d insisted that Lex get a cleric to see to her inevitable wounds. Should she now ask (demand?) that it be someone else? All of this stuff was new territory for her, loving someone, being loved (which she was still certain of, at least there was that). The situation was obviously different than Lex and Shaela’s. Lex didn’t seek out Diana specifically, but the situation at the time, bristling at the confines of that relationship, only made Lex itch to find a way out. That it was a more destructive path than just walking away was also in line with what she knew of Lex. Her brows knitted as the thoughts swam and swirled in her mind. “Lex, this, um...having Diana with you now, is it...are you...I mean, she’s very pretty, I get it. I just...” She huffed in frustration as the words jumbled together. “What I’m trying to ask, I think, is if you think it would happen again,” she finally got out, the words slow and reluctant.
Hours, days, weeks of desire that Lex had locked away had finally found its release. And yet somehow Lex knew that, to some extent, she could never get enough of Sera in this regard. It was perhaps a game of chase, catch, and release that they would be fated to engage in for as long as that hunger persisted, but for the moment, they lay together in the stillness and peace that they were also able to find in each other. Sera eventually breaks the silence, though the softness in her voice is still a comfort to Lex.
It was a relief that Sera was so open to hearing about…well, everything. Shaela included. A large portion of Lex’s apprehension about broaching the subject was the thought of prompting a negative reaction in Sera. This was, after all, not the sort of thing that one rushes to hear about in their romantic endeavors, especially given the depth of commitment and sentiment that Lex and Sera had exchanged earlier. Then again, perhaps it was a testament to that depth and trust, to be able to talk about things like these. She thinks back to Diana chiding her for not having mentioned any of this yet (and this was perhaps the time to mention the Diana of it all), and she knows Diana is right.
“It’s certainly not my favorite story to tell,” Lex admits. “But there are parts I’d rather you hear from me and not Garrick or someone else.” She chuckles softly at thought of Garrick unknowingly coming forth with that information, outdated as it was, and causing confusion. “When I was in Wells Pier years ago and in the prime of my days with the Thieves’ Enclave, I fell in love with a woman — a noblewoman, if you can believe that,“ Lex starts. The memory is bittersweet in its own right, bringing a smile to Lex’s lips, and Lex is somewhat grateful that Sera cannot see her face right now. "We had a lot of the same ideas about the world. And she believed in me at a time when I didn’t believe in myself. She just…didn’t particularly like my methods. Preferred I settle down, go back to being a historian, let the slow tide of social change take its course. Which was fine, for a little while, I suppose. I had full use of her family’s library. I didn’t have to steal to get by. But I stayed out of danger like she asked and I felt like I was suffocating.”
By now, the smile has faded and Lex can feel the constriction in her chest, everything within her writhing in resistance to the subject matter. It was an unwanted sensation that she had previously drowned in whatever alcohol she could get her hands on, but that was no longer an option. Bracing herself unaided set her teeth on edge, so she tried to just focus on being here with Sera, hoping the contact of Sera’s warm skin on her own, even just in rest and not in passion, would soothe some of the knotted, burning tension within her. It works for the most part, at least more than Lex had initially expected.
“Eventually I couldn’t stay put and ended up taking on jobs in secret,” Lex continues. “Took a little trip to The Golden Trident, in fact, but I told her I was going to the Merry Mountains to visit George. But that’s a completely different story on its own.” Lex smiles again at the thought of that particular adventure, of the secrets gleaned and the dangers she survived. But the smiles fades again. “Everything kind of went to shit after that,” she admits.
“I think we all have stories like that,” Sera answers. “And I’d much rather hear them from you.” She isn’t so naive to think that there could be many, many stories she could hear from many, many sources, given Lex’s vocation and travels. She wants to hear about the adventures and mishaps and near (even the not-so-near) misses, ideally from Lex, given time. But it’s stories like this one, the ones closest to her heart, that Sera wants to hear most. Her fingers pause in their course over Lex’s stomach and her brows lift at the mention of a noblewoman - certainly an unexpected twist. As Lex continues, so do Sera’s motions as she listens. She can feel the tension, hear it in Lex’s voice as she describes a life Sera can’t imagine Lex trying to live.
There was an attraction between them from the outset, embers fanned to flames very quickly in their meetings. As much as that, there was a connection between them of kindred spirits, an understanding of one another that felt like nothing Sera had ever felt before. The closest she could describe was Ben, but she always put him in a category of his own in her mind: savior, protector, mentor, father figure. Lex was leader, lover, follower, supporter; a mind Sera understood, a rationale Sera could support, a dream Sera could see coming true, not just for their own benefit, but the betterment of everyone. While she completely understood the worry for Lex’s safety, she couldn’t imagine someone professing to love Lex and then trying to change her into something she’s not, trying to suppress the very thing that makes Lex, Lex.
It was sad, Sera decided, that it came to a point that Lex felt she had to sneak and lie to do what she felt was right. Sad for both of them, really. She presses her palm flat on Lex’s stomach. “I have no doubt that one story will lead to another, and another, and another after that,” Sera muses as she presses a light kiss to Lex’s collarbone. “How did it go to shit? What happened?” Sera imagines Lex got caught in a lie, came back hurt, something of that sort. As much as Lex might have a devious, plotting mind, often enough she wore the results of the truth on her skin in some way, usually to her own detriment.
Despite Sera’s continued insistence on Lex’s importance to the Revolution, Lex does not hear the words or focus enough on them to refute them. Any other time (a few minutes ago, even), Lex would have claimed to be anything but inspirational. She would perhaps consider herself the architect laying out the blueprints for what needed to be done, the chess player who had maneuvered the pieces on the board to where she needed them to be. She did this because she owed it to her people and could not live with herself knowing she had done anything less. But inspirational? She felt anything but that.
That is a discussion for another time, one for which Lex and Sera would likely never reach an agreement. Lex supposes it is not unlike her own praise of Sera’s abilities and skills that Sera similarly downplays. To be engaged in that debate ad infinitum is a small price to pay if it means getting to be with Sera for that long.
But as it is, that debate is the furthest thing from Lex’s mind. She lets Sera guide her to their shared room above the bakery, a building that has taken its fair share of scrapes in the city’s fire and fighting but is nonetheless sturdy and standing.
“Hm, don’t know if I would call that a promise,” Lex murmurs with a teasing grin against Sera’s lips when they close the door behind them. Her hands on Sera’s waist shift upward to undo the fastenings on Sera’s armor. “But you’re right, it is later. I trust you’re thinking about it now.” She takes another nip at Sera’s lower lip at the end of one of their kisses, each kiss growing more heated with every passing moment.
It was maddening that Sera could make her feel this way so effortlessly, that she could ignite something within her that would flare and burn so brightly and not be extinguished until they found themselves bare and breathless. It’s not long before their armor is strewn about the floor around them, but there is still a final layer to remove before reaching the warm skin that Lex has thought about touching, tasting, feeling beneath her fingertips. Impatient, Lex’s hands wander beneath Sera’s shirt and drift upward, lingering for a touch, before removing the shirt finally. To see Sera like this is a sight that Lex could never imagine herself tiring of, she thinks, as she closes the space between them and draws lingering kisses and bites across exposed skin. There is still more clothing to remove, but Lex lets herself savor the feeling and taste of Sera’s skin beneath her wandering lips and tongue. She finally remembers to reach to remove the rest when she reminds herself that there is more skin to expose, more to feel against her own as she feels Sera’s touch wandering, similarly searching and lingering.
Sera arches a brow, the distinction between a tease and a promise mostly a moot point by now. “I can think of nothing else,” she answers as a small hum of pleasure comes with the latest nip at her lip. “As are you, I see.” There is an urgency in their movements now, removing armor (what little each of them wears), wanting to enjoy each new section of skin exposed as more comes off. As the garments get thinner, the actions seem to slow by mutual consent; the hunger for one another is there (is it ever not?) but each seems content to savor, to linger, to enjoy the other. They allow themselves to get distracted and lost, and both seem surprised when they find there is still some article or other to be removed. Sera cannot get enough of Lex’s lips, on her own, over her body, knowing every sensitive spot, every single place that will elicit an unconscious sound of pleasure. There is only a brief struggle (if one could call it that) to see who would please the other first, but Lex’s insistence bests her and Sera concedes to the warmth and the delicious tension that rises quickly in her at Lex’s touch. She gets her chance, afterward, after she’s caught her breath, still riding the receding waves of her release, as she wants more than anything to make Lex feel the same, to know by touch and taste that she is, as they vowed earlier, wholly and entirely hers.
Afterward, as they lay tangled together in the bed and the sounds of the revelries outside manage to creep in again, Sera traces circles across Lex’s stomach, her head tucked against the rogue’s shoulder. She doesn’t lift her head when she speaks, knowing that doing so might make a difficult subject harder for Lex. “Do you want to...talk?” she asks softly. “From before, about..her, and what happened. It’s okay if you’d rather not. I just...” Her brows furrow as she searches for the right words. “I just want you to know that you can. Talk about it, I mean. Talk about anything, really,” she offers and tips her head up to press a kiss to the bottom edge of Lex’s jaw.
