[luxreverie]

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[matchflame]

✷ NODUS TOLLENS. kong qiu

synopsis. you'd have called him a gentleman, on any other day. but with what your lot was left with, there's precious little room for any frivolous appreciation. or in which, you are probably going to have to write an exam. maybe. ( wc : 9.4k )

tags and warnings. kong qiu x reader, ooc characterization ( still girlfailing too close to the sun ), reader is not referred to in a gendered way, crack taken very seriously, the premise is ridiculous but bear with me, depictions of dissections and organ trafficking and cannibalism, reader takes part in it, medical gore and the like, death threats and canon typical violence, very very slow burn, does this count as a 'meet cute' fic?, it counts as a 'meet cute' fic, if meet cute fics involve watching dissections in real time, the reader has been desensitized to the sight of gore to the point where it's concerning but fuck it we ball, life is not daijobu in the big big cityyyyy, reader is alluded to be in their early mid twenties and has witnessed the tail end of the smoke war, can you tell i'm in allied meds with all the medical jargon, don't read while eating ( as suggested by my friend ) if medical gore disturbs yo.

content and notes. something something something a jia qiu / kong qiu oneshot because we need more of these and i have a debilitating soft spot for men with beautiful long hair. while primarily sfw, i would rather not have minors directly interact with me. i do not condone the actions and the reader's choice of profession in real life nor the actions commited in this fic. please read the tag before proceeding. ✦ AO3 MIRROR.

foreward. latin nodus tollens, literally “the knot that denies by denying.” the realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore.

“You know we close around this time.”

You say this to the wobbly kneed boy by the door, one a hair’s breadth away from buckling beneath the dead weight over his shoulders. The corpse does, admittedly, draw your attention first — still fresh post mortem, still bearing the ghost of a flush against its cheeks. Murthy doesn’t flinch against the statement, forcing a smile to his face as he waves it off with a flip of his hand. 

“You’re sending me off already? That’s harsh.” 

Bouncing on one foot first, then another for good measure, he wiggles past you and scuffs his  shoulders while forcing his entry into the tiny room. Your fingers curl when you spot the muddly splotches he leaves behind on the floorboards. “Hey, where’s the light switch?” he calls. “I’ve heard you have actual running electricity in here. That’s freaking wild.”

You frown. You could be reasonable, a reasonable adult at least and send this foolish child off back to his home. You’ve told the boss this plenty of times: that you don’t want kids trodding up to your doors with dead people on their backs and their nails caked with putrefaction.

But then, when the fuck would it have ever mattered? Murthy is the annoyingly stubborn sort. You knew that from the passing complaints of his mother, when she’d meet you on her daily commute to the factories. “He’s gone and bitten the fingers off of a few ruffians.” She’d only said the other day. “I’ve been begging him to apologise but he’s sealed his mouth shut. Wings knows what I should do to him.”

And you also know this: your boss liked his money more than his morals — as sparse as they were ( a needle in a mound of hay, in your opinion…not that you were any better cutting people open for a living ), and he’ll choose his money over his morals, as expected. A child isn’t going to elicit any other sense of greater guilt or introspection.

( The city has a terrible reputation of drawing out the very worst and the lowest of the low in people, after all. The scrambling, scratching, biting sort of low, akin to hungry dogs leashed and muzzled and tied away in damp, dark corners of kennels to rot. )

( You look at Murthy.

You don’t want that for him. It’s not a prospect you are enthused by. )

Quietly, you tread after him, shutting the door behind you. You grope at the wall to your right and find the switchboard. The lights flicker on, casting a dull glow against the walls. Murthy flinches and turns around, staring up at the ceiling. 

“Wow.” he breathes. “It’s not very good lighting, is it? I’ve heard the stuff you find in nests are bright enough to make your eyes water.”

He squints. 

“My eyes aren’t watering.” 

It’s his mother’s face — tired but earnest — that flashes across when you stare him down, then rattle the keys in your grasp. His head snaps your way as he drops the body. It falls with a wet thud. 

“You shouldn’t even be doing this.” You state, walking up to him. The corpse is nudged against the toe of your boots, and you watch its head turn ever so slightly to the side. Rigor mortis is starting to set in.

His expression morphs to annoyance. “Why? Because it’s illegal?” he huffs.

“Your mother wouldn’t approve.”

Murthy flushes a bright red. “Amma isn’t thinking straight.” he snips. “No one here is getting by with a good record on their backs, you know. Some of my friends are already thinking about joining small time syndicates for the extra cash.” 

You cross your arms, chest heaving out a heavy sigh. “There’s a lot more to this than getting a body and getting the money for it.” Sidestepping the corpse, you come to level yourself with Murthy — Murthy who only comes up to your shoulders with a pre-pubescent crack in his voice. You don’t even know how a fourteen year old like him managed to carry a dead body all the way here. You don’t think you want to. “Your mother is smart enough to keep away from places like these to begin with.”

He hunches his shoulders. “But you work here.” He counters. “And amma can’t keep at it in that stupid factory forever, you know. I need to start getting food on the table soon.”

The bulb flickers above the two of you. You click your tongue, eyes glancing up at it, then back on his face. 

Then you speak up, “Help me carry this over to storage.” And you hope that some grand misfortune will strike you dead, then and there for even daring to suggest it.

One explanation is the fact, and a very simple fact, that you don’t want a putrefying cadaver left on the floor for somebody else to walk into. The organ harvesting here is an open secret but if a Fixer or two decide to poke their noses into this business under contract, then a literal body would just be a blinking neon sign to certain arrest. 

Arrests aren’t all that fun. Most arrests here just involved having your head caved in. And that isn’t very fun either.

Murthy seems ready to burst any second. You’ll continue this conversation later. This sinking, prickling kind of feeling between your ribs won’t allow for anything else ( It won’t. You aren’t a good person — you hardly are. But oftentimes, you find yourself tripping over your fears of disappointing the kind of people who could so easily tear your heart apart. It’s not the kind of pain you’re ever prepared for ). 

First, off with this then.

Murthy lights up, his hands gripping at the clothes on the corpse. It’s the usual garb of a backstreets dweller; clothes passed over and resold till the colour on the fabric had faded out. You hoist it up by the shoulders while Murthy takes the legs, stumbling over down the narrow corridor and into a darker portion of the little set up. 

Somewhere in the pitch black, you hear a collision, and a barely muffled “Ow!” followed by a furious, “What was that?!”

“Canned food.” You reply. 

“What?”

“It’s our front. We pretend to sell canned food.”

Murthy snorts. “Most of us can’t afford it though.” he half mutters. You’re inclined to agree. You’ve only recently afforded enough to buy a few tins of beans from one of the boxes out back. Your boss hardly cared for it as is; U corp’s singularity kept them from rot — something about them being the ‘perfect mannequin’. He just had to keep altering the manufacturing dates to keep up appearances. 

You dismiss that train of thought, a grating frustration mounting out. It’s probably the tired from the long day you’ve had. “They taste alright. God be a little less watery, for my tastes…”

Another clumsy clatter rings past. This time it’s metal and you could only just make out the outline of tools strewn over the off white tiling. “If you break anything, I’m skinning you alive.” You additionally warn. 

“Hey, I’ll be careful!” he hastily assures you. You can almost see the grimace splayed across his expression.

You take the lead in directing him through the room, then to the next, right down an even narrower flight of stairs. It’s muscle memory for you, at this point, navigating to the units by the wayside where the bodies were stored away. 

The first clue was always the sudden drop in temperature. You can tell Murthy is put off when he lapses into silence and waits while you flick another switch. 

These lights were no better than the one by the front. You’re relieved to see that he looks uneasy in the midst of this room; grimy against the corners, yet so disconcertingly sterilised at the same time. Fear is a good thing to cultivate in an environment like this — his mother made it her bedfellow and kept him alive for this long. Most children wouldn’t have lived up till Murthy’s age. 

“Stop here.” You speak up. 

The storage units are pushed up by the corner, taking up most of the wall space and even more beyond it. Your boss had mentioned the fortune he’d spent on these things, and in a gesture that you considered a brag, bought another set just a few months later to ‘maximise’ on the client base. Most compartments are full at this point, save for a singular one within the far corner. Murthy goes from uneasy to unsettled when you prop one open, spotting a shock of blond hair inside. 

“This is very different from what the rats do.” he starts, nervously bouncing on his feet.

“It is.” You agree, pulling out the tray from one cabinet. “Gurney.” Murthy flinches and wheels it over and watches you set the tray on top, lowering the cot in line with the empty shelf. 

There’s little fanfare involved with the process. You grunt a bit, hauling up the corpse onto the tray, gloveless and maskless. “Wash your hands on the way out.” you urge when he steps back. “I’ll handle the rest.”

Murthy nods. “You’ll write my name in the register, right?” he asks, wringing his hands as you flit around, stripping away the clothes and binding the limbs away to its sides. There isn’t much on it, save for a few punched tickets, spare change and an empty bottle. You feel stiffness under your fingertips. The flush and the residual warmth had been purged away, leaving deathly cold in its wake. 

You haven’t answered his question yet. From your periphery, you can spot the impatient wrinkling in his forehead.

The fabric falls to the side in a heap. You fish out any identifiers; a piercing or two that strikes you a little odd and an employee tag to a nearby warehouse. Then you move down lower to spy any accessories round the wrists. You freeze.

Murthy tugs at your coat.

“Hey, I asked you — ”

“Where did you find this body?” you cut in.

He stutters, blinking once, twice, thrice in rapid succession. “What…what does that have to do with anything?” 

You’ve mostly been led past the motions with a sustained sense of apathy till now. Some odd disconnect that let you waft and work through a routine that renders you robotic. Emptiness is welcome, so clinical, so easy to feel and to justify the lack of dignity in stealing a dead man’s clothes and a dead man’s right to a funeral — but those hands tore you straight from that cotton smothered headiness and right into the hard dirt.

And you’re angry.

You surprise yourself with it, at how easy it surges past and heats your ears up and trembles at your hands. Murthy stiffens when you grab at his scruff, pulling him in before he could afford a retreat back and cajole his way out. 

“Murthy.” you level, your eyes bright. “Murthy, where the hell did you find this body?”

He fumbles. “Look,” he starts. “Look, I just…I just mugged the guy, okay?” 

He yelps when you shake him down hard. “Bullshit.” you hiss out. “Where did you find him, Murthy?” And all he manages is a sputter in response, any building ire deflating in an instant. Murthy almost seems to shrink into himself, rattled and muted as the anger meets a ringing, almost persistent panic.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck it. That damned talk couldn’t wait. You should have sat this stupid boy down the second he waltzed up to this place.

He’s not let go of; not quite yet. But when you manage to register the terror and the way he’s tearing up, you try to reason with that heat smogging every legible thought screaming at you to calm down. And you wait for a second, then another, swallowing back a nervous lump in your throat.

You loosen your hold. Murthy lets out a wet little sob. 

“Look at his hands.” 

He wipes away at his eyes and looks. “They’re…”

“They’re…?”

He falls silent. Then his voice cracks and his head bows. “They’re…they’re…I don't know.”

You clench your jaw. “Look at them.” You demand again. He looks. “His nails are clean. His palms are smooth.” Even you, maintaining what little grooming you could from old habits, still have callouses littering your skin and a couple of badly mended scars. Only a certain kind of luxury, you think, would afford itself hands this untouched. 

Murthy does look to be connecting the dots at least, if the encroaching horror is anything to go by.

“Oh.”

“Oh is a fucking understatement.” you grit out. “You’ve not answered my question.”

Murthy purses his lips. “I found him.” he mumbles. “He was in an alley. He wasn’t breathing right…so I just waited…and…and then he went still and I…I got to him before the rats could.” He pulls at the bottom of his sweater, tugging a few loose threads out in the process. “T-the boss told me to go find a new one for you by the end of the week. It…it was too good to just ignore — ”

Too good to ignore — you…you need to strangle that man the next time you see him. Cave his skull in. 

“Does he know you’ve found this one?”

Murthy opens his mouth, then shuts it. “I…I don’t know…? I haven’t said anything, I think.” Your face warps into chilling stillness and Murthy catches on fast, his eyes wide. “I definitely haven’t. You’re the first person to even see the body apart from me — ”

You suck the air in between your teeth, letting the distinctive hiss draw itself out for a tense instance. For all intents and purposes, you should leave the body as is and wash your hands of the situation. But the heat seeping into muscle and tissue starts to fizzle out and that prickle of guilt slowly rears its ugly head. Murthy looks half ready to sink into the earth, his gaze glazed over and teary.

Walk away, you urge yourself.

You do not.

Maybe it’s Laxmi again — she is a good person; or at least as good as one could be given the circumstance. You’d shared living quarters during your contract with T corp. You know her well enough to consider her an acquaintance or a friend ( that thought is shot down immediately ). Or maybe it’s Murthy; hard headed as he is — having watched him grow with unsteady steps past the threshold of childhood. You’ve known him too, since he was a toddler with an annoying lisp in his speech. 

It’s many things. Many things all at once you’d have rathered stayed buried.

( It’s the memory of lukewarm soup spent with the rest of your group — and the first actual winter you got to witness. You watched the pure white of it turn a dirty brown; logged down with slush and sewer water. Lalnunsiama was alive around that time, picking away at his bowl, draped under a tarp. You could remember it, as clear at peering through a glass window and how you’d told him his twitching nose reminded you of a rabbit, and how he would frown in response. )

You run your hand over your face.

After this is said and done, you’re tearing away any sense of sentimentality; tearing it away, tendons and all till brittle bones remains, and you don’t have to worry over fifteen other people apart from your own. 

“There’s still time till the sweeping.” you utter. Murthy nods along emphatically, catching on to your intent. 

“Do…do we go now?”

You glance over at the analog clock perched upon a table. “Not yet.” you reply carefully. “In fact, you need to head back. I’ll manage the rest from here.” Murthy mouths out a few words, looking between you, the body and the clock as you frantically work away at lowering it to the ground once more. He visibly wilts. 

“Amma will be waiting.” he realises. He’s oddly cooperative. Good. You seem to have rattled him well enough.

“She will.” You give him a little push by the shoulder. It’s a little kinder this time around. “She’ll be worried. Go. You’re not going to run your mouth over to anyone about this, got it?”

Murthy curls his fingers. “Is…” he starts, stopping by the body with a trembling breath in. “Is he someone important?”

You pause. “People will be looking for him.” you admit. “I don’t know who he is or where he’s from but if he’s from a Nest…” You trail off, unsure of how to finish it. Murthy swallows, his head giving a little, affirmatory jerk and he shuffles over to the stairwell. 

He turns around. “Do you need any help — ”

“Murthy.”

The foolish, foolish boy, he sways a bit where he stands, somehow steeling himself against your glower. “I…I made this mistake, right?” he urges. “I can help fix it — ”

“Murthy.” your tone holds no room for arguments. You don’t want to drive into the explicit details. You don’t want to tell him about slip ups in lines of businesses like these, of how two of your colleagues caught themselves between the ire of a syndicate and turned up the next day with their heads nailed against the front doors of their apartment. Murthy could be spared of the gruesome details for now, as you shove your hands into your pockets and throw him some ahn for his tram ride back home. “Just go. I’ll visit in the morning and I will make sure you’re home.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll tell your mother everything.” You finish, narrowing your eyes. He falters, horrified at the thought.

He rushes up the stairs. You listen to his footsteps, and when they fade out, you stand a little straighter, a new kind of fatigue weighing into your shoulders. You should be home at this point, you reason, but nausea starts burning into the back of your throat just as you start dragging the dead weight up the stairs.

With him gone, you think you might just collapse into a screaming fit. It started off as a small sting in your chest; imperceptible against your frustration and quickly silenced when Murthy grew more and more distressed. Then it batters in hard, quickly, a punch through the gut that has your thoughts start blurring over into a mess of gibberish and your heart starts racing against the coldness rushing through.

Oh god, oh god what the fuck have you gotten yourself into.

Whoever this man was had to have a warrant out at this point. No, he certainly does if he’s important enough to have lived in luxury — and lords, what will you do if you are caught? You can’t drag this corpse far enough on time to avoid the sweeper hordes, or far enough in general to throw any scents off of you. 

You want to dig your nails into your cheeks, tear into your skin; feel anything but the spiralling that makes you shrink and the world around you a steep, never-ending drop. Anything to make your heart still. Anything.

So you scramble.

You haul it to the stairs. It takes a few painful, laborious moments, struggling against rigour mortis and the dead weight for you to get it up the first step. So you pull, pull, keep pulling, a please slipping out somewhere between the process as all you could think about were those damned, fucking hands.  

He could have helped if you let him, a voice chimes into your ear unhelpfully.

The boy doesn’t need to be wrapped up in this any further, you tartly tell yourself, gritting your teeth as iron and bile starts to pool over your tongue. The corpse slides up to the second stair, then the third. And as you do, you drive away any lingering thoughts; of images of you being dragged into some basement, of your hands being nailed into and broken, of any and every worse case scenario your anxiety starts screaming into the shell of your ear. 

No, no, that will not happen. You tighten your grasp, a tightness building away in your chest as you haul it up the last leg.

It would have taken another of huffing about and elbow grease to get it back onto the streets in time for the first wave of sweepers. But then you hear something overhead. You stop short, as if a bucket of ice water emptied itself onto you. 

Perhaps…perhaps you’ve misheard, you tell yourself, so foolishly optimistic. So you prick your ears and listen for any occurrences, a tell-tale shuffle, a badly padded patter. You’re left in the following stillness, your chest rising and falling and your head spinning with frantic panic.

There’s nothing  of note, for a torturously long moment.

You look down. You can barely even see your feet through the splotchy blur the world makes for itself. You nearly sink down against the wall and curl up into a small, weeping thing. You nearly do. 

There are footsteps now, undeniably present.

Murthy? You almost call when another pair joins in. Soft, imperceptible — but the floors and the walls of this place have terrible acoustics and every purposeful tiptoe would run its course down to the basement — just loud enough for you to hear. Two footsteps, not one. Not Murthy; Murthy’s are soft. He’s not heavy, after all.

( A part of you thinks about some mad chance at escape. Running up, darting out and slipping away just fast enough to avoid the interlopers and escape. )

The air is caught in your throat. You pace back, stopping between the intervals as the shuffling and scratching grows louder, louder, louder still. Then you rush back down, slamming your hands into the light. The bulb flickers off and you freeze up when you hear a thud against the floorboards.

You hear a voice next and the tail end of a stern chiding. 

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Sweat beads against your temple and you jerkily reach out, curling your grip round the hem of the corpse’s pants. Slowly, ever so slowly, it begins to slide down the slope, closer and closer to you. 

It’s not any of the drugged up residents from the next street over. There’s another purposeful crack and one of the boxes spilling over. One of the cans rolls by passage; you can see its shape cross over past the crack beneath the door. The corpse crumples at your feet and you reach behind you, groping around the dark wall till you brush against one of the worn aluminium carts. 

You manage to grab hold of a scalpel in the drawers. The footsteps draw closer.

Your heart pounds against your ribs when you dip away behind the wall. You’d rather be anywhere but here. In the factories for your daytime shifts, poking gears into stopwatches with a pair of wonky tweezers. Perhaps down by the narrows, arguing prices with shady skinflints who would greedily eye down a fresh liver with a cannibalistic glee ( and then at you, hungering, trembling at the edges ). 

“ — heard so…hing.”

“ — …ep c…ully.”

A scrape. “Down below.” The first voice calls, muffled. A pause. Your knees nearly give out. The door to the basement creaks open and the cold draft follows it through. The scraping draws closer, louder, heavy and metallic and grating. Your breath falters and you press yourself further in, scalpel grasped tight till your knuckles start to ache. 

The eyes first, you think, trying to put up some facade of viciousness and floundering with the pieces that make it. Then the throat. 

“I can hear your heartbeat.” The woman calls, her voice washed away and bereft of any telling emotion. It's unnerving to perceive, and worse off to be at the receiving end of. “Step out.”

You stay still as a mouse. She sighs, a shadow falling to view, eclipsing the light and she ventures down further with a “Coward.” that may have been a sneer on her part. Her descent halts, probably having spotted the body laid by the wayside, where she lets out an incredulous scoff. 

And before you could comprehend the figure in your periphery, your world tips over and spins and you’re slammed against the shelves with a grip closing down round your throat. 

You kick your feet out, driving them against her stomach, her chest, any conceivable part you could legibly reach. Beneath her hat, you spot the yellow glow of her eyes as warmth tickles against your cheek, timed with her exhales.

You stop, as if pinned to the spot, like a mounted butterfly in glass casing.

“Have you finished wriggling?” she asks, swatting the scalpel away. You choke, grasping and clawing at her hands when your vision spots and your lungs start wailing for air. The woman considers you, her singular eye narrowed down to scan your face, then blinks, a slow realisation flitting across her bandaged features.

This one’s hardly a threat, it seems to say. And you are inclined to agree.

She lets you go, smoothly scruffing you by the back of your coat to haul you over the ground. You are unceremoniously dropped on top of the corpse, and you cough and sputter, pushing yourself off and onto the tiles. You press your palms over the cool surface, then follow with your forehead, biting at your tongue before a whimper tears itself out and makes you seem more pitiful than you already are.

( Because you are pitiful, and it twinges away like a pulled tendon. You are pitiful, in how you cower beneath the thick oppression blanketing the air, in how she brings it with her. You are pitiful. )

She weaves over, her boots landing just within your line of sight. 

Oh. Oh you’re going to die, aren’t you? You are, you're going to die where and now and selfishly, selfishly, some part of you wants to heave that protest out till your vocal chords fray and you choke out on your own blood. Hot tears start sprinkling and swimming against your vision and you make a pathetic attempt to push yourself up to a stand.

There were stories that sometimes break their way through the bleakness in the city. People who would try to make a change, or two or more, subjecting themselves to a suffering that people made a spectacle of in hushed up rumours over tables, and their consecutive deaths. Martyrs, monks, fucking idiots — and here you are, no better in the end. 

Dammit Murthy, you curse. Dammit, you fucking brat.

Yet, even more foolishly still, you cannot let yourself stew in your anger for the child. 

A responsible adult would have done this, you think. A responsible adult wouldn’t have thrown him into the gutter. You’re not your boss. You don’t want children in a place like this. You’ll never want children sinking their hands wrist deep into some poor, dead soul’s guts for another wad of ahn that would hardly last a fortnight in a household. You don’t want children to fall the way you have, chained into the business with your teachers debt and thirty other problems snapping at your heels.

So you’ll take it, even as a pang of regret lets itself unfurl and show its face and your terror nails your limbs down and turns them into lead. You wish you could have had one last smoke by the factory gates at the very least. Or a meal you could have enjoyed. 

( You wish you had more goodbyes to say. )

“Milord.” the woman calls. You don’t bother looking up. 

The woman, blessedly, stops manhandling you when she pushes you and the cadaver back upstairs.

You are not dead yet. It’s a little jarring, having lasted as long as you have now while the man she addresses wordlessly appraises you. But death comes with a sense of surety you can’t avail yourself to anymore. This situation was much worse.

An instinctual part of you bids you to run immediately the moment your gaze lands on his boots. You nearly do, jerking your body back to slide against the floor and make a break for the open door; but the woman only grabs you by the scruff, like you were a disobedient child, and pulls you back to your original spot. 

You need to crane your neck up a bit from your place on the ground, just to glimpse the bottom half of his face and the inscrutable line his lips set itself to. You count to ten, listening for any shuffling outside. It seems the two were the only ones here — yet you still cannot shrug the horrific feelings of being staked against something too large to fight back against.

“Is this the one who secured Yan Shanghua’s corpse?” he questions. There’s a weight to it. You try to school away the terror that slips up through your features; the effort slipping apart and failing miserably the moment he so much as moves your way. You bite at your tongue and let out some unearthly whimper, freezing in the spot.

The woman shakes her head. Your eyes snap to the floor when you catch yourself staring, trying to quiet the dissonance breaking its fists into the walls of your head. “Nay. Eyewitnesses stated it was a child.” she brands down a little, tipping your face up. “Do you know anything about it?”

Murthy was seen.

It was foolish to believe in his naive assurance; and as the woman waits, you gather your words to piece in a comprehensible sentence. “The boy did it on my call.” you grit, digging your heels in fast. It’s getting harder and harder to articulate anything, let alone speak. And every stated instance is just you blurting out bullshit.

( Who are these people, you briefly ponder — because you see no markers of a syndicate on them. Are they Nest born residents? The man wears silk; the expensive kind that makes you go a little bog eyed at the very sight of. But what nest born would come down into the doldrums and the dirt for one corpse? )

The woman squints at you. “...They lie.” she states. She lets you go and you crumple back down into a heap, spying the body in your periphery and its blank eyed stare trained against the ceiling. Livor mortis is starting to leave behind splotches of purple over what exposed skin you could glean from here. “Shall I search his body?”

“Do so. We must not tarry.” he does not immediately bother himself with your presence for now, watching the woman get on one knee to pore over the corpse’s clothes and pockets. After some fumbling with the pockets, the woman seems to grow slightly peeved, if her clicking tongue is something to go by.  “You, you are the surgeon, correct?” the man speaks up, finally.

How the fuck does he know —

“Yes.” you croak out, nails pressing into the palm of your hand. “I am.”

He considers it with a drawn out hum. Then he bends his head down and you catch the brown of his eyes bore right into you. Deep enough, perhaps, to scrape away at any clumsily hidden cracks and lies you try covering up with an impassive stare of your own. “Have you found anything of note upon his person?”

( You aren’t very good at it. You’re tense, you’re so tense and you look and feel every bit a frightened animal backed into a corner. He sees it too, you know he does. )

It’s easy to spill your guts out, cold sweat casting a sheen over your forehead. You are starting to have a headache. “That is all?” he urges, turning his head to watch his companion retrieve the empty bottle and sniff at it. She holds it out to him. “Hm.” he says nothing else when you slip back into relatively fitful silence.

The bottle is turned over once, twice once he receives it. “He’s already ingested it then.” 

The woman raises her shoulders. “A coward.” The last part is hissed out under her breath, and you could imagine a very persistent anger smouldering beneath the surface, the consuming, white hot kind pressing up against one’s eyes. “I’ll cut him open.”

The man shakes his head. “We cannot risk damaging the bolus, Zilu.” And Zilu, if that is her name, looks to the side. It doesn’t cut away strain to her jaw or how her gaze narrows past to the window, like she wanted to break something then and there. 

What the actual fuck is going on.

“Then — ”

“Surgeon.”

You jolt. The man gestures your way and you take that as a signal to approach, nearly tripping on your feet in the process. You keep your line of sight down ( and there is a candid thought — that you should have swept the floor of this place with how the dust coagulates under certain spots ). “When do you assume the time of death to be?”

“Ah — ” Your eyes snap to the body. “Nearly an hour. Sir.” You add that in for good measure. Men like your boss and men like the factory owner have the bad habit of pulling the teeth out of their employees; all on the basis of one unaddressed title of respect. Hell, you’ve heard members of the thumb shooting the brains out of subordinates and backstreet dwellers alike for smaller mishaps. 

The white noise crashing into your ear and the pounding from your heartbeat drowns out the words exchanged between the two after your admission. You think it is wiser to keep to yourself, hands grabbing at the edge of the dissection table to steady the wave of nausea doubling down and flipping over in your stomach.

“...it would have dissolved by now, shifu. Zigong does not have enough time — ”

“I am aware. We take the body with us regardless.”

The-woman-named-Zilu levels you down with a sharp look. You find no safety in it. “And this one? They will talk.”

The man tilts his head, raising a brow. “Will they?” he challenges. 

She hums, shifting on her feet. “As I am oft told, loose threads shall only come to suffocate us in the future…” Her fingers flex and you suspect she may just curl them round the hilt of that blade strapped onto her back and cut you down with it. Quickly, you back away, even though the meagre space would have done little to nothing.

“Wait — ” you blurt out, voice starting to quiver. “Wait hold on — ”

The-woman-named-Zilu huffs, then turns to the man. “Let them speak.” He sighs.

You stand straighter, gaze darting round the room, then onto the bandaged woman’s face, then on the man’s shoes. Think, you viciously broach and sink your nails into the crevices of your mind, digging away at any plausible statement to spit out. Anything to stay alive. 

( Here you thought you were alright with the prospect of dying. But you are still seized by that unknowable terror and you struggle, choking and sputtering like an idiot. )

“I…” You begin, cheeks prickling. You look over at the corpse. ‘He wasn’t breathing right…so I just waited…and…and then he went still…’ — Ah. It’s a wild thought, but you quickly gather yourself and shakily point over to the corpse. “I think…I think I can still retrieve the bolus…thing…” That word momentarily elicits the image of a wad of chewed food stuck somewhere in this body’s esophagus. Disgust skitters across your spine. But here you are offering a modicum of usefulness. Wherever this thing is, ( chewed up food or not ) they clearly want it — and if you could reasonably aid in offering it then…then…

( Could you reasonably assume that they would be the honourable sort? It’s a gamble and it’s unlikely but you can still try, can’t you? )

The-woman-named-Zilu gives pause. You wet your lips. “He died via asphyxiation. If there is a chance that it’s lodged within his windpipe, then it wouldn’t be too hard to extract it…”

He exhales and slides the scalpel your way over the dissection table. You don’t give yourself the chance to question how he came by it, swiftly collecting it. It’s the same one Zilu flicked from you during that earlier scuffle and you turn it over your hands once, then twice. 

“If you could place him here…” You speak up as you sanitise and pull on a pair of gloves and a mask. Your coat is shed as you fall into step; muscle memory taking over. Quietly, you will yourself to stop trembling when the corpse is hauled over the aluminium surface and you angle the head down over the edge, giving way to the expanse of its neck. 

You roll your shoulders. 

A corpse is not a human, your teacher had told you during the midst of the smoke war, when he’d haul back corpses of dead G corp soldiers to tear out the chitinous prosthetics tracing the surface and the insides of their bodies. There was a delicacy to extracting them, a steady hand gently threading away musculature and the delicate framework of their wings, carefully breaking away their modified jaws, and the multitude upon multitude of eyes from their sockets.

There were human soldiers too, and those ones required the traditional excisions. He had taught you how to cauterise the right blood vessels to prevent damaging fragile tissue, how to pump out the stomach acid from their guts, how to section out their intestines to sell as cuts of offal for the cannibal market.

A corpse is not a human. He’d told that to you when you’d thrown up on the floor on witnessing brain matter for the first time, half desecrated by a blow to the head. He’d grabbed you by your shirt and shoved your face at the dead man, forcing you to witness every harrowing instance of it. You were fifteen at the time, only just having picked up the scalpel under his tutelage. 

You start with the u-shaped cut, working away at the epidermis and dermis. Your hold is steady, as their figures linger above you in silence. 

Blood flecks the tips of your gloves, pooling over the sides of the cut while you carve the flaps out and pull the tissue open. It’s a little tricky doing it on your own. The process is ritualistic, robotic, even. You’ve extricated larynges before; mostly to section out the cartilages for your boss to sell to medical academies as samples for their students. Finally the adipose comes to view and you stuff a wad of cotton in till it’s soaked red. 

After your initial misgivings, you’d learned to welcome in a sort of fever when it came to cutting bodies open for a living. It seeps out, glazing your eyes over just enough to do away with any lingering queasiness and dull out the roaring. You palpate for the hyoid bone, then move over down to pick at the strip muscles and divide the vascular pedicles. 

Vaguely, you can make out the stares burning into the back of your neck. It’s intrusive, and you wonder what they think of the sight. Gore isn’t uncommon in the city; the older you got and deeper into this business you sank into, the more you saw it outside the surgical rooms. Sometimes it’s discarded bodies left to the wayside by the Rats. Sometimes the syndicates leave little keepsakes hung up on telephone lines with their skin pallid and drained.

You’d rather they didn’t; but being choosy over your audience is the last thing on your mind at the moment.

( You could die after all. There’s a vulnerability with your hunched back and exposed nape; an invitation to swing down and sever your head off completely. You hope they do not loose their patience and proceed with it. You pray they do not.

Please. Please do not. )

The fat usually cuts away fairly easily beneath your blade. You do not take long there. After doing away with the hemithyroids, dropping the clumps of flesh into a tray by the side, you work on loosening the hyoid first, slicing off the ligaments and muscle with your shears and working away downwards. 

It’s easier to ease it off when you finish the larger sections first, you remind yourself, watching the blade sink in and out of the blood gathering and filling into the fissures below the opened flaps. 

This is probably one of the more numbing parts of the procedure. Rigor mortis has toughened up the muscle to a point where you have to angle your scalpel over and dig just a little deeper to cleanly cut your way into the waiting flesh and loosen the cartilages off little by little. 

“How much longer will this take?”

You gasp, unsure of who even asked it with how muddled your thoughts were. “A few more minutes…” you mumble, lightheaded. You can smell the tang of iron through your mask. It doesn’t help the sick wobble in your gut. “Please, I just need to — ”

The last ligament is torn free when you tilt your wrist. “Okay…” you mumble. “Okay…” This is progress. Good, good, you just need to do one more thing and you wash your hands of all this —

You stick your fingers in, feeling out for that groove between the trachea and esophagus. It takes a hot second to find, and your heart jumps into your throat when your hand slips past and lodges into the wrong junction just beside the cricoid, before properly piercing your scissors into the correct spot. You pull the cartilage up, discerning the vaguely cylindrical pinkish mass.

The scalpel slips and clatters onto the floor, right at the man’s shoes. A single drop splatters over his boot. You could loop this point like a tape — again and again, over and over with its speed turned down to show off every explicit detail. And as the room’s temperature drops, you momentarily wonder why you even bothered trying so hard anyway. 

It burrows deep, that fraught feeling. Like maggots in rotting fruit in rotting flesh. Zilu’s pupils have shrunk into pinpricks, curiously . You wait. The disquiet stretches on and you press a nail into your thumb. “I…” you steady your voice. “I apologise…” As if it will fix anything.

His eyes burn over the top of your bowed head. You watch him bend and pick the scalpel up and a macabre question flashes across; if he’ll stab your eye out. A little extreme but doable from this distance —

He holds it out. “Finish it.” he states. There’s no room for argument with that tone of his. You must have shot him a stupid look because he sounds marginally amused when he speaks up again. “You finish what you have started.”

You collect it from him and ask, when you really shouldn’t have: “Won’t you kill me?.” 

The man actually falls silent, tilting his head with what you can assume to be a thoughtful expression, from what you can see. “I never recall suggesting it. Continue.” 

You stiffly shuffle back to the table, keeping your gawping to yourself, mostly. Running a tissue over the surface of the knife, you do as you are told and continue. 

( It’s like you’re trapped in the midst of some joke you can’t quite get. The dissonance is there — and wings it may as well be a fucking nightmare to wrap your head around. Is this some new trend amongst the rich? Reverse psychology? A bait and switch? ) 

The trachea is cut away. Cradling the larynx on your palm, you test the give of it. Cartilage usually bends easier. There’s something wedged inside — and when the thyroid laminae are bisected and the trachea cut open, you spot a spherical object lodged down just beneath the true vocal folds; partially caved in at the side and slicked red from blood. 

“...is…is this it?” you ask no one in particular. 

You turn to the man. He inspects the object and nods. “It is.”

The-woman-named-Zilu produces a kerchief, and you place it upon the cloth. “Have it delivered to the medics to replicate its contents,” he states. “Be quick on your feet Zilu; one assumes there isn’t much time left.”

“I’ll see it through.” she promises. You barely blink and she is gone, the creak of the door being the only indication of her departure. The speed of it terrifies you, as the man turns to face your way now. Quick as a light, and you’re disoriented by the changing routine.

“Yes, sir?” you ask. You’ve come to be well acquainted with his shoes at this stage, enough to glean that he’s possibly from District 8, from its make alone.

“Your name.” Ah. You force it out, curling your grip at the hem of your shirt. The man falls silent. “You may look up.” And you do so, vision skilling over his jaw, then cheek, then to his eyes. On any other day, you’d have considered him a gentleman. Surly, perhaps, with a slightly wide mouth and a pinched brow, yet handsome all the same. 

( Younger than you’d expected too. He’s probably in his early thirties, just a few years older than you are. )

But the fear doesn’t lose its edge just yet. Its residue clamps up the inside of your lungs and skitters a finger over your spine. You find yourself staring back with apprehension. He dips his head down and huffs again, knuckles coming up to brush against his chin while he hooks the thumb of his other hand into his sash. 

“I would like to extend my thanks then, for your assistance.” he relays, his cadence smooth. Polite. So fundamentally out of place while you’re sliding bloodied gloves off and scrubbing your skin clean of the crusting around your wrists. 

You do a double take. He isn’t joking. Metal clatters against the surface of the sink, and you watch the water drain out, stained a faded pink. “It’s fine.” you say in turn. You’re curious, but it’s best left shut up and its tongue cut off before it can question anything else. Clearly the situation is something you ought not to involve yourself further into. Your line of work is shady enough as is.

The man doesn’t appear to be all that interested to say any more either. 

It’s a clean dissection, at least. Your mentor would be proud.

“And the boy?” 

You purse your lips. “I’ve told you, he’s got nothing to do with this.”

The man shakes his head. “He does. He found the body of Yan Shanghua, did he not? He was the one who brought him here.” The taste of iron stands tart in your mouth. “You intend on protecting him then?”

“He’s a child, sir.” your voice lowers, dips in a way you don’t intend on. “I would rather he doesn’t get involved with whatever our business is.” Because you don’t. And look where you are now, working a pittance under an indentured cheque. He’s a tough kid, but bitter work like this can wipe away the best in people. Plenty of your colleagues forget they’re human. You don’t wholly believe you are anymore either. 

( Like a corpse, and the irony of it sticks. )

He considers it. “He is. But if I may pose a question?”

You…you frown a little and nod. If he leaves after this, it’s all the better for it. The sweepers are due in another hour. 

“Do you truly believe it? That by covering his tracks, you protect him or anyone else, for that matter?”

“Yes.” you reply without hesitation.

He nods. “Yet you met us today. If you are to be a bulwark, then you’ve set yourself up within a disadvantageous position upon this board. You’ll crumble before you can opt to be anything worthwhile.”

You flinch. “What?” The statement only just registers. You can’t even discern where he comes from, delivering that. 

Whether blessed with patience or whether he hardly cares at all, the man elaborates regardless. “You,” he starts, emphasising the words carefully. “By continuing to work here, have you perhaps thought over the possibility that you are still putting him in danger?” Of course you have. But you are careful, aren’t you? You’re careful enough to keep to yourself for the most part. You —

He cuts that train of thought clean in half. “If I’ve come to know of your relations with him, anyone with a modicum of knowledge within these backstreets will know as well.”

…oh who are you kidding.

The man looks at you and you’d rather melt through the floor than be subjected to whatever flashes across his eyes then. It’s shameful, it heats at your cheeks and draws a sound that is strangled, and mutated, and angry. “I’m doing what I can here, sir.” You force out, geniality starting to fray. You will not cuss this man out. You will not. “And if calling myself a hypocrite sees it through, then that’s that, I suppose.”

He exhales, studying you with a slow rake of his gaze over your figure. You clench your jaw. “Then I propose this, as you have done one a favour.”

“I pulled a pill out of a dead man’s windpipe, sir.” You remind him, pushing the snideness down. “There wasn’t much to it.” You are certain that his companion would have just torn it out of cadaver’s neck anyway. She had the strength for it. You could tell.

“You’ve saved a student of mine in the process.” The name ‘Zhigong’ flits by and disappears just as fast. You only just comprehend the tail end of it. “In a year, from my knowledge, an examinee town will be hosting an entrance test. Should one pass through, you would be able to secure a chance at finding a place for yourself within a wing; or a lesser company, at the very least.”

What the fuck?

“The fee will be seen to. Should you require any study materials, I will arrange for a contact. My condition stands here: I do not want to see you within this room when the coming twelve months comes to a close.” he points down to the floor. “Is this understood?”

You open your mouth. When you can’t force a sound out, you shake your head, feeling dizzy. The ridiculousness only builds as his brow twitches. “I can’t just leave sir.” you state, your tone flat and your delivery forced. It’s excruciating, arguing back, and the offer is too good to be true to really trust or take. “I’m in debt.”

“That will be handled.” 

The room spins. “I’ll fail.” A chance to write an entrance exam. Your teacher had tried once, once and it drained him of his money. It’s what threw you into this mess in the first place. It must be a trap, some inconvenient, twisted way to tie you into a larger mess. None of this makes sense.

He shakes his head. “You will not.” he assures you with an almost-gentleness. “You have steady hands. Good hands. And you have a notable stubbornness rooted in you. Do what you will with that.” he approaches the table, easily pulling the body off and hauling it over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, the open wound lets out a wet sound and the head angles itself awkwardly, its empty stare facing your way.

“But my boss — ”

“It will be handled.” He mentions something along the lines of a drop and a fountain — a statement you can’t register as your head pounds and you watch, wide eyed and shaken. The man dips his head down, venturing past the hallway, ghosting through the stacked boxes with no flourishes. It’s sombre, in a sense and you follow him like a lost puppy, nearly tripping over yourself after flicking the lights off. Forty five minutes till the sweeping, you’d noted. He doesn’t appear to be all that concerned. 

He wouldn’t be. You have a distinct feeling the backstreets could hardly shake him down as is. There’s a stab of jealousy when you realise that. 

“This isn’t a joke?” you ask, your voice small.

He turns and frowns. “No.” he replies, a few steps away from the threshold. “My involvement after this will be minimal. I expect nothing in turn.” 

The Nest — the idea of it is absurd. You reckon this is all empty platitudes and you let it stay that way, cutting back what meagre degree of hope you could thread through before it could hold any sway over your head. It’s a joke. It’s such a cruel joke. You’d have laughed at him then and there if you had a death wish. In what world, what fucking world could you have made a difference? In what world could you have escaped, repaid Laxmi for housing you, found a decent enough job and pay. 

Not you. Never you.

But you humour him. You don’t have a choice in the matter. “Okay. I’ll take it.” 

He closes his eyes for a second, then walks out. For a large man, he sticks well to the shadows — you barely see the red accents of his coat and soon, the rustling of fabric has faded as well. You hope to whatever being resides in the gutters of this City, that he never comes back here to haunt you.

Then, you break into a jog, avoiding the unlit corners. If you are fast enough, you could get to Laxmi and Murthy’s place fast enough before the sweepers arrive.

She opens the door for you with moments to spare. Distantly, you hear the roaring, and the heavy thud-thud of a multitude of footsteps racing across the roads. Murthy stirs on his mat, partially sitting up, only to shut up immediately and lay back down when he spots you. 

He listened, at least. That’s good.

Laxmi frets. “He told me everything.” she says as you pull yourself to a corner of the small room, pulling your coat off to bunch up into a makeshift pillow. The high from your adrenaline rush and whatever unholy thing that drove you during that dissection crashing down upon your shoulders and letting the fatigue batter through right after. You nearly collapse then and there. 

She purses her lips. “Child.” she urges, patting your shoulder. You hazily look up at her. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” you reply. 

“Something happened.” she insists with a shake of her head. “He said he’d dragged the body of some rich man in, the fool.” She shoots Murthy a scathing glance when he tries to protest. “You don’t walk out of that unharmed. Paramathma, that place is going to get you killed one day.” A selfish side of you does enjoy receiving the finger waggling for once, but Laxmi spots your exhaustion and sighs. 

“We have to work in another three hours.” she says. You know this. You do not look forward to staring into the monochromatic walls of that factory. You do not look forward to working those twelve hours. You do not look forward to walking back into the warehouse, with the possibility of your boss waiting there, knowing. 

“Laxmi.” you mumble. “If I wind up going missing, I'll need you to move into another flat.”

She snaps her head over at you. Murthy shrinks into the walls. “What on earth have you gotten yourself into?” she mutters, aghast. She’s safer not knowing and you turn to face the wall, clutching at the sleeve of your coat like a lifeline. 

A foolish part of you still drifts into that conversation. That voice echoes through: You have steady hands. Good hands. And you squeeze your eyes shut, seizing that squirming creature and killing that hope then and there with that child, with every possible fragment and scattered remnant you could seize and scrape together. You kill all of it. 

When the morning comes you’ll have to cut away from these two. Hand in your two week advance; you’re expected to work full time at the warehouse as is; the pay will only be marginally better but you’re better off burning any bridges.

You’ve learned that sentimentality ties you down to this place. You can’t stay here any longer. You’re no monk or martyr. You never were. 

So, you don’t bother holding on to those embers.

Wordlessly, you drift off to sleep.

( You have steady hands. Good hands. It clings on, still. )

AFTERNOTES ; okay, 'amma' means mother and 'paramathma' is the equivalent of oh god. i would like to add that after this, the reader's boss winds up letting them off the hook and jia qiu does, in fact see his promise through and they wind up spending the next few months going through hell for exam prep hashtagNEET style. only worse.

anyway fuck NEET. who even liked studying for NEET.

[matchflame]

✷ SAMPIGE. TO BE MINDFUL OF THE COMING END

synopsis. ornamental flowers and ornamental jades are better seen than heard. a pity, baoyu thinks, that his sister happened across you first.

tags warnings. yandere ! lord of hongyuan honglu x reader, ooc characterization i'm afraid ( help me i have not played canto 8 and i am girlfailing too close to the sun ), reader is not referred to in a gendered way for the most part but does have female anatomy, the reader is southern indian coded due to the source literature of their character, mention of assassination attempts and some body horror, hong lu being a little shit in general, me trying to get a grasp on yi sang's dialogue and failing miserabely, pathwork lore going yolo there WILL be inaccuracies pls pls spare me, not much hong lu tbh since this is very yi sang and ishmael heavy.

content and notes. chapter one ueueueue. this covers the first three chapters i've posted on ao3 as a whole ( hence the ridiculous word count and all ) while this current installment does not have any explicit content, i will caution minors to not interact with me in any way directly. ✦ AO3 MIRROR . SERIES MASTERLIST

wordcount. 13.8k ( chapters 01 to 03 )

VERSE 1 : PREPERATION FOR DEATH.

A few hours before the start of Lady Ishmael’s banquet ( one held in honour of her nineteenth birthday, if your calendar is marked right ), Yi Sang pulls you aside for a brief exchange. 

“I have been cautioned by one of the guards. We may have another incident.”

Something sour settles in the back of your throat. “At mealtime?” you guess. He leads you past the halls of Nuanxiangwu to a quieter spot, a little ways from any direct lines of sight within the opposing rooftops across its inner courtyard. You recognize this one immediately, with its door-to-a-very-inconspicuous-closet and your head starts to ache. 

“Hyenas oft strike when one’s head is turned.” he quotes in response, his tone oddly placid. 

“Even hyenas aren’t this cowardly.”

He smiles a little at that. Despite it being your first time in Hongyuan since your employment amongst the Young Miss’ retinue of attendants ( the count being just Yi Sang prior, with a two guards in tow ), you had noticed the way the gloom almost latched onto them with parasitic intent. You’ve never seen either of them look this weary. 

But then again, you’ve already marked off six different assassination attempts in the records you kept up. Even you were beginning to feel that pull of ire somewhere at the recesses of your mind. Any longer here and you might just snap from that pit of anxiety. 

Yi Sang notices. “We endeavour to leave as soon as possible.” He assures you. You snap your head up at that. “The Young Miss is hardly fond of this place.” 

( Lady Ismael had initially avoided leaving her room as well from the sheer inconvenience of it, before you’d discovered a sour smell in her water jug during dinner. She chose to step out to tear a few of the training  dummies apart till their insides leaked out and left a mess upon the stone tiles. Passing by the scene, you had entertained the morbid thought of them being more flesh and less straw.

‘Hardly fond’, you decide, was an understatement. )

Yi Sang pats your shoulder, snapping you out of your train of thought. “For now, I trust you will stay vigilant?” he urges. “Take cover if there is any conflict. Recover the Young Miss if needed and escape with her. She won’t be out fighting for long, as one knows.”

“And you’ll handle the rest?” you finish.

“As always.” There's a hint of pride there. You want to laugh a little at that. 

“Alright then.” You glance over to the side, to the door behind him. “Will they need to be taken in for questioning as well?” Yi Sang shakes his head and your shoulders drop, a little relieved. “Oh good. I don’t think I want any unwanted guests here. This place isn’t as bad when it’s quiet.”

“Hush. Do not speak ill of the dead. It is disrespectful.” He chides, much like a mother. “Which brings one to this question.” He reaches out and cracks the door open. It swings outwards with a slow, agonizing creak and your senses are hit immediately with putrefaction masked with a sick sort of sweetness. Perfume on rot. You almost throw up then and there.

Yi Sang’s stare is trained on the insides of the very-inconspicuous-closet and the contents within it. The clothing on them is still intact; the usual wear assigned to servants in Nuanxiangwu. Gifts from the Xue family, as you’d recorded within the scrolls, a pair of assassins specializing in poison. Yi Sang had plucked them out when they’d tried to hide amongst the multitude while he was questioning them.

They are very dead now. The branches growing from their stomachs have already started flowering. Sampige, as your sister had called them once when the two of you were staying within the temples at home. Sampige, the flowers that clog your own lungs during rainfall. You watch Yi Sang reach down and absently collect one of them, taking in the white blossom before handing it to you. 

“I guess we should dispose of them.” you offer, your stomach twisting with something inexplicable as you crush it in your fist. It could be a flavour of guilt, of fear, of disgust. You can’t stand looking at the corpses anymore. “I don’t want the Young Miss to see them in this state.”

“It will be seen to, well and proper.” he nods. “I simply wish to know if the trees will keep growing.”

“Not if you burn them.”

Yi Sang turns to the bodies. “Their cremation will be arranged for,” he decides. A pause. You think this mind has started to wander, given the glassy distance his eyes take on. “Thank you.” he finally speaks up and you flinch a little at that. 

“Huh?”

“For aiding me here.” he clarifies. “Even as the discomfort persists, you still…” he looks at the flowers. Even he seems a little at a loss for words. 

You shake your head and he leaves it be.

Yi Sang was right. The two rats had friends scurrying beneath the floorboards of the banquet hall. When he took you along for the routine inspection of the food, he'd picked out most of the dishes hosting toxins prepared by poison mixers. It was shoddy work; any able bodied Heishou could set it apart with a single sniff of it's contents.

Whoever is behind this, you reckon, is an idiot. “Or young.” Yi Sang adds. “The fangs of young snakes are the unwieldy sort.”

“So many proverbs.” you utter under your breath. He lets out a long drawn hum, sifting past the Thousand Year Egg to pull a plate of braised duck to his nose. 

“This has been tarnished as well.” he calls out. You scramble, pulling up the sleeves of your coat to reach out and collect it from him. You nearly drop under the weight of the plate it was laid in. Pure gold; the sight makes your eyes pop from your sockets. “Steady your steps. Call in a few attendants, have them removed from the premises.”

“What will you do with it?” you ask.

“Dispose of it.” Yi Sang replies plainly. You wince at the very thought of it. The idea of wasting food…but food couldn’t be worth it if it melts your insides out, even if a younger version of you would have screamed and thrashed in protest. You hold the plates over for the serving staff to take; all their faces affixed with a dizzy nervousness. One of them looks close to tears. 

“Are you alright?” you enquire.

“Are we going to die?” he asks.

“Did you put the poison in?” he shakes his head. “Then no, you shall not.”

You haven’t convinced them. You could hear whispers of Jia Mu’s name amongst the growing unrest as one platter after the other is passed along. By the time Yi Sang was done, half the food was gone and Lady Ishmael was standing by the doorway, her jaw taut. 

The moment you catch that flash of red hair, you bend your waist in greeting. “I’m sorry,” you start as she passes you by, cut off by a raised hand. 

“It’s fine.” she states. “Honestly, this is drawing out into more of a problem than there needs to be. It’s not like I would have eaten the food anyway.” 

Yi Sang is the picture of patience as Ishmael crosses her arms, tapping her fan to her chin while inspecting what was left of her banquet. She doesn’t seem to care for a ruined birthday in the slightest. She looks vaguely satisfied, to be fair and you close your eyes to it. Better to leave your own horror unvoiced. “It’s better safe than sorry.” He reminds her.

Ishmael scoffs. “No one will be here anyway. When I went upstairs to seat myself at the tables, all I saw on the seats were bouquets and trinkets and notes. My guests haven’t even bothered showing up.” She waves a hand at one of the dishes, then calls your name. “If there’s anything you and Yi Sang would want to eat here, then help yourselves. Leave the rest for the servants. I’m not staying here any longer than I should.”

“Lady Ishmael…”

Yi Sang tilts his head. “Is young master Baoyu not here?”

She freezes at that. Ishmael’s lip then curls into something inexplicable. “Of course he is.” she practically spits out.

“He awaits us upstairs?”

“My brother doesn’t need to be coddled. It’s fine. He’s probably just going to pick at his food and talk about the weather or something.” ( There’s nothing remotely interesting about the weather here, in your opinion. This older brother of yours, perhaps one of the many in the Jia family tree, seemed the boring sort ).

Yi Sang sighs. “Young Miss…”

You see her bow her head down, brow scrunched up. Whatever wound this is…it’s raw. “Fine.” she snaps. “Bring what you can upstairs. The two of you stick by me though. And you…” she turns to you. “He’ll try speaking to you, I guess. He’s got a penchant for odd questions the moment he sees a new face around. Answer what you can…”

You start alongside her, tucking your arms behind you. It takes a moment to recall your etiquette and gather yourself as expected of an attendant ( after fixing your sleeves ) and Lady Ishmael rolls her shoulders and falls back into her role. The change unsettles you.

“If I may ask, Young Miss…how…odd?”

Lady Ishmael purses her lips. You almost see a smile there. “The silly sort. Don’t worry too much, he’s the kind who engages in superficial blathering. There's not much substance in the small talk he seems to adore so much...”

“That’s quite disrespectful, milady.”

She huffs. “It’s the truth.” she insists. She doesn’t believe it though. Not with how she grips her fan too tight. “Baoyu is Baoyu. My silly big brother. Try not to strangle him…grandmother will probably have you skinned alive for it.”

You exhale. “Not before she decides to make me an ornamental plant.”

“No.”

“It could happen.” you smile. “Rich people have an awful habit of doing that. Honestly, I think I ought to be flattered.” Lady Ismael wisely opts to not answer that, letting you fall into step as Yi Sang joins, pushing his glasses back up his nose. A comfortable sort of silence settled between the three of you, till you slip back into the banquet hall and Lady Ishmael takes her seat again. 

You take a good look of the place from the corner of your eye. You see tables upon circular tables set within different patches within a hall too big for you to seep in from your limited view of it. You don’t dare raise your chin though when the Young Miss leans back against her chair, folding her hands over her lap neatly. 

“Apologies for the wait, Baoyu-ge.” You hear her say. “There was an incident in the kitchens that needed seeing to.”

A ringing sort of laugh sounds out. It’s airy, soft, not wholly there. A little like biting into a cloud. “No hard feelings, meimei.” he assures her. Ishmael inhales, slowly, sharply and the hold on her fan tightens — stopped by Yi Sang clearing his throat. “I’ve had plenty of fun chatting with some of the staff here! And oh, from what I’ve heard, they made your favorites too! Isn’t that nice~?”

Ishmael pauses. “I suppose it is.”

He laughs again. “Serious as always. You reeeaaalllyyy need to learn to loosen up, you know. You might just wind up like those stone faced nobles father often speaks with. No sense of humour or whimsy…” The food is brought in. The back of your neck starts to prickle. “Nice weather today, by the way~” he adds. 

Ah. 

Your throat tightens and for once, you do dare to look up a bit. Just a little. You see the hem of his robes; a blue-white like the surface of a pearl. The man you presume to be Young Master Baoyu leans forward. “And oh, Yi Sang, it’s been a while!” 

“Greetings.” Straight to the point. Yi Sang doesn’t dally save for a bow of his head. “I hope you’ve been faring well, Young Master?”

The man draws out a sigh, the affect almost dramatic. “Oh I'm fine. I’ve just been doing a little this and that. The elders have told me to run along and see the sites beyond Hongyuan so I've been travelling quite a bit! There’s so many strange new things to see…”

Ishmael takes a bite out of her duck and swallows. “That’s nice, Baoyu-ge.” she says, her tone painfully bereft of feeling. This whole affair feels awkward. You wonder if poor Yi Sang is faring any better here.

Silence. Baoyu hums an absent tune under his breath. “The weather really is lovely today.” he repeats. His shifting draws your gaze again and his hands give a little flick. You jolt, some old instinct seizing your nerves and you look up — actually look up and freeze. There’s blood hemming the collars of his robes. “I think it might rain.”

What? You swallow, so disoriented, disoriented to a point where you struggle to gather your thoughts. What had rattled you to begin with? The mention rain?

You face Jia Baoyu. 

The man in front of you is painfully, awfully, unfairly pretty. Soft skin, long hair and a slow-spreading smile on his face, coming to him as easily as slicing through soft butter. He leans his cheek against his hand. What catches your attention ( and the sight makes your cheeks blood run cold ) are the bandages across his face; wrapped tight against his left eye. It wouldn’t have been all that much to falter over. 

But the bandages are wet. 

“Hello.” he greets, the lilt in his voice soft, melodic. He’s still bleeding, staining more white with dirty red. “And who might you be?”

It takes a long, shameful moment for you to fully register the question in the midst of the static in your head. Young Master Baoyu, in some merciful twist, is patient enough to wait for it as you straighten and fumble, tugging and tugging at the lump in your throat and the knot on your tongue for you to blurt your name out. Yi Sang tilts his head just a bit, watching you from his periphery. There’s concern there. 

“They’re my attendant.” Lady Ishmael adds, eyeing him down. She takes a delicate sip out of her water. “I’ve had them with me for two years now.” 

He’s far more interested than what you’d normally consider necessary. Young Master Baoyu makes a little sound of acknowledgement ( the very tone of it, practically thick with that aforementioned airiness, makes you feel a little lightheaded yourself ). 

“Your attendant?” he echoes with a hint of contemplation, tapping his chin for effect. Till now, he’s not bothered touching even a bit of his food. “I don’t recall them being amongst the batch grandmother had assigned to you…” 

“They weren’t. I met them a few months after I acquired Yi Sang’s leash.” She replies. 

“Ah~ I see!” his attention snaps back to you. You’ve recovered enough at this point to present a stretch of competence. It would tarnish Lady Ishmael's image if you kept blundering about and you doubt she needs another reason to be poked, prodded and pointed at within the ranks of her family. “Seems like you’ve been following her for a good chunk of her adventuring, hm? My sister does have a penchant for picking up strays…you seem well taken care of.”

You assumed he’d have eaten by now. But you swallow that bitter thickness your ire steeps in and force a smile on your face to match his. Do not look at his face. “I am lucky.” you acknowledge. “The Young Miss has been nothing short of gracious. I’m honoured to assist her as a member of her clan.” It comes out easy, a partial truth, a partial lie. While there is a jilted hitch in your chest, you could liken this to stretching out an unused muscle.

He pulls a hum out, slow, so agonizingly slow. Then he sets his hands on the wood surface. “I like you~ How about you come with me?”

Lady Ismael chokes.

( You, by some miracle, do not react. You’re not alien to listening into the schisms of the wealthy over dining — though your time here seemed to have filed away some of the edge and spoiled you. But security is still security in the end. You wouldn’t trade it for anything. 

This flow of conversation, you are a little used to. Even as your guts squirm. )

“Stop bothering them, Baoyu-ge.” She speaks up, a warning concealed beneath the curtness. He giggles in response, finally taking a bite out of his food with a cheekily uttered ‘So possessive’ half muffled by his lowered voice. 

The silence lets itself rest, jarred only on occasion by the scrape of ceramic and cutlery. You start counting the minutes in your head as water is repoured and by the third round the attendants made, Young Master Baoyu is opening his mouth to speak again. 

“I remember how we used to sit together and eat during our birthday. Really takes us back, huh? You had such chubby cheeks back then, and the smallest hands too.” You’re grateful for the pivot in topics, averting your eyes to the way Lady Ishmael’s quiet agony seemed to make her shrink further and further away from her older brother as if she wanted to cease what pitiful existence her life had twisted into.

But ah, you could hazard a guess as to where the rest of the guests had headed off to. Young Master Baoyu, well beloved and looked after seemed blissfully unaware of this notion.

“...and back when we used to fly kites too. You couldn’t get yours off of the ground without help from me or A-Yu and you’d get so red faced and teary eyed over it~.” the Young Master continues, as if possessed by the whims of an elder. Nostalgia, cheek, pettiness, whatever it was that fuelled this, Jia Baoyu seemed to wind through a tangent of embarrassing little stories mired with a concerning doggedness. 

It keeps testing and testing and testing, until the Young Miss sets down her empty plate with an audible enough clink. He stops immediately, his expression shifting back into a genial smile. Yi Sang had been ready to step in, pausing only when she’d waved away his advance. 

You start counting the seconds again, your mind starting to fizzle out once more. You could taste sampige on your tongue and throat.

Lady Ishmael bows. “I will be taking my leave, Baoyu-ge. I hope you enjoy the celebrations grandmother has arranged for you.” she announces in a tone that reads with a seething, embarassed ‘shut the fuck up’. “I have an early start tomorrow and I must oversee the preparations for our departure.”

He sits up. "Oh? You aren't coming to Yihongyuan?" he asks. He isn't particularly upset. That must have ticked her off even further.

"No."

“Alright.” he muses. “Take care, meimei.”

It’s an empty phrase. You can’t quite put your finger on why it was; or if you could muster a reasonable explanation for it. The weight of his stare as the three of you turn to depart, however, burns against the back of your neck. There’s an itch to your skin that starts to fester into a feeling; as if it was stretched too tight, too thin across your muscle and bone. 

You mull over it as Yi Sang hurries you past the door, deigning to turn back for a second. 

He still wears that odd little smile. And you swear there is a hint of satisfaction there.

Lady Ishmael does not speak through the palanquin ride from Dahuating once.

It’s a cause for worry on your side, but Yi Sang, perhaps half an effect of knowing far more about her and the inner workings of the families within Daguayuan’s walls, let her simmer in her anger. Comfort and pity would have done naught but have her hackles raise more, he would explain into the later hours. The last thing the Young Miss with all her keenness wishes to be, is weak under the scrutiny of of the Jia family. A brother she once held in sentiment is hardly different.

It’s a little easy to forget that, you had realized then, that you were only a few years the Young Miss’ senior; and perhaps that little gap in age and the wake of your escape from the Old Madam had torn away and skipped over the typicality of teenage insecurity and what thirst one had to tear at the chest. Family was everything --- you once knew this. And even in the midst of hatred, it still beckons you to keep stepping for it. 

It still seemed a little too much for someone as young as her. 

For the present, though, she calls you into her room. You find her seated in front of the oval mirror, staring straight into her reflection. “Do my hair, if you please.” she asks. “I don’t want it getting tangled up in bed again.”

“So my advice is sticking?” you half joke, taking the comb she hands you. 

“It seems to be.” A pause. “It’s strange, isn’t it?” She asks. 

You run the comb through her roots, undoing the tangles caught from the day. Lady Ishmael shuts her eyes. “What is?” you prompt. 

“Do I look like him?”

You stare at her through the mirror. “Like Young Master Baoyu?” You sound a little unsure of yourself as well. She did stand out in the midst of Hongyuan but there’s little ground to argue any legitimacy, if that’s what she was worried about. Her name is in the registry. Jia Mu acknowledged her place. 

You hear the distant boom of fireworks. Some of the light flashes across the room from the windows; and you see it reflected in the frame of the mirror.

She purses her lips. “It’s strange.” she says again. “How, for all intents and purposes, we’re still related somehow.” She fiddles with her hands and her eyes snap open again. The Young miss seems a little lost, stuck in some far away place. “It doesn’t make sense at all and yet…” she sighs. 

Ah. Your expression softens a bit. “Young Miss?”

Lady Ishmael grumbles. “Keep combing. I’m feeling a little sleepy from it.”

You crack a smile, a genuine one, your fingers working away to section her hair out. You don’t draw it too tightly across as you braid it, letting it go to sit across the curve of her spine. She plays with the end of it when you step back before shuffling to her bed. Her hands grasp at the sheets and you sit by the edge, watching her. 

“Gege used to do my hair when we were kids.” She mumbles sleepily. The anger seems to have subsided by this point. ‘All the time. I’d ask him all the time and he’d always sit down and do it for me.” She closes her eyes. “I think he’s changed. I know he has.”

“I’m sure he still loves you.” You assure her. 

Ishmael takes a shaky breath in. “Maybe. But this place is…it ruins everyone…”  her words fade off against the lull of sleep. You hold a finger to your lips when you spot Yi Sang hovering, an unreadable look in his eyes. You slowly rise to join him once her breathing has evened out and you make sure the windows of her room were properly locked. There were no tell tale signs of tampered surfaces either. 

Yi Sang is waiting for you by the hallway, having traded his high-collared hanfu for a nightshirt and pants. You wind apart the tense knots on your back and pad after his barefooted steps down the stairs and into the little kitchenette pushed aside. “Have you eaten yet?” he enquires. 

You shake your head. “No.”

“You aught to.” he replies. “Better eat now than to wake to a worse hunger in the morning. Come, the attendants had packed away some of the leftovers.”

“From the banquet?” you peek into the bags that Yi Sang sets on the table. It’s still warm to the touch. “These are not poisoned either, yeah?”

“None are.” he nods, pulling out a pair of chopsticks from the cabinet. You take them with a grateful sigh, taking apart a few of the bamboo boxes to mull over the dim sum inside. Yi Sang sits by the table, his head craned to the general direction of Ishmael’s room. “The night today is blessedly silent.”

“Nothing to hear or smell?” You blink, a little shocked. 

“Apart from a certain someone’s rather emphatic chewing and the ongoing celebrations for the Young Master's feast.” he looks at you. “And the smell of chicken. It seems I am not immune to the temptation of famishment. If you could pass me some…?” 

You hold a hand to your mouth, abashed, handing him some to take when he holds his arm out from across the table. Yi Sang leans back, satisfied. He isn't one to really eat much as is, nor more than he should at his age. A little ironic given his fussing just a little earlier. His assurance of Lady Ishmael’s state was quick and knowing when you asked it. Now all you have left in the end is that pit in your stomach. 

"Why has the Young Miss been overlooked?" you question. It upsets you more than it should. Even Lady Ishmael didn't seem particularly bothered by the blatant favouritism anymore than something else entirely.

He stalls. "Court and familial politics oft confuse me as well." He confesses. "I am but a simple man now, and was but a simple beast in my past. What obscene animosity that bodes within these walls...I am not a good enough teacher to wholly explain it." 

"But families aren't meant to be like this." you try to say. "Families are...are..."

You appreciate his waiting. Your tongue keeps betraying you.

“He scares me.” You blurt out.

Yi Sang turns his head to you. 

“Young Master Baoyu.” you clarify. “I don’t know what it is. I mean, ‘scare’ is a strong word anyway but…I don’t know.” You hiss it out, jabbing your chopsticks a little too aggressively into your rice.

That unreadable expression is back. Yi Sang cradles his chin in his hands. “He unsettles you, then?” he proposes. You consider it.

“Yes, that seems about right.” You mumble. “‘Unsettle’.” 

“Lady Ismael holds him with more fondness than she cares to confess.” He reminds you gently. “And he does hold himself with a certain degree of pleasantness as well. At least, far more than plenty of others.” He stares down at his half empty plate after. “But if need be, one shall speak to the Young Miss. We could avoid any meetings with him in your presence.”

You shake your head, stricken. “No, no that’s a bit too much — ” you blurt out. You look away, setting the chopsticks down to nervously press your thumb over your knuckles. There’s a shame burning against the tips of your ears. You were probably making too much of a big deal about it anyway. “I won’t inconvenience her.”

Yi Sang sighs. “She is fond enough of you to allow it.” 

“It’s silly.” you argue back. “And inappropriate. I’m probably making a mountain out of a molehill anyway.” You were. You are. Who were you to dig your feet in and throw a fuss anyway? There could be times where you scrape your mind raw enough to assume and assume and assume. And you are assuming far too much. 

He relents. “If you say what you think, then I have precious little power to convince you otherwise.” Yi Sang draws your attention back to him again and you unconsciously tuck away your hair and rub a hand over your cheek, feeling out the phantom prickling that beset it a moment ago. “Even the Young Miss has occasionally expressed a sense of unease.”

“But you just said…”

Yi Sang looks to you. “Two different things can co-exist.” he says. “But one simply speaks from the eyes of a servant. If the Young Miss can care for a brother she has naught but anger for…” he trails off. It doesn’t help you in the slightest. But even Yi Sang holds himself with that lack of surety. His memories from a more human life were nothing but muddled blurs and perhaps, after eating too much rot, he craves for a thin line of hope.

You’re all stumbling about in the end, grabbing at what works.

You bite your teeth against your lip to that. “It’s a little contradictory.”

Yi Sang draws his lips back. It’s an almost-smile, just about playing at the corner. “He is well loved amongst his family. And he is well loved amongst the people. There is reason to his name, after all.”

You slump over a little. “Baoyu.” you test the two syllables. “It means ‘precious jade’, right?”

“It does.” Yi Sang is pleased ( his lessons seem to have paid off ). “For now, you aught to tread with care with him.” He fishes out his bolus from the little bottle he keeps on him. A tiny, unsuspecting thing nestled on the palm of his hand. He ingests it with little fanfare.

“Do you think I’m wrong, Yi Sang?” You feel a little childish for even thinking it, let alone saying it out loud. 

He purses his lips. “One could only hope so.” he mumbles. “It would break her heart, would it not?”

It would. The conversation ends there, with Yi Sang leaving. You’re still a little too highstrung to properly let your mind and body settle into any sense of restfulness and take to sorting away and recording the last few possessions Lady Ishmael chose to take along with her.

When the last chest was packed, you do yourself one last favour and pull yourself onto your bed, curling up against the soft sheets and the smell of clean silk.

VERSE 2 : DISTENSION OF THE BODY.

To the thing in the temple, the darkness was routine. There was scarcely any light inside to illuminate the stone pillars or the last few remnants of its abandoned hallways. People had rarely come to visit it to begin with; and with the thing’s arrival, they stopped altogether. So it would often peer into the distance and briefly wonder if it had gone blind before the shine of the watchman’s flashlight would bounce against stone.

The thing, in the end, wasn’t a sight most wanted to look at. It was a pathetic heap slumped against the wall, armless and legless and practically buried under the winding work of sampige branches and sampige flowers. A temple plant, an ornament, a freak with some sickening elixir-affliction. The thing was many a subject of theory but it heard none of it. 

( Even the rats found precious little purpose in its presence. Whole organs sold better than torn ones and their hungry hands had shied away when they dug their knives a bit too deep; nicking against the root system that wound within its body. Its flesh and muscle and tendon and bone and every oozing drip of blood and lymph was too far gone, in this strange process of propagation. )

So the thing would seat itself in the darkness, fed at intervals, as the silence started to weigh. Sometimes a few were brave enough to come for the sampige and dart away when the thing would so much as stir. And to the thing, with the monotony and the burn in its ribs and every harrowing, croaking breathful of air and the taste of iron coating its mouth — it could care less of itself.   

There is no human here to pity, after all. That silly thought was ripped out of its head the moment it stepped into that house.

A few hours before Lady Ishmael was due to depart, you’d broken away from the rest of the clan to spend a portion of your salary at one of the stores down by the hub. You had reason to yourself that some indulgence wouldn’t be too painful to experience with what you have now. There was enough ahn on you to procure a hairpin set for yourself, a pretty one carved from lacquered wood and tipped at the end with sculpted jade. 

Jade. you turn it over in your hands and slip into some dazed admiration. You consider wearing it for official matters. It’s simple enough to pass off in your every day job and you doubt the Young Miss would kick up a fuss seeing you in it anyway. 

“Baoyu.” you roll it against your tongue, keeping with the right inflections. Jade. It was a known fact to you by this point that the older brother of your mistress was well beloved by the people here. Jade in District 8 has become a commodity so widely used and fitted into charms and into blessed bracelets and jade in turn, had come manifested in the form of a baby birthed to one of the four houses. Of course, of course he would be loved. 

Though the thought of him makes your stomach turn, you’re equally as disturbed by the idea of someone coming under such greedy scrutiny. Eyes on you, eyes everywhere, eyes trained to your back — you feel nauseous at the thought. Maybe that might explain why he seems so off. Anyone would be.

You slide your notes across the counter and leave with the velvet box tucked away into your bag. There’s two hours to spare. You may as well tie away any loose ends before setting off and your steps take you to the heart of the Nest where Daguanyuan stands. There were a few cursory gifts that the rest of the Jia family were pushing forth; odds and ends and useless paraphernalia that you are half convinced is either poisoned or rigged or both.

Perhaps you should take help from one of the clan members. Boluses to strengthen olfaction aren’t a far off concept and you could risk a few casketfull of hidden darts; so long as any nasty surprises don’t crop up later down the line. It would be a headache, running around in a panic at the last minute.

In fact, you decide with a set to your jaw, you’d like to avoid it altogether. The banquet was already a source of stress for plenty of different reasons.

You count three security checks and one long verification process when you stop by the gates; with your tablet being reviewed with near painful scrutiny. One of the guards in question had snatched away your velvet case to inspect it, raising a singular brow at the sight of the hairpins. 

“You plan on giving these to someone or something?” he asks. 

“They’re for me, sir.” you reply, watching him inspect the end of it, as if the bunted tip could somehow stab through skin. “To wear.” you add. Theoretically, it could if you were to aim for the softer spots — the eyes, the jugular, the insides of one’s thighs. Your training was rudimentary at best but Lady Ishmael made sure you could drive a knife into someone’s guts if the need be. 

( The assassins-in-the-closet were another story and mess altogether. )

“Hm. Alright.” 

It’s a dismissive statement, and you stand in place with an increasingly obvious tic in your jaw. 

“Your bag.” The guard grunts. You sigh, feeling your shoulder give a little as you slide it over and plop it down in front of them. They sniff through its contents. Nothing past your cellphone, wet wipes and a bottle of water and a napkin. The only thing of note was the dagger. He leaves it be the moment he sees the sigil on it and hands you your belongings. “That’s settled then. Should have mentioned you were a Jia attendant.” 

“I did though…?” you begin.

He raises a hand. “We can’t be too careful here.” he shrugs. It’s nonsensical. The four families were trying to kill each other anyways; one more assassin sneaking into the walls would hardly count when there were fifteen more in the bushes leaving behind corpses in the gardens. But you grab what you can and store the velvet box back inside carefully. “So uh….you free later tonight — ”

…you start walking immediately. 

You pass by a couple of servants sent by the Xues on their way to Nuanxiangwu, heaving with them caskets upon caskets of silk. Yi Sang will probably strike some of it out and store it away into one of the spare rooms save for anything that serves a more practical purpose. You consider walking with them; it would be nice to have some company at least on your way to the Young Miss’ estate and Daguanyuan was notoriously bigger than it initially seemed on the outside. 

A notification has you stop. It’s a text from Xiling — hastily typed out and followed by a few one-line follow ups. Lady Ishmael’s fans were missing. She asks you to head to Dahuating to help her hunt for it amongst the seats.

You stop, chewing on the inside of your cheek.

Something about it is wrong. Even with the seeming innocence colouring the statement, you’ve been doused down by enough paranoia to stare long and hard at the message and reconsider the words within it. Is the Young Miss really all that careless to begin with? You’re certain, fairly certain you’d seen her tie shan tucked away into her belt post her departure yesterday.

What an obvious fucking trap. It makes your saliva curdle to something repulsive. 

You tap away to Yi Sang’s contact and glance up at the retreating servants. There is something sharp inlaid in their gazes and you narrow your own eyes at them. They jump and skitter off, one of their ears flushing red. 

“Yes?”

“Is anything amiss? Any of the Young Miss’ belongings?”

A shuffle. “Yes. Her fans, if one were to recall correctly. We are unaware of where they are.” he replies. Your shoulders slump but your stomach churns. 

“Didn’t she have them before?” you ask. 

“I am certain she did.” Yi Sang states, and there’s a sureness you couldn’t refute in his delivery. Ironfast, steadfast. “Is something wrong?”

You look to the side. The estate is just within sight, a faint blur of colour behind the series of sloped-roof buildings dotting the scape. “Xiling is at Dahuating looking for it. It might be there.” you confess

Yi Sang falls silent. You could practically see him wrinkle his nose in suspect. “That is…odd..” he decides ( and you hold back on berating him for the pun — you are already ready to split your head in half over the slow-forming migraine eating away at your grey matter ). “If you do intend on departing to the banquet hall, you aught to keep your guard up. One does not trust the walls of this place easily.”

You force a laugh out. “The walls move, Yi Sang.” you remind him. “I’ll be careful. If the situation seems too much for me to handle, I’ll make a break for it.”

He hums, thoroughly unconvinced. 

You step quickly, taking a turn away from Nuanxiangwu. They hurry you down the stone path and the cut through the arching trees and the trimmed bylanes. You slip through one of the doors into Dahuating, one discreetly enough to the side for most of the serving staff. You count the steps as you ascend the stairwell and slip into the empty room. You do not see Xiling.

Ah. Your gaze darts up, upwards over the pillars and the carved beams above. You don’t see any shift in the light or suspicious shadows. You advance. “Xiling?” You call, your gaze darting over through the tables. It’s barren. The last meal was a few hours ago; you suspect another will be held by the time the dinner bell strikes. 

The quiet makes you a little uneasy.

You wave past the tables. No tie shan. Still no Xiling. You stop in the middle of that room.

You hear a shuffle. Your hand tightens round the handle of your dagger. 

Young Master Baoyu steps into view. He blinks, long and slow, then smiles. “Hello!” he greets. “Surprising to see you all the way here.” He doesn’t seem all that surprised, and he doesn’t bother hiding it. You consider walking away; but the gesture is far too disrespectful for one from your station. Jia Mu would have your head for crossing that line. 

He sets his plate on the table by the time he approaches you and gestures at you to sit. 

“That is far too high a gesture, Young Master.” you shake your head. 

He laughs. “Ah, and yet you didn’t even greet me back.” Your genial smile falters and you quickly slip into one of the chairs, a fair distance from him. He tilts his head, then shifts his seat closer. A part of you withers. Thankfully, blessedly, he isn’t all that insulted. “So, what are you doing all the way here?” he asks, poking his head into his dish. You catch a whiff of rice cakes. 

You straighten. “I’m looking for one of my clansmen.”

He hums. “One of my sister’s attendants?” he asks. You nod. “Tall? A little excitable?” he continues. 

“Her name is Xiling, sir.” You reply.

“Yes, yes her!” he replies emphatically. “She seemed near collapse when I met her. She was searching for a misplaced fan I think. I’d found it by the table we’d eaten at yesterday and I'd guessed that was what she wanted…” he trails off, his stare flicking up to your face. There’s something so profoundly dead in his good eye. You try to school the way your cheeks twitch, hoping he wouldn’t see the taut pull against your shoulders and hands. 

“Milady’s tie shan.” 

Young Master Baoyu giggles. “Fuhu~. She’s pretty forgetful, huh? My little sister? I handed it in and she set out right after.” Xiling didn’t text you after that initial request. 

“She’s quite capable.” You can’t help but say. You need to shut up now. Young Master Baoyu ignores you, taking a bite out of his rice cakes. You note the absence of any servants about him; unlike the last time. You doubt the family elders would send him running about without an entourage. The Young Miss rarely stepped out in the absence of Yi Sang at her shoulder.

After a few thoughtful bites, your restlessness starts giving out. You open your mouth, ready to request your leave but he cuts you off. “I never got the chance to really talk to you yesterday.” He muses. “Meimei can be a bit of a spitfire sometimes. I have a sneaking suspicion she didn’t want me sniffing about your business.” There’s that airy laugh again. The man speaks like he’s taken in mouthfuls of cloud and fluff. 

You pull your lips back. “I apologize if what few responses I gave were unsatisfactory.” You relay. 

He shakes his head. ‘Well they kind of were.” he sniffs. “Never mind that! I think we have a chance to host a proper conversation here. Hm?”

No. Your eyes flick to the door, then back at him. “Young Master…” You start, trying to sound as pitiful as possible, if only to glean some sympathy from him ( you doubt it. His gaze is a pit. It’s empty. It’s so empty ). “I will be departing in an hour…”

He makes a small sound of amusement, his smile too wide, too unnatural, too clinical and washed of any inch of warmth. “Right. You’re leaving. That’s a pity.” He leans his head into his hand. Terrible table manners, if you were being honest, but you do not speak of it. He focuses on you, silent, calculating almost. “I’ll make this quick then.”

He leans back. “My sister plans on joining the evaluations, yes?”

You pause. “That's why she left Hongyuan.” You reply. 

“Fuhu~ I know that. I was quite shocked to hear it, to be fair.” he waves his hand, flippant. “Nainai is always so secretive over things like this so I was quite sad to hear I never got the news until a few months had passed. But as her attendant, you are aware, yes? Of the implications such a decision hosts?”

You…do not know where this conversation is going. It seems fine; you think Young Master Baoyu, in his own avoidance, hosts a strain of worry for a younger sister he may have held an unspoken fondness for. Lady Ishmael would speak of his kindness and the ways he’d sit her on his lap to share his birthday feast with her. 

( Perhaps that bleeding heart in you grasps at a familiarity, a thread of relatability you doubt is wholly there. You’d have done anything for your older sister. She would have done the same for you — and she had. You’d taken her ashes to the canal on that thirteenth day and oversaw her immersion yourself. )

“Yes, I am.” 

He shuts his eyes. “That’s good! I’m glad to know you and Yi Sang have her back~” a pause. “Has she progressed well over the past few years? The first round is rather tricky, after all.” 

( Yes, you could desperately try to glean some optimistic strand in his questioning. But you also know better than to keep talking. )

You bow your head politely, apologetically. “I’m afraid I cannot reveal too much, sire. It’s rather sensitive information.”

The Young Master holds a hand to his lips. “Hmmmmm, not even a little?” he prods in a sing song voice. 

“No sir.” Please let me go. “This humble servant simply cannot, in good faith.”

He considers you for a tense instance, that hollow, empty gaze of his oddly hot and focused on your face. There’s a painful neutrality in his expression, almost as if every wrinkle and divot was sanded and smoothed over. Jia Baoyu’s face then splits into a too-wide smile and you catch a flash of that gluttonous shine in his gaze. It’s some unholy mix of displeasure and want. You’re convinced now that you’ll die here.

There is a clear line to the door. Your nerves rise and tingle and scream at every fiber of you to get up and run. Run away. Run away now and —

“You like saying ‘no’ to a lot of things, hm?” he intones. You open your mouth, ready to drop an excuse, that you are short of time, that you must leave now, that you’re being waited for. “Sit, please.” It’s not a request. 

Your breathing falters. You slump in your seat. He shifts his head a bit and the white of his bandages stain an even deeper red. You do not understand the nature of such a wound. It must be recent, given the state of it ( even though the scarred tissue that draws a stark line from it has, oddly enough, healed ). “Have I scared you?” he asks. 

“No, sire.” you lie.

“Okay~” he obviously does not believe you in the slightest. “It’s alright. I understand the sentiment given all the backstabbing. We’re quite fond of it, in this family!” The recitation his lined with a rather nostalgic sigh. “Thankfully it’s petered out for me but meimei…well she has a lot on her plate as a heirarch candidate.”

While his tone slips back into unhurried breeziness, you cannot wholly shed that layer of apprehension  thick above your skin. Wetting your lips, your gaze flickers back to the door, then him. “Aren’t you taking part as well, sire?” you ask. 

He turns to you, vaguely surprised. Then he looks thoughtful. Then he looks pleased. “Wellll….” he draws out. “Not really. I have no plans to partake in the testing.”

“So you don’t wish to take over the seat when Lady Jia retires?” you bow your head again, with an addition: “Forgive this servant, if they have overstepped.” 

Jia Baoyu smiles a secret smile. “That is a strange question. I’d have had you tossed out of the Daguanyuan if I were insulted.” he claps his hands. “Never mind that though~ I forgive you and all.” You taste poison in your mouth, threatening, raring to be spat out. You keep it in and swallow even when the condescension starts to burn against your skin. 

He pushes aside his now empty plate. He seems a dainty eater; though you doubt anyone would have much during a mid-meal snack. 

“By the way, have there been any renovations near Nuanxiangwu recently?”

You blink. “No, sire.” you reply. 

The Young Master taps his chin. “Really now? I went to visit the place before the banquet and saw quite a large pile of jidanhua just by the wayside. My sister wasn’t in of course but…aha she probably likes flowers more than she wants to admit~ How cute~”  

Jidanhua…

Jidanhua? Your shoulders run taut. Sampige. He saw the remains from the assassination attempt. He saw the flowers. 

“I see.”

He’s too keen eyed, too insistent in his demeanor to ignore. “They’re pretty ones, aren’t they.” he adds. “There was talk in one of the foreign districts of elixir drinkers who’d sprout branches worth of them. I’d thought of acquiring one during my travels to send over to my family as a gift…something nice to look at and study, perhaps.” he absently runs a finger over the surface of the table. “Have you happened across any? They’re rare stock these days.”

You feel sick.

You feel sick.

You feel sick.

“I.” You want to wince, to scream at how easily your voice cracks, like you want to cry. It’s just a few stupid words. Just a few but wings, wings it’s too much, you need to leave now. “I really…I’m afraid I must depart, young master.” It’s acid rolling off of your tongue. Every syllable hurts to say. Every bit of it is so unbearably heavy. 

You stand, hands shaking. Jia Baoyu mirrors your movements to your horror, bending down a little to murmur a sweet-tongued, “Allow me to escort you out.” into your ear. When you are at the door, his cold fingers pry your fist open, slipping something onto your palm. “A thank-you for entertaining me.” he giggles. “Come visit me more next time. I would like to talk about my sister more.”

It’s suspiciously round and small- small enough to nestle with your grasp and stay hidden away. “I cannot.”

“Hmmm. Then I'll seek you out then. I can’t exactly go see her face to face…she gets awfully upset.” he decides. You have precious little say in the matter as he turns his back to you and leaves with an unsuspecting wave. You watch his figure grow smaller and smaller, watch him be beset by worrying servants, watch him disappear from sight.

Then you open your hand. Its hard candy, with the wrapped paper slipping open just a little to show off the smooth, pearl like surface of it; dyed a soft blue. The sight of it is tempting enough for a child to eat. You could nearly get a taste of the unhealthy amount of sugar upon it; heavy on the tongue and heavy on the senses. 

The Young Master’s smile flickers in your memory. Your body chills. Your hair stands on end. 

Absolutely not. That voice asserts itself with finality. You throw it into the nearest garbage heap.

You made it back with time to spare. The last of the Young Miss’ belongings were packed away. You sorted past the few gifts remaining within the pile she was handed in and drowned yourself under piles upon piles of records. You wrote until your wrist ached and the very phantom feel of Jia Baoyu’s touch was purged from your memory. There was something fundamentally wrong with that man. You didn’t want the young Miss anywhere near him. Not her. Not Yi Sang, not your clansmen ( even foolish Xiling ) and certainly not yourself. 

( The last time you’d felt the tell-tale flare up of the elixir’s traces were during your first few months within Lady Ishmael’s services. You’d spent a day-and-night within the confines of your quarters, a dagger in hand excising every hint of a sprouting bud from the confines of your skin. 

Every miniscule presence of those sampige on you, torn away one by one till you could feel the roots wither. Your body would be marred and mutilated but it was a small enough price to have paid for any adjacent feel of normalcy. There was such little fondness attached to them — not as much as you once felt, and that caustic mouth-feel was unbearable even on the quieter instances where your body didn’t feel used.

One by one, one flower at a time till you’d have a pile of white speckled red and your nose was clogged with an iron-rich stink. Then you’d eat the boluses and let flesh knit itself back together, freed of that burgeoning wrongness that would wiggle in your guts and chest and body.

And you could finally breath again. )

If Yi Sang was worried — and you were certain he was — he did not address it. Departing took priority, and after telling Xiling off for snubbing you at the last minute, you had finally let yourself relax when the carriage exited the complex. You doubted you’d miss the likes of District 8 anyway.

Foe now, your priorities shift. Lady Ishmael had the skeleton of a plan set up for her first trial. Whether willing or not, it was something-to-be-done under the guidance of her parents. An instant push on her back to walk along the lines with the other children of the four families ( familial duty, filial piety, every inch of her carefully crafted to set across the city with a bidding on her shoulders and an awfully unfamiliar future to be tread ).

Following her was all you could do. It’s all you can do. 

You’d have still been that thing in the temple, if not for her, after all. 

VERSE 3 : RUPTURING OF FLESH.

Lady Ishmael’s first stop is the eastern branch of the Dieci Association. 

You learn then that one part of her trip back to Hongyuan involved scrounging through a few of the archives of Daguanyuan; an endeavor made on her own partly out of dogged spite and partly out of a need to garner a new lead to the answers she sought. She’d left with one thread of possibility; a name in the records by the name of ‘Bari’ and one off handed conversation she’d had with an old Heirarch years upon years ago.

This particular Bari-person was a fixer. And if there were traces of her left within the city, in Lady Ishmael’s words, the lot of you may as well “Seek out a few persistent busybodies.” She had a limited amount of intel to go off of and the second hand report from an observing chronicler was far from accurate. 

( “I’m sure it’s not that bad,” you had tried to naively reason. The Young Miss wordlessly handed you the scroll in question. 

“‘Lady Bari, ten feet tall in stature and knightly and chivalrous in countenance; with locks as dark a blue as the midnight sky and a stately bow upon her back, larger than a great palanquin — ’” you trail off with the stretching paragraph, passing her an abashed grin. “Ah…never mind.” )

So the three of you seek out said busybodies after alighting from the carriage. The east branch library stretches onwards for a kilometer; long enough for you to strain your neck to spot the end of it in the distance. The city was no stranger to buildings this large. The Nests were filled with an abundance of them in certain districts, but even with the splendour of the Dieci library, you half expected something bigger.

Ah, but who were you to assume? On your way in, within the sprawling gardens stripping round the structure, you spot the grounds of what seems to be an orphanage and a group of children playing within it. It's downright cacophonous, with a mix of screaming and accusations and laughter and you think you see a shoe being hurled over into the bushes somewhere. It’s the closest thing you’ve seen to a charity within the city. The spectacle is almost jarring. 

One of them stops, cocks their head up and looks right at you with a rather solemn gaze. You hold it, quietly, watching how they shift on their feet with discomfort before managing a small greeting wave. Then a caretaker calls for them; one dressed in a black and gold stole and they all round up like ducklings in a line and march back inside.

Lady Ishmael calls your name. “Don’t dawdle.” she states. “We’re short on time.”

“Ah — ” the sound slips out and you dust your robes down, hastily joining her side once more as the doors behind you swing shut. You could only hear the tail end of laughter from some of the children still lingering in the grounds, and an ache in your chest that flares upon receiving it. 

You stand corrected with your judgements when you take a proper look at the interior. While the building outside was rather modest for what you’d assumed to be a sprawling archive, the inside appears to have space folded into itself; just enough to hide high walls and a sprawling network of shelves stretching on and on beyond reason. Bent spaces are not uncommon within the city, let alone associations as wealthy as this one. Most people with half a head would have taken one look at the depleting space and the ongoing housing crisis a critical eye and throw in a few precautions to keep an office running with a few cuts on rent. It figures that the fixers who devoured knowledge both metaphorically and literally would zero in on a few loopholes. 

“That’s…” 

“The books here number into vast quantities.” Yi Sang sounds rather wistful. “One is rather taken by the view.”

You blink, and discreetly to some of the stained glass renderings set up across the sides. Some of the fixers who stood below it were miniscule in comparison. “Must have taken ages to make those.” you add, your voice dipping to a whisper. And you know it’s handmade. Even if handicrafts are a rarity under goods that were mass produced; there’s money where human ingenuity and finesse stands. The notion rings a rather dark but it stands alone as a simple truth. 

Lady Ishmael appears vaguely contemplative as she stops by the reception, snapping her fan shut. “Good day.” she greets the rather miffed woman by the computer. Said woman passes her a cursory glance then trains her gaze back onto the screen, click-clacking away. Lady Ishmael’s smile wavers at the corners. “Good day.” She repeats, her voice hitching louder, the tail end of it frayed with that usual snippiness.

Another glance is cast and this time, she actually takes a good look at her, right down to the Young Miss’ rather expensive pair of shoes. You could almost here the 'click' that sounds in her head when she registers the sight and sits a little straighter, a little wearier. “Good day.” she greets in turn. Now she scans over you and Yi Sang. “May I help you with anything?”

“I’ve come to meet this branch’s acting saint,” in the curt reply, getting straight to the point. The woman purses her lips. “I have an appointment booked in the next half hour.”

“Sir has many appointments.” The receptionist states slowly. The clock behind her ticks louder and louder and louder. “May I know your name?”

“Ishmael, of the Jia family.”

The receptionist pauses, then lets out a half-squeaked, “Come again?”

“Ishmael of the Jia family.” The Young Miss echoes, emphasizing her name just to set that point across. You can sense how her patience gradually starts unravelling thread by thread by thread at the edges. That initial ire, once fast subsiding, makes it's return. She has the grace to not let it show, but judging by that white knuckled hold she has on her fan, you half worry it might wind up snapping from the pressure.

The receptionist lapses into stunned, bog-eyed silence, double checking her computer and swallowing back a nervous lump in her throat. “Yes.” she manages out, a tremble in her words. “Yes, You’re right here. He should be waiting for you now…I’ll call in one of our fixers to guide you over…goodness a scion of the Jia family…” she utters the last part to herself, shaken. “I’ve been rude…so very rude — ”

Lady Ishmael hunches her shoulders. “It’s fine. I don’t hold grudges.” she says, detailing the flattest lie you’ve heard spilling out of her lips. Yi Sang shuts his eyes, turning his head just to allow the glare of his glasses to hide away the mirth pulling at the corners. The receptionist flinches, then deflates a bit. 

“O-oh yes.” she manages out, moving on to relay her request into the telephone set up. A new face shows up in quick succession, pattering away rather excitedly at the sight of the three of you. “Zareen…? Zareen!”

A warm presence seemingly materializes at your side and you step away, letting her approach the desk with her hands tucked away behind her back. Her focus seemed to dance and weave between the table, the computer then settling rather intently on you. 

The receptionist fixes her glasses. “Zareen, be a dear and take them over to Saint Chudomir.” she directs, handing in a few visitor cards.

The new girl bounces on her feet, angling her back to bow in greeting. “Yes ma’am! Right away!” She turns to address Lady Ishmael, her chipper persona calming over to a far more professional visage. It’s instantaneous and you’re a little impressed with how easily she melts into it. “If you could please follow me, milady…”

Her footsteps are quick as she makes way through the corridor. “Excitable, isn’t she…” The Young Miss murmurs, delicately sliding her fan open as you trail behind her. “I may have to see to these dealings alone. Yi Sang, stay vigilant in my absence…I am not risking the possibility of my family sending in anyone to do me in here.”

“There is reason to doubt that they would so brazenly send as assassin within the bounds of a known association.” Yi Sang confesses haltingly, then lets out an unsure sound. “But…ah, one does recall a certain face…”

“The Si pack leash holder?” you guess, barely concealing your exasperation — and perhaps, in some twisted sense, your delight. “The blundering fool?”

He raises a brow. “Hush, we shall not speak ill of those above our station. Do you not oft quiet the Young Miss’ own misgivings?” You bite the inside of your cheek and Yi Sang, poor, sincere Yi Sang spots the cheeky shine in your eyes and lets out a long suffering sigh. “Hypocrisy coats your tongue as pollen lines the bee’s legs.”

“And how much pollen lines a bee’s legs, Yi Sang?”

“We are here on official business.” he reminds you, catching the way Zareen turns her head to glance back at the three of you. Lady Ishmael is used to your occasional prodding at this point ( and the childish delight you took in it ), remaining ever impassive as she locks her gaze in on ahead. “As for the pollen…”

Zareen pipes up at that, her chest puffing with a hint of pride. “They can carry over 20 milligrams a trip on an average. Of course, the variation between species means differing quantities. What specific bees are you referring to?”

You and Yi Sang snap your heads her way. She heard the two of you. 

A flush creeps up against your cheeks at that and you straighten. “None come to mind.” you reply in time with a series of rather awkward throat clearings from Yi Sang ( “Stop that.” Lady Ishmael whispers with a frown. “It’s not good for your voice.” ) “But thank you for the tidbit…fun fact…uh…” 

You lapse into silence, folding your hands in front of you. Somewhere between your fumbles, Zareen thankfully loses interest, her line of sight bouncing between the shelves and then to a passing fixer pair and then down to the storey below. The gaggle children from the orphanage were scattered in small pockets, noses in books.

( You could hear a few stumble over their letters, reciting and breaking down words to piece together when they got too long and complicated. It’s nostalgic to watch, the kind that set alight some odd, warm fuzziness in the recesses of your ribs and mellows out into something soft. )

The Young Miss watches you from the corner of her periphery. “Done?” she asks, just a little teasing. You feel that biting urge to sink into the floors wholly, completely and it persists as a few turns are taken with an additional trip via elevator. 

Your group’s pace slows to a stop at the doors to an office. “Here we are.” Zareen chirps as she raps her knuckles over the wood surface. “Sir is waiting inside.” and as if on cue, a muffled — if not slightly disgruntled ‘Come in’ rings out from the other end. You take to fiddling with your sash, retrieving a smoothed wood box from one of the pockets tucked away underneath.

“Shall we have to wait out?” Yi Sang asks. Zareen eyes him down with a rather intense look.

“I suppose attendants could accompany her.” She reasons, casting her attention on you next. She seemed so much younger than you; just freshly set into the path of adulthood…but oh those eyes of hers. You were already halfway through pouring some ink into your pain and retrieving your scroll, and you take care not to move too much lest it spills. “Just…try not to make yourselves too obvious. Sir doesn’t like too many people talking over him.”

“We will keep that in mind.” Lady Ishmael jerks her chin into a sharp nod, letting herself in. Yi Sang lapses into his usual silence as do you, feeling sudden heat against your face the moment you step inside. Even the Young Miss seems vaguely uncomfortable with how stuffy the interior was, practically filled with books and tomes and scrolls and stone tablets over every conceivable surface. 

The man in its midst was on the older side, his hair peppered white at the roots. He was peering into a glass piece, wordlessly poring over book after book like a soul obsessed. 

“Saint Chudomir.” Lady Ishmael tests. 

“Yes?” he calls absentmindedly. 

“I’m here to speak with you.” 

He doesn’t look up. You don’t think he cares to do it, so entrapped within the words of those pages. “Yes. The Jia girl. Seira mentioned you.” He mumbles something to himself and turns the page. “Make it quick. There’s a lot to learn.”

She casts a glance over to the room around her. “Alright. There’s no point beating around the bush.” She starts fanning herself as you begin to write. Record keeping was delicate work for the most part and you mostly secluded it to events important enough to warrant a need for it. Any miscellaneous information is to be filled in later. “I’m here to buy out any knowledge you have on a fixer named Bari.”

Chudomir lifts his chin ever so slightly. “The knight?” he clarifies.

“Who else?”

“Just to clear things up.” he huffs mawkishly. “We have over a thousand two hundred and forty nine Baris in the city. Five of them are prominent enough though they’re mostly stuck within the corporate sector. Two are fixers themselves.”

“...and?”

“Well, do with that what you will.” he waves the conversation on. “We do not broker knowledge without a price. Most of our records here are set up to be consumed by our employees and the younglings in the orphanage. To have the common public get their hands on sensitive information outside of the scope their every day lives allow them is unheard of.”

Lady Ishmael offers a pragmatic smile. You quickly switch to shorthand for some of the dialogue then back to proper words once you’ve gleaned the necessary details. Some ink spatters at the corner but you pay little heed to it. “If it’s money you want then I have no qualms about offering it.” She relays, utterly sure of herself. “Name your price. I’ll even donate to any drives if you wish for that.”

He lets out a short laugh. “Oh, the money will be appreciated. But that’s not all we wish for. Lady Ishmael.” He tears his eyes away from the page. You see a glint there, considering, conniving. “We need access to certain records from within the Jia’s archives ourselves. Mostly records from a hundred or so years ago. There are a few gaps within our own books that need to be filled in and I believe your own libraries can aid in that.”

Yi Sang turns to Lady Ishmael. 

“Fine.” She relents after some deliberation. “In fact, should I ascend as heirarch, I’ll be more than happy to supply your Fists with any pre-approved knowledge you need from the annals of our libraries. We have plenty in there catching dust that i doubt my current generation would care to make use of. That seems a good deal, yes?”

Chudomir levels her with a stare. “Generous girl.” he nods, a hunger smoothing away at his features. “Mh, yes, a long-term alliance would do well for us. Of course, what we seek won’t bring harm to your position in any way…” he adds in hastily.

“As for the price?”

“Three billion ahn should do.” Your grasp falters ( three billion, three billion. ). Lady Ishmael remains unfazed, producing her chequebook. She plucks one of your pens from your drawstring puch to scrawl the details on. Yi Sang then moves to hand that signed slip of paper in, his gait belying nothing.

“Done. Tell the records you need. I’ll have my attendant send it in.” she gestures your way and you perk up, snapping out of the haze you were sinking into. “It may take a while to send word to my servants back in H corp. I trust you can wait a while?”

Chudomir draws that small magnifying glass closer with a hum. There’s a lick of amusement; just a scarce, near missable amount that flashes across his expression. “So long as the young lady before me knows to keep her vows. Do not back down from our agreement — I am not afraid to file a lawsuit if needed. Even against the child of a Wing.” 

She scoffs. “Only cowards turn to deception. Are you referring to me as such?”

“Hardly, Lady Jia.” He replies smoothly, running a thumb over the cheque. He trains his focus back to his books after slipping it between the pages of his pocket diary ( quite careless, in your humble opinion. Who the fuck would leave 3 billion inside a to-do list? ). “The list will be sent to your hotel room shortly. Just email the scanned copies in. I’m not picky so long as the writing is legible.” 

The Young Miss straightens, pleased with the progress made thus far. “Is that all?” you whisper, some part of you doubtful that the exchange would carry out this easily. Lady Ishmael hides her grin behind the fan. 

“You will be surprised to know what money can buy.” She reminds you, her voice low. “Cooperation just happens to be one of them the moment it’s on the table.”

“Three billion yuan is still a substantial amount.” Yi Sang cuts in. “Young Miss, is the bargain worth the pay?”

Lady Ishmael shakes her head. “You know me by now, Yi Sang. It’s pocket change. Nainai won’t even notice the numbers dropping with how much Hongyuan rakes in on a daily basis.” She leads the two of you to the doors, leaving Chudomir be in stride with his growing annoyance.

“A little too much, if you ask me.” you utter under your breath. “Really now, Young Miss. I think we should consider being more mindful of expenditure…”

She hums, her lips twitching at the corners ( they only just betray the barest hint of a curl ). “I’ve grown up knowing precious little about limits. Besides, If I can treat my clan well with what I have, then so be it.”

It’s easy to melt a bit on hearing that. Or maybe you were a little soft, a little squishy on the inside ( the sort of way that would make it horrifically easy for a place like the City to tear you apart ). Struck out of her trance, she lets in a sharp breath and motions ahead of her. “Enough of that. We have to finish this errand.”

“Here.”

Lady Ishmael hands in the pen drive once the two of you were on the carriage and you finish up with the last few paragraphs with the day’s records. She sits herself down next to you with a heavy sigh, resting her chin in her hand. “This is all they gave?” you ask, incredulous. 

“It’s everything they have on her. Every reference, every related topic, every transcript and every recorded conversation from camera feeds and old livestreams.” She rubs her cheeks down with her hands, exhausted. “I took the initiative to sort through and take what I could.” You nod along, wordlessly booting up your laptop and connecting the drive into the port. There aren’t a lot of documents within the files and you lean back against the seat. 

“Is this all?” you ask, unsure of yourself. 

“It is.” Yi Sang affirms. “Every mention of Lady Bari one could seek numbered in single digits.”

“Fuck…” you half mumble to yourself, opening up one of the PDFs. It’s an old conversation from a magazine preceding the Fixer’s Weekly; the kind of stuff filled with articles about new hotshots and up and coming fixers as well as pages detailing associations and games on ‘finding your own colour name’ based on your birth date. “Yours is ‘gold magic’.” you tell Yi Sang who bends over to take a peek. 

“Grey would suit me far better.” 

"Yes, but you'll have to be born on march, to get grey. So you're gold."

Yi Sang frowns. "But I'm fond of grey."

You eventually find a mention of Bari in one small paragraph of text; an article detailing her exploits within R corp right down to dealing with a few street thugs who’d broken into a local school. Surprisingly heroic, though your biases might have weighed into any prior judgement. “R corp, huh?” Lady Ishmael half mutters to herself.

“We could start there.” You offer, opening up a new document. You’re greeted by a thousand paged monstrosity of an old registry from the Hana association. A strangled sounds escapes your throat. 

Lady Ishmael looks at you, unabashed. “Get to reading then.” she urges. 

You want to weep at the audacity; but bidden and beholden as you were, you hunch over the laptop for the remainder of the day, in the carriage, then the common room of the hotel the Young Miss had bought out for the stay, while the rest of the clan unloaded the luggage into the designated rooms. Xiling and Mudan had stopped by to share some cookies they’d picked up from the store. After that, you remained mostly undisturbed. 

Bari, you think at the end of this, practically brimming with vindication, was a bitch.

You had skimmed through the registrars of the Hana association and encountered her name a few times already. You faintly recollect Chudomir’s words; of the many Bari’s within the city. It’s not out of pocket to assume — there’s always going to be someone out there who shares your name, especially back in your hometown. At some point, her name had reappeared again after skipping over a hundred years and the sight of it felt like nails upon a chalkboard.

There’s another who cropped up in office records. A salarywoman who lived a rather uninteresting civilian life within the M corp nest. Another mention was a man this time, who was jailed for 90 years for replicating and smuggling patented drugs from a well known pharmaceutical distributor at the time.

Curse you, you half mutter, mulling over her details. Curse you, curse you —

You come across an information log, and a photo in the midst of your maddened scanning. The woman who stares back had her face wiped of any telling emotion with pale skin and dark blue hair. Your mind rings and the chronicler’s words slip back into your train of thought. ‘Lady Bari, ten feet tall in stature and knightly and chivalrous in countenance; with locks as dark a blue as the midnight sky and a stately bow upon her back, larger than a great palanquin. She boldly strode through the halls of Daguanyuan and gazed upon our heirarch, esteemed and noble, with an offer of discourse — ’

“Well…” you start. The ID is dated a hundred years after the chronicler’s records. Pressing your lips to your palm, the wheels resume a slow, agonizing turn. “Well…” you breathe, and a tendril, a tinge, a telling surge of excitement takes over. 

Now, if these two women were the same person ( stripping down the verbosity of some of the chronicler’s words ), you’re either looking at a descendant or the same person. And if she were the same…

It could be a scratch. The ID detailed a different woman altogether, under a different name. But on finding Bari’s own, you could spot the telling similarities; right down to the height and choice in weaponry. It’s a shoddy job at hiding away any traces; and a part of you doubts it’s an accident or an involuntary choice. Rubbing your hands together to dispel the numbness encroaching in, you keep going. 

“It’s night.” Lady Ishmael finally breaks you out of your fevered stupor. 

You snap your head up. She’s dressed in her nightwear and you think you see the remnants of a pout playing across her face. She opts to not look you in the ey, a hand on her hip. “It’s good to see that you’re putting your all into this but i doubt you should be neglecting your other duties in the process.”

“Ah.” You sit up, sheepishly setting the laptop aside. “Would you like me to brush your hair?”

She holds the brush out. You take it, tucking your things under one arm as you herd her to her quarters. Lady ishmael sits herself down on the chair, knees and feet together and her hands upon her thighs. “How would you like it tonight?” You ask. 

“You spoil me with choices?” she muses. You undo the ox horn tie and let her hair fall over her back.

“Have you decided?”

The Young Miss shuts her eyes. “A crown braid is fine.Nothing too fancy…just make sure to keep the hair out of my face.” You comply, delicately parting her hair between brushing it out. “How is the search going so far?” she asks. 

“Well enough. I have a potential lead.” 

You hide away your smile when you see the excited perk in her back. “And?” she urges on.

“Lady Bari.” you start. “Is actually five feet and 10 inches tall.”

“Do not make me call Yi Sang on you.” She warns. You guffaw. 

“Alright, alright. Jests aside, there have been instances of a woman with a similar appearance appearing on and off again over a span of two centuries.” You confess, divvying her hair up and looping in the first braid to pin it back with her white bows. She holds up the rope for you to use. “If we are to assume that they are all Bari, then the only reason someone can live for as long is…”

Lady Ishmael’s eyes shine. “...She’s found a source of immortality.” she murmurs. “The chronicler detailed her mentioning a possible wellspring of longevity…”

“Is there any particular reason why they didn’t seek it any further?” you ask. 

She shrugs. “Tradition, for one. Another could have been a lack of resources. Bari probably never revealed more than what was necessary, save for a hint..” You loop the second braid in. “A hint was enough for me though.” she mutters. “Yi Sang will come in to help you tomorrow. Rest for now.”

“It was quite a bit of work.” you agree placidly. 

She tilts her head a little. “I’ll see to it that you are duly compensated when I ascend to the seat.” she promises. 

“That would be lovely, Young Miss…though I was alluding more to a raise.”

“I’ll grant that too.” she waves off. She looks at herself in the reflection then. “How pretty.” she comments lightly. “Had I met you or Yi Sang earlier, I’d have had far less grief with managing my hair.” A familiar shadow crosses her face. You watch her stand, watch her gently fiddle with her braids with a pursed lip. 

It’s not just the hair, is it?

You wish, you wish you asked her that. You wish you mustered up just a little more courage to prod away at the utterly stormy look she let show across her face, while she shuffles to bed, while she lays down. “Pass on your findings to Yi Sang.” she instructs after the silence starts to span on and on for a little too long. 

You bow. “That, I will.” 

“Good.” 

You head on back to your room. It was a long day for you in the end, and the exhaustion bogs you down heavier than you’d initially anticipated. The idea of a full night’s sleep sounds downright erotic at this rate, post the unsteady nights spent within the carriage. Mudan was seated by the Young Miss’ room to keep up his vigil and you assure yourself of the last of your duties, and a quick dinner. 

When you enter your room, you spot a singular drawstring pouch placed upon your pillow and the slightest hint of cigarettes permeating the air. You still at the sight of it, then approach, carefully, wearily, peeking a look at the contents inside once you have it in your hand. You’d initially assumed it to be boluses, but the scent of sugar pervades all else. 

You stare, and stare, and stare, your thoughts flailing and ripping themselves apart against radio static and something that sounds like screaming.

Inside it, pearl-like and soft-blued, were hard candies. 

[pranabefall]

⠀THE WARDEN'S DAY OFF.⠀⠀⸺ ⠀⠀jing yuan.

syn. ( wc : 8k ) it's the waxing moon and you aren't certain if you wholly fond of your days off ( or the memories they bring you ).

TW. ⸺ this is a messy fic writing wise pls be kind, the reader was an apprentice of yingxing and currently works in the ten lords commission, amnesia, slight yandere tendencies from jing yuan, pining and angst if i could call it that, there's not much intimacy here just a kiss, self harming tendencies from the reader's end, the mara is not a nice thing to deal with, food as a love language.

LOG. ⸺ this fic was more an in-between for my longer omegaverse wip with jy. after hsr died on me and my laptop i must compensate with all the love for my hubby yes yes pls don't percieve me or the sheer messiness of this fic and many thanks to le gang for sitting through the usual ramble huehuehue. readers below the age of 18 / ageless blogs and antis, do not interact. while i cannot stop you from reading the fic. if i see you in my notifs, it will earn a block from me.

“i have hunger for your mouth, for your voice, for your hair”

— PABLO NERUDA.

You’re on an island, adrift a sea of melting thoughts.

They come around you like the tide, with the memories they hold ( and they’re never yours; they’re another’s, then another's, then another’s — all of it changing — quick enough to disorient but long enough to leave that lingering hurt ). Against it all, you’re a bead in the ocean; your surface cracked away and weathered down. You wander the banks, those many multitudes of presences unshaking as their cold touch scathes into your ribs and freezes you from the inside out. You do not know how long you’ve been here at all.

But you stay on your island, adrift this sea of melting thought.

Because it’s still yours. Your island in this tempest, where the screaming twines with the wind and the sky itself is made of a tangled mass of thrashing limbs. It’s still yours.

And in the end, it’s all you have left of that stubborn strain that anchors you here. An ache, that remnant of grief.

( The smell of home. )

Lady Hanya stands above you when you awaken. Your mouth tastes of oil and you swallow the last few drops of something viscous, slickened that coats your tongue. The wine of oblivion clears away what remains in your head. Your mara calms. You are empty, mind scraped clean of rot and sentiment till you nod into the void sleepily and nearly buckle and fall back into your coffin.

“Designation.” She speaks up.

You stare up at the vaulted ceiling. “Warden 145629, Lady Hanya.” The reply comes to you like a dream, like clockwork. Lady Hanya says nothing. You vaguely recall she doesn’t speak much at all to begin with, unless she is standing by Lady Xueyi’s side. “Have I been assigned a mission?” you ask. 

Lady Hanya shakes her head, her gaze absently tracing over the chains round your wrist. You feel an inch beneath your skin. A primal kind of hunger that longs to tear them off. It’s what you ought to be feeling — so you keep your lips sealed. “Warden no. 145629.” she repeats. “Do you know why you’re here?”

What a strange question, you want to say. Why would you ask that? Because you shouldn’t know.

Yet your eyes still choose to sting. That urge to bite shows its face with the way your nose wrinkles and your lips pull back into some half-formed snarl. For an instance, the haze of the wine clears and you see a few stark shapes in the fog. A red sky. A bloodied scape of uniforms. His eyes fading from blue to red. It stays there like a persistent tug at the back of your head. 

You listen to Lady Hanya’s sigh. “So you still remember.” she remarks. You feel like you’ve failed at something. 

“I do.” you confess. “I remember a little.”

She reaches out, the ink of her brush settling on your seals. One by one, they fall away. “Do I have a mission?” you ask again, cold fear nailing itself against the column of your spine, with something that tastes like desperation choking at the back of your throat. You try sorting through it all as that thing inside starts to unfurl and rear its ugly maw. 

Lady Hanya blinks, slow and steady. “It’s the waxing moon tonight.” she tells you. “Warden no. 145629, you are relieved of your duties for today. As per the request set in by General Jing Yuan half a century ago, it is your ‘mandated day off for leisure’.” 

“Oh.”

A pause. 

“I remember that now.” you comment mournfully. The last chain falls and you test your hand against the edge of the coffin. One, two, three, you count the beat of every second with a squeeze of your fist. You finally hoist yourself up, taking a moment for feeling to rush back into your legs, enough so that it doesn’t feel like you're walking on needles anymore.

A few sways after, you manage to straighten up and breathe through the nausea. You look down at your white robes. The same heavy cotton. The same crossed collar. They’re still pristine, and your trousers still bunches at your ankles. “Will I be allowed outside?”

Lady Hanya lets out a hum, casting a cursory glance at her notebook. The spectral envoy — and you only just notice it now, falls back and tucks its fans back into its belt. “You always were.” she states. “You have twenty-four system hours. Use your time well.”

You nod. The gesture feels less sincere and more mechanical, more weary. Twenty-four hours. You flex your fingers, one by one, feeling the way your bones crack and grate against disuse. Twenty-four hours to think. Twenty-four hours of sun. 

“So there’s no mission.” You ask again. And you ask because there’s something incomprehensible in that singular statement. It doesn’t weigh down the right way.

Lady Hanya looks faintly exasperated, and amused all at once. “None.” she assures you, her voice soft and steadily gentle. She, like most people stuck within the walls of the Ten Lords Commission, find themselves tiptoeing about some in-between of lost and found. One, two, three — you manage to tap each finger against your left wrist. You do the same with your other hand. 

“However.” She speaks up after. You snap your gaze up to meet hers. “I have a favour. If you will be perusing outside, could you escort Lady Huo Huo to Fyxstrall Garden? She has a few stray heliobi she’s been designated to corral back into the furnace.”

You let the request settle. “Lady Huo Huo.” you echo. “Lady Huo Huo.” you repeat. A fuzzy face plants itself into your vision. A slight wisp of a girl with bandaged knees and terror caking her scent like molasses. And of course, that annoying spectre who insists on tailing after her like a leech. “Ah yes. She’s been promoted to a judge…I will honour your request, Lady Hanya.”

Lady Hanya shuts her eyes. There’s nothing there to discern in her expression; her face so vividly pale and siphoned of anything remotely human. A walking corpse, no better than you were. “Thank you.”

You bow and follow her footsteps. The floor is cold beneath your bare feet and the halls stay as dark as they usually were; metal and stone lit by the occasional blue from a lantern strung up at the tall ceiling. The Spectral Envoy tails you for the first few paces, lulled by it’s programming till it deems you safe enough.

For now, you decide, you need a change of clothes. 

White stuck out as a colour of mourning amongst the Xianzhou, even if there were no funerals to be had here. Grief still shapes itself in their beating hearts. People will stare. So you take your trip to the storage closet, where Chiyi hands you a few robes from the cupboards. You wore these ones the last time too. They’d been washed recently.

You should thank Lady Hanya later.

There’s nothing too fancy about your attire. You could live an illusion of normalcy in them; in the softness of the fabric and the absence of metal and bracers around your wrists. There’s a shock of resentment that gutters through your body, like the aftereffects of electrification and the pain it brings in its wake. A single name stays there, burned in your thoughts to an almost obsessive degree. 

Yuan. 

No. Something else hisses, and you erase it, down to the last traces. Your throat burns and your mouth tastes sour. 

You’re halfway past straightening your cross collar when the light from the door is encompassed by shadow. When you lift your chin, you spot Lady Huohuo hovering by the doorframe, clutching her paper talismans a little too tight. “Good day.” you greet and she lets out a little jump and squeak.

You count a whole minute before she gathers herself and patters up next to you. “Good day.” she greets in turn. She looks ready to faint when you do not reply. “Lady Hanya said you’ll be my escort?” she asks after a beat of silence that stretches out for a bit too long. You realise you should have said something ( even if you weren’t certain on what to say ). Now the situation feels jarringly awkward. 

“I will.” you affirm. 

Lady Huohuo passes you a distressed look. “Uh…right.” You blink. “She said it was your day off today too.” she adds. “I…oh I'm so sorry if I’m taking up your free time. I-I remember the last time I got a day off and it was ages ago. I’d be so upset if someone told me to work that day. Ha ha ha.” The laugh comes out strained, catatonic almost. Lady Huohuo passes her talismans to her other hand, bouncing on the balls of her feet. 

You spare a glance to the doorway, then affix your stare dead upon her face. “Lady Huohuo.” you speak up. “Do I scare you?”

Lady Huohuo flinches. “What?! No!”

“Yes, you do.” The heliobus tail of hers pipes up rather reproachfully. “You and that witch, the both of ya. Snake tongued, dead-eyed hellions on the Luofu.” 

“I didn’t ask you, heliobus.”

There is a sputter and a flash of green flame. Lady Huohuo slips out a shaky yelp and smacks another sealing talisman on. “M-Mr. Tail, please do not go around picking fights with my coworkers.” she demands, even if her voice is a soft, easily flustered thing. “It’s horribly rude!” And to her credit, he does shut up, settling to glower a thunderous green amidst his silence. 

You tilt your head. “Shall we?” you offer.

Her fingers twitch and flutter. “R-Right.” You slow your pace and let her keep up with you, and you keep to your silence through this walk. 

A part of you is thankful that Lady Huohuo doesn’t speak. Words had too much to remember by. Words hurt your thoughts. Words hardly masked that resurfacing memory. It comes to you in a blink, slow like tar, like oil and cold — a bone deep cold. 

The last thing you wear, after your slow ritual of clothing yourself, was the blindfold.

He takes you in after coming across your attempt to steal away his ores. 

The man with the periwinkle eyes had a thunderous look on his face when he snatched at your wrist. You can’t recall much of the aftermath, or the conversation he’d had with you — but you recollect his shattered image with a painful fondness. Shifu, you had called him then. Shifu, because he’d taken you to his forge and showed you how to mould gold thread. He showed you how to whisper the language of swords into every strike of your mallet. 

Shifu, your shifu, was a man who wanted to shine. He was even harsher with you — and you knew in some quiet sense that there’s little place here for fleeting sparks. Better strike a bonfire, a forest fire, than be forgotten, in his words.

And out of all the apprentices who cycled in and out of the forge, you remained. You and him — a pair of mortals in an unaging ship, in an endless war, in a yawning chasm with no clear tomorrow. And you watched, you watched him burn and burn and burn till his embers fell and you were left with the ashen aftertaste. 

You watched the way his remnant still walks with none of that drive, and how the mara mirrored itself in your eyes. In how the beast reared its ugly head and screamed its murder into the earth he bled into.

Shifu, your shifu. Your stupid, foolish, shifu.

And a fractal of something else. Silver hair. A gold gaze. 

Him.

“This is far enough.” Lady Huohuo declares. She is even jumpier now as she edges at the borders of the delve. You hear the shuffle of a Cloud Knight standing by the dock with the hum of a skiff at the ready, and you escort her to it. “Thank you so much, Ms. Warden.” she says as she boards the boat, turning to you with a grateful tremble in her voice.

You don’t move an inch, only doing so to wave off the thanks with a tilt of your head and a hurried gesture. “It’s alright. I’m only following orders in the end.”

You could imagine she’s smiling a wobbly smile. “Of course. Lady Hanya really does worry about me, I suppose…I wish I weren’t such a nuisance. You’re usually so busy and…and…” you can see the faint shape of her shift and meld with the shadows and the light through your blindfold. “I never quite caught your name all this time either…” she adds.

Something seizes. It rattles against you with the maw of a violent beast. “I have no name, Lady Huohuo.”

She falls silent, the realisation settling in. How bold, you almost want to tell her — but the scent of her is thick with enough shame to last her the next decade. She’s still a child in the end. You’re not needlessly cruel to children. “Right…right.” she echoes after a swathe of silence, panic edging her tone. “I really didn’t mean to offend — ”

“I’m aware.” you cut in. “Take care. Lady Huohuo.”

That heliobus tail of her crackles when her expression wilts a little. Did you say something wrong?

You tell yourself to forget about it, as the skiff pulls away from the dock and shutters away farther and farther to the next delve. By the time the roar of its engine is faint, you turn and leave — you have twenty two hours of holiday left to while away. Twenty two hours to wander the Luofu. Twenty two hours, a time that felt too long and too short all at once. 

( A faint voice nags at you, of the sheer absurdity. People like you aren’t meant to have holidays. Not after what you’d done. Not after —

— The angry hiss would always cut off at the peak of it, cresting into some nameless revelation that made your chest pang despite the haziness that takes it apart. ) 

You consider your options. You could visit the hubs, the busy street of Starskiff Haven, where a faint memory nudges you to the gardens there. You can taste still-water on your tongue, and clean air. Yes, you could go there with some tea. You could sit and listen to the bustle outside the walls. You could live with the silence, after the endless wailing the Sea of Souls came with. 

How nice. 

It’s a tired, almost longing statement. How nice that would be. How surreal. 

You start counting down the seconds as you make way to the Port delve. Your index finger taps against your knuckles as you do — one two three one two three one two till you breathe in radio static fogging against the back of your eyeballs. The driver, you notice from your periphery, moves too much in his seat by the navigation compass. 

“Is something the matter?” you call out. 

“Oh no, no.” he replies hastily. He sounds terrified. “Nerves from age, is all.”

“Age?” you muse drily. “You sound quite young to me.”

He makes a choking, gasping sound. “Nerves then. Just nerves. From stress.” 

“Ah.” What a liar. Your lips quirk.

Your little ritual goes without much fanfare. You de-board, buy a flask of tea and a clay cup from a local shop and navigate the busy streets and the connecting bridge to your hopeful destination. You only sit when you feel overhanging shade shrouding your form — and you settle at the banks of the pond, pouring yourself a glass-full.

“Mh. How does one enjoy free time…” you muse, testing your words against your tongue, testing the shape of your voice and the thoughts coming to form. It’s not the slippery, distilled liquid you’ve grown accustomed to in rest. The waking world had far more form to it and an indistinct solidity that sits heavy on your shoulders.

You take a sip of tea, basking in the aroma. What does one do to enjoy free time? Your tea flask will only last you a little while. Napping felt counterproductive — it felt treasonous. 

By the time you’re on your second cup, you start to notice it.

The air is oddly still. You’d expected a little more activity in the vicinity; at least around the sitting area a few paces off. The silence sets off an alarm; a loud, insistent scratching in the back of your mind that only grows more desperate, more viscous with the passing seconds. You sniff the air. No telltale signs of sickly sweetness and bitter ginkgo. 

No Mara, you tell yourself. No Mara. 

You test your fingertips against your chest. You do not feel the tell tale signs of budding shoots, no roots systems spreading beneath your skin layers, no blue poppies threatening to bloom within your airway and mouth. 

No Mara, you repeat that chant over and over. It starts to run stale as that tightness in your throat grows painful. You slump against the tree trunk and take a sip of tea. It’s cold. 

“Fancy seeing you here.”

You flinch. The voice is deep, dulcet and warm. It idles at your periphery and haunts you. You bite down at your bottom lip and stamp out the desire to cry, grasping at the clay a little tighter. “Careful,” he speaks up. “You might wind up breaking it.”

You turn to the source. “Pardon me. Do I know you?”

The man who addresses you with such fond familiarity pauses. 

“Do you not remember?” he manages, his tone searching. You stubbornly refuse to indulge in any responses and look away. “Ah, you have your blindfold on.” he reasons after. “I suppose it’s for the best.”

You fight this strange, alien urge to get back to your feet and pace away from him. He puts you off in ways you can’t name, in ways that crawls within the spaces of your ribs and sets off many unspeakable things. You don’t want to let your presence hover here any longer than it probably should. 

The man sits down across from you, and with him, the clinking weight of armour. Your head spins. A Cloud Knight? “Well, I won't force you to recall anything.” he reasons. “I’m just happy to see you here. Is it your day off?”

“Yes.” you affirm stiffly. You wonder if Lady Xueyi will break your hands and legs if you were to stab him. 

( She will. )

He laughs. “You still regard me with such disdain.” The rest of it is muffled behind his hand. “Granted when we were younger, it was all for show. You’ve always wanted to be, and I quote, ‘Just like your shifu’ — even though you’d turn your head the other way and cry for every hurt finch you’d come across.”

There’s a stirring in your guts. You draw your knees back, biting at the inside of your cheek. You should leave, that voice screams, as you feel the start of a headache coming on. You should leave, now.

The man hums, blissfully unaware of how your limbs lock in on themselves and the way an instinctive part of you starts baring its teeth his way. “How are you?”

“I don’t see why I should answer that question.”

“The waxing crescent is the only time you’re allowed out of the Shackling Prison. I’d think that a month’s worth of work and criminal-hunting must tire you quite a bit.”

You consider him. “You don’t say.” you muse lowly. “You know an awful lot about me.”

The man scoffs playfully. “Of course I do! I demanded your right to a day off. Stress isn’t good for blood pressure, they say.”

That final piece slots into place. You jolt and scramble to your feet, the shuddering disconnect returning. The very human trepidation weans away into the sleek cut of protocol. Your heels click together. Your back straightens, then you bow low. “General.” you greet. Because General Jing Yuan must be treated with respect. It’s a lesson drilled well into you.

( Your mouth still forms words unsaid. You almost called him by his given name, with a half hitch in the midst of it. You almost said it in a way that speaks of intimacy. Your insides churn. You smell the sharp notes of poppies and the shadows behind the blindfold start blurring a dangerous red. )

The man — The General does not respond.

“So you don’t remember.” he repeats. 

“Apologies.” You recite. “I hold no recollection of any orders.”

He laughs. It’s a little empty, yet morbidly humoured all the same. “No, no. I…” he trails off. A sigh follows. “Never mind that. Stand at ease, you’re not on duty.”

Your shoulders rise. “I was disrespectful.”

“I won’t tell Lady Hanya.” You crane your neck up, sensing a ‘but’ in his statement. “Of course, if you won’t mind taking a walk with me.”

Turn him down.

“Yes sir.” you blurt out, shocking yourself with how it comes so easily. After collecting the flask and cup, you trail at his heels like a lost little puppy, sinking into the crowd behind him. General Jing Yuan takes a long breath in and slows his steps as you keep pace. 

He takes his time to think over the details. “We’re going to have something to eat.” he decides with a flourish.

“To eat?” you parrot. You did not expect that.

“To eat.” he affirms. “I take it they’re rare to come by with your job description?”

You listen to his movements, the way he schools every minuscule shift in his body and attempts to throw off suspect by taking up less space. Then you wonder why you could hone in on the pretense. It starts pooling into dangerous enough territory that you scrub your train of thought and stare off into some far-away place. 

“We have rations for longer missions.” you say, bluntness scraping against every recited syllable. “A meal is more of a luxury and distraction. There isn’t much need for it, is there?”

The General coughs. “Well I beg to differ.” he seems offended by the very thought. “It seems I have much to prove, hm?” You’re led past the streets and into the smaller bylanes that crisscross and break away from the main road. It’s far enough in that the high pitched keen of the starskiff engines is more a distant buzz humming away at the back of everyone’s minds.

“May I know where we’re headed, General?” you ask aloud after a moment spent meandering.

He rests a hand on your shoulder, turning you into a small establishment. You smell food cooking amidst the sweltering heat on your cheeks and your nose gives a twitch. His touch stays long enough for you to turn your head to him. He’s warm, swelteringly, jarringly so and you feel an itch in your teeth, a desire to dig your claws in and devour it with a bloody sort of greed. 

One hand takes your own and he guides you to a table. “I can manage." you whisper.

He hovers behind you, the warmth retreating with his touch. “Alright.” he relents. 

A low whistle starts picking up in your ears, louder and louder as he sits himself down across you. You don’t hear him order and any questions directed were incomprehensible — garbled words sewn together then unravelled again and again and again ( “The usual?” the waitress asks ). You still answer, your throat dry. 

( There is a boy’s face behind your eyes. Silver haired with a smile too bright, too soft. He helps you tie the last knot of your brace together, thumb resting stark over your pulse. You can’t make out the rest of him. His eyes are a smeared mass of colour and his face is an inkblot. 

Still, you lean into his shoulder with tired familiarity, counting the seconds down. )

The General snaps you out of the pit with a pat to the back of your hand. 

“Are you alright?” he asks. 

You open your mouth. You have a sudden urge to tear the blindfold off. You were not fine. “I am.” you heave out, your eyes starting to burn. The General keeps his silence about him and hums. You hear his weight move and ease into his seat. You, on the other hand, keep your back straight, as is customary. 

“You can relax.” he points out. 

“It would be very rude of me if I were to lounge about with terrible posture. Especially in your presence.”

He chuckles. “And are you implying my posture is bad?”

You hitch your shoulders higher. “I am blindfolded, General. I cannot see how you’re seated to make such a judgement.”

He wheezes, covering it up with a polite throat clearing when the waitress arrives at your table with the food. You reach into the bamboo steamer and pick out one of the bao, tearing into the filling. It’s spiced and it settles hot over your tongue. Just the way you like it, whispers some old ghost and between the fluffy texture of the wrapper and the fullness it brings to your stomach, you vaguely realise this — you enjoy eating more than you cared to admit ( it feels a little like a warmth. A nostalgic kind that hurts, hurts enough to have you still mid bite and savour every instance of flavour that leaves a lingering pleasantness in it’s footprints ). 

The General does not speak all that much through this slow ritual. You’re a little clumsy with your chopsticks, and he occasionally snickers at your folly behind his bowl. The only instance he does speak up is when you’re mulling over a second helping of rice and stir fry vegetables with a rather smug; “Would you like some more?”

You jerk your head. “A little.” you confess. He gathers your dish and you wait till he hands it back to you, now notably heavier. “Thank you, sir.”

“Sir.” he repeats. “You really don’t have to be so formal.”

“General?” you prompt. 

“That’s hardly any better.” he sighs. 

“Milord.” you tilt your head.

Silence. “Absolutely not.” he states, his tone flat. 

You hum. “Sir, then.” you decide, lips pulling back in some allusion of humour. The General huffs, as if conceding to a long suffering argument ( the allusion is obvious — it’s a singular victory for you; and you preen in it ). You remind yourself to keep formalities about you. He’s still your superior in the end — indirect or not and the illusion of human company is…not an indulgence you could bare to afford yourself.

The wine, in the end, will just strip this meeting from your memories. 

“I’m happy to see that the quality of the food hasn’t changed much. It’s been well over a decade since I last visited this place.” he says. “Though they seem to have decreased the portion sizes. Hmm.”

You wipe at your mouth with a napkin. “Stagnancy is commonplace here, is it not? I don’t think there’s much room for change to begin with — save for the flux the seasons often bring with them.” you test the air. “Speaking of, which one is it now?”

The General hums. “Summer. The overhanging trees are quite green.”

“It explains the heat.” you admit. “The cold is what I’ve grown accustomed to.”

“I suppose there isn’t much to be said about the ambience of the shackling prison,” he admits. Then he adds something else, a little quieter. “You’d be happier out here, I take it?”

You purse your lips, digging your fingers a little harder on your chopsticks. The embarrassment digs in sharp as a knife now. Clumsy hands, sluggish reflexes, frayed fine motor skills ( this isn’t something feasible for an artist. How could you bend wire and slope your wrist the right way while carving? How could you run your brush in any steady proportion at all? )

“That hardly matters, sir.” you reply. “You must know well enough why I am here.”

“You were complicit in an act of sin.”

The quick response has you raise your chin. “Yes.” 

“Would you consider it harsh all the same?” 

You look down. All you see is the light and the shape of shadow. “I think I deserve it.” you mumble softly. 

The General sighs. “I think it is.” he murmurs. It’s mired with a thick weight to it, and he speaks as if his voice drowns beneath it all. You’re a little amazed at how childish that glimpse comes across. 

Once the bowls are emptied and the bill is paid for, you gather the canteen and cup and turn your head to the exit. The General’s presence hangs over your shoulder, distinct with its heat. You could liken him to a furnace or those fancy heated blankets. You could mistake him for one if it weren’t for his practiced breaths. 

“Leaving already?” he asks, escorting you out. 

“Yes. I’d hoped for a quiet afternoon.” Twenty hours left, you count. The simulated sun burns against your cheek and the General hums. 

“I’ll take you to the main road.” he offers. 

You turn him down. “I cannot accept that.” It comes out jumbled, panicked. “I wouldn’t want to take any more of your time, sir. I fear you may be recognised as well.”

He trails after you, following your footsteps like a languid cat. “I’ll be fine. You’d be shocked to see how little people recognise with none of the armour on.” you are dubious at that. It shows on your face. “You don't believe me?”

You chew at the inside of your cheek. “People hang photos of you in their establishment.” You admit. “Lady Huohuo carries a portrait of you in her pocket as well.”

The General chortles. It’s deep, chest deep and runs sweet and thick like molasses. You turn to it, something softer blooming inside. “Is that so?” he prods, still at your tail, still following your tense strides. You stay close to the walls and follow the trail it travels through, closer and closer to the main road of Central Starskiff Haven. 

“Yes.” you assert. “She’d said so herself. It’s in a portable case, for good luck — ” the words die in your throat. A cold, cold stab tears into your viscera, deep enough to rupture flesh, deep enough plant and fester a freezing chill that shutters to your peripherals. 

When did she say that?

You sift through your memories from this morning. Lady Huohuo’s voice whispering in your ear, small and terrified. Lady Huohuo keeping her distance during the walk. Lady Huohuo skittering aboard the skiff. 

( Lady Huohuo beside you, crying into her hands as the stench of ginkgo burns in your mouth. )

They start to fragment and blend and your head starts to hurt, hurt like you’d been run through with an iron pole, hurt like you’ve been shocked and jarred into this state of nausea and absence of…anything. Memories, memories, memories and amidst the screaming deluge, you surface and gasp. 

“The wine — ” you choke out. 

The General starts. “Wine…?” he mumbles. 

The wine isn’t working anymore. It feels treasonous to say. You want to tear your limbs off as your hands start to shake and the sense of sinking cuts off your airflow. You’re knocked over your feet, seated atop a crate with something heavy on your shoulders. There are things burning into your mind that you shouldn’t remember and you desperately paw away at the cracks spider-webbing past that little hole. 

“Leave.” you hiss, batting away his touch.

The General does not. 

“I wouldn’t leave you here on your own. I’ll stand by the bend — ”

“I said leave!” it comes out hysterical. The voice torn out from your chest sounds more animalistic than human. You try to measure it back, you try as much as you could but the world seems to be disintegrating. When you don’t hear the clinking of armour, you want to tear someone apart. 

Your movements are inhibited. You lash out. His hands pin yours down and you scrape your legs trying to throw him off with every workable bit of muscle in your body. The wind is knocked out of you when he twists you around, restraining your arms to your torso. You try to turn the violence against the soft flesh of your stomach. You almost do, your ears pounding. There’s a thirst for it, an awful, awful twisting deep in your viscera and it would be so easy to rip it clean out of you —

His grasp circles your wrist. You slam your head into his chest and muffle that acrid scream into his collar, digging your teeth into the fabric of his clothes, rabid, and ravenous and wrong.

The General goes still before you feel blinding pain against your neck. A blow to your carotid artery; hard enough for black spots to dance against your vision. You sway and stutter, shaken from wolf to lamb and he steadies your body before you tip forth, bile in your throat. The General catches you, and you could only just comprehend the notes of sandalwood about him.

He takes you to places; all sorts of lovely places during your breaks.

He is someone you care for, you know this. Your shifu would drive him off and you’d bring him back, as if he were a lost kitten clinging to the crook of your arm and basking in your attention. You tussle with him often, knocking your shoulders against his frame and pushing him against the grass, your laughter hidden away and sneaking past the darker corners far away from calculated eyes.

You could follow him too, in a wing-beat. He had a smile that made your insides ache, and your teeth ache, and your cheeks ache. He had a smile you greedily wanted to treasure into your heart of hearts.

Then one day your shoes are ruined by fountain water. He gives you his military boots and you shuffle about in them awkwardly, while he escorts you back barefoot. Your shifu was inside; you could see the light to his office was on. When you linger up on the threshold, you do the single bravest thing you’d done then — you, young, foolish, recklessly naive yet so, so hopeful. You kiss his cheek goodbye. The look he gives you has you still. His eyes are set ashine, liquid gold on a dark countertop with the most beautiful hunger you’d seen.

Like you’d hung the stars in the sky for him, one by one.

( Master Yingxing casts you a cursory glance when you enter. You can feel the welling levity in it, sided with his judgment. Your smile though, was enough to appease him and he tells you to eat the dinner he’d prepared. )

Lady Hanya stands above you when you awaken. Your mouth tastes of oil and you swallow the last few drops of something viscous, slickened that coats your tongue. The wine of oblivion clears away what remains in your head. Your mara calms. You are empty, mind scraped clean of rot and sentiment till you nod into the void sleepily and nearly buckle and fall back into your coffin.

She shuts her eyes. “Designation.”

You open your mouth and all you could force was a pained whimper. You feel pinned down, taxidermied and surveyed. And the memories, aeons the memories. It bears into the crevices of your mind and breaks away those hidden pieces. You’re left with its rubble and the gaping holes and the raucous madness you could drown in. Peeling the skin from off of muscle and bone feels far more merciful.

“Designation.” Hanya repeats.

You sway. “Lady Hanya. The wine.”

She bows her head down, her hair casting a shadow over the side of her face. “What a mess.” she utters. You blink through the dim lighting and shiver against the cold. You’re the apprentice and the warden melded into some unholy creature. Your body feels like something supplanted onto you, alien in how your heart beats and the way your curse beats with it. 

“Lady Hanya.” you repeat. Your vision blurs into tears. 

“I heard you.” Her voice is more soothing. “We may need to up the dosage, if push comes to shove…” she trails off. 

You crumble. Lady Hanya takes a step back. “You have a visitor.”

“I — ”

“It’s alright.” she doesn’t believe what she says though. “You have a few hours left of your day off and you have your right to turn him away if you so wish.” The dialogue is stilted. If I had it my way, she seems to say, I’d have driven him off at the door. 

You have a sinking feeling you know who it is. “Send him in.” You finally tell her. “Please.” 

She isn’t pleased, Lady Hanya. It’s in the terseness of her nod. You count to three, each number whispered under your breath while you watch the lanterns above swing. Mycelium stays rooted in the confines of your ribs and tangles into the spaces that let you breathe. You swing your legs over the edge and test your balance. General Jing Yuan walks in just as you take your first tentative step forward.

You’re not blindfolded this time. 

He looks at you.

You look at him. 

Ah.

You can’t find your voice for this. 

“I hope there won’t be any more flareups.” Lady Hanya speaks up. Jing Yuan — and you know it’s Jing Yuan with the same messy hair and the same tired gold eyes — turns his head to her with a small bow. “This is the last time we’ll consider bending any rules, General.”

“Of course.” he replies graciously. You clench your fists when she leaves and he focuses on you now, his gaze appraising. It slips into this raw desperation that hollows out the colour in his cheeks and when it starts to bleed out and spill over too much for it to be considered appropriate, he draws it away and schools it. 

“I don’t think she’s wholly fond of me.” he breaks the silence. 

You tremble. “Why,” you start, a scared, cornered animal stripped past any form of culpable dignity or courage. You, ironically, feel bare. A little like a ghost yourself. “Why do you keep haunting me?”

Jing Yuan freezes. His expression lapses to a bitter smile. “You’ve been a bit of a nagging presence yourself.” He hits back, though the statement is half hearted in its bite — if you could even say it had bite at all.  

You can’t stand it, seeing him anymore. Your head wrenches and the mycelium tightens. From the scraps you could gather between your youth and the meetings in-between, you know that benign smile he’d wear. You know it so well, down to every twitch and missable nuance and him — Jing Yuan. Your Jing Yuan. Your Jing Yuan and the recklessness he wore chasing you even now.

You suck the air in through your teeth. 

“How much….” he starts. 

“Enough.” you snap. “I know enough.” 

He tilts his head, the corners of his lips tugs against an invisible string. “I’d reasoned you’d be upset.” he expresses, a sense of defeat lade in his tone. “Well. This…is harder than I’d thought.”

Hard.

You could throttle him. You could. You could lap up that violence and this unspeakable, unnameable grief that eats you alive with this horrific voracity. You drag your nails down and mar every instance of his face bleeding into your mind before its image grows clearer. You could forget him and show him your anger and he could see what hard was in the grand scheme of things —

( Oh you love him, you love him so much, you love him and the wine took that away from you. This place took that away from you. Who are you? What are you? Where is your shifu? Where were the others? No Dan Feng had done something — you had done something and — )

“I’d assumed you’d have a lick of sense then.” You can taste the blood in your mouth. You’d bitten down on your cheek too hard amidst that storm needling its way in. “Following me around like…like…” you swallow. “You know better to, don’t you? You do.”

Jing Yuan turns his head to the side like a scolded child. “I do.” he agrees. 

You grimace. It’s the first twinge of real emotion you’d expressed so openly, the first instance of your facial muscles — dulled in sensation and movement — scaling back to show teeth and ire and every namable, conceivable emotion that singes the insides and the linings of your flesh. 

“Then why did you think this was a good idea?” you demand. I need you to stop tormenting me, you want to say. I need to forget you. I don’t want to forget you. I need to forget you. You’re not human. You’re not the apprentice. The apprentice is some forgotten story, a disgraced name under a roster of disciples and…

He looks right through that lie. Jing Yuan, ever perceptive. “It’s you.” he laughs. It comes out a broken gasp and that first crack mars that distance he puts up. It comes out wrong. “I’ve thought of you for seven hundred years. We’ve met and dined and I've watched your memories wither again and again and I've never stopped, reckless as it may be.” he licks his lips, his shoulders drawn taut. “And it is reckless, and it is foolishly sentimental but after everything else, I…”

You’ve rarely seen him so speechless. Jing Yuan had grown in your memories, changed and lived with his melancholia and the mischief he’d tucked into the corner of his mouth. Words came to him as plentiful as the Arbour cursed. And yet, yet, yet.

“I’m not her.” you state. “Stop. Stop joking about it now.” 

His smile dies. He tilts his head and takes it with that dipping sombreness and you could feel the buzz grow louder and louder, entropies within entropies in your ears and with blood in your mouth. 

“I never mentioned I was joking.” 

You clench your fist. It shakes. “I am not her.” you reimburse, your syllables running dry. It’s painful, scraping it out of your lips. It’s petulant and you sound like a broken record stuck within a loop of bland repetitions. “You’re a general. Cavorting about with a criminal in broad daylight — It draws eyes, and you…you…”

Jing Yuan pins you down, quiets the hysteria with a look. “Should I regret it, then?”

Your voice gives away. The enormity, the many, countless unspoken wants from him feel far too heavy to bear. You feel breathless, in a way, gasping for air. Jing Yuan’s expression, blank faced and contemplative, does not falter. “Should I regret it, then?” he repeats, taking a step closer to you. He draws in, his fingertips inches away. “Should I regret you? Meeting you, chasing you, lov — ”

You slam your hands over your ears. Jing Yuan sighs and pries them off, and he squeezes them in his hands, gently, fondly. 

“Because I cannot. I haven’t the heart to, selfish and greedy as it may be.” his chuckle is deep, soft, bitter. “Not after everything. Not after struggling to grant you and the others a modicum of dignity. Not after these seven hundred years of waiting.”

You grit your teeth. “Stop-”

“I’m not lying to you.” he says it with feverish earnestness. “Aeons knows how much I’d gut myself if I did.”

“That’s not the point!” and then, “You shouldn’t be here.” 

Jing Yuan straightens up, his brow pinched. “Lady Hanya made that apparent.” he remarks, threading his fingers through yours. You cannot pull away, beholden by some force rooting you to the floor in front of him. 

“Then you must leave. Please, you must leave. Forget about me, about everything.”

He looks at you, his face clouded over. You slowly, slowly draw yourself back and you feel some small, wretched part of you scream into the emptiness. Jing Yuan instinctively reaches out again, then retracts his hand, his teeth pressing up against his bottom lip. 

He whispers your name. It’s pleading and that damned word has you stop. 

“When we were younger, I promised you and Yingxing something. Do you remember that.”

The mara stirs. It’s less vengeful and more sleepy, cowed, slow acting. Jing Yuan waits. “I do. There’s little to be done there. You know why I’m here. You know what I did.” 

He finally smiles again. “So stubborn. Just like him.” he mumbles. “I could still see it through. I could arrange for a shorter sentence. I could petition for your release.” Something, anything, anything for you.

There’s a crackle, a clawing at your stomach. It sounds like a far off, unspeakable dream. Still, still a part of you, battered and worn, it knows better. It will come with its own private consequences. It comes with a side to Jing Yuan you don’t want to burn into your memory. “General, I appreciate the sentiment. But what would stop you from confining me to your estate, after?”

Jing Yuan stills. “Precious little.” his fingertips press up against his elbow, tighter, tighter. "If it means you stay…but…ah, you wouldn't want that, would you? It would break your heart." he pauses. "It would break your heart." he repeats.

“I’d best stay here then. And you’d best keep your distance. You can’t keep holding onto ghosts…” you start. “They’ll be increasing the dosage. I’ll forget this ever happened after and…I doubt the charioteers would appreciate you so foolishly running after me now.”

“Fu Xuan has had her share of headaches.” he admits with a wry chuckle. He breathes. Every drawn out instance of it brings out a shake to his shoulders. You know the ultimatum is hardly an easy one. You know this, but the silence that hangs over the two of you after makes you want to rip your eyes out. 

He reaches out and you let him. It’s warm and you hunger, hunger, hunger, resisting the urge to turn and press your teeth into the curve of his thumb. “I had to convince her of course. It took a while but I annoyed her enough with stories of our childhood to let her turn the other way for a while. Like when we’d gotten caught in the rains once after sneaking out.”

You close your eyes, leaning a little into his touch. “Shifu and Lady Jingliu were upset.” you remark. 

“And furious.” he adds with a hitch in his tone. “She had me do a thousand pushups for the rest of the night, then started sword practice early. But it was worth it. You were so upset about that hurt little finch you’d found after all and I hated seeing you so upset.” he reaches up. A thumb rakes over your cheek. 

His forehead knocks against yours. “You’re all I have left, little finch.” he mumbles. “What am i to do with you?”

You stare into his eyes neath his hooded eyelids. “Oh, Jing Yuan.” you sigh. The lantern behind him swings and you could see the blue casting on his shoulders and how the gold of his gaze cools to ombre. “You have far greater things to worry over than someone like me.”

Jing Yuan’s fingertips press against your jaw and he bends, his lips grazing and pushing again the corner of your mouth. His exhales are shaky and laboured. One kiss, another against your cheek, and finally he presses one to your lips. There’s little fanfare involved in it, and it’s chaste, quiet, desperate and it tastes of a bitter load of feelings you’re too scared to unpack. 

But it’s your first with him. You savour every instance till he pulls away. 

“I’ll do as you wish,” he concedes. He places another over your palms. “Take care” he ends it with your name. Your name. After dismantling the last facets the apprentice holds over you, you doubt you’ll be called by it again. Jing Yuan holds a tire curve on his lips, a bitter one. 

“Good bye.” you nod. “Good bye, Jing Yuan.”

He almost reaches out to you, before thinking better of it. All that’s left to his exit is the sound of his footsteps, then Lady Hanya trailing back in after. She holds out the wine and you cradle the cup in your hands.

I don’t want to forget.

You press the bowl to your lips and drink.

To be a short life species is to know grief like a bedfellow. Your shifu knows this well. He tells you how to carry out the funerary traditions from his home planet, down to the incense he wished to be lit. it’s a small request and it looms over your figure — one inevitable loss for you to deal with as his hair turns from a dark blue to grey.

If you were to die, you wonder, what would Jing Yuan do. Death scared you then, scared you more than you’d wished to admit. Perhaps a selfish part of you would have gone over to test the possibility of immortality, for a wish to live as long, to see to it that your shifu’s grave would be washed every year. It’s such a greedy want and after mulling over it the next few nights, you discard it.

Master Yingxing besmirched the idea of immortality. If you must die a spark to Jing Yuan, a quiet footnote in his early years in his ascent to greatness, you must allow it.

You cannot be a selfish person.

Then one day, you had burned away the last of your shifu’s letters to Master Dan Feng. Every detail, every document, every diary entry detailing their plans with the arbour. Because foolish as he was, hypocritical as he was, and as angry as you were as you watched it all turn to ash — you cared for him. You cared for him enough to scrape away any evidence of dishonour.

He was still the man who’d taken you in. A father, a mentor, some indescribable label that hung over the two of you. 

You cannot be a selfish person.

When the last few embers died out and you head out, out to the arbour for some desperate plea to convince him otherwise ( you needed to, you must even if you had to show him your teeth and show him your anger and beg on your knees and plead at him to stop ), you ruefully wonder what Jing Yuan would make of you. If he’d be disgusted. If he’d turn away from you. The thought is shoved back before the nausea could settle.

What a curse, love is. You think then.

What a curse.

[pranabefall]

✸ — MISC NOTICE. ; minors and ageless blogs dni. blade x fem!reader. contains fluff for the most part. first success in writing a healthy (pre) relationship. the reader is implied to have romantic feelings for blade but there's no actual relationship there. not edited!!!

“Look at this one.”

Blade doesn’t answer it, a little distant, a little absent as he lets his touch rest against the edge of the table. You give one of the snow globes a shake. “This one’s got a dog in it!” you laugh. “See? If you squint, you can imagine a mean look in it’s eye.”

His lips draw back. “I fail to see the significance.”

“Of course you do.” you reply. It’s a half there laugh, shuffled between the wrinkle of your nose and the corners of your eyes. Blade fixes that gaze on you ( dappled vermillion, blood, death ) and bends over just a bit to survey the globe. You give it another shake for effect. He lets out a short huff. 

“It looks nothing like me.” he states with an edge of finality before straightening up. “I do not pout.”

“You do! You pout all the time! You’re pouting now!”

He schools his expression immediately and you narrow your haze, whispering a conspiratorial “coward”. You set the souvenir back in place — Kafka had off handedly mentioned that you didn’t need to send anything in, and that Blade’s time with you would be a shorter stint. You often question his repeated returns to your doorstep like the dogs on your streetside. You question why he bothers.

Blade never quite answers them. He doesn’t seem to know either, his footsteps heavy and in pace beside you. “Does it not snow here?” he asks. You think you understand the curiosity there; for a place with an awful lot of snow themed trinkets for the current season, there is a severe lack of it. You kick a little at the scuffed streets and turn into your lane. There were bikes parked on the footpath and Blade shifts, keeping you in front of him and shielded from the ongoing traffic at the side.

“Not really.” you admit. “It just gets cold. On those days you get to curl up at home with tea and blankets — that’s the best part, actually.” 

“Have you seen it?” a pause. “The snow.” he clarifies when you scrunch your brows up in confusion.

“In person? Not really. And I can't afford a trip up north. Have you seen how expensive flight tickets get?” you huff a bit and give your head a tense little shake. “One day though I'll probably spare myself a trip. Maybe I’ll take a friend along and we’ll…I don’t know. Build a snowman.”

( You’re both momentarily stopped by a man to help move a few motorcycles out of the way. “There’s parking space right there.” he rambles with a vengeance, then leers down at a group of teens who approach, then bellows an aggrieved and angry. “YOU LOT — ”. You and Blade slip away after the last bike is shifted aside, spotting a passing officer rope himself into the whole mess with a plethora of tickets. The man then turned his ire on him and his "gross incompetence". )

“So you’ll build a snowman…” he quotes. You swear there’s an undercurrent of amusement there.

“A snowman.” you nod. “So have you seen it? The snow?”

Blade slips back into that hazy silence. For a second there, you start to worry. 

“I have.” it comes out quiet, soft, unsure. “It’s. Muddled. Not all there.” ( it’s the snowscape he travelled, his hands and feet bare to the elements and frostbitten. It’s the painful lungfuls and the phantom ache of his scars. It’s the mara buzzing beneath his skin and the ringing in the distance — that death toll evading him. It’s the storm on his back, burying him alive still the air in his lungs snuffs out till his dead corpse lay frozen. )

“Oh.” you drop the subject. 

“There’s more. It’s. Farther away.” He continues. “You had to go to a specific spot for it. But it caked the ground in a layer of white and the world is quiet. Still.”

You listen in and there’s a voice in your head that bids your voice to quiet down. Blade seems to sink into it, into that memory. Sink down in a way that wasn’t bloody toothed or angry. You wonder why your chest hurts at the sight of it. 

He shakes his head and blinks. “They’re just memories,” he murmurs.

“They’re still yours though. It sounded nice.” 

Blade considers you. “Then I'll take you there.” he decides. Your heart jumps a bit against that statement. You think yourself a fool.

A fool, a fool, a fool.

[pranabefall]

✸ — MISC NOTICE. ; minors and ageless blogs dni. zhongli x fem!reader. repost from my old account. contains fluff and smut so children shoo, shoo clear away, dragon zhongli i guess ahahahahaha bc we need more, just adding this in here bc i genuinely liked the dynamic XD and also i love zl and i miss zl. not edited!!!

There’s a vivid, beautiful thing about youth that Zhongli’s memories test against. He’s grown too old to, within the tragedies that spun forth like silk and poison and the bite of a blade. It is the embers spread forth round the sides of the pot, and there’s hardly much to see of it. 

Maybe there was something there. People could suspect, people could nurse those thoughts then move on from and let it be forgotten.

( That part of him has long died. It’s the rambunctious child, the testy spunk, the feel and the rush of iron and adrenaline coursing through, timed with his hammering heartbeat — and the earth would splinter. )

Then came you. You, you, you and his footsteps are lead on to follow yours. He’s a fool in that regard with the softness of love clogging up the reason in his mind and stoking the brazen parts of him that fumble and leave him flushed. But Zhongli lives for an experience and this — this he adores. The quiet walks, the lingering spice of your food, the smell of mint and herbs in your hair. 

And this,

Zhongli spreads his hand over your back. His breath is labored. His eyes on you. Indulgence, the sweet coat of peaches on his tongue. He tests his fingertips over the softness of your stomach. You are warm, real, heartbeat and all.

He dips his head down. Whispers into your ear.

“Will you indulge me?”

Your gaze draws to him. A simple “Anything for you.” He wonders, briefly, if he could have met your spirit sooner at a long passed ‘sometime’. But loving you as Zhongli, is perhaps the kindest way to love you. Because Zhongli was tender in ways he once was not. Zhongli would not tear your flesh apart with his teeth and take and take.

( Time has tempered, softened, eroded. )

“Sit up, love.”

You hum. “I’m almost afraid to comply now. Can I change my mind?”

He offers a patient nod. Your lips quirk, a little adoring, a little passionate. “Just kidding, just kidding…”. Your legs fit snugly round his lap. He marvels for a moment, rubbing down sensitive skin, kissing your cheek. “Indulge yourself. Mr. Zhongli.”

Zhongli’s gaze meets yours. His laugh rumbles forth between the kisses he steals forth and his belt coming undone with a faint clink. “Beautiful. Mine, my love, all mine…” he murmurs and for a brief moment, he pulls away just to stare, shifting you enough to drag his cock against your slick cunt. A stray whimper is drawn out. The burn in his gut demands more.

“Arms around me.”

“What are you planning?” you press up closer to him, cradling his cheek with a lazy smile. “Zhongli, love, don’t leave me in the dark.”

He grinds you over his cock again. Your back arches just a little. And maybe in a moment of brattiness your hands wander and stroke at the small of his back. Maybe you press down onto him a little too hard. Zhongli holds an unspoken credence to it. He likes your rebellion. He likes the cheek. He likes the liveliness.

It means many things.

It means pinning you back down, prodding your entrance with a teasing sluggishness. “Behave, love.” he chides.

“Not with the pace you’re moving at.”

You could barely articulate that sentence. You’re flushed and it’s adorable, how you let your lips draw back and your eyes wrinkle at the corners. “Are you calling me slow, love?” he deliberates.

“I’m calling you old.”

He leans in close. “Keep talking.” he goads, breaching through, sliding the tip into you. Your lips part. You whine, nails digging into his back. “Go on.”

You suck a breath in. Zhongli drags his cock into your walls, in and out, bit by bit till you’re snug round his length. Then he thrusts, hard, through the shaky, blubbering moans and his mind fogs over with the tight squeeze you offer and the heat of your body.

It slips something primal. It’s a rush. Zhongli watches the way you writhe below him and he has a taste of the spirited youthfulness again.

His hand slides over your eyes. He feels human skin shed and a halfway draconian vessel filter through the cracks. He vaguely registers his tail wind round your calf, his talons tear into the mattress. Your shaky fingers pry at the offending part over your eyes. “L-let me.” you beg. “Let me s-see.”

He lets you, a knuckle stroking your clit. Your touch is gentle against his horns and your sight is unfocused. “Zhongli.” you mumble. “Zhongli.” 

He whispers your name back. He keeps going, plunging into you, taking in the twitch of your limbs, your squirming, the mess you leave between your legs. You’re holding on, half of the lewd noises you let out muffled against his shoulder. He hears a plea, a soft praise and it keeps fuelling and testing that beast. His tempo picks up. You’re warm. Wet. His. 

Then you’re clutching round his cock and that cry you let loose is a delightful ring. You go lax in his arms so easily. Zhongli decides to be merciful for a moment and stops.

“I love you.” It's tired but sincere. Zhongli hums, nosing at your neck. Then slowly, his hips shift and he thrusts. You’re left giggling a little, eyes slipping shut with the fatigue and the flushed heat settling fast. You mumble a last few words. “Keep going.” 

( He is not done, Not yet ).

[pranabefall]

⠀⠀HAMARTANEIN. ⠀⠀⸺ ⠀⠀kyryll chudomirovich flins.

syn. ( wc : 22.7 ) kyryll chudomirovich flins is a kind man, you will tell yourself. he'd swept you away from the cold winter storm. he'd given you a place to stay for a time. you should be thankful; you ought to be...and yet, yet, yet.

TW. ⸺ female ! reader, yandere + smut and dark content ahead. kind of an au with a very skewed time period but still reliant on a few bits of canon worldbuilding, schrödinger's canon??? divergence??????, reader is from sumeru and has some semblance of a backstory as well, another fic where she is not daijobu at all, some allusions to fae folklore with a few creative liberties taken ( flins how tf can you hold iron- ), spectral hauntings and past references to suicide on the ghost's part, flins is not human in this fic and it shows through at times, typical standard fae atrocities(tm), past murder, this fic is 90% just the reader getting her ass haunted, references to stalking and obsessive behaviour, imprisonment and magical bullshittery, the smut starts vanilla and gets freaky as it usually does with me, flins cops a feel out of you but it's quite literally him touching your organs with fire hands, there's fire hands btw ig but the fire doesn't burn yay, is there a tag for organ touching intimacy???? i need to check.

LOG. ⸺ the amount of research i put into lighthouses for this is ridiculous. also i was bullied by my ( alleged friends ). i hope your pillows are warm ( love you ). and yes, many thanks to @meimeimeirin, @silentmoths @euniveve and @stickyspeckledlightt for being the victims of the yap ( and speckled, to you for the little lighthouse videogame XD. i could finally relate certain mechanics like the motors turning the lenses and all that in ). this work has been marked mature for containing smut & dead dove content. readers below the age of 18 / ageless blogs and antis, do not interact. PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS BEFORE PROCEEDING.

HAMARTIA n. ha·​mar·​tia : tragic flaw. hamartia comes from the greek verb hamartanein, meaning "to miss the mark." aristotle used the word in his poetics to refer to the error of judgment which ultimately brings about the tragic hero's downfall. ( mariam webster )

You’re still not used to the cold that settles in Nod-Krai.

You grew up kissed by the Sumeru tropics, after all. Warm sun, humid heat and belting rain and all the lushness and green bunched together against the crevices and roadsides of its little towns and cities and on the threshold of your grandmother’s house. 

But in Nod-Krai, the weather is something oppressively alive, densely jarring you against its unpredictability. Oppressively alive yet swathed over with a sense of debilitating sleep. It tires out and seeps away and freezes into skin and bone and muscle; singing you into a lull that almost baits you to a peaceful sort of rest. And Nod Krai is beautiful too the way the fangs of a beast are, you came to learn as well.  

You’re trembling now, when the storm rolls by and you’re stranded in the woods heel deep in snow. A part of it was your reckless foolishness — You’re on your last flame flower corolla and you’d shut your radio off, missing the usual report to stay indoors. Now you pace past the dip and over the snowbanks, trying to find the way back to the main road. The snow has blanketed the stillness around you and has covered away your old trail and the crisscross of your footprints.

You do not know where the main road is. You grip your corolla a little harder, feeling it’s fading warmth over your fingertips. 

The woods seem to have closed in around you ( it’s gotten denser, darker, darker still ) and its trees loom over with its rustled whispering. There’s nothing else to hear — just the wind buffeting past your bare face and the ebb and flow of the little lake a few sprints away as it kisses its shoreline. You could be watched between the shadowed edges. You could be dragged deeper inside its hollow body. 

( It certainly feels that way, the more you walk. The suffocation comes with an angry buzz in the air. You’re not welcome here, it seems to say. You are not welcome here, it seems to insist, as it wrangles out the breath in your lungs. )

When you realize that, it sets off an old fear inside — a familiar sinking panic that throws you deeper into that pit. You’ve ventured a ways off from familiarity. This isn’t Nasha town anymore, or the pale blue of Hiisii Island. This isn’t the surrounding countryside within the safer limits you’d wandered.

Are you going to die here? You think. A bitter taste stays on your tongue. It’s acrid, hard to swallow. You feel stupid. Foolish, stupid, reckless. There’s nothing to trace your steps back to. You can’t pick out the shape of the path in front of you. You’re tugged in too deep till you run around blind to the world you’re stumbling past and now, now you’re lost. 

( And the woods, it still rustles and it still whispers, and it still veers and goads you in deeper and deeper with its malice slickened like blood over steel. )

You want to go home, you think then. You’re weakened from walking in circles and the cold only spikes as the residual warmth fizzles out in your fingertips. The corolla is pressed to your cheeks as you try to reach out and pick into any lingering remnants just as the whistling in your ears pitches to a deafening loudness. You want to go home, to your little house and the worn-down walls you were surrounded by. You want home, and its shuttered windowpanes and the plants by the wayside of your kitchen.

Home, and even that is seized by some unwelcome, edged grimace barely a moment later. Even that doesn’t quell the ache that keeps building up in your chest.

You mustn’t stop moving. You think you could find something. Shelter, a shack somewhere. Nod-Krai is populated. There were a few scattered oddballs who lived far away from the main town and maybe just maybe, just maybe there’s a place that could let you in —

Your knees buckle. You’re on the ground, coughing.

The locals had their own horror stories to share over counter tops. Hikers going missing, who had grown too cocky and ventured too far and too deep into places they probably never should have crossed into. Nikita, who managed the library had mentioned, off hand, that sometimes the land itself seemed to persist with an old scar that refuses to fade. That the beings that lay within it could steal hearts and voices and people and return mangled corpses days later.

He had shown you the faces who’d gone missing. Obituaries upon obituaries that listed old newspapers and an even longer line of missing posters that dated decades ago. All of them smiling. All of them so seizingly alive in those photos. All of them, perhaps grieved for and loved by a family.

( “But those are fairy tales.” you had told him then, pulling the book you’d checked out to your chest. Nikita considered you, keen blue eyes raking over the spine of your book and picking into the foolhardiness that you must have exuded.

“You’ll do well to respect it, no less.” He’d said, settling for a simple warning. “It’s always the mouthy ones that get picked off first.” )

You try heaving yourself back up. Your limbs feel heavier than usual, sluggish, clumsy and slipping over and falling again and again till the panic sputters into hopelessness. You manage to haul yourself a few feet forth, leaning against a tree trunk to catch one raspy, icy breath in, then another. 

There’s no sensation left in your hands. You see white around your eyes and white everywhere. White and blurs of black swimming past your field of sight with splotches intermixed between. Your next few breaths are pained, slow. It feels like dying.

You’ll probably end up as another unfortunate instance in the end. A name on that register that could be written off and forgotten.

You wonder who’ll feed the remaining cats in the neighbourhood. One of them is expecting a litter soon. She’s taken residence at your neighbours and comes to you for her dinner despite your attempts to drive her off. Sometimes she used to nap by the overhanging roof near the shed, rolled over to the side with her small, soft face tucked beneath her paws. 

A moment passes. You try one last time — and you’re waddling through the rising layers of snow with the scraps of strength you had leftover. You’re spared a few more steps till exhaustion crushes you down. You sit back, fist deep in snow and stare up at the cloudcover. The mist coalesces, thickens, swallows you in its canvas.

It’s so cold. It’s so, so cold. 

You press your palms over you eyes and stave back the tears. Then you gather the air in your lungs. 

“Help!” you call out and it’s a soft, feeble thing. “Help!”

There’s no answer. 

You sink into your jacket, trying to huddle into the heat of your body. You can hardly see past the condensed puffs blown out from your mouth, shaking off some of the snow in your hair and staring straight ahead. There’s nothing to see past the thicket in front of you. Just more lines upon lines of trees growing closer and closer together.

Then you hear something past the wind’s howling. You brush it off at first.

And then it comes closer. It’s just a little louder. 

A crunch, crunch, crunch.

Footsteps, you jolt and sit up a little straighter. You nearly fall forward, keenly stretching out to the source of it. It’s there, masked beneath the white noise in your ears. You open your mouth and push back that lump in your throat. “Hey!” you yell out. It breaks halfway and you cough. It hacks through your body, and it aches. 

You don’t pick up on any more sounds. Then the crunching closes in, faster, a little more urgent. A thought betrays any notion of hope — that perhaps you had called on something that you probably shouldn’t have and —

Blue cuts past your line of sight. It’s bright enough to have you reel back, hissing a little against it. You could barely make out the black of the person’s boots in front of you and archons, archons, archons, the beat of your heart spikes and strays and spirals. What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck.

“Are you one of the living?” a voice speaks up. Your head swims at the strange question. 

A person. Another person. It’s another person. The floodgates batter, so dangerously close to breaking and it’s nearly too much to bear. You’re quiet for a tense few moments, clawing away at your throat to get a word out. The man paces closer. The light shines even brighter and you…you can’t sense warmth from it. You shudder and twitch away, raising a hand up to cover your eyes.

“Am I…” you start. “Y-yes. Yes I am — ” You wobble, forcing your body up till you stand a little taller. You’re still unwieldy, arms snapping up to balance yourself out and your weight tips over and you’re sent hurtling back into the snow again. The man doesn’t flinch, sucking a breath in as his hand rests on your shoulder and he takes a knee next to you. You feel the burn of his gaze against the top of your head. 

“So you are.” he muses, sounding pleased. “For a moment I assumed you were one of the graveyard’s residents…apologies, if I came across the wrong way...one can never be too careful.” You shake your head, at this point, desperate enough to blow past the unconventionality and the macabre lilt in his wording. The lights lowers, casting itself across his face and you make out the shape of a lantern and a gloved hand holding it. You squint up at him.

A pale face looks back, the kind often painted in pictures of storybooks about princes and princesses and noblemen and women. Despite it all, it’s his eyes that stick out the most, half obscured beneath his windswept hair. The stuff the colour of minted gold and marigolds.

“It’s you!” you blurt out, because you know this man. You’ve caught glimpses of him in town, slipping past the doors of the Flagship during weekend nights and skulking by the shelves of the stores with his groceries under arm. You’ve caught him at the tram lines, so easy to spot against the height he stood at. As strange a man as he was, according to some locals, you let your relief show at the corners of your eyes and the sag of your head.

The man blinks a slow, careful blink, searching you as well and he smiles ( a buttery sort, a little disarming in its sincerity ). “I could say the same.” he muses. “But this weather is hardly ideal for any conversation and…” he trails off, appraising you with a sharp look. “My residence is close by. You may warm yourself up there.”

You nearly weep. “That…yes. Yes, that would be nice.” you nod, bumbling about like a newborn. You feel bogged down like dead weight, but he pays little mind to it, easily tugging you along with him as you both trek through the building storm. Maybe it was the delirium speaking, but you think the woods slowly loosened its hold around you, making way for a route you’d missed out while running past.

“What are you doing this far from Nasha Town?” he asks when you spot a flicker in the dark and a tall, dark outline in the distance. The overhanging fog clings to the both of you, but he seems unbothered by the lot of it, his lantern held aloft. 

You chew on the inside of your cheek. You will not answer that. The idea of it makes something stir in the depths of your guts and bite into the tender flesh of it. It refuses to let itself settle past the trembling steps it tracks. The crackling from the branches makes you flinch and stumble over to keep close. You spot the man staring from his periphery.

“Hiking.” you lie. 

“Hiking?” he echoes, half scolding. You feel the weight of something settle on your shoulders. “That was a very foolish choice on your part.” he adds, but he staves back the mockery for consideration, pulling a bit of dark fabric a little past up your chin. His coat, you guess. It sits on you, heavy weighted but perfect for staving the freezing winds off.

You spy the shirt and the thick sweater he had on underneath. It still felt wrong in all sorts of ways, how exposed he looked momentarily. “You’ll get cold.” you protest. 

The man waves it off, his focus trained ahead now. “We’re close to our destination.” he assures you, hips tugging up at the corners. You’re a little taken by how awfully pretty he is. “I think I can manage. The worst of it is yet to come anyway.”

You let yourself be lead, craning your head back to catch the shadows prowling the treeline when you step out of the cover. There’s a glint behind it, a smattering of pale eyes peering over at the two of you, cast by the shadowed light of the moon peeking through the clouds every now and then. The deer do not advance any further. You see them creep over the borders and throw their antlered heads back.

Inhale, hold, exhale. You bundle yourself under the jacket, guilt chewing at your insides. It makes its home there, and a meal out of the deluge.

"Thank you." you croak out. His smile simply widens.

( And with it comes the click. A manacle you don't see, a shackle you don't hear. "Look, look, look." the chittering in the trees seems to echo then shift into laughter. "She has no clue at all, the poor thing."

You are none the wiser.

None the wiser to all of it, save the absent warmth of his body. )

The-Man-Who-Saved-You is named Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins.

“Flins, is just fine, of course.” he finishes smoothly when he turns up the heating and sets a kettle to boil. You curl up by the hearth, bitten fingertips grasping at the swelter around the grate’s edges. Some of the tension in your shoulders start easing and you turn to him, feeling a little pathetic over intruding into his space. 

( Said space is worn away, like the rest of Nasha town and its older streets. Metal walls and metal doors and patchwork panelling held together by dogged spite. But you can’t quite put your finger on the ‘something else’, a disconnect, as if it were shrouded so thick in it’s isolation, even the sun can’t quite reach it.

You’re suddenly aware of the fact that you’re in the middle of nowhere, with a man you barely know. )

“Mr. Flins…” you test carefully. You still have to grasp the way some letters here are pronounced, but you think you got this one right, at the very least. You tell him your name in turn, playing with the well worn corners of the blanket he’d provided ( hand knit from white and blue wool. It’s a pretty thing. You wonder where he got it from ). 

He tilts his head, testing the way the syllables rise and fall against his tongue. Your cheeks flush and your traitorous heart, amidst the strain and tire, still lets itself speed up for just a second ( and then it aches, it aches, it aches ). 

“I hope I’m not causing you any trouble.” you add, sheepishly as exhaustion tugs your words loose. Flins glances over, sharp, searching and huffs out through his nose, the dulled yellow of his eyes raking over your form with something incomprehensible. If you’d been a little more awake, you’d have been put off, perhaps. But that churlish, scathing side to you scolds the flicker down and stamps it out. He’s been helpful. He saved your life, you ungrateful thing.

“Hardly. I’m actually quite embarrassed with myself…” He gestures around the little living area, lit by low watt bulbs and panelled with wood and odd trinkets. You don’t see any photos, like some of the houses you’d been to. Flins probably isn’t the type to set his history on display — or perhaps there is little need to. “I’m afraid I do not receive guests often, save for the occasional shipment of supplies. I’d have cleared the room up a little, otherwise. I hope you don’t mind the untidiness…?”

Oh that…does not stave away the guilt. You’ll be eaten alive at this rate, as you brush the heel of your palm against your cheek and wipe away the melting snow. 

“It’s fine…It’s fine…I just…” your words peter out. It feels like grabbing at water, at this rate. You can find yourself thinking straight under the dizzy haze you sink into with the passing tick on the clock. “Mr. Flins, do you know when the storm will die down?”

Flins pauses, in the midst of straightening out the table. “The storm…” he intones. “In a few days, I'm afraid.”

Wonderful, you think to yourself viciously as the consequences start tearing your throat out. Swell. Simply swell. 

You muster up a defeated “Oh.” and feel that gnawing intensify and core your insides hollow. Your clothes have dried out, thankfully and your head wafts against the howling outside. Black spots start flooding into your line of sight, clearing out only when your weight starts tipping forward and you catch yourself in time.

You yelp, sputtering back. Flins considers you, his expression blank. “Well…” he speaks up, schooling his amusement. “I’ll get a room ready for you.” 

“Alright.” you sigh, defeated. You should have stayed home. You chew over it, slowly, steadily, the aftertaste leaving behind iron and bile on your tongue. “Though I’ll do just well on the couch…” And you glance over at it. You could, if you tuck your legs in. The thought of treading further into his life seemed an awful idea now, and you feel uneasiness swell up in your chest and fester around that open wound. You’re still too on edge to let yourself settle into your skin and wait out whatever was outside. 

“Nonsense. That would be improper, on my part as a host.” he states, a matter of fact finality edging every syllable. You have no more strength to argue, trailing his footsteps while he ducks into the hallways. He almost seems to melt into the shadows licking the walls, save for the occasional flicker of his shape by the dim light from the windows. You hear a switch flip and the lights flicker on.

You swallow that cloying terror and manage a wobbly smile. “Come along.” he urges, though not impatient. “You look like you’ll collapse.”

A heaving sound escapes. It rattles your chest. “I certainly feel it…” you mutter. 

“And we certainly cannot have that either.” he agrees, a droll lift to his voice. You listen for the brush of his footsteps against the wood flooring. “Here.” he stops, the door creaking open. “It isn’t much.” he admits, and some of that sheepish embarrassment trickles in. It’s disarming, the sight of it on a man dripping with platitudes and you rub at your shoulders. 

“It’s more than enough.” you shake your head, drinking the room in. It’s small, a little downtrodden but the sheets were freshly laundered and looked so soft you think you could sink right in and never want to wake. “Thank you again, Mr. Flins.”

The indescribable look in his eyes returns, keenly basing in it. It’s so stark yet so missable you wonder if you’re going mad at this rate. Your stance falters. “I should…” you mumble. “I should turn in for the night, I guess.”

“You should.” he complies quite placidly. “Do let me know if you are in need of anything. I’m making myself a pot of tea and if you’d like a drink before retiring, I’d be happy to bring a cup in.”

“Maybe tomorrow.” you shut your eyes, your lip wobbling as you sway in place. No more talking, your mind whispers. Rest, you need rest. It’s cold enough as is and even with the heating whirring through the vents, you’re still struggling to retain some of that warmth. Your fingertips are still cold when you touch them to your ears. The lobes are empty and your mouth purses ( of course they are ). 

Flins bows his head and steps back. “Good night, Mr. Flins.” you whisper through the crack of the door, staring up at him with a tired smile. 

“Goodnight.” he returns it with one of his own. You shut the door and lean your head into the old wood, taking one breath in, then letting out, then taking one in again. You pace each breath, as you’d taught yourself over the years. There’s nothing to fret over for now. You’ll need to leave the moment this storm dies down and get back into your own routine and the comforting motion it brought you.

It tempts you, that near future. But your house…

It feels a foreign thing now. You cannot imagine living in those walls, picking up the shattered glass from your broken windows. You can’t find what old fondness you had for it anymore, when you’d surveyed those walls the first time and taken it in, as small and modest as it was.

( You cannot taste that freedom it once held. You cannot taste anything. )

Your vision blurs over a bit and you pad over to the bed, slowing down when you pass the mirror by. It’s a small one, small enough to be held by your hands with the most beautiful ornate frame laid atop a small table. Flins seemed to like old things, shiny things, much like ravens flock to coins. He’s done you plenty of favours so far and you know better than to leave a deed like this unpaid. Maybe you could treat him to food at the Speranza. Would he like a Lackaberry Madame?

There’s a creeping feeling that cuts through the air around the room bit by bit. Then the temperature plunges, and you double over, head spinning as you grip the edge of the table too tight. Your lips part when your sight starts clearing out bit by agonizing bit as you feel hands pull you back and they’re cold, cold, so very cold over your shoulders and an incessant thumping over your temples. 

You cannot scream.

You try to call out, but it rams into your guts and batters your ribs. You cough, that invisible grip tightening against your heart and archons, archons archons were you dying what’s going on —

Something shifts in the mirror. You take a step back ( and oh, it’s pained agony, like you’re being stabbed at the soles of your feet ), ears ringing louder and louder as the wailing slowly starts to hitch into an agonizing chortle. You feel torn open, bloodied and flayed alive just as the alarm starts to spill into sheer anxiety-inducing panic like you’d been pushed headfirst into the freezing depths and held there flailing and drowning in sea water. Your hands jolt. Your face peers back, frozen in apathy as the undercurrent brims just beneath your skin and in the way your brow twitches.

Someone else peers back with you, pale faced and dead eyed. His hands hold you in place and dirt cakes the underside of his broken finger nails just as his gaze widens with some inexplicable manic to it. You feel cold breath against the shell of your ear, the ghost of something brushing your hair. 

“Don’t eat what he gives you.” it whispers, sharp, hoarse, cracking at the corners like his vocal chords had given way. It’s debilitating, the memory of desperation imprinted and seeped into every half whispered syllable. Then he’s gone, with the cold he brought and you drop to the floor, your voice returned to you and wailing into the floorboards like you were shot.

You can’t quite guess for how long. Time seemed to have bent and blurred it’s segments. You could make out the shape of Flins by the door and the way he eases you up as the weariness crunches down at your throat and you claw away at him with incense, then with a defeated, helpless series of warbling “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry — ” You also don’t register him leading you out of the room and tucking you into warmed sheets with practiced ease, pressing his hand over your eyes with a soft sigh. 

“It’s alright.” he soothes. “You’re quite alright.”

“I didn’t — ” you choke out, panicked because you saw something in there. You saw something in there. Flins draw his hand back and you look up at him. His hair shadows the glow his eyes held. He offers a kind smile. “I saw…I could have sworn I — ”

“I shouldn’t have hauled you up so unceremoniously.” he muses, more to himself than anything else. You’re pressed beneath the weight of a throw pillow. “Rest for now. You’re exhausted.”

You shudder. You can’t sleep. You don’t want to, if it meant seeing whatever that thing was haunting your dreams. He shakes his head. “You are safe.” he reiterates, firmly pressing your palm. You’re trembling, you realize. You’re trembling like a damn child and you bury yourself into the pillows, weeping into the sheets and your shame. 

The exhaustion was what took you in the end, quick as a flash, right into its yawning mouth. Outside, the storm still moans through the shutters.

You have another nightmare that night. 

( A person with hair like flaxen gold is seated atop your stomach with a too-sweet smile. They’re beautiful, beautiful in ways that scare you, that makes your insides hurt. It’s a haunting look on them, tragic as water drips down steadily past your cheek and into your hairline and over your eyes. You suck a breath in, insides twisting.

“I’m sorry,” you barely get to whisper as they lean forth, nose to nose with their long lashes pressed to their cheeks.

Their touch trails over your collarbone, over your chest. Then they peek at you through the locks shadowing their face, mischief on their lips, in the forest green of their gaze. The flash of a mirror shines in their hands and the shattering follows, sharp and loud. Broken glass tears your chest open with a sickening, messy crunch.

In the visceral aftermath, you can feel the blood soaking your sheets and the way your ribs are broken into your lungs and the last persistent thumps of your weak, beating heart.

You wake after that, in cold sweat, the lingering aftermath of her laughter still fresh on your mind.

And outside, the storm still moans through the shutters. )

The man named Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins liked to people-watch.

It’s the leftovers of curiosity that still pulled him back onto the streets of Nasha town during his free time, where he pored over Tarno’s wares and sorted out the pretty trinkets that caught his fancy. It was also the leftovers of curiosity that let him linger post shopping, to let his gaze rove the by lanes and the bustle at the ports.

The man named Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins knew the ebb and flow of humanity and the faces that came and went with it. He’d counted the generational lines he’d lived past and the graves bearing his familial name, for every dead father and mother of Poor Kyryll and Poor Chudomir who lived within the lighthouse. 

He’d learned the routes the tram lines traveled when they were first set down decades ago. He’d walked past this stop every new moon and caught a ride to the edge of the town where the port lay winding down a few feet past the teetering housing. This was where he’d take the ferry to Paha Island and the cemetery off-shore and his residence and its isolation.

He’d waited by the stop that day. The sun was up, dim as it usually was and the residents had thrown on an extra layer to greet the encroaching lull of winter with. His line of sight followed the people who’d walk past. And then he saw gold, on the ears of a foreigner, gold so openly displayed in a place like Nasha town and he almost laughed at the absurdity. They were a lovely set of earrings, though, he’d deigned to admit it. The metal work was delicate, and the product itself small against the centerpiece; a little white pearl embedded in the middle.

How pretty, how pretty, how pretty. The impish side of him chants and sings and giggles away with all that hidden snark. Had he been younger, a little less tempered by human touch, Flins would have followed and magicked it for himself. How pretty, how pretty, how pretty —

And then it stopped when you turned your head to lean against the stanchion by the entrance ( so tired, with your taped fingers and that half-asleep slouch to your shoulders. ). You seemed to have caught on to it and you looked around you, back a little straighter and your stance wearier — till it landed on him. You froze, swallowed nervously and you waved his way. It was a small gesture. An innocent one. And oh foolish, foolish you — you with all your blissful ignorance hadn’t a clue of what you’d done then. 

Flins blinked.

Oh.

Hello. 

“Have you slept well?”

You’d awoken in his room, you quickly learn. Flins is plain with that admission when you asked, and brushed it off as he usually did when he set your tea down next to you. You draw your legs to your chest, the after-image of gold still burned into your eyes and you fight the urge to tear your hair from your head as the shudder between your ribs grows to a rampant, hungry thing. 

You shutter, when Flins repeats his question carefully and you bite your cheek bloody for being so rude. “No…not really.” you rasp out, feeling more and more like a nuisance. It’s his room, and it repeats in your head and rattles and rattles till it festers into something deep seated and annoying. 

“Was it a nightmare?” he probes.

You swallow. “I…I guess.” It’s a slow admission and you feel stupid saying it aloud. When you’d graduated, you assumed adulthood meant growing up and casting away the childish things. The fairy tales and the anxious nag of something stirring in the shadows of your bed. The old fears that let you run to your parents’ room with babbling, warbling cries. “Nothing too bad and all. I’m just…easily flustered.” You laugh it off and lay your sights on the tea, feeling your insides shift with nauseous protest. 

Flins taps his chin. “And yet you’re distressed.” he retorts with a hasty followup: “I won’t pry. Will the tea help? Or a meal?”

No, you sound out in your head. That pale face flickers back and forth, death-like, corpse-like with its grip digging into the flesh of your upper arms. Don’t eat what he gives you. 

It’s strange, the familiarity of that warning. Nikita had uttered it once in passing when you’d checked another book in. Then there’s the bile stinging at your throat and burning your insides out. The last thing Flins needs — even as some old, dulled instinct screams at you to run — is a sick resident ( and oh, how like you, you coward to unearth the ugliness that is your own loathing ). “I…I don’t think I have the stomach for anything right now.”

The corner of Flins’ lip twitches and that was that.

Strange. Strange. Strange.

He dips his head down, collecting the cup. “Alright. A little later, perhaps” he hums, sliding the saucer into one hand. How graceful, how proper; you’re admittedly a little enthralled by the action. “I have my own duties to attend to now. If you wish, you can amuse yourself and look around. You’ll be here a while, after all.” And that smile returns, all buttery warmth against washed out marigold. 

( You want to flee into your blankets — but these ones aren’t yours. They’re unfamiliar, and you tell yourself this over and over because you are, for all intents and purposes, something alien disturbing this little corner of Nod Krai. You should never have been here at all. )

He hasn’t asked about the previous night yet. You shake your head a little before offering him a smile of your own. “I could help out around the house.” You state. “Actually, I think I will. It’s the least I could do.”

“There’s no need.”

“I must.” you insist, a plea creeping into your pitch because you can’t be dead weight, you simply cannot. “Again. I’ve barged in with little thought or care for your space. It’s only right…”

“You were freezing to death.” Flins intones, a gein hiding away rather sneakily as he speaks. “Now I doubt there’s any room to protest ill manners in a situation like that, don’t you agree?” You mouth purses and you clench your teeth when a grin threatens to pull at your face. You see what Katya meant when she spoke of him now. He’s polite, easy to talk to if not a little off. Then again most keepers like him are, living so far out in isolation.

“Do you step out often? From this island?” you ask, sneaking a glance around you. The walls are bare here too and there are more shelves, more boxes and a large desk with days worth of papers upon papers stacked atop it. Flins follows your gaze.

“Reports.” he waves off. “A nasty thing to deal with. You don’t have to bother with those.”

You huff with a quiet, “I don’t think I can help with that.”

“Pity.” he comments. “Would you like to head down to the living room?”

You shouldn’t linger and you know this. Still, given what you’d seen, leaving felt like something horrible and maligned. You…you could hear the thump-thump of your heart at the thought. But you could have been hallucinating ( you tell yourself this over and over. A figment of your imagination. That boy was never there. His grasp on you never existed. You saw nothing in that mirror; just the flayed mind of someone who has to eat her terrible choices ). Were the last few hours easy on you at all to begin with?

He helps you up and you rub salt on your wounds, hissing at yourself for it. How pathetic. 

“I can manage, Mr. Flins.” you pipe up and it’s a reedy attempt at sounding bigger than you were. He shows you the bathroom and you run some hot water for yourself, scrubbing away the stale stench of sweat off of you. You almost expect to catch a pair of eyes peering at you through the mirror or past the parting the curtains provided. There are no eyes. There are no shapes hiding away past your vision.

You still feel watched.

You hate every second of it.

But you lay your anger flat and leave it in some corner to rot into itself. Flins provides you with spare clothes while yours are put away for washing. You accept them, your cheeks burning from behind the door ( he wasn’t looking at you; and you had stifled a weak, awkward giggle; it comes out more a strangled croak ). They’re too big on you, and you’d folded the sleeves of the sweater and trousers a few times so that you could walk around with them with little issue.

He says his usual, “Call if you need me, yes?”

“I will.”

( Something is burning into your shoulders when you turn away from him. That same voyeuristic hunger, that same uneasiness lighting up and gagging you. )

You make yourself useful, as the itch compelled it. clearing a few tables out when he allowed it and washing any used dishes. The morning beat on that way, as he disappears off, probably to see to the reports and keep the lighthouse running.

From your knowledge, as limited as it was, you doubt he does leave this place as much to begin with. You can make out a few of the graves; the closer ones poking out of the haze of grey outside your window. That and the faint outline of trees bent over against the gusts that rattle by. In Sumeru, you only knew the rainstorms and how the palm trees bent over till some snapped against the sheer force of it. It was a rare moment of you facing the cold back then.

Now it’s…common.

You feel homesick, putting the washed dishes away. You miss the basking and the green and climbing the trees you did when you were young. You missed peering over walls and sorting jasmine with your grandmother. You miss the smell of the earth when the rains ceased and the momentary cool and then the sweltering heat that followed. You miss Sumeru, as infuriating as it got and you miss your family and the messiness they brought with them.

( You can’t face them anymore. Not after this. )

He has nice ceramics. The hand painted kind, locked away in a cupboard. Your grandmother loved to hoard away her good cutlery too — the nice plates, the nice glasses and when fanciness permitted it with fancy guests, the nice cutlery ( but never family, because that ease and casualness seemed to magically brush aside the metal plates passed around ). 

Your eyes land on the knives and their sharp edges ( and you remember the feel of skin and you remember the way it divots ). Your mouth runs dry and you tear your eyes away from them, pushing away those memories — all of them into a locked corner. 

You dry your hands like clockwork. They’re numb and you move to the hearth, reaching out for the warm flicker within it. The fire swells, burns. You watch it, transfixed, perhaps intent to curl up beside it like a cat and think about the sun you miss so much ( and the sun itself and nothing else even at s tails after you like a restless creature so intent on being noticed ). Maybe you can make a few games up on the spot to pass the time.

Then it sputters and the lights around you flicker off.

You almost crumble then and there, sitting upright. It’s dark, save the warm orange behind you, and even that casts its ominous shadows over the wall. And they shift, they twist, they morph and blend and melt in together and you stay stock still, bells tolling in your head as you wait and watch and wait and watch and wait.

You retreat back, closer to the light and heave a breath in. Nothing yet. Nothing too alarming. You watch the dark and you watch it hard till you feel some of your nerve start to splinter and calm. Your head hangs down and the drumbeat in your chest starts easing just a bit. 

Look at you. This is getting ridiculous.

It is, you agree, palms to your cheek. You give them a firm smack. You need to pull yourself together. You haven’t seen any sign or sight of Flins yet and you wonder if he’s trying to manage the shut power. You have no clue how the lighthouse even has electricity, given it’s so far removed from any notable settlements…

“Mr. Flins?” you call.

No answer. He’s probably a little too far to hear you. You weren’t very loud to begin with.

Your face feels bitten, pulled taut against ice water. You draw your legs back, exhaling sharply.

Then something grabs you. It holds fast to your ankle and pulls. You brace yourself as you skid into the wall, freezing in place for a bare second like a deer in headlights. You feel the way it batters against you and the white hot searing swallowed up by numbness and the blood roaring in your head. You scramble to your feet, slipping once, twice and run. There’s a scrape and scramble and the heavy footfalls that follow till it feels like they surround you and echo past the and down every turn and every bit of cramped space you squeeze by.

( Thump, thump, thump goes your heart, loud enough to mask the scratching, the soft undertone of hurried whispers echoing from the floorboards beneath you. They grow louder and louder till you fear them reaching between the spaces of wood and hauling you down thrashing and screaming. )

That chill settles fast and you push yourself off  to one side, meandering into one narrow hallway till you ram right into a snowswept Flins holding his lantern aloft. He’s shaken a moment, just as you press into the space beside him, only just catching something retreating back farther away, as if terrified of the blue light that cuts across the dark. “Did — ” there’s hysteria there and it drips out of you, in trembling, shaking gasps. “Archons what was that — ”

Flins looks eerily calm. “The neighbours.” he replies. 

“What?” you swallow, grimacing. “What?!”

“The neighbours. I do live next to a graveyard after all.” he repeats firmly. “We have residents on the island who often linger past their time. They’re rather loud today…”

Oh. Oh. You slump back, back hitting metal as you press a hand down and rub it over your face, your breaths erratic. Flins’ clothes rustle and he hovers, his presence still so cold against the emptiness of the hall around you. “I’m…What I saw yesterday — oh god I'm being haunted — ” When his touch brushes against your arm, you draw back as if shot and he takes a step away. “Sorry. Sorry I didn’t — ”

He shakes his head. “They must have given you a scare.” he notes, brows pinching just a little. “Given how they’re usually so docile, I didn’t quite expect them to lash out as much…” He pores over you while you inch into him, following the timbre of his voice and screwing your eyes shut. “Are you hurt?”

The burning on your back is starting to smart. Your nose twitches and you shake your head. 

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.” you tell him, a little too hasty, you think. “Will they keep…” you stop, eye stinging just as you dare to sneak another glance out, jumping against the slow rock of the lantern and the shape of the space seemingly distorting. “I don’t want to keep seeing them — ” Flins looks at you with something akin to sympathy, gently meandering you back to the living room.

“If you are scared, you can stick a little closer to me.” he offers. “They tend to steer clear my way…”

You sniffle. “Why?”

He offers a dry smile. “Why indeed? I’m under the assumption that I put plenty of people off.” You’re seated down on the couch, where you absently nurse your shoulder blade and hope he doesn’t notice the way you wince when you press down a bit too hard. The lantern is set down on the table and you turn your attention to that, and the blue flame dancing inside it ( it shrinks, then swells and shrinks again, dimming and brightening all at once ).

“People in town call you ‘odd’.” you concede, the pads of your thumb smoothening over your knuckles. 

“I’m aware.” Flins laughs a little. “Do you think I'm odd?”

What a question, you shake your head. Is there a correct answer for this one? Flins is expectant though, even if he turned it over as a joke. He’s leaned forward a little on his seat and there’s a prickle there that you…you can’t quite put your finger on. 

You mull over it. You’d met his gaze a few times already and you meet it now; dull yellow against the lamplight and the ghostly paleness of his skin. “A little.” you mutter. “But when it comes to speaking to you, it just…comes out…? I don’t know how to say it but…” you shrug, cheeks starting to burn a bit. You haven’t lost the taut set to your jaw. You still duck just a little when something seems to move in spots. “...It just is.”

Flins hums, seemingly satisfied and you’re left to the silence filling the space between the two of you for a little time after. The rattling outside seems to grow wilder, wilder still till you almost fear the window flying off of the hinges. He waves it off. “It’s quite normal.” he says, bent over a book. You open your mouth, nearly commenting on the poor lighting ( “your eyes will strain.” Your grandmother would say. “And then you’ll go blind!” ).

You keep quiet. It would be very rude. You barely register him saying something about fused wires, and power outages, as if he sensed your unspoken query and you wither a bit from embarrassment. 

The pelting slowly starts to slow. “It’s stopped?” you squawk out, wide eyed, a little hopeful. 

“It’s slowed.” Flins corrects. “Which is a good thing. I may not have to keep clearing the windows of the lantern room over and over…” He pauses, considering your frame, curled up on his couch. Your heart leaps; you’ll have to be left alone again at this rate and given the last instance? You shrink a little, too much of a coward to speak up while you pull against the hem of the clothes you’d borrowed.

No more ghosts, you want to wail. No more ghosts. But you ask too much of him as is. It feels like you’re digging yourself too deep into a pit to really climb out of at this rate.

“You could come with me.” Flins offers. “I’ll need to refuel the lantern again while at it and an extra set of hands could be of some help.” 

You blink and look up. “Could…could I?”

“It’s nothing too complicated. Just pouring some kerosene in and handling a hand pump.” he states, dipping into the halls. You follow him as he ventures back to his sleeping quarters, fishing out a spare coat and scarf from the cupboard after some rummaging. “It is still quite cold out.” he reminds you just as you shoot him a distressed glance. “We don’t want your tongue to freeze off. You don’t deserve a liar’s omen, hm?”

You sputter a little, your own coat clutched against your chest. 

“That’s not going to keep the cold out.”

“I’m aware.” you mumble, securing yourself beneath layers upon layers of heavy fleece. Flins circles you once, hiking your scarf up a moment then passing you a curt nod. “So all I have to do is pour the fuel in?” You run over it again, still so uncertain with yourself. He leads you a little further into the house, opening the door at what you could surmise was the edge of it. A circular room lays beyond, iron walls and all with a single stairwell spiralling upwards.

Flins ascends first and you test your weight on a step before scuttling after, stopping by the windows to watch the ground slowly plummet below the two of you. He finally stops at a circular room, walls bare and a chair or two strewn into the shaded parts. You catch a table here too and the vague scrawl of a weather report streaked across it as well as a few white shavings. “Pay that no mind.” he says, as you shift and bounce on your feet. There’s a terrible mix of nervousness and excitement welling up — heat and cold turning over and over and upheaving itself through the space between your ribs. 

He wheels a barrel over to you, patting the top of it. You pull your mittens off and stuff them into the pockets of the jacket. “Two of these into the vat.” he instructs, clipped, precise as he taps at the little tank. Then he points to something vaguely shaped like a bicycle pump. “And I’d mentioned it before, but you’ll need to pump this after pouring the oil in. twenty should do just fine. The needle should point right here and stay there.”

He taps at the gauge and turns to you with an encouraging smile. “Could you manage that now?”

Your lips purse. “Seems simple enough.” you jerk your head. “Fuel in tank, and then pump…right…right…”

“I’ll be up in the lantern room.” Flins continues on. “Don’t worry too much now. You won’t be bothered by any spirits up here. I’ll be in the next room over as is.” And you keep that bit of comfort close, as greedy as you were for it at this point. There’s far too much going on as is. The nightmare struck that match and burns your insides out and you’re stuck tripping over every corner like some quivering child.

Be useful, you tell yourself and it starts tasting bitter in your mouth. It stings into delicate skin and it lingers in its aftertaste. You vaguely hear Flins climb the ladder up as you get a grip of the handles. You’re not unused to manual labour, but the container is still heavy, nearly jerking you forward. The oil nearly tips and spills over and you throw yourself back just a bit to salvage it and straighten yourself up.

You try a second time, staggering and angling the neck of the barrel straight into the feed till you’re left with an empty vessel. Rinse and repeat and the repetitiveness offers just a little comfort as your mind shuts off and you lose yourself and your thoughts and the feeling of drowning.

You hadn’t noticed the light, the shape of it muted initially when you had deigned to glance out earlier. You were momentarily caught off guard by the clinking of machinery and a chain slowly lowering itself down, followed by an apology from Flins. By the time you hear the sack hit the bottom of the stairs, you’re done with the pumping, and turn your attention to the ladder. You can hear the winds slowly starting to pick up once more and the storm slowly gathers its battering weight. 

You’re starting to feel the iciness in the room and the mittens are slid back on to spare yourself. 

Outside, a dark shape hurtles past the gallery deck. It disappears down below.

You jump, glaring at the window in stunned silence. “Mr. Flins?!” you call out right after, alarm scratching at your throat, at the prospect of him falling. 

“Yes?” he answers, his voice far away and slightly muffled.

You heave a breath in. You were probably just seeing things at this point. Pinch at your cheek and square your shoulders. “Nothing. May I come up?” you ask.

He sounds a little closer now, answering with an absent: “If you’d like.” So you pull yourself up there and slow yourself down, a little wide eyed at the sight of the lenses slotted in the center of the room. There’s glass slid into place, turning over and into each other in a display you’d call beautiful ( and it is, the sight of it makes you a little dizzy over the intricacies ). Blue light filters through the glass, so glaringly bright and so pretty in how it dances against the edges of it. 

“Apologies.” Flins calls out, clearing the last bit of snow out. He takes a walk round the lens, his eyes a little wide as he gestures at you to follow. A knob is turned, and you watch the little bulb and the wick inside slowly light up and the room bathes itself in buttery gold. “Don’t look at it directly.” He breathes. “You’ve helped me with half the work here already. I’d have been up here a while, I think.”

“It’s quite cold. We wouldn’t want your tongue falling out.” you crack a small smile ( he narrows his eyes in a cheeky display, an unspoken “oh really?” ). “But archons this is…” You can’t find the words for it, every smart little bit of vocabulary you know, crushed underweight by something so big it wells up inside and walks against the edge of exploding. “I…I’ve never seen this before. Just in textbooks.”

The lens turns and you try to crane your head up a bit to catch the world outside from over the surrounding wall. Flins huffs, holding a hand in a gesture that is delightfully chivalrous. “I’ll have to warn you beforehand to brace yourself.” He advises,his hand hovering by your arm. You flinch when it accidentally brushes at your back, aggravating the faint ache from your bruise. He bats his lashes, looking you dead in the eye and you clear your throat.

The door creaks open. You pull the scarf up to your face ( it smells of nothing, conveniently stripped away of any sense of use or history ). The beam of light cuts into the fog before you, tearing through like a blade, like some kind of homing light that seems to span on and on till forever. “How far does it go?” you let out that hushed question, looking over to him.

“Far enough to see it till Hiisii island on clearer knights.” He replies. “It’s an old lighthouse…perhaps not as good as what one would find back in the port of Nasha town. But it does it’s job well, no less.”

“It does.” you whisper, the expanse of grey in front of you suffused in a soft glow. “And you see this every night?”

“Every night.” he whispers back. “I’ve grown used to this view…you on the other hand seem taken by it.”

“I’ve mentioned it.” you play with your fingers, tap-tapping them against your knuckles like you had too much to do and let out and it builds and builds and builds inside. “We’ve only studied them in passing in textbooks back at school. Port Oromos, back in Sumeru has one of its own but it was decommissioned before I was born and well…we just tend to pass by the outside of it.”

“And you’re from there, then?” Flins asks, looking mildly interested. It feels a little sudden as you wrestle with the door and try pulling it shut ( he steps in to, help, an amused lift to the corners of his lips ). 

“I am.” you bob your head. 

“Interesting.” 

The two of you make way downstairs, and you melt into the warmth of his home. “And you’re still not used to the winters here, it’s safe to presume.” He glances back your way, while you pull the jacket just a little bit closer to your body. You catch a few graves down below poking out of the mist’s line. It’s a strange spot to build a lighthouse. Or perhaps the lighthouse was here first?

It’s still pitch black inside and Flins guides you over back to the living area, where he nestles the lantern close to you. “Lunch is due.” he says with a small smile. “Are you hungry?”

There’s an emptiness in your stomach that has spread its teeth back while you worked. You nod. “I am…” you admit, even as the rattling warning starts up again. Flins straightens up, something akin to a hungry delight set ashine in his eyes.

“Good.”

You should have said no, something inside protests, angry. You keep it quiet, too tired and too famished to give it any sense of concern or comfort in the thick of it, letting yourself pry its gnawing teeth from your shoulder. It’s just a few days. A few days, nothing more and nothing less with a kind man — a strange man, yes — but a kind man.

You eat what he brings you, some smoked meat with a side of pickled vegetables that you carefully take a few forkfulls of, all too aware of the way he watches you as he urges you to have some of the soup as well. It’s a bit much, the attention and you reason that he’s anxious to see your reaction to it. “It’s really good.” you speak up. And it is; well seasoned and well cooked. You wouldn’t mind having more if you’d dare to ask for it. “Won’t you be eating though?”

His side of the table is empty. Flins rests his elbows on the armrest, leaning his chin into the heel of his palm ( so disconcerting yet so sweet lipped ).

“I don’t have much of an appetite.” 

“No?” you parrot, dubious. It doesn’t sit well with you. You can’t put a finger on why.

“No.” he finishes, a low, steady hum trickling into the silence. 

“Oh. Okay.” you look down, stirring your soup. “You’re a very good cook though, Mr. Flins. I’ll have to steal away a few of your recipes, I think…” Another mouthful, another spell, another wave of humming that you can’t seem to wrap your head around. You shut yourself off, too far away, maybe, to take in the almost mechanical way your body bends its joints and feeds itself. All you could feel is the cotton fogging up every inch of your head and layering itself over like molasses.

You were hungry, and somehow satiety curls its claws inwards.

( It’s nice enough to feel a hint of dazed contentment seeding itself deep, deep inside you. A whisper, a suggestion, a quiet lull. What if you stay, what if you stay, what if you stay? It’s a captivating thought, something you would have wring your hands at in any other instance. 

Stay, stay, stay. It keeps insisting and you close your eyes, swaying a bit. It sounds so far removed from the speech you know and yet, yet, yet, you know it in a way you know an old friend. Stay here.

Stay forever. )

Flins tilts his head. “I’m glad to hear that.” 

The man named Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins liked to visit the library.

He knew the man who checked the books out — old Nikita who’d once fought in the army with him, who knew better than to nod along and wave away his seeming agelessness. Nikita, who had a sharp eye and a sharper head; and perhaps that had delighted Flins with the very novelty of having a bit of push and pull and knowing acknowledgement.

He’d asked for recommendations that day, then perused through notes on modern art and photo albums littered with pages upon pages of pictures taken by those newfangled handheld kameras he’d heard so much about. He’d stalked the quieter shelves and picked out a few novellas that had gone out of print years ago, with those inky little drawings scrawled in between pages and paragraphs of stories. 

The man named Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins liked to visit the library, and on that day, he spotted another familiar face that had pattered right past him. You hadn’t noticed his presence this time and he had let himself linger about a little longer as you had tucked a light novel close with a collection of other books, so hurried and everywhere and nowhere all at once while you pulled your hat over your face and moved on to deliver your packages. 

Quaint little think that you were, with your silly taped fingers and that perpetually anxious furrow to your brow — Flins had noted the harried feeling about you being edged with something brutally desperate. It came with that sharp scent; the fear that would nestle in the ribs of wild animals cornered. He hadn’t meant to try and pry as deep into the details of it, but he’d still gone to Nikita after you had left and asked a few questions. 

Nikita was weary. He’d told Flins to turn his gaze away. You weren’t something to be toyed with and Flins knows this. He wasn’t a cruel man, by any means. Nikita knew this too and reiterated that statement — that you were a little too spread thin, too easy to knock over and break. Flins had soaked this in, and those little attempts to try and appeal to gentleness. 

He smiled at Nikita and thanked him. When the old man had looked away for a mere moment, Flins’ gaze happened upon the register perched atop, listed with library card numbers. Your collection was a little list of odds and ends and titles some of which he vaguely recognized. One made him pause.

On Folklore: Snowland Fae and other Snezhnayan Legends.

A passing fancy, he mused. Snezhnaya’s legends were legends with reason. People knew of the truth that would come with every little story uttered by the bedside and the warnings that would accompany every single one. Flins looked away when Nikita’s attention slipped back to him, probing, almost accusatory. 

( He’s whispered under his breath, that you were getting curious. Nikita had people as about old stories, but the way you had taken to him, scared, as he’d described it, was enough to set off that sense of trepidation that had haunted his own old heart for years. )

He asked Flins if he was responsible for it. Because to Nikita, Flins’ ilk were the dangerous sort. He had good reason too — he knew well how the revelry of the fae would often drive one to near madness. He also knew well that even he, and his body sewn together with flesh and viscera and the blood and face of a human man couldn’t quite shed the core of him.

Flins also, however, spoke nothing but the truth. He told Nikita he’d barely entertained your presence, if conversed with you at all. And Nikita bowed his head and sighed ( he was tired, from a lot of things ). Flins offered his regards, gathered his material and left for the tram stop. His assigned day off was coming to its close and he had his work to see to, in his isolated little territory.

Then he slowed.

Ah, he had realized then, rather belatedly — and it sparked a string of pity there when the uncertainty you had held yourself with stricken his field of sight. Your earrings were gone too.

( They are back in your dreams. 

They pull you into the deep end of it, curtailing their breezy laughter as they take your hands. The water — and this is when you notice the lake, comes to your knees and it rises higher and higher the further out they lead you. They don’t speak to you, an analytical shine sparking in their gaze, as if cutting you apart and baring you naked before them. And you hate it. You hate them. You hate, hate, hate.

You try to pull away but their nails dig into your wrists. You gasp; it’s a deep, rasping cry and it strangles at your chest when it lets itself out. The trees around you start to blot into itself, nothing more than spurs of inkblots speckling out amidst the grey and white and this person — the creature only smiles wider when you let that terror be known. It’s all wrong, your thoughts slur. This is all wrong.

You stretch on till it’s up to your hips, then your waist and they go on deeper and deeper still. Your feet dig into the mud. “No — ” you hiss out, eyes stinging against the cold that pinches at your cheeks. You feel how the blood starts rushing into your face, into your stiff limbs and the creak and rattle of your joints as they start freezing over. “I’m not going there.” You speak up again, you assert, snatching yourself back.

The creature’s expression shifts to contemplative blankness. The apathy makes you pause just before you turn and try to wade out, breaths falling short just as your body starts shutting down. You’re pulled back and you catch the gold of their hair by your cheek for a speck of a moment. Then you’re under, water rushing into your lungs.

You flail against the ironset of their grip. It’s inhumanly strong, dancing close to breaking bone. You scream, scream and scream and fight and bite and scratch against the pale expanse of their skin and they only push you deeper and deeper till your vision starts to fade out.

You caused this. You caused this. You face it.

Then you are pulled back up, coughing and limp and all you can see is blue — blue everywhere as you’re cradled by too-cold hands. You feel lips slant upon yours in a way that’s starved out and wanting and you know the dread that claws its way in all too well. Push back, push back, push back And you try to as the sting in your eyes turn to tears. The newcomer doesn’t budge.

You aren’t drowning anymore, you hush. So you let it be. )

“I still can’t radio anyone from the mainland.” Flins tells you after breakfast, his hair tied up after clearing away the bits of frost that had stuck itself onto it. You’d taken residence on his couch now, worn down and pulled taut — just in view of the outside world and the storm that still beats on. “The lines must still be down given the state of things and the weather. Maybe when it clears a little more…”

You hold fast to the pillow, taking it in with a sinking down to the very pits and in-betweens of you. “Are you disappointed?” he asks, a half-tease testing the silence. 

“No…well, yes.” You bury yourself into the pillow, feeling fatigue gnaw at you till you start teetering forth. Flins reaches out, steadies you and gently pushes you back against the couch ( and the gesture comes so naturally. You’re honestly a little abashed with a lick of defeat edging itself in ). Your back stings in protest and you right yourself up into a position that is a little less painful. “I feel like i’m overstaying at this point, and you’ve been so good to me.”

“And…?” Flins urges, plucking away at the ties and buttons of his coat. You have far more to say and he has an uncanny habit of knowing. For a man so isolated, Flins scrutinizes the world around him with an uncanny amount of veracity that puts you off. Or maybe you have let yourself steep in assumptions — and you’re more inclined to the latter.

You trace the hem of the pillow. “When you come to town next time, you can come visit me at the library Nikita runs.” You tell him. “I need to buy you lunch. Many lunches, in fact.”

“Next time.” he repeats, an odd look in his eye. “And will there be candlelight?” he asks after, the ghost of a smirk playing into the impassivity on his face. 

You sputter. “Not unless there’s a power outage.”

Flins hides a chuckle behind his hand. “There won’t be any need for that.” He says with a heavy kind of certainty. “But it is a kind offer…what other plans do you have once the storm clears?” And oh that has you blinking over at him, a little jarred by the suddenness that enquiry brings about; or rather, your inability to formulate any other coherent thought. A part of you, something so quiet and childish curls up. It’s a stationary creature and it clings on fast to the disjointed routine you have started here.

“I’ve not thought beyond that.” you say it before you could stop yourself. You feel punched in the gut. “It’s not been long, I know but — ” you struggle, cheeks starting to burn. It’s so foolish, this attempt at grabbing at things like a petulant little brat.

“That’s alright.” he flicks his head up a bit, his gaze luminous. You can’t tear away from it, or the sinking in your gut. 

After a while, you prod again. “Won’t you be eating, Mr. Flins?” you curl up, knees to your chest. “You didn’t seem to have breakfast today either.” And he didn’t. Last night, on your request, you’d moved a pillow to the couch to not inconvenience him any further ( even if the rest of the  night was restless ). His rest is important, and the room was the closest to the stairway and when you’d awoken and eaten what Flins had offered, he made no moves to join you at the table, save for watching.

It doesn’t sit well.

He’d seated himself down on the chair across you, something of a silent watchman and he’s bent over with a carving blade in hand, chipping away at a small white piece. “Hm. I ate what I needed to eat earlier.” His eyes shut and his breaths are low, almost missably quiet. “Please pay it no mind. My eating habits are a little jarring and unreliable at the best of times.” And there’s a matter of factness in how he says it.

“Okay.” you mumble. “And what are you doing now?”

Flins holds the object up. “This?” You eye it, picking out the smoothness and its shape as it presses into the palm of his hand and the clasp of his fingers. You couldn’t quite put a finger on it, on what it was at first. Not till you push past the sleepiness to rise from the couch and pad over to him with a sheepish little “may I?” His gaze crinkles at the corners and he complies.

“This is…a bone.” you blurt when he hands it to you and you test the weight of it. There’s one side to it that opens up into a hollow curve and a faint resemblance of a skull. 

“It is.” Flins nods. “When you walk over the beach, you often find fragments of whalebones washed ashore. Some of them span larger than the boats that occasionally pass by. While I do let those ones be, there are some that are just the right size to make something new out of.”

“I mean…” you reason, handing it back to him. “I’ve known people who collect twigs and acorns and make little people from them.”

“Then I suppose it’s just a difference in material.” Flins finishes, enjoying himself a little too much, you think. 

“This doesn’t look like a whalebone though.” you note. It’s too small and much too light to be one.

“Oh no.” Flins shakes his head. “This one is an Ibis. You can see where the beak was over here.” He shows you a chipped away part, filed down carefully till the cracks had given way to a somewhat sleeker finish round it. “It wasn’t a whole skull when I found it. The rest of it must have been taken by the dogs.”

Despite yourself, you find yourself asking, “What else do you have?” It keeps your mind off of things, and the looming that traces your footsteps and shadows your movements. You’re a little too soft hearted and scared to tell Flins that you couldn’t stay here, not when the dead are turning in their graves and deriding your very presence.

( And the nightmares too, and the way they come to weather down and erode the corners of you bit by bit till you lose your sleep and you lose your senses. You want to tear the skin from off your arms, to gouge your eyes out as the phantom feel of your lungs collapsing into your chest continues to persist. )

“Hm.” 

You didn’t expect the collection to be as expansive. Flins has a little work station dedicated to displaying his bone puzzles, some of them a mismatch of species slotted together to make new ones and others bearing carved models of birds and animals trapped mid-flight. And all of them, every last one, were whittled down from bones.

He places his lantern down and points to a few, ever so polite, ever so proper with explaining things. A couple of them had ornaments decorating them. Little bits of metal flicking their feathers or small gems in their ribs ( you are admittedly a little smacked at the sight of a pair of brilliant sapphires; just a little bigger than a ball bearing, affixed in the eyes of an eagle ). But strange hobbies in isolation aside, they’re well made, well crafted and you balk at the detail put into it. 

What a strange, strange man, you muse to yourself. It explains some of the antiques and the plethora of odds and ends that lay scattered across his shelves and tables. “Do you collect gems too, Mr. Flins?”

“I often do, yes.” He shows you another. This one simply holds a chain round its neck, more a display than anything else. “Have you come by Tarno? I often go to him to occasionally buy myself a thing or two when I receive my monthly salary. You can find all sorts of things on his shelves. Books, showpieces, uncut gems, jewellery…” 

Tarno. That name guts you, and your smile freezes into the shape of your face. You can't bring yourself to say it, while Flins seems lost in his own thoughts; his touch sweeping over the wood surface and past another line of carved pieces. You know about the shop he’s talking about. You've been inside. You've walked out with that pocket of grief, lodged deep into your heart. But Flins is Flins; and you've never met him in person. He wouldn't know.

“Can’t say that I have.” you slowly work away at some chance to move away from this conversation.

Flins however, seems intent on keeping it up. “I recently bought a few things.” He continues, pulling away at the drawers to produce a little casket. You can’t bring yourself to look at his face, catching the rustle of fabric and the faint clink clink clink of metal and beads. Then you feel his touch on your chin, soft, deliberate as he holds something to your ear. “I’d noticed they were pierced.” he tells you and there’s a hushed sort of tremble buried deep down. “These suit you well.”

The lantern light seems to swell into a brighter glow and when you blink, it shutters and dims. He draws his hand back. You see gold-work, twisted into a loop, a circle encasing something round and small. A pearl.

The floor falls away. There’s the feel of a yawning chasm eating yourself through from the inside, something so akin to numb emptiness and your jerk back, nails digging into the flesh of your palms till you feel wetness crest into the pads of your fingers. “It’s lovely.” you force out.

Flins watches you, silent, waiting. You tell yourself he couldn’t have known ( he couldn’t, he wouldn’t. You can’t be certain if this would count as betrayal but that gesture would have shattered you and left the fragments to rot away in some dark space ) and you lie and lie and bite your tongue and call yourself a stupid thing for lapsing so easily. “It is.” he agrees. “Tarno told me they were cared for.”

They were loved, he seems to say. They were loved. And they were, you want to nod. You’d treasured those earrings, you’d treasured them and the memories they came with. You treasured it in every instance, with how you kept up maintaining its shine for years. And now it’s bitter fruit and something, something that makes you sick the longer you stare at them.

Why does he have this. Why does he have this. Why does he have this. Why does he have this.

“I’m tired.” you whisper to him, as the room starts to shift in and out of sight. 

“Tired?” he echoes, his voice distant, dipping down to a staticky baritone, his stare flickering, searching. “You do look exhausted.”

Flins lets you go. You didn’t sleep all that well the previous night anyway and he stays behind to put the jewellery away. You can’t shrug the burning on your back; both the bruise and the way he surveys every little shift in your muscles ( or at least, you think he is ). But it’s Mr. Flins. The same Mr. Flins who had taken you from the cold. The same Mr. Flins who let you stay.

You’re being rude. You shouldn't have snapped like that, like some wounded dog, like some unresolved idiot.

But the earrings. Oh the earrings. You’ve had them since you were a baby, bought for your first birthday with your grandmother’s savings. It’s such a materialistic gripe, but it’s also the love that had littered itself into the years you’d spent wearing it. They were all you had till you were in your teens. They were all you had when you came to Nod Krai, so naively insistent that you could live on your own.

They were all you had of her. 

( And then those greedy eyes had set their sights on it and kept trying to snatch, snatch, snatch till your cupboards were overturned and your face and neck bruised and bleeding. Nostalgic sentiment, you quickly learned, was not worth your fracturing sanity. You’ve come to regret it since. )

There’s an eerie chill that you don’t quite register, with white noise flooding in and your lips being bitten raw. And then you see that ghost again, watching from a corner. There’s no accompaniment of fanfare or the usual violent terror, save for him wafting in and out of sight, his features diffusing further and further into obscurity. You can only make out the shape of his scarf and the messy state of his clothes.

He brings the winter cold with him. And then a despairing absence of it after, ribbing you of sensation for moments at a time. Cold then not, cold then not. 

And he seems to be watching you. Watching, empty eyed as if he could reach into the spaces between your ribs and perceive that swell there, that unhealed cut, that puss ridden centre that keeps you awake and hurting and empty all at once. His garbles are nothing more than muffled distortions, like he was trying to call in from a badly tuned radio. They peak into urgency, then stop with a helpless lilt.

And you watch him back, waiting. You wait for the voices, for the mounting weight. You dare him too, wound up, ready to fall apart and break your skull against something because lords about there's too much to think now. There's too much to think.

The boy draws back as if shot. He dissipates and you breathe.

You’re tired. And it comes down hard when you slip back onto the couch, holding your head against the rise and fall of your chest. You see the dozens upon dozens of shapes drawn out into the mist and the way they seem to dance against the wind and the snow’s pelting. And you see how it circles, how it comes in closer and scurries back.

Your mouth twists to a grimace. 

You sleep a few hours, your dreams disturbingly empty. When you wake, Flins brings you dinner, content with the silence and the seeming layer of tenseness it runs thick with now. You could liken it to rotten fruit or stale honey and you eat the food with that hysteria slowly starting to clatter against your insides. 

Flins doesn’t touch his food. 

The man named Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins liked to buy antiques.

He wasn’t picky on what kind — so long as they held weighted sentiment and a story engraved into its body. Rusted coins, old shoes, bracelets and stones and stamps and books and cowry shells strung together with string; Flins would set his sights and pass his mora over the table. He’d decorated his lighthouse with it; spruced up what Illuga and Nikita called the perpetual doom that clung to the walls and ceiling. 

Sometimes he came across particularly beautiful pieces. Watches, for one, that had stopped at certain times ( Flins took to collecting ones that had stopped at every different hour. He’s yet to acquire a few but it was a growing collection he was pleased with ), and lovely looking cufflinks with silver finishes that glowed like moonlight. He would fuss over them like a magpie with its horde and he’d survey the shelves for more till he’d satisfied that itch.

The man named Kyryll Chudomirovich Flins liked to buy antiques. This time around he’d found a few gramophone records, all of them tunes once played in the old courts of the Belyi Tsar ( as monotonous as the droning of cocktail parties were, Flins had come to see how easily history would fragment and die away with its passage. Plenty of music had failed to survive past the Tsaritsa’s ascension decades later ). 

He didn’t have a proper player but on the occasion that he did come across a working model, he would be delighted to listen to some of those songs again. Tarno packed away the discs and in the meantime, Flins counted his mora, till his prying eyes laid upon one of the displays with its multitude of jewellery. 

Tarno must have smelled a new opportunity for a sale and brought a few of them out. Some of them were Liyuen hairpins plated with gold and jade. Some of them were brooches worn by ladies in the Fontanian courts. But he zeroes in on one that Tarno produces. Earrings with the gleam of pearl slotted in a cradle of gold. 

Now that he could take a closer look at it, Flins could pick out the way the gold was worked into the semblance of a flower. He didn’t quite know how you’d come to acquire them; Tarno told him that they’re well past a decade old, from what he’d gleaned. And Flins could imagine you growing into these. Something whispered in with so much love he could taste it on his tongue. They’re well cared for, Tarno had said with a pleased look. And they were and they were lovely.

Flins turned them over, and marvelled at they way they caught the light, at how small they were and how his heart beat with a visceral sort of greed that he’d often chided away into silence. He wasn’t something the wild had spat out; not since the dregs of his youth where mischief came so much easier and so much more viciously as Kyryll the Azure Flame. 

But he could have this at the very least. He could have this piece of you here, and the thought of it was, in a way, an exciting one. It took more mora out of his pocket, and he reminded himself to budget a little better next time — no more impromptu buys, Kyryll and he tucks those earrings and the little velvet box they were housed in into his coat pocket.

He’d often stared at them, trying to rummage through the noise that layered itself over the years upon years it had. Sometimes he could see the afterimages of you and the smell of summer and the crinkle of a smile he never quite had the chance to see and oh, oh, oh, that greed would return and bite away like a rabid animal till he’d shut that lid and cut away those traces. 

He couldn’t imagine why you’d sell something like this. But that child, perhaps could have danced a bit too far past a certain line, with that same reckless passion that sparked in the midst of his flames once. You probably didn’t like their games, with how your fear had muddled the aftertaste with sharp iron on his tongue. 

But oh you were so warm too, so very warm. Kyryll could drink it in; every moment of it. But for now, the earrings stay here, locked away with the rest of his treasures. In a fantasy, he could return them to you and you’d be pleased with it and Kyryll could live with that instance locked away in his heart forever. 

The storm starts slowing over the next few days ( and so do your nightmares ). 

It’s come to a point where you can catch glimpses of the cemetery outside, with its snow-capped graves and the scattered budding of frostlamps just beneath the windowsill. For once, you tug away at the fogginess clutching in your head and the perpetual ache your chest thrums with, just to press up against the glass ( you count the minutes in between every spurt of snowfall with bated breath. They’ve started stretching out longer and longer ).

And with the fog clearing, you had come to see, are the shapes sputtering in and out of view. Some of them are solid. The blurry, stiff figures of woodland creatures who tease around the edge of the island itself. You see how a few patter up the straight from the Maroon Basin, curious, oh so curious. And then they run; every single one of them, like this place itself compels the very stench of fear.

It’s the deer who are the most cautious. You often catch how they corral at the border and simply watch, too far for you to really see the look in their eyes. But you think it to be wide, a little lost, a little scared. You don’t understand why that is. 

( A lie. Yes you do, you do, you do. You’ve seen this before, with the cats back at Nasha town and how they meandered away from you one day. You’ve seen the terror in their little faces and the taste of heartbreak so strong on your tongue. None of them ran to you, anymore. None of them save for the mother cat who’d curled up by your shed with pathetic eyes.

By then, all you could do to spare yourself, was drive her off. )

It’s not the ghosts. They peer up at you from the outside too, shifting in and out of view with haunted looks on their faces. The animals do not run from them. They draw close, as if to find a scent they can’t quite match to the still, human figures that linger on by and dot the beach and the space between the tombstones. And the ghosts throng in and around the lighthouse like moths to a flame, locked in their soundless screaming.

Flins has already started taking rounds, collecting fuel and tools from the shed and a spare lamp that he gives you when the night starts to draw. The thousands upon thousands of gazes in the dark would disappear under the blue flame he carries.

“Just in case,” he says, when he steps inside and sheds his coat. “It can keep you company, if you get scared again.”

You wrinkle your nose in a gesture that’s tired but playful. There’s still an air of awkwardness hung heavy between the two of you. You don’t quite know how to break it down any more, even after the shamed apology you had given him a few hours after the incident. But Flins, ever gracious and a bit too sweet-hearted, let it be. 

Flins, Flins, Flins. A strange man, a distant man and you can’t quite look at his face anymore. It’s the most foolish, most stupid thing you’ve felt so far with how unfounded and unnecessary it was. It’s just nerves, it’s just panic, it’s just you slowly going mad, it’s just you imagining things that aren’t there at all. “...I’ll keep that in mind.” you call to him as he passes you by. “But I hope this won’t come across as too jarring, sir but…” you stop. Your tongue twists itself into knots and you wince. “Well I — I…I wanted to ask — ”

“Yes?”

Don’t ask, a raucous, angry thing hisses. It tries to steal away your voice until the thought dissipates. “Since the storm is starting to clear.” You continue, and you curl your fingers around the lantern handle a bit too tight; tight enough till your knuckles start to pale. “I — I think I should leave.”

That snatches his attention back to you. Flins turns and stares, face dappled in blue. “Leave…” he echoes. You can sense something unspooling in the way he said it, furrowing his brow as he glances outside. He seems to be taking it in; the receding whiteout and the earth unfurling beneath it. You play with your fingers, and you feel a wrongness all over. 

“I know.” you mutter, gathering yourself together. “It’s quite sudden but I can’t keep staying. You’ve entertained my presence for long enough and well, I think I’m starting to come off as more a nuisance than anything else…”

Flins gazes at you, unblinking and there’s a stirring that you can't keep ignoring. It scratches at the edge of its cage. It warns you to run. “Is this about the earrings?” he asks carefully. “Or the ghosts?”

You jerk back. “W-what? No, no of course not! I’ve been out for long enough. Heavens I have a job to return to, too! They probably think I'm missing or dead — ” Who, who precisely? You aren’t sure if you last in Nikita’s memories, or anyone else’s for that fact. It’s simply a facet of you; someone who knows all too well to disappear in and out of obscurity. You don’t like the way that hesitation slips past his expression, or the tightness round his jaw. 

“There’s still some time left before it calms.” Flins finally says, clipped and sharp. “Rest, till then.”

You take a step forth. “I’ve just woken up.” you point out. Your hands are trembling. “It’s fine, we can talk about…” you swallow, shrinking away from him. “...whatever it is you want to, right now.” It’s that stubborn insistence that makes you want to twist yourself up inside out. But you cannot falter now, even if he’s acting so strange. 

“And simply running off into the wilds won’t bode well,” he says. “The waters are still choppy and the mist still hangs overhead. Sending you out now would be far too much of a risk.” And you can see the reasoning behind it all. Of course he’d worry. Of course he would, even as you feel that tinge of dread creep in. There’s a buzz in the air you can’t quite name but oh, had you missed the signs? Had you missed the little tells?

So you try to be gentle about it. “...I’m honoured to know I’m worth your concern, Mr. Flins,” You start. “But I barely know you as is. I think I've far overstayed my welcome. I must go soon." 

It’s just Flins, you remind yourself. Just Flins, who had taken you from the storm. 

Somehow even that is slipping away into a darker, messier state. There’s a finality there, steeply simmering in the yellow of his stare. The tightness melts and he’s soft cheeked ease all over all while he closes the space in between. The gifted lantern is set aside and his hand sweeps up, lifting your chin with just a slight touch. You shiver against the cold tingle it leaves behind.

He speaks with that same levelled, cool tone; your name whispered in the tail of it. “You’re still exhausted.” Your eyelids start to droop and you feel your senses start to clog as if you’re strummed to some inaudible tune. “Ah, look at you. Sleep for a while; we could think about everything else a little later now…” 

You’re guided to the couch and you’re there but not there. You curl up, back to the backrest and Flins brushes against the healing bruise with a click of his tongue. You passively try to push him away and he complies, still watching with his silence as your limbs seem to be pulled tight against inaudible strings and your body crumbles to a whistle in your ears. 

Teetering off into dreamland comes easier. 

( Flins often told you stories to pass the time through the past couple of days. Folk legends and fairy tales, some of which were tersely macabre with their endings. He often delighted in your questions, his voice lilting to something lighter, airier when he would recite the spectacle in the old Tsar’s court and the revelry that would sweep away unsuspecting mortals from their homes. There were spirits too, spirits who threw windows open to abduct sleeping children from their beds.

“You can guess which ones the parents were fond of telling their children.” he added in between, stirring some tea in for you. 

You laughed. “Did yours?”

Flins simply smiled, pouring a single cup. He’d settled for some wine for himself after offering you some — which you politely refused and you watched the way the deep red of it turned translucent when he’d held it up against the dim light outside. “Alas, bedtime stories were not a staple in my youth.”

You took a sip. And you thought there’s something lonely that had taken its roots inside Flins, when he’d peered out into the expanse of white outside the window. Yet, you think, he seemed happiest this way; content with his distance and with being the singular resident on this island with nothing but the waves for company. Then you can’t think of anything else past that, entrenched in a sea of cloying tartness and cotton wool.

How nice, you mused to yourself, shutting your eyes to this singular memory. “Did you have someone staying with you, once, Mr. Flins?” you asked. “Given there is a spare bedroom.”

“Lighthouse keepers often came in pairs.” He confessed. “I suppose it was built with that in mind.”

“And the graves outside?” you did a little tap-tap against the rim of your teacup.

“Previous residents. They’d often be buried here as well.” You must have made a little face then with how he hid away his humoured smirk. “To be fair it’s a lovely burial spot around early spring. The frostlamps would glow a most lovely shade blue and you could see them stretch on till the cliff edges in whole swathes.” He takes a sip of his wine after twirling the glass. “And the auroras would streak across the skies above it. Have you seen them yet?”

“I only moved in recently.” You admitted. “And there’s too much light pollution around Nasha Town to really get a good look at them. All I saw were bits of grey…” The lantern sputters. You could see how the dark around you licks closer still, teasing the heels of your feet and your periphery. 

“Ah.” there’s a distorted blanketing in his speech. There’s a thump in your ribs. A wrought whisper freezing the shell of your ear. “Then I ought to show — ” he’s cut off by that feel of being immersed underwater, of your senses shutting down bit by agonizing bit till the panic lilted garble turns to clear words. Flins is nothing more that a disjointed, muffled call in the background.

Wake up, wake up, wake up.

Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up.

There are a thousand hands pulling you farther and farther away from the memory and it’s fizzled out outline. Wake up, wake up, wake up it continues the resolute chanting and there’s something pulling at your teeth, at your jaw, trying to coax something out of you. It starts fragmenting, the aftermirage of old festivity and the grasp of something tugging away at your mind. 

You struggle and struggle and struggle.

And you wake. )

The boy is hardly noticeable when you see him. Your nerves are set alight and you stumble past, nails to your cheeks when the effects of whatever had compelled sleep into you, forced it into your body starts to dissipate. There’s still the fallout in how you feel close to collapse, some parts of you still yet to catch on to your wakening. 

Breathe in, hold, breathe out. Your grandmother’s voice cuts in this time. You’re close to drawing blood and breaking skin and you sit up a bit straighter with a pained sniffle. It’s an awful sort of drop in your stomach, the kind that follows the tail end of something so dopamine inducing and then being left to recover from that plummet when the world settles around you. You shut away the sweetness on your tongue.

You fix your focus on him and how he blurs in and out of the walls. There’s so little detail left to garner; just the shadow of a face and a few wisps of hair catching itself the way the sun would have if he were solid. A bowl knocks over, then a plate and you could tell the fury in every gesture. You flinch at first, then square your shoulders and grimace.

“What do you want?”

It’s not a brave demand. It’s strained. You feel like you’ve been drugged; but you know you’re not. It is something that runs so much deeper — so, so much deeper.

You know it. You’ve felt this once, before. The shutting away of sensory input, the euphoria encroaching spaces it shouldn’t. 

Flins, Flins, Flins who never ate, who never seemed to sleep, who seemed to roam against the wilds as the animals cower away from the very presence of him passing through and the cold he carries under his flesh. What the hell is he? You’re gutted by that awful feeling, a mockery, a chortle so perverse it drives that statement deeper still. You know the answer to that.

The boy steps closer, urgently dancing just shy of the hallway. And you follow, beholden, perhaps by your slow realization. When you pass the kitchen by, you slip in and out, knife in hand, the feel of it heavy and familiar. The lantern is held up, heavy and debilitating in the other, lit up with yellow fire. The boy lingers, stepping out then down the halls. He disappears and you startle, chasing after. 

You can vaguely hear the pull of chains. Flins is up in the lighthouse.

You suck some air in through your teeth and speed up, weaving down another turn. The boy stands stark by a door. His study, you recall belatedly. You’d been inside it for a fraction of an instance to help sort past a few old files. It’s where he did most of his bone carving and most of his gem polishing. But the boy is insistent and the death in his eyes seems to glow like a pair of lamps.

“What if he finds me?” you ask.

He speaks. You cannot understand the fuzzy static that he tells you. So you follow him, past the door. It’s dark and the walls are cold against the brush of your shoulders. You grasp the handle of the knife just a bit tighter. It’s the same as it always was when you pore over the sight of it. An old table, a chair, a few bits and pieces of half finished projects and the starched white sheet that was spread over the tabletop. 

The boy leers and you question yourself, if trusting him was ever a good idea.

Then again, you trusted Him.

You feel so foolish. But you cannot scream that frustration out.. You cannot shed your tears. You’ve eaten his food, you’ve given him your thanks and if he were, if he was one of them —

You find yourself reflected against the glass of his cupboards. Faces stare back, ashen, dead, in wait with their pale fingers tangling and pushing you along and away, deeper and deeper inside. The boy circles around one spot, as if possessed by a feverish daze and then he’s gone, with the shine of his hair and the last few imprints of his scarf round his neck. 

You stumble forward. You can hear the beat of your heart in your ears. You can hear that rush of blood.

You come down to your knees, lantern set down and you drive your knife through the floorboards, puppeteered by some unseen force that whispers its suggestions and carefully directs your hand. You can feel all those presences, all of them patterns d crowd closer and closer and closer still and you can sense a pressure throw itself over your shoulderblades.

The wood comes undone after some tugging. Your nails scrape against the surface, and you pull as hard as you can. It shutters and falls back into place, nailed hard. You try again, pulling, pulling with all you could muster and there’s a crack. It falls apart and you are met with a finish of packed dirt underneath.

Dig.

Dig, dig, dig.

There’s fervour there. Your veins burn hot, like you’re being boiled from the inside out. You dig, catching the mud beneath your fingers and scraping your knife against loose rocks. You dig and dig and dig through, even as your wrists chafe against the wood and your digits grow numb. Your face is flushed, a hot-and-cold sensation that seeds itself in and flowers into being.

You unearth a bone, caked in dirt. A tibia, then the remains of the skull and the rest of the fragmented skeleton just peeking out of the damp earth. Your lips part, brushing away some of the soil to pull out the tatters of a knitted scarf and the worn down, mud caked bits and pieces of clothing. The crying around you, the audience to all this hitches up to a deafening howl.

Then comes silence, the lingering notes of panic and the stuffiness of the room is replaced by heat.

Flins takes a knee beside you. “I must have missed this one.” he eases. ‘And you…” he observes you, how you turn your neck to stare with twisted horror. “You were certainly not supposed to see this, silly girl.”

Not you, you want to cry out. There’s instinct biting into your core and it tells you to scramble away, and there’s terror that tells you it’s pointless because you know, you know how strange magic moors you to this spot and keeps you still. “It’s him — ” you choke out and the knife comes up, barely held in your shaking hands. “What did you do to him?!”

He looks hurt when braced with your strangled shriek and at the sight of the weapon, as flimsy as it was. It’s all you had against him and it feels all too little in the face of it. “I did nothing. Vasily…yes, Vasily, if I am not mistaken, threw himself off of the widow's walk of the lighthouse.”

“And why,” you grit out, “Is his body under your fucking floorboards — ”

“When I buried him,” Flins smiles. “There was no study. I simply must have missed out on this one while moving a few graves.” There’s a reasonable enough explanation it seems but you’re still seized by that persistent, stumbling thing on your shoulder. You’re still edging away.

“That’s the truth?” you eke, every bit a cornered animal with your hackles raised at him. “The whole truth?”

Ah, and there it is, a shine in his gaze. There’s an unbrokered wideness to Flins’ smile when he gazes down at you. “Your questions are awfully direct.” he murmurs. “You’ve found out, then?” There’s no suggestion, no place to argue otherwise and you want to empty your insides out onto the floor. Flins fixes that gaze of his to your knife and the hurt, it seems, has given way to amusement. 

“A knife won’t be enough to kill me at least, you know.” He supplies helpfully. 

You falter. “Shut up.” you hiss, as he shifts closer. The sharp end of it hovers just over his jugular and he tilts his head with a curious lightness in his expression. 

“Put it away. It’s dangerous running amok with that.” You drop the blade, to your shock and your body quietly complies to his touch when he winds his hands round your wrist, almost fixated on the pulse thrumming there. The fight in you has dissipated into flimsy embers and you push back, clawing at him, trying to scrape away at some modicum of control.

“Let me go — ” you don’t recognize the creature that screams it, or the force it comes out with. “Let me go. I won’t tell anyone, I swear so please, please — ” you descend down to wet sobs, pushing away the weight of him till your elbows start bruising from knocking against the floor one too many times. Tearing your body asunder just to escape hardly seemed daunting at this rate. 

Flins purses his lips, the luminosity in his eyes nearly swallowing you whole. “I won’t hurt you.” he says, carefully navigating through your panic as he reaches up and tucks your hair behind your ear. “Oh I wouldn’t dream of it and you know well that we can’t lie.” Bare fingers press against your cheekbones, knuckle white and gentle. You flinch back, teeth borne like some wounded dog and Flins coos. 

He’s fae, you think and it reeks of betrayal and it aches, how he touches you with a hint of twisted reverence that makes you reel. He’s fae.

( You’re at home, picking up broken pieces of glass. The little patch of earth you’d grown your plants in were upturned and the flowers were missing. )

“The same cannot be said about the others though. If you leave, should you leave.” he drolls on, lifting your boneless body up. Your hands are caked with dirt and he inspects them with a click of his tongue. “Let’s get you cleaned up, hm?”

( The cats started turning up dead on your doorstep when you’d set the bells up against the fence. Their insides were torn open. You recognized one you’d fed earlier that week. More and more start showing up, some of who you’d only deigned to look at in certain instances. )

“What?” you manage to say, your tongue weighed down like lead. 

“A wash.” He repeats. Then he huffs, his eyes but yellow crescents. “Oh you mean the rest of them? Dear one, you’ll be torn apart if you venture too far out of my grounds. Or have you forgotten the way the woodlands ensnared you so?” 

( There are greedy hands tearing and scratching at you, at every inch it could find. Some of the jewellery you’d had is gone now from the safe. Your grandmother’s karimani and the anklets you were gifted. Gone, one by one. And it, with a prideful voracity, demanded more. )

Your head swims and the tears hitch through. Flins wipes them away, patiently taking you to the basin to scrub off every bit of skin and the underside of your nails. A few of the splinters were carefully removed. “I saved your life.” he reminds you. “You’d have been carried off into their snare. They’d have made you run till your feet bled and they’d have stolen every piece of you for themselves. And now they’ve asked to keep you here, given how you’ve angered them so.”

“Why?”

You bat at him, still trying to muster together a little more fight. Flins straightens you up, bending to your level. You can see your scared reflection in the mirror, glassy eyed with horror and him behind you, his hands curled round your shoulders. 

“You know why.” He reminds you, blankly. 

( And the misfortune had built itself like a festering wound. When you saw them, the cause of it streak past your window in peals of raucous laughter, you had surged, dragged them back with every bit of vicious intent you could muster then. They fought. You fought. And at some point you’d begged, begged for a reprieve. To let you be, let you live. You had precious little to offer but it could be anything, anything but this.

“But it’s fun!” they had laughed at your battered form and the scratched up state of your arms. Something in you, a fundamental lock and chain, had snapped open and fury dulled the rest of the world out.

When you came to, they laid there, silvery blood twining with the gold of their hair and your hands soaked in it. )

No, no, no not that. You jerk away, trying to make a break for the door and he pulls you back. “Was it you?” you ask him, voice shaking because he knows — and it’s the possibility of how much that tears you out on the inside. “Did you send them — ”

“Of course not.” Flins shakes his head. “The one you killed was young, a foolhardy thing.” He addresses it with a disconnect that you can’t begin to fathom, a lack of sympathy peeled down to the very roots of it. Perhaps it’s what they’re known for, their kind with their morals so far removed from the tiny flashes a human life had to give. “Do you regret it? What have you done?”

You skitter, squeezing your eyes shut while he watches through the mirror. The chill is seeping into tissue and muscle. “No.” you spit out against your better judgment. 

Flins’ lips twitch. “Liar.” he whispers, fondly, gently. “Oh, don’t cry now.” He soothes when you start to shake. “I’m not the cruel jailor they’d expect me to be. I’ve been good to many; to Maria, to Vasily. There’s much you’ve lost here, I do agree but you’ll be treated well. I’ve come to be so terribly fond of you, after all.” You think this is a sick, cruel joke. You think you’ve stumbled right into the pits of some horrible dream. 

“Yes, and I'll have to restock. You need your food and you need a decent enough space to rest in. The couch, as comfortable as it is, is hardly feasible at all.” He threads his hand with yours. The coolness of his palm presses against yours and Flins flushes. 

“But I can’t — I can’t stay!” you try to argue, even if there are so many other worse things that lay in wait.

Flins takes you to the guestroom. To the same walls you’d run from that first night. “You don’t have much of a choice.” He confesses, sympathy touching his features. It’s a cruel thing, how they’re all so pretty yet so viciously inhumane in a way. 

But honestly, are you any better? You’ve killed one of them. Their body is somewhere in that lake you’d immersed them into, undecayed, unchanged like the underbelly of bedrock and you;re still here, alive and yearning to forget about any of that. You’re cut open and raw and bleeding and Flins lowers you down against the sheets, removing your shoes and socks.

Your breaths begin to shake. Flins shrugs off his coat and sets aside his scarf. There are no more ghosts scraping their hands to the walls. Just you and him and the weighted silence this room has to offer the two of you. He kisses the back of your hand, just above your knuckles, then the tips of your fingers. 

“Stop that.” You mumble. “You do not know me. You do not care for me.”

Flins reaches out and pinches at your cheek, feeling the softness of it between his forefinger and thumb. “But I do know enough,” he insists with that odd smile. “I know the shape of your breath and the way you scraped your knees climbing trees too high for you. I know why you left your home and the dogged insistence of your family. I know how you like cycling down by the docks where Hiisii island comes to view during your deliveries and how you pout when you write long letters.” He presses a finger to your lips, a little hungry, a little expectant. He breathes in, unfurling your hand to press it against his cheek, his own flattened over it. 

“You’d be mad to think I'll feel anything for you.” you tell him, venom dripping through every enunciated consonant. 

“I have time.” he sighs. “Plenty of it, and I can wait for you, I think…” Flins dips his head down and kisses you, testing the way you give beneath him and the feel of your lips. He pulls away, the tips of his ears running red and you stare up, open mouthed. “Oh.” He breathes, the makings of a laugh stirring under his tone. 

A flush betrays you, burning your cheeks. He presses his lips to the corner of your mouth and when the tears spring forth, he kisses those away too. 

You did this to yourself, some miserable part of you rattles. You shutter in your sniffles, and close your eyes to the sight of him. Flins down not mind, pulling himself away just to leave a slow stroke over the line of your jaw, up, up up to your earlobe. You shiver against his touch. 

“It won’t happen.” you repeat. “It won’t.”

Flins hums, straightening you up and bundling the pillow beneath your head. You could laud him for the imitation of sweet faced love he wears so plainly. You could believe him. Maybe it is real. But Flins himself seems to distort and bend into the air and you only remind yourself of his inhumanity and the mess you’re in now. 

“Stubborn creature.” he comments with affection. He steals another kiss from you, chaste, gentle but so, so hungry beneath the surface of it. “I ought to return your earrings to you too.” Another kiss. “You always looked so lovely in them…”

You think about the woods outside and the chanting promise of death. You think freezing over from the cold would have been a far better mercy than this. 

When Flins shifted that line from host to jailor, he lets you fall into the simple routines of lighthouse keeping with him. Keep the lamp running, keep the motors clean, wipe the lenses down and clear the windows out. He helps you put your earrings on and marvels at the sight of it. “You were wearing them when I first saw you.” He says.

Oh, you think, bitterness light in your mouth.

The storm finally dies out a few days after and he manages to get the generator running after a few calls in to Ms. Aino. When the lights blink back on, you still can’t find any bit of comfort in the hallways past; even when he comes to walk with you to the kitchen and back. He’d played some music to celebrate, dulcet tunes reminiscent of the classics and the waltzes they’d go with. 

Flins offered to dance with you. There’s little need to use your name, to pull on any strings; the hours seemed to have scraped by slow enough for you to consider it. When you fall into step with him, he is patient and he is kind about you stepping on his feet, first by accident, then the next few times out of pure spite. 

He did not flinch in the face of it. There was only a quiet coring, a tender display of affection and a kiss to your cheek and Flins would gaze upon you with an affection too inexplicable for you. The stuff that makes the treasures in his collections, the quaint oddities he liked to collect. 

When you left Sumeru, you left with the hopes of burying away old grief, to tell your family that your helplessness isn’t something to tail after your shadow when they’d started treating you as such. When you left Sumeru, you couldn’t let yourself fall into the patterns of a show piece, even if the intent of it, as cutting as it was, is drawn in by love.

And now look at you. Look at you, spooled into the webs of something inhuman that lurks behind the visage of a handsome man. 

Perhaps, in the end of it all, you did deserve it. You had thrown away any instance of the fae who came by your house and unravelled every facet of your life. Every reminder, every part of you that could behold any form of recollection and the consequences were something that was bound to come along and tear you apart.

Yet, “Is it fair to call it love if I’m trapped here?” You tell him, your voice an echo in the hallways. Flins gently undoes the tie of your scarf, a newly knitted thing he’d commissioned just for you. He slows his movements, contemplative. 

“I am confident in what I feel,” he states. “It may not be love, from the view of what most mortals know. There’s little affection in the idea of wanting to hide away and covet every visceral inch of their lovers but…” he lifts you up by the chin and you think you see how his eyes settle, marigold yellow to the lamplight. His knuckle presses over your pulse and he smiles a secret smile when it quickens. “...It’s love to us and it’s love no less, no?”

“But I’m not you.” You mumble. “You scare me.”

“You don’t have to be.” Flins takes your hand, and the two of you start the waltz once more. “You are safer here.” And you know it’s true, even as the call persists to something frenzied, even as it compels you to throw the doors open and escape. If not the angered fae, then Flins himself would reel you back, stubborn and covetous as he was. He’ll reel you back in, back into his collection of shinies and keep you squirrelled away.

So you patter around the house. Your first winter here in Nod Krai comes and goes.

When spring comes along, the thicker coats make way for lighter ones. Flins visits the lighthouse a little less and the windows are thrown open to let the breeze in. You aid in sorting out his fuel then keep count of his bones and you have him buy a sewing kit just to keep your thoughts together as you embroider in your free time. Then one day, when you were tired out from wandering over the uneven crags of the island and the way the land seemed to shift and bend itself and your path back to the lighthouse, you called him by his first name. 

“Kyryll.” Not Flins. 

He freezes up. “Yes?” he returns it, eagerness slipping in so easily. You could have loved this man, perhaps and it’s a thought that starts to haunt you in the wee hours of the night. You could have loved his willing silence and his gentleness if he’d come to you in Nasha Town with flowers and a willingness to know you.

“I’d like to head back inside.” 

His lips press up against your forehead. “Alright.” And Flins leads you back, hand held tight in his, like you could be blown away by the passing winds or slip back and melt into the receding snow. You can taste the way the air around him shifts; electrifying, sudden and all too much at once. He doesn’t say all that much after, attending to his tasks down to the minute detail till dusk comes along and the clock calls him back down for dinner.

That night, after setting the lantern down by your bedside and you’re half wrapped under the mound of blankets, he whispers to you, “Say it again.”

“What?” you blink. Flins draws a layer back. 

“My name.”

You look at him, really look at him. His gaze is bright. “Kyryll.” You test it on your tongue. He closes his eyes and knocks his head against yours. 

“Again.”

“Kyryll.” you repeat, feeling yourself dig a deeper and deeper hole.

The weight of him rolls over onto the mattress. His touch is a slow, deliberate thing. “I could eat you up.” he mutters, nose pressed into the apple of your cheek. “Keep saying it, dear one.”

“Kyryll.” you whisper it, quiet as death in an instance where you should have shut up completely. His eyes snap open and he watches you, and listens to the thumping of your heart. You’re doomed, you realize, plummeting far past that point of no return. The sheets come loose, pulled down to your knees. 

“I’ve overestimated myself, I think.” he murmurs into your neck, teasing you just shy of your pulse. He comes close to testing the straps of your slip. “May I have you, dear one?” and you witness the greed, the affection, the twisted up echo suffused into the thing he calls love. You can’t bring yourself to say no. Maybe in the midst of this madness, you could let yourself forget. You guide his hands to your hips, slow, steady, and his breath hitches to mild shock. He probably didn’t expect it, your affirmation. 

“You are certain?”

“This is the last time you’ll ask me.” you warn him, gripping the sheets a bit too tight below you. “And the last I'll bother saying yes.”

He peppers kisses over your forehead and cheeks. “Oh you spoil me.” he murmurs. “You spoil me so.” He slides the hem of your slip up, up past your thighs. His breaths are laboured, heavy. “Could you lift yourself up just a bit?” he asks, prompting you with a nudge. You comply, lips pursed as nervousness peels itself into the workings of your bones.

“Easy now…” he whispers, kissing the pulse at your neck, then down further and further still. The fabric comes to bunch just below your chest when he settles between your legs, and he keeps his hand pressed over the softness of your thighs. 

You curl your fingers into the wool of his sweater. Flins fixes his gaze on you. “Scared?” he asks.

You swallow. “A little.” you admit, the tenderness of it all feeling so out of place. Flins hums. 

“It makes the two of us.” He admits. “It’s been years since…well…” and that statement alone strikes you — reminding you that he’s so much older than he makes himself seem. You try to ground yourself against something, anything, wincing against the shock his colder touch brought to your bare skin.

“But you know how to start at least, right?” you peep out.

“I do. Right now, let me see what I can test out, yes? The act would be terribly one-sided if you don’t enjoy it…” he trails his forefinger up your torso, tracing a line till your slip. You stop him, teeth drawn into a snarl and Flins faces it with a tilt to his head.

“Just…I don't know! Do something! Anything!”

“Anything?” he intones, raising a brow. “Well I was attempting to — ”

You shake your head and it feels like you’re going to fall apart. It’s all too visceral, too embarrassing and somehow, you wanted it to be put to rest. “Not like this. It’s not enough. I…” your grasp on his clothes tightens into a fist. “Kyryll, Kyryll, just make me forget it all. Please.”

“Ah.” he closes his mouth and you feel the way his hands grasp and shift your body further up his thighs, just shy of the part between his legs. Your face is on fire and you try to sink yourself down into the mattress, just as his prodding touch returns. It’s everywhere, slipping beneath your slip, over your shoulders. One travels up to your face, and you let out an exclamation when his digits slip between the seam of your lips, testing your teeth against the pads of his fingers.

There’s a fascination, you think delirious. A fascination he has with your pulse in particular, just as the air becomes a little hotter and a little heavier. Flins can’t quite stop himself from touching. “It’s the warmth.” he smiles, rubbing his cheek against yours like a cat. “You are so warm.”

And then he kisses you. 

“And you are mine,” he concludes. There’s no possessiveness, or jealousy. It’s stated with a sense of knowing and matter of factness. 

He tests the space between your legs, pulling your underwear to the side to run a finger over your clit. Your lips part and you press your face to his shoulder with a keen. There’s a clumsiness in his movements at first, before Flins eases himself to the shape and the rhythm of your body and he’s slipping a finger in just as you try to gather your senses.

You can’t quite keep up. One finger, then another and you want to tip yourself over and sink into it. It feels wrong, it will stay that way and you still curl up and buck into him and to the whispers in your ears spun in another tongue. You curse at him in your dialect and he laughs at the spunk.

“Are you still with me?” he asks as the pleasure starts its steady build. You nod, lips parted. “Words.”

“Yes!” you force out. 

You can’t even step away and deny the hunger in how he takes you apart, spreading your legs just a bit more to fix a single charged look down at you. The heel of his palm presses up against your clit and you’re reeling once more with the inside of your cheek bitten raw. “Kyryll.” you whimper. “Kyryll.”

His teeth nick at your shoulder. “You test me.” he mumbles. “You’ve been plucking me apart, my beloved, playing me like an instrument. Have you any clue of it?” No and it’s awful and it’s so much, your eyes starting to sting. “A sweet thing like you, a poor, sweet little thing.” he keeps nibbling, finding new spots, new places, just shy from plain sight to hide his bites. He lays his teeth just over your sternum, your heart. 

Flins groans, restraint hitching itself further and further off. When he finds that spot in you, one that arches your back and blots your vision out, he bends over your frame and keeps you still, grabbing and touching and grabbing with so much fervour you fear he might just lose himself in it. But it comes with a sharp toothed vexation, the feel of it not quite whetting his own appetite in any way.

He tweaks a nipple, starting a slow grind against your bundle of nerves and you squirm under him, hooting softly. “There you go.” he whispers. “There you go, my sweet thing, all mine…” He keeps his promise; there’s so little your mind could properly formulate, even if there is the barest hint of fear tinging certain spots in your ribs with how he probes and prowls over the shape of your curves. 

“It’s…strange — ” that buildup starts it’s crest. Flins snaps his head up, intent on watching and that has you attempting to hide away. The pillows are pushed aside and you twist your body, ears starting to burn. “Wait — ”

One last thrust of his fingers, one last brush against your clit and you release, panting helplessly. Flins looks struck, a little awed as he takes in the sight of you, a little sweaty and very unravelled and he sets you closer to the crook of his arm, where you stay clinging on for dear life. It’s all wool and fuzz and the blurry outline of the room. 

You could vaguely make out the rustle of his clothes, of his clothes slipping off. When he winds your arms around his shoulders, they’re bare and your hands splay out over his back and just past his shoulder blades. He moans into your throat. “Relax.” he directs. You try, you really do till you feel his tip breach in through the stretch makes you want to cry.

Flins murmurs his comfort and something in that pain guts a sick sense of satisfaction in. You revel in it, nails scraping at his back, and that draws a gasp from deep inside his chest. 

“You.” he murmurs, watches the way your flesh divots neath his fingers, and how you curve up to met his shallow thrusts. He soothes your bitten lips, lidded eyes searching, searching, searching and you try to goad him on to move just a bit faster. “Not yet.” he mutters, words slowly running into melded slurring. “It’s not enough…hardly…”

What more could he want, you think, half there, half not. He pushes your legs up, up to your knees and you think you see the sun in the horizon. What more could he want from this; a timed surrender and your mind undoing itself over and over through, purging the venom, shading the anger, letting that whiteout glare against the breadth of it till it’s just less thought and more sensation.

But there’s always something there that Flins never quite fully states. It comes with that interest in bones, in his attention to your heartbeat, in his honey dipped insistence when he hovers his hand just over your stomach. The pink flushing against his pale cheeks aside, he’s digging into you just barely and there’s a look in his eye that stills you, even through the daze of pleasure.

Like he wants to tear you open. 

He swallows back a pool of saliva. “Dear heart.” he says, pleasant yet roughed by the shake and the stutter of his hips. He’s hardly up to the hilt and you start to push back against him, letting more sink in. You want some of that sweet friction, and the buzz staticking just below your skin. “Forgive me but if I may…”

This kiss is deep, demanding in how his tongue intrudes and coaxes your mouth open. There’s a debauched rawness burning itself into your ribs and Flins slants his lips, silently drawing out more and more and more.

And more, till there’s a lick of blue and you feel something cold and hot shift through skin and bone and tissue to cradle into your insides. You gasp, and it times with his first proper thrust, something inhuman phasing in and out of his visage — and afterimage of a monstrous face and so much blue. Blue, blue fire, blue like his lantern, and it moulds itself, not quite burning, not painful but strange.

Flins shudders, euphoric. 

“This, yes, this.” he whispers, awed. He steals more kisses from your lips, all while the feel of those hands, one dipped into your chest and the other cradling your neck, with the tease of claws to flesh and the burn of azure light stifling back the yellow-orange glow from the bedside table. That steady warmth starts to build, the feel of him cupping your heart, moments away from fraying something asunder and then him, dragging against your walls with a jerk of his hips.

He quite literally holds your heart now. You try to wrap your head around it, the feel of fire, the stirring and its terror and a traitorous sting of pleasure disturbing the stagnancy. Flins strokes the line of your ribs, raking his fingertips through the expanse. Then there’s him, the transfixed fever that burns ever so slightly against the flickering glow of his stare. Every bit of him, strung up. Every bit of him oozing a sense of want.

It’s want that has him still and steady your hips when you start to move away, that alien feeling making your face burn and your world start to stutter. You feel like you could be tugged loose, body and soul, like you’re on the verge of blinking out of existence and falling underwater. It’s panic, but not quite, in how it’s immersed in something else altogether. 

( You can’t be enjoying this. You can’t. )

And then he draws it back and they dig into the sheets and spot a few scorch marks onto the surface. You’re drawn in, tugged by some spectral leash and your start to warble against his pace and the taste of his satisfaction biting at the crook of your neck. 

It feels like a wave, something that descends upon you like a battering crash, marked by a desperate mewl from you; a jumbled string of “Kyryll”’s sputtered out in the wake of the moment, as you come undone and feel every part of you fall into that pitching height of pleasure circuiting every instance of you.. 

Flins sucks a breath in. “Oh you’re perfect. Perfect…” he mumbles. Your nerves are still alight and you’re still all too aware of every small move he makes. He pulls himself out after he empties into you and you whine, whine at the emptiness.

The cold he leaves behind on your skin is fast fading. Flins fusses over you and you start to recover from the blankness and the haziness prickling at your body. It’s a shroud pulled over your eyes and you let him work away, oh so thorough in cleaning up the mess.

“You did wonderfully.” he coaxes, spreading your thighs to wipe at the white residue at the inside of them. The mattress dips under his weight. He gathers you into his arms, and you could barely pick out what he’s saying after that. But the adoration is there as it always was. 

It only dawns on you, the next day when you stir awake and take the sight of Flins fixing his attention on you, taking in the way you breathe. Last night had happened and you clutch at your chest, as if you could still feel that phantom sensation haunt your body. “What did you do?” you warble.

Flins smiles. There’s no answer from him and you don’t expect it. “Will you be going outside?” he asks when you throw your slip back on and teeter off to find your underwear, then your coat and socks.

“Yes.” you mumble, and you are. You cannot stay in this room much longer. You cannot stay in his presence. You feel the edges of yourself start falling apart, blurring against the starched edges and you fall back against the feel of him weighing your back down as you pull your boots on.

He lays his lips on the nape of your neck, gentle, loving almost. You break away from him, nearly running out, out of the house, out into the open. The aurora burns overhead and the lighthouse cuts past the faint mist cover and into the endless dark sea. You stare up, mouth agape and then you look forth. 

When you walk a little farther out, you note how the fog thickens over and shies away from you just till the strait to the basin across the waters. You see the shapes of things dancing along the beachside, lost in the taste of revelry and wine and merry tidings. They call to you, try to coax you farther, closer even as some fall to deathly silent and distort their shape and form.

You take a step forward. Your boots sink into wet sand. Come here, they ring out. Come here, come with us!

I really shouldn’t, you tell yourself rather tightly. Then you turn and leave and you can hear their mockery ring against the air. You’re dizzy and you feel some kind of consuming emptiness start expanding and collapsing into your heart. The ghosts are now mere faint outlines. You’re the only living, thinking thing breathing in the too-chilly air. 

Slowly, softly, you make your way back to the lighthouse. Your line of sight blurs and you’re crying halfway through, clawing at yourself, disgusted, angry and so, so strained and spread thin. You want to burn it off of you, that feeling. You want every single inch of you scrubbed clean of that decision, that damned decision and —

That last shackle clicks in place. And you know you’re never leaving, with the paths winding themselves to and away and back again. You walk past and circle every inch of the beachside and you watch the ocean lapping at the shoreline, spreading a hundred white fingers across the sand and evening the ground out beneath it.

( There, you whisper your last few goodbyes. To Sumeru, to your family, to your old life and the forgotten details through the bustle you’d been caught up in. )

The quiet continues to follow when you stumble back up the cliff face. It’s getting colder, even with the sunwarmed rocks radiating the last few vestiges of their heat. Pulling your coat around you tighter, you draw past the shed and over the dirt path, up the slight incline and the scattered frostlamp buds. 

At the threshold, Kyryll waits with his lantern, fully dressed. He holds his hand out when you come closer. You take it.

The door swings shut behind the two of you.

[pranabefall]

⠀⠀THE DOCTOR'S PLACEBO.⠀⠀⸺ ⠀⠀blade.

syn. ( wc : 6k ) in the aftermath, you must come to terms with the many things you'll never have. normalcy, as coveted as it is, is one of them. escape is another.

TW. ⸺ yandere + smut and dark content ahead. fem reader, reader is south asian coded, blade is a little fucked up and has fucked the reader up a little too, murder mention, corruption arcs, the reader is a pathetic wet cat, death, manipulation, angst, dub-con teetering to non consensual, vaginal fingering with grinding, no penetration today folks there's car sex and the reader has dignity ( kind of ), blade ignoring the reader's refusal at one point but manages to stop ( pls do not cancel me i do not condone this shit ). unhealthy relationships, the reader is not daijobu, blade getting off on being killed, this is a messy fic in the fact that i barely streamlined this shit istg.

LOG. ⸺ this fic is basically a spiritual successor to the devil's anesthetic XD. i've added some context in so dwdw you guys don't have to go and read this one. this work has been marked mature for containing smut & dead dove content. readers below the age of 18 / ageless blogs and antis, do not interact. PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS BEFORE PROCEEDING.

" i cannot make you understand. i cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. i cannot even explain it to myself. "

— FRANZ KAFKA.

The honk from a passing truck jars you awake from your nap. 

It’s a large, stark thing a good distance away from the car, and you could just pick apart the details. They probably haven’t noticed much amiss, given how it carries on again past the lane’s edge and out of clear sight. No alarms, no investigations, no purposeful, quiet pauses or faces trying to peer too far into the dark.

You watch it, rubbing away the sleep and the grogginess and the crusting round your eyelids before you seize and stop, the thump in your ribs picking up faster and faster and faster like a drumbeat. 

There’s movement outside, unhurried with the muffled thud of corpse against concrete; Blade, doing Blade things as usual. You catch him by the rearview, well dressed, well combed and impersonal with his handling ( it had taken you and Kafka an hour to get him ready, all of it spent with her fussing and throwing away; the wrong blazer, the wrong shirt, the wrong tie. “Bladie needs to look good, don’t you think?” she’d asked you, her grin all too sharp and all too white. “We like a pretty face at our side — ha don’t look so sour now. I catch you staring at him sometimes.” ).

You do not speak to Blade when he slips back into the car again. You don't comment on the blood caking his fingernails, or the manic shine of murder sifting and filtering beneath candle wick eyes. 

Nothing’s happened, you tell yourself. There's nothing to cry over. There's no stinging pain over your arm. There’s are no dead man in the trunk. You sink into that blissful denial with open arms and let yourself wallow in its waters. Nothing happened, silly, silly fool. Nothing happened at all.

The car starts up. The radio flickers to life; smooth jazz against the rainfall. It's Kafka's Playlist. She liked sultry things blanketed with old money and danger. His fingers drum against the steering wheel. The mara slowly starts to calm and cold logic returns, where he's less fire and more steel. You see the lights outside smear and diffuse and blur together as it picks up speed.

A moment later, when the streets were a little emptier, Blade breaks the silence. “Does it still hurt?” He asks. You flinch. 

“What?”

“Your arm.” He repeats, a tad impatient. “You'd braced yourself against it, yes?” Yes, you did. You remember that, the taste of concrete and broken glass and your tears. The man had run when Blade showed up, like a coward. Then you remember his cologne and his steady breaths and the rasp steepling into a quiet, persisting fury. You’d shut your eyes, let it happen. 

Blade finds him again a while later, ever the starving dog digging up an old scent trail. 

( Something had settled on your tongue; a wry, bitter sort of horror. That last few human parts of you still cower away from the clinical familiarity of that violence. Blade had ingrained himself into every artery, rooting into the crevices of your ribs and settles his brutality and his affections and squeezes it into your chest. )

“I’m fine.” you state, your tone flat, like something insipid fills your mouth. 

He scoffs. “You still lie.” he muses. It’s a dull observation, lined with a long-abandoned fatigue. “We will have you seen to, when we get back.” 

“I’m a doctor. I say I’m fine; simple as that.”

Blade silences you with a flick of his gaze. That stare cleaves your words apart and scatters it to the floor. You dip your head down and swallow, your vision hazing. “Alright.” you whisper, defeated. He nods, satisfied.

The man today wasn't meant to die. Blade would drag you along with him on his safer scripts, leashed to your side like a persistent guard dog. There's little to hide the undercurrent of…that ( that dark filter in his gaze, the hunger, the want ), filling in the spaces of distant apathy between you two. Perhaps he loves you, if he could call it that. You were the instrument to his undoing at times. The spark to his mara. The calm to lay his bloodied hands on and fall in, placated. 

And that man, he wasn't meant to die, but he'd stepped forth, in your moment of solitude. He started trouble. He tried to grab you and take you elsewhere. You shouldn't have felt sorry for him. There was only fear then, when your feet had scraped over the concrete and you'd screamed and screamed for Blade. 

Now he's gone. A corpse. You'd done this.

Blade drives away from the traffic and the main streets. He goes for quieter spaces to dispose of his bodies before whisking you away off planet. No tracks, no trails, just a pair of ghosts who reek of blood and death ( and you want to scrub it off ). He stops by a dip at the side, falling away into the woods. The doors click and he steps out, his footsteps muffled by the crickets in the bushels.

You squeeze your eyes shut when you glimpse that shape, an unmoving mass with a limp mouth tumble onto the asphalt. Blade is usually a little more respectful, when it comes to the dead, more sensitive. He washes graves and burns joss paper in their wake; small routines from a too-distant past for him to truly remember.

( He’d whispered a name once. A soft, breathy ‘Yingxing’. When you asked him who he was, Blade simply looked at you and replied, “a fool.” ).

He drags the corpse with little care or fanfare, throwing it over the side. The dry wood at the bottom cracks and you hear a wet, sickening crunch followed by silence and distant honking. Blade is barely lit by the streetlights, and you couldn’t bring yourself to look at him.

He lets out a soft sigh. 

You catch the red staining his bandages, smearing across his cheek. “We need to get you cleaned.” you mumble. “You look a mess. People might stare at you.”

“That would be unnecessary.” his voice catches as he shuts the door. He leans back against his cheek and stares upwards. 

You purse your lips. “And I don’t like the smell of blood on you.” you remind him, your voice a small, tight thing. Blade’s lips twitch. “I think you know that already.”

“No.” he agrees. “You do not.”

And then, “I’ll wash my hands and face. There’s no time for a shower.” You settle with that compromise. You doubt it will wash away that perpetual stench of iron Blade has about him. It’s ingrained itself into every little pore of his skin and lines against the brutality that glues his form together. He keeps his promise, pulling into a small petrol booth fifteen minutes away and dragging you along with him like a stuffed bear to the toilets. 

It could be in better shape. Hygiene is the last thing you need to worry about as you tug the spare first aid box open and unearth the spare roll of linen. Blade undoes the tight knot by the end of his wrists and you grimace just a little when you tug at the wraps. “Why do you insist on tying them up so tight?” you ask as they fall away slowly. Blade flexes his fingers, their movement slow and inhibited. 

He sniffs. “I’ll do as I please.”

“Fine. I hope you lose your hands to necrosis.” It comes out bitter, strained, angry at anything and everything.

There’s a mess of soiled bandages at your feet. “I’ll clean those up.” Blade grunts when you bend over to collect them, feeling nausea burn the back of your throat. You don’t approve the haphazard disposal; the system you had at your clinics were cleaner. Soiled cottons, masks, syringes, all of it sorted out into separate containers. Your heart aches.

You musn’t think of home, silly fool. And it’s insistent babble echoes when the heel of your palm rubs away the stinging in your eyes. There’s tissue paper by the sinks you use with the water to scrub off the dried blood speckling your knuckles — and the last of the soap is emptied out to mask the smell temporarily. You wash a little too, your wrists, your hands with the usual efficiency ( nails to your palms, between your fingers, against the back ).

“Coat.” Blade announces as he runs his touch against the collar of your jacket. 

Your lips pull apart and you yelp when it trails over your arms. “It’s bruised.” you mumble, yanking the sleeve over. It’s an angry mix of purples and greens and Blade surveys it with disconnect. He’s witnessed more gore than you had ( split open chests and open, beating hearts ). His index finger prods at the swelling. “S-stop!”

His head droops. “I’ll get an ice pack.” He decides, as he leans against the damp ceramic and drapes his coat on one arm. 

You chew at the inside of your cheek. “I’m hungry.”

He doesn't seem to have heard, a little far away, a little lost. “Blade.” You repeat, louder this time. “Could we get something to eat, too?”

His mouth draws back. The sharpness returns, knife edged, calculative. “There’s a store here.” hums, pressing a few credits into your hand. “Get a compress, too. If they have them.” 

“A pharmacy is a more likely place.” you remind him. 

He remains unimpressed. As usual. “Check.” and that was that.

The phone pings. You spot Silver Wolf’s icon as you leave, and a long wall of text. Blade is frowning, visibly, at the sight of it ( that expression nearly grates onto annoyance. It’s probably another chain copypasta for laughs ). Something in your throat jumps when you take in that momentary distraction. You’d been around enough, been well behaved enough for him to wave off the idea of escape… 

A thing in you seizes your muscles. It calls you an idiot. 

What are you thinking?! He’ll catch you, it hisses. He’ll catch you.

You step out of the bathroom. Blade looks up, shifts, straightens to follow you. You swear you see the inquisitive tilt to his head, the dare that’s barely whispered in between. The door slowly swings shut as he walks to it, the glimpse of him disappearing behind the closing crack. He’ll catch you, he will, he will, your mind wails and you take off like demons were biting at the soles of your feet.

It hurts, racing across hard concrete, in a body that knows it will slip and falter and fail. You take a hard turn, almost bumping into the metal barrier and jamming the side of the rod into your hip. Your fingers skate across the cool metal, and you’re off, onto the road and into the night. 

A few minutes later, you stop and wipe at your eyes and your face, heaving a breath in and out. You’re unwieldy, stumbling over the asphalt as you look over your shoulder and break into a jog, paranoia slowly starting to eat away at your stomach amidst the silence. Something felt off. There’s a rush in your chest, in the cold prickle of your face and the weight in every breath you heave in. There’s a terror, an icy thing that runs its finger and clogs your throat shut.

You feel like the ground is sweeping away, cracking apart. You feel wrong.

Where is he?

He should have caught up at this point. Blade isn’t slow. And he’s certainly stripped himself of the human parts of him through the years he’d walked, enough to cast aside human limitations with it. He’s a wanted man for a reason —

Fool, a part of you bewails. You should have stayed with him, played along like a good girl. He’ll come after you now. He will, he will. It’s a scared animal backed away, coaxing you to roll over, to play dead. And if he catches you — when he catches you…you try to shove it aside, the intrusive thoughts digging into your head. Blade is not above hurting you. 

You bite into the base of your thumb, tearing up, then stop jogging. You stand by the side of the road and peer at the distant sign of the petrol bunk, and the way the fluorescent lights blink on and off against the dark. You don’t notice Blade there, save for a few cars passing by. Nothing to note. No shadows, no monsters, no red eyed madness stalking your footsteps. 

( He’d chased you, the last few times; more animal than human and furious in a sense. You’d tasted blood on those days, and the force of his lips and the way his hands would press into your fragile skin to cut deep. )

You’re pacing now. Your momentary defiance starts to curl into a rotten, unwanted mess at the pit of your stomach. It revolts you, it makes you ill. You start to sniffle, and you keep pressing your palms to your cheeks and swiping those tears away over and over and over. Could you run? Could you escape? Could you set this behind you — a bad dream at a bad time at a worse off part of your life —

( You’ve torn plenty off of you. The karimani round your neck and the vadungila on your finger. You’d crushed away the jasmine and screamed out your insolence. You've escaped plenty before. You’d run till your family couldn’t bind you down any longer. But your family were people. Your family could be reasoned with. Not this though. Not this.  )

They’ll find you. He’ll find you. You’ve seen that flavour of fervour in his pursuit of that boy with the sea-green eyes. It’s the sort that sinks its maw into your stomach and hollows it out. Blade hasn’t stopped with him, and sometimes he glances at you the same way. From the corner of his gaze, in instances where the others look away, when it’s just the two of you. You’d seen it when he first lay his eyes on you, insistent and stifling and covetous.

One sea-blue car slows to a halt near you. “Is something wrong?” he asks, looking over at you with sleepy concern. You flinch back with a churn in your gut as he flicks the lights beneath the rearview mirror on and worries his bottom lip. “Do you need a lift?”

Yes.

His phone screen lights up. There’s the briefest glance of his wallpaper — him and a child tucked in his arms, held like she was the most precious thing in the world. An acrid sting settles in your mouth. 

You shake your head “No.” you reply, speaking too fast to seem convincing. Now the driver looks a little more awake and a little more worried.

“Are you sure?” he asks. You think you want to cry ( it’s a rare kindness. A greedy, angry part of you wants to devour it whole ). “It’s really late and I mean…I'm not sure…leaving you out on your own like this…” he trails off.

“I’ll be fine.” you assure him, and you look at his phone with that picture burned into your eyes. A twisted part of you could grasp at straws and justify the first man’s death. That he’d hurt you first, that maybe, just maybe that ruthlessness was a long time coming. You could stare at your bruised arm and repeat it again and again and lie to yourself till your foolish heart believes it.

You look the driver dead in the eye. “I’ll be heading back.” you continue smoothly, forcing a smile on your face as the distress spikes. There’s still no sign of Blade. You could walk away from this now and never have your consciousness eaten alive with every waking moment. You don’t have to live knowing a little girl had to bury her father at an age too young and tender to bear that kind of pain.

He straightens his shoulders. “Well then.” he relents. “Just keep your phone on you, I suppose…” His car whirrs and you step aside, letting him back out from the side of the road and drive off.

Your shoulders sag as the isolation settles in with the terror and relief. Now what…

What should you do? Where could you go? What should you do —

Your chest shutters. Every inhale is a forced, painful thing. You imagine his hand on your neck, constricting, ravenous. You imagine the day you’d first met him, and the smothering it came with. The lurking horror by your doorframe and the rot of death that trails behind his footsteps. And then that night as he ate away at the last bit of your sanity with his lips on your neck.

You let out a gutteral, near animalistic wail, the world growing tighter and tighter just as you felt his phantom touch crawling over your skin. No one hears it. It’s still stifled down, still gutted back and told to stay quiet.

And then, despite everything, you trudge back to where you’d started ( coward, coward, coward ).

You look up. Blade is there, waiting by the car with his arms crossed, his head tilted to the side. “Did you know?” you ask, something inside breaking down a little. He stands up straighter. You expect him to be rough, to bite in and let you taste his fury on your tongue. You’re too tired to care. “Did you know I’d run?”

He takes a while to answer, his hand heavy against your back as he pushes you to the seat. A thumb wipes away the tears. A cold, rough thumb and a cold, stiff hand. “I did.” he finally says, the engine revving back to life. He reaches out back and hands you a bar of chocolate and a sandwich wrapped in cling film. You don’t feel hungry ( you never did ) and drop it back into the bag for later. The compress stays. Your bruising doesn’t hurt as much. 

It’s an unnecessary gentleness, the way he handles you after. You assume it’s a sick sort of joke, then you remind yourself that it’s Blade. Blade, not Kafka who’d run you around in circles just for one kiss on the cheek. A scoff slips out and you imagine the ways this last lap could go wrong; a crash, a slip up, a drunk driver. You’ll be out of your misery then.

You find yourself growing sick of the car. Your legs fall asleep, jammed into the little space it has. Blade refuses to acknowledge the escape attempt, or the distress that stuck fast to you, like spilling tar. You swipe your palms over your cheek and fumble when the seatbelt digs in too tight. Your clothes are wet from condensation and you hand the ice pack to him. He wraps it up in cloth and leaves it in the box with the half used roll of bandages and the bottle of nausea medications. 

“...How much longer?” You whisper. 

“Not long.” 

He lets you stew in your misery till then. You stare at the dead streets and question what you were thinking.

Blade stops at the meeting point. Thai was all he told you about the script; Kafka and Firefly were due in another hour and he lowers the volume on the radio and stays put. You kick your foot against the mat, eat part the sandwich and wash it down with some water. Then you check the time on his phone. Forty five more minutes. Your lips wobble.

“You’re awfully relaxed.” you glance his way. The space in front of you is brush and dirt clearings and an occasional flash of shadow from a nocturnal critter. Nothing much to see, and even less to do.

“Am I?”

“Yes.” you grit out. “You are.” And you don’t think it’s fair. You could take the anger. You think you could take him pursuing you as he usually did, him pressing your body into his as he draws you away from that taste of freedom. You think you could take his mara and the cruelty and insistence and the greed it holds in its mouth. 

This is new. It’s uncertainty. It's the iron pricking your heart.

The screen flickers on. Forty two minutes. 

“It’s as you’d said.” Blade states. “I knew you’d return. And you have.” and you think you hear the barest hint of satisfaction there. 

Blade always stokes a beast inside. A vicious, ugly, cruel thing that burns its bones and feeds its fury. Your hands twitch and you think back to crushing his windpipe in and the give of fragile cartilage and buckling of muscle. You think about the numbing, visceral crack. “And if I kept running like I wanted to?” you ask. “If I didn't come back?”

He turns the question over; thinks of his words now. “I would have chased, then.” he decides with a note of finality. “I would have brought you back myself. I would have broken your legs and ended this foolish thing you insist on keeping up.”

That fixed stare of his — it carves a place in you. Starved dogs will bite the hardest, and lick away those wounds and call it love. You want to tear away and shrink into the corners of this place. You want to disappear.

“It’s…it’s not right.” You whimper and you despise how easy it is to cry. “I didn’t want to come back.”

Blade considers you, cleaves you apart under the weight of it. The sobs echo out freely. There was all too much today; too much to see, to do, to feel and keep track of and now this…this. You might have gone insane a long time ago with the numbness this routine has started to plague you with. “I miss home.” you blurt out. “I miss home. I want to go back.”

He purses his lips. “If you go back, you’ll die.” he replies flatly.

You want to scream at him. Hurt him. Hurt him for this whole mess he’s dragged you into. It’s a cloying, disgusting weight sitting atop your lungs and stealing away your feeble gasps for air. “I don’t care!” you snap, your voice hitching into a whine. “You took me away from them! You…you just waltzed the fuck in and ruined my life and Aeons above, now I can’t even run away — ” 

Because you can’t. If it’s not Blade, it’s Kafka. If not her, then Silver Wolf or Firefly. 

You press your palms over your eyes and slump against the cushioning of your seat. There’s tempered vermillion on your form when Blade watches you and you pick up on how his shoulders shift. “Don’t touch me, Blade.” you snarl and you speak his name with all the distaste you can muster. Blade pauses.

“You’re upset.” he struggles to say it. It comes out slow, unsure. 

“I am.” you grimace. “And being around you doesn’t help.” You try the door. The locks click shut. Your leg jams into it with an angry grunt. Wonderful, you think to yourself viciously; because this is just what you need, post the long line of bullshit that made ‘today’. More Blade. more yelling. More tearing into yourself for something that doesn't grate down on every impulsive nerve. “Let me out.”

“No.” he replies smoothly. Your fatigue piles till it blurs at the edges of your vision.

“Let me out!” you insist, caged and cornered and sick of it all. “You know I won’t run, goddammit! You know I won’t. Please! I just need a moment alone, please — ” It turns to a desolate almost-wail the more you speak. It's not something that could garner sympathy though. Not with someone like him.

When Blade turns his head away, you feel fury pour into your throat and flow past the seal of your lips. You swear, swear more than you have in a while and Blade stays stock still till you’re heaving against the dashboard, your hands clawing and fisting at his sleeves.

You’re trembling. Your voice is shot, your nerves numbed. And he treats you like a disobedient pet, pulling your grip from his arm finger by finger until his palms engulf yours. There’s a fleeting instance where you brace yourself, expecting a broken wrist or worse —

His thumb trails down, down, down, grazing the swell of bone and the dip of muscle till it slots over your pulse and it’s speedy thumping. The rise and fall of his chest is shallow, purposeful, paired with that leer beneath him. It's hunger. It's always hunger — and you're tired.

Your periphery starts to smudge into the panic as his lips graze the tips of your fingers. They brush over further down every joint and knuckle till his shaky sigh pulls him away from that daze and you're left shaking against your seat. Blade hunches over the partition. You turn your face away as his mouth plants over your cheek ( he inhales and there’s a soar in his veins, the giddy sort of thirst, the soothed addiction that nags at his state of being ).

“You’re awful.” you whisper.

His lips brush over yours and he kisses you, all of it pressed down with a gentle sweetness that you want to hurl at. There's practice there, his movements tamed and blunted down for your fragility and your unease. You can make out his touch, on your knee, on your thigh, heading higher and higher till it curls into the belt loops of your pants and coyly drags it down the barest fraction. 

It takes so little to stir the dregs in his guts. The slight sliver of skin beneath the pads of his thumb that he trains on with madness in his fervour. Blade’s teeth nip at you bottom lip, one fraction of it a keen cut mockery and the other, something that belies a perturbed beast. You wonder if it’s the mara. It seizes you. You hope it’s not the mara. 

( Kafka is not here to rein him in; and unlike Blade, your bones are a weak, brittle thing and your skin, easily moulded under his sword. A primitive part of you cowers at that idea, of you subjected to ferocity too alien for you to comprehend. )

“Am I?” He says this when he pulls away.

You don’t bother contesting it. His hum stretches out, searching, prodding, then content. You watch the frenzy in his movements, in how he tows you to his seat and pushes down against the back, lowering it. The handbrake digs into your calf as the lights shutter off and you’re left in the dark; cheek smushed against Blade’s chest. 

“Pants.” he hisses. “Off.”

You pull them down. Blade traces the hem of your underwear while you kick them till the slide up to your ankles, then he paws at your inner thighs. “All the way.” he urges. 

You grit your teeth. Your shoes follow. “This won’t change a thing.” you whisper, humiliation eating you alive. Blade exhales. It’s hot against your neck as you settle back down on his lap, hunched over lest you hit the ceiling. You can feel him bore holes into your form and you deign to ask. “Why are you doing this?”.

He freezes. “What?”

You scrunch your nose up. “Why do you want sex, all of a sudden? Usually you…” you trail off. It’s not uncommon, intercourse. You will refer to it as such because the disconnect is far too wide for you to linger or delude yourself to any sentiment ( and if Blade felt anything, in those moments where he’s lost and sunk into some far away memory, you can safely say it’s one sided ). 

But it’s not uncommon for Blade to seek you out and fill in that famished hole in him. It’s not uncommon to know the slope of his body beneath your grasp the way he knows yours. It’s not uncommon to quietly wish upon him, a permanent death — mercy or not, on him. Because he’s ruined you in the end. He’s ruined you.

( And you cannot stomach that idea of his love. You will not. )

He pushes your legs apart and urges you to keep speaking. “I…?”

You wince. “Well, I don't know how to say it, so I won’t.” you decide. You’re dry. Blade does not care, pulling your panties aside to tap at your clit. “Ah — ”

“If I’m awful…” He challenges, oddly chatty today as his trains on every minuscule change in your expression. “Then — ” You don’t quite catch the end of that sentence, when his middle finger swipes up the length of your cunt. Blade moves you into the crook of his arms, cradled in place atop his torso and the door behind you. You sneakily try the handle. It’s locked. 

Your face burns as that prickle of pleasure persists. “What?” you slur out, staying your hips while he slides your shirt up, then your bra, running his touch up your waist. You whimper out a pathetic little “no…” and meet his gaze, and the yawning void in it. 

“ — what does that make you?” he nips at your breast. You bare your teeth, teary eyed, twitching back against his touch when he slips into your heat and nudges at your walls. Blade presses his face over your collarbone, as if to capture and devour every part of your frame and you slacken, the fight gone. 

“Shut up.” you hoarsely snip. 

“You’re the one in my arms.” he warns you. 

“That doesn’t mean I — ” he presses into your sweet spot and you moan. “No. no stop that wait — ” He doesn’t, carefully, gently stroking your insides with the pad of his finger till your legs start quivering. “B-Blade n-no I still have t-to — ”

You think he might just eat you now, in his earnestness. Your throat tightens just as the creeping arrival of your orgasms makes itself known more and more. You press into his burnt iron scent and into the expensive silk of his shirt with your whimpers caught and those messy feelings bearing down over your back. 

There’s wet sounds — embarrassing, wet sounds that fill the silence in for the next few minutes. You keen against Blade, scrabbling at his shoulders before you move to grasp his thighs and brace yourself for the build up. Your clit aches, and a traitorous part of you angles your hips a bit just to have the heel of his palm catch against the neglected bundle of nerves.

( You’ll go mad at this rate. Mad, mad, mad. )

Blade bits his lip, slamming you against his body in response. A clear ‘no’, that makes you wail a little. Perhaps he did intend on it, letting you stew and suffer and rot against this piling filth that clogs at the spaces between your ribs. His fingers slip out, and he surveys the mess left on them while you hoot against the emptiness, before he presses your cut down against the tent in his pants. 

Your clit catches against the fabric. You tear up, sniffling while he stares up at you, hair splayed out against the seat, like a halo. You’d have called him pretty. Beautiful, even ( something in you does choose to acknowledge it with a feeling akin to fondness — it’s such a weak, pathetic thing ). “Go on.” he urges. It’s not a request. 

You press your weight down as he steadies your lips and you jerk against him, starting a slow grind while you feel the swell under your grow tighter. Your coat was shrugged off at some point against the feverish moaning, when you’d bowed your head down as you felt the rasp stroke against your sensitive spots and you felt a gnawing urge to fill yourself. Blade touches the bruising against your arm ( gentler, this time ).

It feels like drowning.

Blade’s own composure starts to falter, his teeth clenched just a little tighter and his pupils blowing wide enough to swallow out the vermillion.

He bucks up against you, digging into the meat of your thighs to pull you forth faster, faster, faster. You gasp, mouth hanging open as your movements turn frantic, desperate to finish this quick just as that weak ebb in your stomach starts to warm up again, slowly hitching higher and higher and hotter and hotter. You can feel the shape of him under his pants, and you nudge your clit along his clothed length, letting out a torn sob. 

“I-it’s not…” you start. “I can’t — ”

Blade slows. “Alright.” he mumbles, an almost-assurance as he lets your slow grind resume and you feel that overwhelmed weight peter out. 

“Blade…” you whisper. “Blade.” And it makes you want to cut your tongue out. He sucks a breath in, hazy eyed and waiting, all while the hint of pleasure starts to crest and grow till your clit strokes itself against the swell in his pants and you warble out his name a final time.

It’s a weak one, your orgasm, but you’re still left a little too sensitive and too aware with the buzz of feelings in your head. Too much, too little, so many, many things all at once. Blade hauls you back and drags you back between his thighs and you let out a shout of protest. 

“Not…wait wait wait — ” you blurt out, all too aware that he still hadn't reached his peak either. Maybe it was his punishment, his own taste of vindication after you tried to run. You hear his zipper come undone, the head of his cock prod against your entrance, now a little wetter, thankfully. You jerk back, whining just as he wrestles you back against him, willing you to stay still and —

( But you’re tired, you’re tired and you want this to stop for now and you’re far too aware of the ache at the small of your back and the seatbelt digging at your knee and the windows outside letting a clear view into these rawer parts of you. )

Blade presses his head at the middle of your chest, stroking your thigh as he tries to lower you onto him and the situation feels horribly familiar. “Blade…” you call, wincing at the dryness in your throat. Panic starts to bite at you. It’s a cold, cold thing. “Blade…Blade wait not here — ” You can feel the way he convulses, the mara seeming to slowly take the reason in him and rend it away. You push back and before you could stop yourself, you say it ( you should have but you think you’d fall apart then, with all of it coming down too fast, fast, fast ).

“Yingxing —”

You're slammed against the wheel, the horn ringing out loud enough to rattle you. Blade flinches as well, taking in one heaving breath then another till some parts of him seem to filter back in. His focus trains on you and suddenly, his jaw twitches and he moves, shifting you to the passenger seat before his door slams shut behind him. 

You slump against the backrest.

He’s back a while later, his clothes buttoned and his pants fixed. You’d pulled your clothes on in his absence.

He gives you a carton of chocolate milk with little fanfare involved. You're both ten minutes from the official meetup and a part of you wants to return to the ship's empty walls for a taste of monotony. He stares ahead of him, then at you. “If I do that to you again…” he mumbles. “You need to kill me, do you understand?”

You scoff. “Sorry I wasn't thinking fast enough.” you snap back but it comes out weak, so close to breaking apart, to falling on the floor and spilling over into a mess. 

Blade doesn’t say anything in response. 

Then a quiet “I apologize.” comes out of him, hushed, a little lost. You want to kill the sympathy that flares up. He deserves none of it. None of it. So you seethe. You seethe and seethe and seethe. Because your bravery was a lost thing, something weathered down a long time ago. Because anger is all you have for now. 

So you seethe in this malice and this angry, iron edged hatred and let it fester, till it burns you out for good. 

[pranabefall]

RAZOR BLADES IN YOUR FEET.⠀⠀⸺ ⠀⠀multi.

syn. the ocean is a deep dark place and the thought of it terrifies you. or in which, you meet a mer from the depths and they're a world away from the familiar simplicity you know.

TW. some slight and very tame yandere content, violent thoughts plus that need to drown you, blade being a warning in on itself, mentions of passing violence and mentions of organs and blood, slight body horror describes but nothing too serious, a criminal lack of dialogue in blade's part ( shark ! mer blade , wc. 949 ). illness, sick fic ( almost ), dan heng having thots tm but he's the polite boy we know and love he's trying not to give into the yandere XD ( dragon ??? dan heng . wc. 810 ), teasing, jing yuan being a little shit, mentions of kidnapping and the reader just being down and put, predator and prey dynamics if you squint, do not ask why i made this mofo an orca have you SEEN the videos??? ( orca ! mer jing yuan , wc. 1k ) guys is my favoritism showing, reader is written with female parts in mind but has no gender specific way of being addressed.

LOG. due to my blog being mdni in nature, minors / blank / ageless blogs, please do not directly interact with me. but HAHAHAHA wrote this for mermay and just in time to boot!!! i have far far far too many mer thoughts to be considered healthy to begin with god help us all. as always, graphic elements aren't mine but i made the overall spread. title is from 'mermaids' by florence and the machine ( absolute queen ).

I. BLADE ; DEATH SENTENCE

Blade wakes to the cut of stone and iron in his mouth and something heavy and cold against his back. There’s an ache against his head, a distant, numbing thing the ebbs in and out in time with his vision — he can see the rocky cliffs and the beach. He can see the sun above him, relentless in its shining. He can see the distant blue of the ocean lapping against the shoreline.

And he sees you, stumbling over the rocks. You, a human.

His viscera coils and burns and his teeth splinter at his lips ( it’s the instinctive snarl in his head that tells him to bite to claw to kill ). He watches the way you teeter and totter over the slippery pools and debris, and how your bare arms fling out into the air and break any incoming falls. You simply grunt, pick yourself back up and make your way to him.

Blade jolts. You stop. You say something, a breathless whisper under your breath and for once, that faint annoyance in your eyes melts to cautious awe ( Blade is dizzy, dizzy in how the world spins and the shape of you amongst blurs at the extremities ). 

Your voice pitches. He grimaces as the crackling static in his ears starts to settle and his skin starts to itch. The coolness on his back is gone and the sun begins to feel a little harsher down his body, gradually eating away at the moisture and parching the surface till it’s sand-dry. You wander at the edges, just out of reach — scared now, helplessly glancing between him and the sea. 

“What do you want?” he rasps. You jump. Blade thinks he glimpses pity in your eyes. It’s the prickle of nematocysts, the slow creep of venom that sours his throat. You open your mouth and answer and he understands nothing. Garbled nonsense, the spillage of words and articulated, human nonsense that strains and pounds into his cranium. You stop and the tart stench of fear is back and it descends down, down, down slowly. 

That tug persists; it's a filthy, parasitic want. Blade feels out of place in the thick of his body, with an urge to unravel his own muscle and bone and watch it knit back together. He needs more blood on his lips and the feel of a brittle fracture torn in by his teeth.

Water trickles down and the coolness nudges its way back in. You stumble back a few steps, your breaths laboured and strained in your chest. The gourd you hold is tipped to the floor, dripping the last few measly drops of its contents onto the rocks below. He notices the thing that clings to him, to the expanse of his shoulders right down.

It smells of you, faintly. The scent of a human, of sweat and salt and the burgeoning stillness of the sea. You mutter something. He knows the sheepish notes of an apology. His brow knits at that.

"You're wasting your time." he enunciates, laying back down. He tries pushing himself off, but the rough ground is a stubborn thing and his body feels far too heavy. A grunt slips out and he folds his arms into himself, cheek against hot stone. He keeps a watch on you through the mussed strands of his hair.

There's a persistent pace that bounces in the way you…walk. A high and low, rise and fall like the waves rocking to and fro. "It's pointless." he reiterates, half to himself. He'll die anyway and then come back as the ocean swallows his dried corpse back within it's depths. And he'll die again and again and again.

( And his bones will reshape and his blood will flow and his lungs will breathe ).

Still, you ferry between the ocean and him, keeping your silly rag wet and the heat away from his body. Blade shuts the eyes and the lull beckons. He smells the tide draw closer till it licks at the base of his tail. You let out a sigh and he thinks you'll leave then, go back to your human world full of human lives and human ways.

You stay at this point. You ask more things in a hurried tumble, but your hands move for him inches away from his arm. An offering. You smile in a way that's so unsure, so fearful, so hopeful it's nearly revolting.

( Blade wants to tear it off. Blade wants to seethe and chew and snap at the hardened, ossified parts of your body because all he smells now is flesh, flesh. flesh. )

He hangs his head down. You blow out some air and pull him further in. The scrape draws a hiss out till the water draws closer and closer still. He's half floating after a moment and you collapse back into the shallow pools, yelping against a scuffed knuckle. As his head dips down, he tastes the lingering notes of your blood.

There's a hammer in his chest, a heartened plea. Your legs, the smooth expanse of it stumbles back to shore and he could so easily reach out, pull you in, drag you under and feel the gentle beat of your pulse and the struggle it comes with it fade away. His mouth aches and his tongue is heavy. Blade lingers and follows you along the shoreline.

You wave an arm to him, slouched with your laughter, ringing and raucous and it incites that hungering feel in his guts. He says and does nothing, singular vermilion burnt against the sunset, his fists clenched and his heart refusing to be still. 

The monster inside turns and claws at the coral edge. It feels pleased. 

II. DAN HENG ; ETHEREAL DREAM

There's a cloying in Dan Heng's throat that refuses to wither or let up. 

You’re homesick, March had told him, gentle in the words she chooses and so worried for him. His tongue turns away that bitter fruit the moment he tastes it — because homesickness is a lie in itself and he’d rather shut his eyes and let the waves drown him. 

You stay beside him, a part of you afraid of something. Dan heng could guess it, the trickling of sand against your fingers, the thought of losing him. He thinks it’s sweet, how you hurry his sluggishness along and fuss over the details ( “Can you believe her?” you’d flared up all raised hackles as you watched the landlady shuffle down the stairs with the last of her warnings. “I think she’s a troll, A-Heng.” ).

And you watch over him as the fever starts to build. There’s a call in the crevices of his head that begs him to taste salt water and the deep. He shuts his eyes and leans into your hands — one more temperature check, one more worried twist to your lips. 

“We need to take you to the hospital.” you gently nudge, sweeping a thumb over his cheek. “Your temperature isn’t going down.”

Dan Heng shifts. It’s all white noise. “I’m fine,” he whispers. It’s too risky, he wants to say but that would call in more questions. You square your shoulders up. 

“Dan Heng — ”

He utters your name in response. His voice breaks at the end and he lays back down, counting the passing seconds. He wants the quiet again and you give into it, your eyes lidded and your expression schooled. 

Dan Heng stares at the expanse of sheets and imagines sinking down into the cold, leaving all this behind to greet that vengeful whisper. All of it. The land, the warmth, the time away from deep water and the sourness the past brings. You.

( You, who are all his in ways that makes his chest cut open and ache. )

Homesickness, he thinks again and the revulsion is almost instinctive. He will not go back. He cannot. He doesn’t know the currents the way that blurred out past-him used to. He does not know the sea floor or the pod chatter or the migratory routes and the chill of the cold ocean. Homesickness and Dan Heng wants to curl up and wash out the hot sting in his eyes. 

“You get some rest too.” he tells you after a moment. “There’s still some leftovers from what I cooked yesterday…” He trails off. You absently swing the legs hung over the edge of the bed.

“I’m worried.” you tell him. There’s a shake in your voice. 

“It’s just a cold.”

“You never get colds.” You draw into yourself. Dan heng sits himself up. The air is cool on his cheeks, watching the clumsy twining of your fingers and the wobble of your lips. “What if it’s something serious?”

He doesn’t want to lie to you. He still shakes his head and does so. “It’s not. Just a sore throat, a spike in temperature. Nothing I can’t rest off.”

You breathe in. Dan heng stifles the urge to bite, the crooning that compels him, the thought of returning. He could take you with him, down under to a world where it’s just you and him and the waves’ gentle caress. He eases away that itch in his teeth and pulls apart those thoughts till they scatter and repiece for some other odd instance.

( The ocean with you, might just be tolerable. )

You lean in and kiss his cheek. He twitches — he wants to spirit you away, to the sheets. To the beach, to the water. Somewhere and the tug at his arms starts to scare him. Because Dan heng does know the monstrosity in his love ( something that should not be there ) and it scares him more than he’s willing to admit it. 

“Do you want anything?” you ask, urge, prod; you’re a welcome annoyance all the same for him. He has a selfish desire to wrap his coils around you and never let you go ( and it’s tempting, tempting to think of you, you, just you ). “We can share.”

“That sounds fine.” he sighs. The weight in his chest is an ugly thing. You smile, tired but affectionate and you make your way back outside. He can hear the faint padding of your footsteps on the hard floor, the cluttering for a ceramic bowl and the microwave opening. He settles into his pillows as his teeth tear into his lips and draws out metal and red.

He’s disgusting. It’s a miserable thought. 

You’re his, it combats, in hunger. 

He presses his forehead to the sheets in his fever haze, and dreams of the ocean blue and your heartbeat next to him, steady, unyielding, present.

III. JING YUAN ; LIGHTBRINGER

Jing Yuan watches you linger by the wayside again. There’s a set to your jaw — an unhappy curl in your back and that look, withering as it is, does not still him. He pushes himself up to the seabed next to you, gently resting a hand over your forearm. There is so little you say these days, and he misses it and he misses your chatter. 

( A part of him nags at his impulsiveness, that bringing you here was a mistake. Jing Yuan you fool, Jing Yuan you idiot. )

“We’ll be leaving back for the pod soon.” he speaks up, his thumb stokes your shoulderblade and the clutter of scales there. You swat your tail at him, digging your claws into the ground. Your swimming is clumsy, unsure of itself. You don’t know how the water moves around you the way Jing Yuan does and he sees the fleeting annoyance that permeates through a few in his pod. You’ll be the first to be picked off by the ocean’s cruelty, he knows ( and the thought itself stirs an ache in his chest ).

He calls out your name. You keep struggling. You keep moving away. Jing Yuan swims to keep pace, a half chuckle, half sigh breathing through his chest. “You’re moving your tail wrong,” he reminds you. 

You chew at your bottom lip, nearly slipping and snapping back at him. Jing Yuan wouldn’t mind it; there’s an amusement there, a fascination in the way you’re bidden and rise and flow against the coming and going of your feelings. He shifts away from a patch of coral and gently bums into your side. You scramble and yelp and your body twists and turns and you suddenly go still with heaving breaths.

( Tonic immobility, you had called it, after hunching over that thing you’d called a phone. He’d told you about the ways he’d hunt the smaller sharks by the reefs — their livers were his lifeblood and it was one amongst the few things Yanqing would eat without putting up too much of a fuss. )

Jing Yuan lets out a half trembling breath, the ghost of laughter laying beneath it. You shut your eyes and let out a frustrated sound as the immobility peters out a few moments later. “Come now, won’t you speak to me?” he croons, soft and chest deep and lilting. 

You turn away, your fingers sifting through the grit and stone. “I miss your voice.” he keeps prodding. You shoot him a disgusted look. “I miss you.” he adds, slipping into your path. You bump into him a second time and the annoyance starts to set into anger ( the sparks of it filter past the low gaze in your eyes — a festering, seething creature ). 

He herds you back to the pod. You square your shoulders and snatch yourself away and Jing Yuan wonders how far that disgust seeps in. He wonders if the fear still seizes you at times. He’s not unobservant in how the thrum of your heartbeat spikes to something frenzied and panicked when his teeth pickle too close to the right side of your body. He knows you see the ravenous edge to his teeth when he shows them, when his touches linger ( when you’re his, just his ).

“Are you tired?” he asks. Nurse sharks like you tend to stagnate to the bottom and rest under piles and piles of others. You shake your head as your head starts to hang. Jing Yuan’s arms carefully prop you up, his slipstream keeping you in pace. “Little one.” he reiterates. “We can rest here a little longer if you want.”

You nudge at his shoulders, still insistent on that distance. “Just leave me here or something.” You finally say and Jing Yuan’s mouth straightens to a line.

“You know I won’t do that.” he coaxes.

Your mouth tugs at the corner and it twists. “These swimming lessons aren’t going anywhere.” you snip. “I’m better off dead at this point.” Jing Yuan tilts his head a bit, an appraising look settling. You shut your mouth immediately and turn your attention elsewhere. 

“Well I don’t want you dead.” he sighs. And he doesn’t. There’s a deep seated pang in his chest, a weight that accompanies. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Because you ‘love’ me.” you whisper, misery coating every heavy word.

“As you humans address it…yes.” he nods.

You let yourself be tugged along, deeper in and the panic hums inside you. He glimpses it, the swallow, the reddening in your eyes, that human thing you call tears ( they don’t fall in the ocean. It’s salt water like the rest of it ). “You don’t love me, Jing Yuan.” you whisper after a moment. His hands sink into the softness of your skin, your scent, the smoothened surface of your scales. 

“Then what is it then?” he urges. He doesn’t bother correcting you. You don’t like being corrected and he’s greedy, perhaps, to keep the conversation going — the empty space between, filled with your musings as broken and as strained as they are. 

“It’s not love.” you repeat feverishly. Your voice cracks. “None of this is. I don’t even know what it is.”

Jing Yuan jerks his head in a slow, careful affirmation. “And I care for you; and that’s hardly a lie.” He does. It’s such an insistent, vicious need ( to keep you safe even as instinct demands it, to sink his teeth in, to eat a sweet little thing like you up ). “I want you to rest now…” His lips are on your cheek. You sniffle, weakly pushing him away. There’s a selfish gnaw for more.

“I don’t think orcas are monogamous.” you mumble half to yourself. “I don’t know…if you aren’t, you’ll get bored of me.”

He laughs. “I won’t get tired of you.” ( how could he? He was trapped the moment he’d seen you on that shore, and his chest had squeezed and caved in on itself with that need, that feverish need to have you — his all his ).

“I hope you’ll get tired of me.” you mutter. There’s a melancholy, a quiet acceptance. “God i hope you do.”

Jing Yuan brushes up close, his lidded eyes sunfire and gold. He doesn’t correct you again and he lets it stew.

It’s one of the many things you’ll learn soon enough.

TAGLIST ノ join the taglist. — @silentmoths @meimeimeirin @sleepynoons @endursent.

@jessamine-rose @ofoceansandtombsanew @afterdarkwithkaeya @pomegranate-eater

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[pranabefall]

✸ — MISC NOTICE. ; minors dni. VERY RUSHED AND MESSY UEUEUE mara struck ! jing yuan x reader. maybe expanding on this particular thought lolol, this is not my current jy wip btw it's just a blurb, jing yuan is not all there guys, caharcter death ( it's u but ur immortal surprise ), VERY CANON DIVERGENT AND IS VERY MUCH AN AU ( it's soulsbourne inspired i want to turn this man into a boss fight with tragic lore you read from a random item you pick up lolol. also maaaaybe some very light referenced inspos from mouthwashing ). again very messy but i might expand on this au some more. not edited!!!

you're running out of supplies.

it's a thought that unearths some age old panic inside. you're a little surprised you could tip over any further from the edge ( you're already swimming in the tacky stench that is your anxiety -- the stuff with the consistency of molasses and malt ). Then you're rifling and recounting again, scribbling into your little notebook as your burns sting like salt over wounds.

you're running out of supplies. there's so little left ( a few protein bars and some bottled water left unvapourized post crash ) and it's sickening to think of the decisions after. you know that perhaps, swallowing away the last few bits of horror is a wiser choice. you need to step out some time. you need to forage and restock and --

gingko leers closer. its stink makes you gag. you want to empty your stomach out -- meager rations and stomach acid. all of it.

the things have not left their prowling. they still wait, watch, wonder. some have started to pace at the boundaries of the impact site and poke at the metal covers of the ship. you hear their clicking at night. the garbled distortions gurgling at their throat. their eyes are empty, a once human caricature that's twisted itself inside out.

you take a breath in. you breathe out.

"get up." you tell the pathetic face reflected on the metal cannisters. "there's nothing else to be done."

the reflection blinks back, sad eyed, tired eyed. you grimace and set it aside, shakily rising up and sweeping through the past logs you'd left behind. comms are still down. the delivery packages don't have much to eat save for spare clothes and jewelry. one had a model set of one of the newer ipc ships, complete with two tiny pilots to sit at the cockpit.

your old crewmate had tried to assemble it before his fingers grew numb and he'd curled up to rest ( it's still on the side table, unfinished. you couldn't touch it. the grief just refuses to unstick, still lost somewhere out in the stars.

he was the youngest. he had a future to look forward too, a little more shine in his eyes and a flush to his cheeks. a little more breathless awe that he's chatter through with messy sticky note art and his stumblings over countless books over white holes and rouge planets. )

the garbling spikes up. you catch a shadow by the frosted windows. you freeze.

then silently, you're curled into your corner again, white knuckled as you stare at it, left with nothing but shaky hands and the wild heartbeat ringing in your ears.

you died when you do step out. the things had found you wandering past the abandoned crates, scuttling forth by the pack-full and dragging you into the darker corners as their scathing cries tear your eardrums apart and their claws scoop your insides open.

you'd then woken to see muscle and tissue and visceral matter grow back and stich together -- neurons reconnecting, muscular tissue reworking, epithelium taking form over it all.

and you...you watch in muted horror.

you keep foraging after you discover you cannot die. it;s something that had fundamentally changed about you -- the reworking of your body. it's clinical terror at it's finest, the breaching of unnatural surreality. even if the delivery company finds you, the ruling ipc body will just cut you open again and again.

you hunch your shoulder, hugging the walls. there's still nothing here. nothing more to pick at and the hunger still gnaws at you with the days passing by. your shoes scrape against the grit and grime and you peek out. the way through is empty. good, your mind rings, followed by a wave of uneasiness that refuses to push itself down.

you scamper to the next hiding spot. it's painfully slow. you're short of breath.

again, you scuttle out, take a turn.

you stop.

one of the things are here, face down and half disintegrating into yellow flakes. it doesn't breath, staying stock still as blood polls and fans out beneath it. you almost bend over and retch, but you take a shaky step forth, then another and take a closer look. it looks like the others, differently built, but still clad in the same rusty armour ( the kind whose clinking warns you of their approach ).

you take a knee and try tugging the helmet off. the branches creak. it doesn't budge.

your fingers pitter patter over the surface, nudging a little anxiously. it doesn't wake. it almost seems dead. you want to banish that thought and keep moving -- the abundance is a face long gone from the cosmos. the remnants of it may have scattered into the cosmos, spores taking to planets to let it's mycelium take root. it's not a thing easily killed.

at least you think this thing is one of it's monstrosities. the aeons are beings you'd rather not think too much about. you are not one for blind fanaticism. it's a belief worn out of you over the years in bleak emptiness.

a bit of cloth is tugged down. "fuck." you mumble, shaking your head. you almost sob. "fuck what am i doing?" the cloth is pulled further aside. there's a sliver of grey, and something cool, soft, corpselike.

human.

your stomach flutters. you peek up the helmet. the skin of it's face had distorted, overgrown and pressed against the metal till it fuses into the surface. this time, you do vomit.

fuck, fuck, fuck you do not like what you're seeing. you need to keep going. keep going. keep going.

you shakily stumble back up and jog past the body, almost slipping over the coagulated blood. it coats your palms and your head spins as you wipe it at the sides of your clothes, spiraling down further and further in. there's a spin to the world around you, the spotting of the environment, the blurring of the grates to the flickering morning and night cycle.

a rumble vibrates against your feet. you gasp, it's a dry, panicked sound, breaking into a run. your muscles scream and you nearly fall over at your pants catch against one of the metal barriers. you whimper, your water cannister falling behind you. you hear it roll down and hit a stairwell. still, you run.

you jolt to the side and scramble between two crates and crouch. a few of the things skitter by. there's distress in their voices. there's fear in how the wrestle past just as the air seems to electrify and you start smelling the stinging of ozone. it's like a distant rumble, thunderous, a dangerous clutch against your ribs. you make yourself as small as possible. you feel small, pushing yourself deeper in, slotting just inside a small nook and out of sight.

you do not see it walk past. you hear it, measured steps against the road. your hands clamp over your mouth, biting away that muffled blubber. you cannot die, you remind yourself. even if it finds you, you cannot die. and you have died a few times already...there's little to think of save for staving over that hunger. so little.

and you remember the pain. the screaming ache. the pain it comes with. you remember the agony of fixing yourself back together. you remember the gaps in your memories, the hazy edges and the way you'd forgotten your date of birth, your mother's face.

you squeeze your eyes shut. your breaths are laboured.

there's silence.

the footsteps have stopped.

you open your eyes. you see the looming shadow cast on the road. you still don't see it. you watch it shift, metal scraping against metal. you hear it huff ( is it amused? ) and something falls. something rolls and hits the storage containers in front of you. you watch wide eyed, your cannister rolling back, past your little way out, down, down, down the street and stairs.

the noise is loud. uncomfortable.

you want to scream till your vocal chords give out. you want to tear into your face, your eyes, your mouth. you do not.

the footsteps start again. they fade till it's echo is near inaudible. and you wait, paranoia settling into the cracks while your world starts to distort into the lines of madness. finally, as the sky flickers for the umpteenth time and you feel like the world has settled, you crawl out of your hiding spot and breathe the air in.

you smell gingko.

a hand closes around your neck. you're slammed against the metal walls as a cheek presses into yours. you just see silver, a pretty silver just as your windpipe cracks and your throat gives in. you stop clawing at your hands, broken wheezing rattling your chest. there's a blurriness. your tears fall. the figure lifts your chin up, vermillion flooding past. you feel like ice, like the charred remains of a corpse.

you can't make out his features. it's smudged. but you see the cold contemplation.

and you let death have you again, and cast you aside. you have no place in it's bedside.

you wake once more where it had left you. your bones are still stitching together, your inhales pained and the soreness of your back aching against the metal. you stare into the space across listlessly waiting, waiting, waiting.

how wonderous, you think, half giddy from asphyxia and the taste of sweat in your mouth. you could feel the knitting of damaged tissue in your throat. how bizzarre, how sickening.

you feel a little less human, your last name sinking past the surface, out of your grasp, away from your protests. you try to remember. you cannot.

you see it...him properly after a few more outings. the same silver hair, the same red dipped gold eyes. and he watches you too, an empty smile curling over his lips. the most human thing you'd seen far, yet not. it's an unnecessary addition. you wish you'd both never crossed paths.

"oh."

"oh?" he echoes, amusement lilting at the edges. it's playful, menacing. you take a step back when the frost at your feet melts away and ozone pervades your senses. he lingers, let's you fall back, let's you panic.

and you run.

and he chases.

and you die, under his breathless, rumbling laughter.

( the madness is a waiting beast. you know you cannot keep escaping it. but still, still still, you try to dance and still, still. still, it tries to pounce.

it's simply the way of things now. plain and simple ).

TAGLIST ノ join the taglist. — @silentmoths @meimeimeirin @sleepynoons @endursent.

@jessamine-rose @ofoceansandtombsanew @thatkawaiidesubitch @afterdarkwithkaeya.

@pomegranate-eater

[pranabefall]

i wish you would write... hear me out

dragon!li

tongue fucking reader

HSAHASDHSAHHSDA OKIE BYE

with his giant ass tongue ykwim

(overstim? edging? punishments? brat!reader?)//smacked

EUN A GIRL AFTER MY OWN HEART HEHEHEHE. wrote this for the blurb game.

warnings. ( ZHONGLI x READER ) half ! dragon li, smut yes smut there is smut in this and as always, minors get off of my lawn! okay yes what else, monsterfucking, overstimulation, edging and a flavour of brat reader as ms. eun requests though it's very subtle, orgasm denial, zhongli is a tad bit mean. reader is written with female pronouns and anatomy in mind.

You can only feel the weight of him on your back when the haze clears a little. There's a clinical relentlessness in how Zhongli bears down, pressing your chest into the washed sheets till your open mouth tastes cotton. You want to whimper, cry, spit something out ( tear into the blankness your mind stagnates into, tear it apart as easily as you sink inside it ). You do not.

He traces the arch of your spine, the way your flesh dips beneath him, teasing his claws over the curve of your ass. You feel like you've been dropped into a furnace, calcified; tissue deep in how he touches you. It's distant, contemplative, disconcerting, so unlike him and — oh, you realise then, he's not pleased with you at all.

One hand stays between your thighs, thumbing at your clit. Your hips jolt. You bite at the sheets till your saliva pools and wets the surface. Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn with your mortal defiance and your mortal pride. Zhongli hisses in the face of your silence.

His lips are cold against the heat of your neck, then his teeth, prickling against the surface, silently prying away at supple skin. "Won't you say anything?" his voice dips into a coaxing purr, a little hungry, a little demanding. You catch sight of gold peeking through the strands of his hair. Like cor lapis, like cut topaz, so unfairly pretty in ways that make your chest hurt and turn and long ( for…for what? ) like a greedy, unsightly little creature.

Still, your lips sew itself shut. You dig your nails into the sheets.

"Ah."

He moves his hips, filling you out once more. Another cry almost forces itself out. You press your face down and Zhongli sighs, his tail winding round your thighs and forcing your legs apart further, further, further.

"Nothing to say, I suppose?" he asks, a bite edging his words. "Is this you being a disobedient brat? I have little time to entertain your bad behaviour, love." You can feel the way his tip bullies into your inside, the way he coaxes another release out of you as you try to scramble back, away from that overwhelming crest.

You're pinned back down. Zhongli is unamused tutting out a scathing "We've agreed to this." He brushes at your g-spot, one finger tapping at your clit at slow, un-endingly torturous rhythm. You want to loose yourself somewhere, disappear into white cotton and detergent and you want, perhaps, to be broken down and pieced back together.

"I know." You sob out, finally. "I know, I'm sorry."

Zhongli Huffs. "You know?" he echoes, growling at your ear, nipping against the shell of it. "And still, you insist on being so…" You crane your neck. He does not finish, watching you with blown out pupils. It's erratic, primal. You're a stone faced with a mountain — small with your victories yet unbearably heavy in the face of your defeats.

You'd like to taste some humiliation. "Is that all?" he asks gently.

You spare him no response. Zhongli lets out a short laugh.

( He doesn't mind it. He likes the chase of it; the undoing, the cajoling. He doesn't need force — force implies a brutishness he'd long shed in the skins of his exuvia. Brutishness was a past visage, long worn down and weathered and smoothed. No, all he needs now is a taste of it, his patience. Zhongli knows he can pry it out of you with stern discipline, pry it out with your own weeping face bent in supplication. )

He flips the two of you over, scrutinising your shaking body. His claws gently press at your scalp, pulling your hair till you meet his stare, the gold smoke filtering past his lips, the rise and fall of his chest against yours. "Sit up." he orders.

"What?" you manage, stock still.

"Sit up." he enunciates once more, his eyes lidded. You do just that, pleasure burning into muscle. He's still inside you, the size of him stretching you out and apart in ways that have you faltering past the tears. You sniffle, pressing your palm to your lips. Zhongli settles his hands against your hips, easing you up.

You tremble, sighing at the sudden emptiness, something between a mix of protest and relief. Then you're sat back down, a warm, soft prodding pressing at your entrance and you scream.

Zhongli stares up at you, satisfaction seeping in as a slow, deliberate lick is laved against your overstimulated bud. You blurt out a swear, then a flurry of keening whimpers as he noses into your cunt with a half groan, locking your hips against him. It's easy to fall back against him, gripping at his waist behind you in some hapless attempt to wiggle free.

You're pulled back to his mouth, that tongue slipping into your walls. The hunger seems to mount in the way he handles you now, eating away bit by bit. It's in the bite against your thighs when you try another time, the blood staining the rim of his lips, the silencing impact in molten gold.

"Zhongli — " you gasp. "Zhongli…Zhongli — " You mewl, strangled and left to pull at his horns and hair while tears sting and fall. A stray hiccup, another, he huffs, tempering your hot body with a drag of his talons across your torso. A nose is nudging your clit; it digs at a cry lodged at your chest till it slips out free.

More, more, more, he seems to quietly demand it. More, more — more of the little pleasures, more of your wanton moaning, more of the way your sweat leaves a tart aftertaste, the way you curl your back with the motions. More of this : him against the headboard and your lower body slumped against him, straining your thighs apart with a delicious ache as he makes a home between them.

( He's a greedy man in the end, collecting his spoils. )

You feel it come too fast, the snapping of that knot, the melded pleasure-pain. You wail, begging him with slurred speech for a helping of mercy.

Zhongli pulls away before you could cum. That cry in your throat grows hysterical.

"I will ask you again." He whispers, stroking your lower belly. You twitch, your teary eyes blinking up at him. You see the stirring darkness in his own.

You look away. "Please." you whisper. Zhongli smiles ta you the first time since he'd carried you to bed.

"Good girl. That wasn't so hard now, was it?"

[pranabefall]

@jessamine-rose says : I wish you would write a fic where Reader ties up Blade shibari-style（╹◡╹）♡

Jessie my physical response to this is shinji chairing so hard I become a wholly separate meme entity. But as you wish ofc ofc. Wrote this for the blurb game.

warnings. ( BLADE x READER ) Shibari, yandere? Blade because this man is not normal, heavily implied sexual content but it's not as explicitly described ( are they having sex or are they not...schrodinger's sexcapade...???? ), reader and Blade are heavily implied to have a fucked up power imbalance, part 374858383 of me never writing blade and reader having a healthy relationship, reader is written with female pronouns and anatomy in mind.

There's a rasping sort of breath in Blade's chest when you touch him, vermillion burning into you with a quiet consideration as the last knot is tightened and you shift just a little on his lap. A small victory ( a lie ) for once, testing him as you stay as still as you could and watch the binds strain against his arms.

"Don't break them." You tell him quietly. You want to savour it, this rarity, the momentary dizziness and euphoria borne from your aching fingertips and the flush of your face. Blade let's out a petering breath, his lips brushing against your shoulder.

"Why?" He asks, prodding away at you.

"They're expensive, that's why. And you promised." You emphasize that work. Blade always kept his end of the deal. You're a little selfish for exploiting it, but you've been strung along enough times to want to rake yoyr nails against his scalp and make him hurt. "You never come visit me."

Blade grunts. "I'm busy."

"Too busy for me?" You mouth off, thumbs digging into his collar bone.

He shuts you up with a stern look. The heat in your gut grows ( you don't want to whimper ). "You're the one who keeps me here." You whisper, feeling your throat dry as a lump starts to grow. You will not cry. Not in front of him, even if your ribs ache and your lungs freeze over and hurt the way needles hurt. "It gets lonely, you know. You don't even like me talking to the delivery guys."

Blade stubbornly tucks the flickers of guilt away. There's a jarring emptiness there, and a hunger and something not quite sane. Human but not quite, ravenous and animalistuc and wild and awful, awful, awful. "Forget it." You hiss.

He lets you settle, the stiffness in your shoulders coming to relax as you focus on the lamp against the nightstand. He'd bought that for you a few weeks into moving in here, when you'd tell him about the dark and the shadows that seemed to stalk the walls. The day after, he handed this to you, fumbling his awkward hands against yours ( and you almost trick yourself into thinking that maybe, against the absurdity and the odds and the keen eyed gaze that pressed onto you, the two of you were in love.

It was the only time you'd smiled at Blade ).

"Is this why you're tying me up? You want me to stay?"

You freeze when he says that. You shouldn't have. You really fucking shouldn't have.

A smirk curls over his lips. A part of you hates that he is as pretty as he is, lovely — in fact. It's nauseating, almost, the way human skin folds over the things that are monstrous and horrific and evens out to a smooth finish — he's the sort of face artist's paint, the sort that scultures sculpt only tempered by the pallour against the moonshine; corpselike and dulled against his deaths.

The words tear in and claw away at an ugly simmer inside. "I don't!" You snap. "You just owe me is all."

"So you want me to stay?"

"No."

"But you are upset I do not?"

"No — I mean — " A dry choke heaves out. You wrinkle your nose and bare your teeth. "Just shut up." The ends are fraying. Blade sits up proper, cheek brushing against yours. The gesture is soft, tender, a catlike show of affection. Your hips shift. He draws in a sharp breath, a sound through his teeth. You try pushing him back. He resists.

You try again, tensing as his lips brush against the shell of your ear. A terrified shuddering sound filters out, pitching at the end when he still doesn't quite move against a harder shove. "Blade." You whisper. "Blade if you hurt me, I will scream."

"I won't, foolish girl." He chides.

"Then lay back."

"No."

Your mouth is pressed to a thin, panicked line as the terror starts to branch, grasping against the eaves and grooves of your body. Blade presses his nose to the dip in your neck. "But you promised." You whine.

Blade sighs, like you were a child kicking her feet to a tantrum and screaming, screaming, screaming. "Not to break these binds." He reminds you. You wince.

He pulls away, brow pinched. A chaste kiss presses up against your lips. You feel burned where he touches you, and you lean in, steadying yourself as you grasp the red ropes drawn across his chest and arms. "My patience wears thin." He cuts through. His hips twitch. "Move."

[pranabefall]

O m e g a v e r s e

fact that i knew this was moth and and had to hunt them down for more details bahahahah. but okay we can have tentative blade omegaverse with some silly forced medication XD. wrote this for the blurb game.

warnings. ( BLADE x READER ) omegaverse, force feeding meds using commands, some dubious consent involved given the reader isn't the fondest of blade, some inflicted violence from the reader's side - nothing too severe, slight??? yandere blade???, gears into suggestive territory, essentially if tda reader and blade were in omegaverse guys, alpha blade and omega reader.

"stop moving." he grunts, hauling you atop his lap with abandon till your legs were tucked forth and your back is pressed to his chest. blade is not gentle in the way he handles you ( you don't think tenderness exists in his atrophied muscles anymore ).

you let out the softest of whine, scraping your fingers against the softness of his skin. it catches at the bandages and you almost want to tear him raw before his arm steadies your shifting wait and almost slams you back against his chest again. blade hisses in your ear, prying your jaw open as the bitter tang from those suppressants presses against your tongue.

"no!" you half snarl, batting at his hands. "no no no please-"

blade dips his head forth, his gaze shadowed beneath wisps of dark blue. "i said stop — " he asserts, hardly flinching against your teeth snapping at his thumb. "your heat is due in a few days. you must take this."

a dry sob shutters in your chest. it rattles at half worn ribs, the cold in the air. his stench is pungent, bloodied and tart against your nose. he smells like violence, like iron and crushed lilies and he kets it bear down as the fight dies away and your muscles slowly tense and relax and tense again against his grasp.

don't eat it, you tell yourself. you remember kafka last time, soothing your panic as she fed you those pills. you'd passed out for the remainder of the night and had woken to blade's shifting presence staring you down against the dim lighting of the room. pills were dangerous in their hands.

don't eat it.

you shake your head, pressing your lips to a firm line. there's a stubborn heat in your stomach, lashing, growling, tearing into the ground. "you can have something after this..." he coaxes, the unfamiliar with the gentler lilts he'd have to take. it spills out awkwardly. "food. if you are hungry. we have rice...chicken..."

you try to throw yourself out of his lap, digging into the sheets and pull your body off of him.

he drags you back, firm hand pinning you down against his thigh with a huff. his patience snags at the corners. you can see the annoyed flare alit in vermillion. you squirm. he pushes you down, huffing against it. now there is amusement.

"i do not have to be gentle with you." his words are a scathing point. "eat."

you turn your head away and whimper a muffled "no."

"you either eat this or suffer through your cycle later." he states, plain and simple as his gaze narrows into predatory slits. you shrink into yourself, heart hammering through the haze of panic slowly building, steady, steady, steady. "and you abhor me touching you as is so you'll be left here to rot till it ends."

"i don't care." you hiss.

blade's lips twist into an incredulous smirk.

"stubborn."

you slip away, scramble off of him and across the bed with a quaking cry. his scent settles down even heavier, blade watching with a calculated tilt to his head. wolfish, hungry almost. you swallow and keep yourself steady. "omega."

the command feels like a heavy handed punch. it yanks the air out of your lungs. you stumble, leaning closer, half there half not with a shuddery twitch. "still."

blood. you smell and taste in against your tongue, scraping at your insides. blood and crushed flowers and iron edged danger. blade's hand presses against your chin, gently lifting it up to level with his stare. he opens your mouth and drops the suppressants in. you're almost gagging as they break the through the flavours and mesh into something incomprehensible.

you despise it, screaming and clawing at the reaches of your mind as the protest rings in your head and ears till your teeth hurt. then there is white nose. the water follows, your nose is pinched. "swallow." he instructs. your throat bobs. you take those pills with little fight.

"good." he breaths patting at your head with blank faced satisfaction, his pheromones lifting away.

you gasp.

then you scream.

he lets you till your vocal chords give way to pained silence, pulling you close to him again. there is a steady rhythm to his heartbeat. slower than what it should be, nose burying up into your neck ( you almost feel the brush of his teeth, the wetness of his tongue tasting ) and against your scent glands, almost taking in the last remnants of your essence before the medicines peter in and wash it away.

[pranabefall]

✸ — MISC NOTICE. ; minors dni. zhongli x reader. again, some pure fluff but as an mdni blog i'm holding repellent XD. mostly silly silly stuff ihgfghj reader is implied to have studied in the sumeru akademiya. not edited!!!

"You're awake."

It's more a statement then anything else, Zhongli's arm snakes round you, steady in it's grasp. "I know you are." he adds, in a way where the depths of his chest seemed to rumble slow, slow, slowly.

You crack an eye open and stare straight at him, a sheepish grin flickering across for a moment ( only for a moment. You're incorrigible, as Zhongli liked to say ). "I've been thinking." You begin, your breath half caught at the back of your mouth. An excited thrum dances over your fingertips and you're half dizzy from the buzz and the tire. So much, there's so much, your stomach feels like it's about to explode.

"It's too early." he glances over at you with a pointed raise to his brow. "You can barely hear the birds out. Go back to sleep now." His hands are gentle against your cheek and you're almost swayed by the rumbling timbre of his voice and the low cadence. It's lulling you, but by bit, deeper and deeper.

"I've been thinking." You repeat with a little more force, lifting your head up to state your point across. You collapse back down a moment later when the room spins a bit. Perhaps you were too hasty ( goddammit ) and you content yourself with settling into the mattress and pulling the blanket over your shoulders.

His lashes flutter. There is fond exasperation there, melting into his chest and his nearly-there smile like butter. Its the most Zhongli thing about him, the tiny moments and peeks in through. "Alas." He sighs, nudging you close, laying your head over his bicep. "Tell me then."

Zhongli watches the way your shoulders hunch and your lips quirk. "A willing audience? How grand..."

"A little too willing, I'm afraid. I spoiled you so."

Your hands splay against his shoulders. He's warm.

"It's only going to take a minute. In fact, it's only a question. All I need are answers and that will only take as long as you want it to."

Ah there it is, the narrowed squint, the subtle shift and the signs of a slightly more alert Zhongli ( the Zhongli who'd straighten his back and cattishly stare at someone who dares to mention the name of some obscure historic even or little known tea ). "Ask me, then."

You fall silent, looking for your words.

"I was wondering. Is geo resonance susceptible to tearing apart organic tissue? How little is needed for it to do so, and how little for it to...not...?"

You don't think there is a sane way of phrasing that, to be fair. But you'd ask stranger things, always digging and questioning and presenting the wildest little ideas on odd days of the week. It's a side effect of the Akademiya and a lack of sages sushing you into a corner with a pile of textbooks and dry edged annoyance. And maybe the very aforementioned abandonment of shame.

"And by organic tissue..."

"Human flesh, Zhongli."

"Ah."

"More specifically muscles, tendons, bones...maybe even neural tissue to be fair. Any of that stuff."

Zhongli has the grace to not react, or give much away in his contemplation. You knock your head against his chin in gentle assurance. "You don't have to answer of course."

"It's certainly a strange one." He admits.

"It is." You grumble.

"Well..." He trails off before a breathy little chuckle trembles past. "We'll, I can't say I know a proper answer to this one. It's quite specific isn't it?"

"Horribly so. Different tissue have different densities. You can afford to be a little rougher with bone, for example. But something softer like grey matter would require far more finesse."

His hand is steady against the small of your back. "And you ask this because..."

Your lips tug at the corners. "An old junior of mine sent a letter in. The boy graduated from the Spantamad Darshan in my absence and had plenty of news to share regarding a few new experiments with elemental energy and the like." You turn over a moment. "If we could find the precise frequency needed, we may just be able to utilize geo resonances for medical diagnostics."

Zhongli blinks. It's a slow, thoughtful thing.

"That is fascinating." He muses. "So you seek to map put internal injuries then? Or perhaps tumours?"

"Yes!" You eagerly nod at that. "There are Fontanian inventors...and skilled akademics. They're calling a few alumni in to aud in the research."

Your cheek tucks into the crook of his neck. You feel his warmth and the too-slow heartbeat carefully wrapped in his chest, between ribs and flesh — made of anything but stone ( You're filled with a hunger. Zhongli calls it endearing, your passion, as quiet as it can be sometimes ).

"You were invited too." He guesses.

"Yes."

His lips test against your neck. "How long?"

"A while." You look outside, to the balcony and the horizon in the distance. Then you see Zhongli's face, his hair undone and sweep against your temple as he kisses you proper.

"Then go, little love."

"Are you sure?" You suddenly feel awful, and small, and selfish. Liyue had stuck fast to the buttery feelings in your chest and Zhongli had made himself a home there as well. A part of you wants to sneak him into your trunk, sprit him away to Sumeru. It's greedy, immature ( he's always waited for you, patiently ).

"Quite." He kisses your cheek next. "What's a few months?"

"An eternity." You grunt.

Zhongli is silent for a long, long moment. "Right now...it would be, yes." He says in the afterthoughts. "And will miss you terribly. But I've waited before, and I don't see why I cannot now."

He laces his fingers against yours.

"I'll write to you every week." You promise.

"Every week." He promises and he smiles his almost smile. You kiss his forehead. He sighs. "For now...I will say it again. Go to sleep."

"Yes, yes." You mutter, snuggling in. Zhongli tucks his hand beneath your knees and swings one leg over his waist, pulling you impossibly closer.

Let me be greedy, he seems to say.

You let him.

TAGLIST ノ join the taglist. — @silentmoths @meimeimeirin @sleepynoons @iuzas @endursent.

@jessamine-rose @ofoceansandtombsanew @chiyoso @loveliluc

[pranabefall]

✸ — MISC NOTICE. ; minors dni. no minors allowed here period. sentinel ! jing yuan x guide reader. a silly blurb for the most part. follows guideverse au concepts and such. yandere warning, i plan on expanding this into a proper oneshot soon enough XD. till then have a reader crashout : the fic. not edited!!!

it's your boss who issues the final warning after the third turn down. he'd given you a stern talking to, another chance and that repeated statement wedged into your head with corporate manuals and the like.

he's important, he tells you furiously. you can't just turn away from him when he comes to you...and he asks for you specifically. specifically, because he plays games you can't quite understand and inlays his conversations with double meanings and jokes you catch him chuckling over.

you don't know if you want to laugh or cry at the ridicule, at his persistence. but you kept quiet and collected your dues, silently letting yourself into his home after he summons you again.

your coworkers tell you you're thinking too much. the general is a kind man. the twisted do not hand feed finches and let cats nap on their knee. and yet you doubt. you doubt, doubt, keep doubting like it's the air you breathe, like every flex to his arm and every shift of his body is a trap.

( the general is a kind man. yet he does not feel any safer.

most sentinels, to you do not. )

one of his retainers points you to the gardens, and you find him seated beneath tree-cover, mulling over an unfinished chess game and the lack of an opponent. you don't think you could slip away at this point. you don't think you should.

his shoulders are hunched and his cheeks sallow, but he still holds that cheeky light in his eyes. annoyingly handsome. cloyingly so, in ways that make your stomach turn. and those eyes meet yours, and that smile filters through. you freeze and tell yourself not to run.

( that's not hunger you see there, you tell yourself. it's not. )

"good morning." he greets, patting the space beside him. "it's been quite some time, yes?"

you swallow. "yes." you nod, taking your seat just a little ways off. jing yuan looks amused. "it's best we get this session over with. i hope you don't mind general."

his eyelids droop and a languid tremor starts up in the depth of his chest. "mh. you're in that much of a hurry?" he half teases, holding his hand out. "i'd hoped you'd stay for some tea. it's a new brew master du has taken a liking to."

"i'm afraid i cannot linger." you repeat, a little firmer this time. you reach into that plunging darkness, tugging away the corruption that clings to his being with the finesse of threading a needle. guiding was almost second nature at this point, a mindless thing, a near instinct. and jing yuan had much to undo and unravel and pull out.

jing yuan exhales. it's long, deep, relieved almost, scraping to the borders of euphoric. you keep tugging. he lets himself pull into you, his warmth grazing against the apple of your cheek.

"it's taking longer than it should." you choke.

"is it?"

you try not to let the fear in. "sorry." you whisper. it's always like this. jing yuan's unsaid insistence, the desperation buzzing beneath his skin, the almost touches.

it's taking longer to unwind the wringing tendril, nick away at the emptiness and fill it up with something.

he has your left hand press up into his cheek. you want to snatch it back. the corruption comes undone easier though, so you let it stay there, let him touch you a little more than he should. jing yuan seems satisfied with this.

"much better, right?" he chuckles. the pads of his fingers press just above your pulse, taking in the quick paced beat. jing yuan stares long and hard at you.

you still want to run.

"you could say that..." you shove that urge back, lock it away, tell it it's not welcome. better this than feeling those hands elsewhere. the crawling terror may persist, but jing yuan wouldn't hurt you that way.

( "stay a little longer." he mumbles into your palm. "you seem so tired. did you have another long day?" )

...you hope he won't.

[pranabefall]

⠀⠀QINGXIN IN THE MOUNTAIN.⠀⠀⸺ ⠀⠀zhongli.

syn. while the divine war rages on, you find yourself entangled in the company of a wounded god and reservations or not, you don't have the heart to let someone die on your watch.

TW. ⸺ beta read, long oneshot like seriously it's over 14k, mentions of war and past death, seclusion and wounds. this work contains 18+ contents so minors, you know the drill, unprotected sex, half-dragon zhongli, reader has no gendered pronouns but has female parts, 4k words worth of smut guys get ready.

LOG. ⸺ this is another repost of this fic after my old account got deleted on accident. taken from my old blog lol, a buffer as i work on my current wip XD. this work has been marked mature for containing smut. readers below the age of 18 / ageless blogs and antis, do not interact.

“i want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.”

— PABLO NERUDA.

Curiosity , you learned, was a reckless maverick in every right. Your mother told you of its consequences, of the people who wandered too far from the safety of your village and the watchful eye of your deity, and she told you of their death and the disaster they reaped alongside it.

Curiosity was what cost you — and you knew , you knew better than to indulge in its traitorous little tug when you wake, the scent of petrichor in abundance and the chill of a rainstorm’s aftermath prickling your skin. 

“Forget about it.” you tell yourself when you rub the sleep out of your eyes. 

“Forget about it.” you tell the reflection staring up at you, her brows furrowed with a familiar sternness. It scatters when you dip your hands into the basin, the icy water stinging your fingertips.

“Forget about it.” you breathe out as you lean against the doorframe of your small home, staring out at the expanse of green and the fog that had settled a few feet below.

Yet here you were , scaling down a mossy slope, your bare feet damp from the dew it trod over and your hair still messy from your sleep. You could dimly recall something the previous night between the rains, between the crash of thunder and the crackle of lightning. It was a sound too distinct and out of place in a storm, something akin to the beginnings of an earthquake before an unknown force cuts its life short.

Your head swivels to the side. You couldn’t see much past the mist save for what was in front of you and you clamber down with a little more prudence till the ground evens out a bit more and the screen before you dissipates. You could see nothing out of place, save for a few upturned trees and your shoulders slump. It was all for nothing , you realize and a tinier voice dares to whisper a spiteful little ‘dammit’ .

You turn, casting one last glance over the clearing, then make your way back uphill. It was a wasted attempt and as you stew in your own self-berating and disappointment, you almost miss the faint crackle behind you. It was just the wind , you reason. There was little cause for it to be anything else. What could possibly make its way up here ?

When you hear it a second time, you freeze, something cold jolting at your bones.

Well shit .

It doesn’t take too long to find the source, save for trudging through the mud and a few of the murkier parts past the tree line — but you find it by the time the sun shifts the barest fraction to the west..

“ Ah — ” was the most your throat could choke out as shock swallowed you whole, like ice water.

There is a trail of gold on the earth, and it leads up to the slumped form of a man, his robes stained with the same gilted shade and his breath leaving shallow puffs of air where he lay, motionless and seemingly dead.

Well — fucking — shit . You mind shudders, your thoughts screaming and splitting up against your head like some panicked beast. It was chaos at its core, it was the frenzied scrape of control.

You were no fool. The man before you, both massive in frame and presence, was one amongst the hundreds of those touched by divinity — god or not — whose names were uttered and praised amidst this war. There was nothing distinctly human about him; not his clothes, not the horns that curled atop his skull and the brown scales smattered across, not the ichor he bled out — nothing .

For a moment, or maybe more, you stare down at him, long and hard as you try to wrangle your rationality back and think of what move to make. You could not afford the trouble that comes with aiding a foreign being and the land you settled on could house any force hostile to the man at your feet. A shaky breath escapes, then another. You were trembling now, just a little, daring to take a step back, then one more.

Kill him , another voice snaps. It was twisted and its words breathed acrid revulsion. Get it over with, he’s not worth the pain.

You consider it, for the tiniest bit of a second till he lets out a shudder and shifts with tense shoulders, his grunts labored and streaked with muted agony — those darker thoughts quickly flatline to scattered anxiety and the hand that brushes the blade at your hip falls limp. Not now, perhaps . You could just leave him here, let nature run its course.

You could do that , you decide with a semblance of confidence.

Of course you could.

Of course .

Your shuffling comes to a stop and you're backtracking immediately, your pace holding an urgent bounce with every step. There is a feverish jerk to your movements when you settle beside him, and a storm of emotions raging in your chest. It does little to ease you — little does, these days — and you press up on his shoulders in an attempt to roll him over onto his back.

It happens so swiftly, a blur of gold and black that shadowed your periphery before you were slammed down with eyes like uncut cor lapis glaring down at you. You scramble, clawing at your neck, at the digits pressed up against your windpipe and your pulse and it beats faster and faster and faster . One tiny move and you’d be left for dead.

( A part of you is stunned — for even wounded and weakened from some unknown, unspoken battle, the quavering power within him seemed to beat strong. You feel a mix of thrilled awe and terror turn in your stomach. )

His gaze hardly falters, roving at your form before his grasp on you releases and he mutters something akin to an apology, collapsing again. His eyes were still open, watching you beneath a haze of pain and deliriousness, stiffening now and then when you so much as move. The strength he showed, no matter how small it was, is gone and there is the slightest hint of vulnerability beneath the stripped layers of stone.

Your instincts scream at you to run yet you stay rooted in place, coming to sit up and hover by his side. In the end, your own concern and pity won out. “Y-you’re wounded.” you try to reason, only to be met with a grunt. You find yourself wincing as you stutter over your words, your voice hoarse from months of disuse. “Please, l-let me help. My h-home is c-close b-by.” 

Feeble , you chide yourself amidst it all, old, old regrets tearing at your mind and clawing at your thoughts. You shut your eyes, letting your muscles relax and you try again.

Tugging at his arm serves to be fruitless. He was too large for you to carry over and your first attempt gives that away well enough. The gold in his veins seems to dim with the passage of time and you fear his life slipping away under your watch. “I n-need you to w-walk…” your plea is almost caught in your throat and you have to wrench it out to let it be heard. He tilts his head your way. “You’re too h-heavy…” you try to reason.

Another grunt sounds out and thankfully , his form rises. You’re quick to move to his side, supporting him against your shoulder, the thrum of elemental energy strong beneath your hold. He practically oozed it and it feels like what the storm felt like — the trembling earth itself.

You don’t say much after that, leading him back to your home, your hand and clothes staining a bright gold.

Perhaps your house would have been a little cleaner had you known you’d have a guest over. When you lead the the being inside, you scan the small space with a sense of perplexity, hoping he wouldn’t scrutinize the sight too much ( your mother always seemed to emphasize the need for a well kept living space — should she see you now, you know she’d be rolling in her grave with indignity ).

He stumbles a little, letting out a guttural snarl and you flinch, almost dropping his weight onto the floor when you feel claws close down on your arm and press against your scarred skin. You hiss softly and he gives a little jolt, his hold on you releasing, leaving little but the crumpled sleeve of your tunic behind. 

“How much — ” he cannot finish the sentence, his nose wrinkling up and he almost looks a little feral underneath the light. 

“Just a l-little more.” you assure, cracking the barest of smiles as you cross the room and lay him down on your bedroll. He was tall enough as is, and you think his horns would scrape up against the ceiling of this house should he stand upright. 

The bedroll itself was pathetically small beneath him, but you couldn’t throw a fuss about it, working away at his clothes in relative silence, steeling yourself up in preparation for the worst. 

The clasps and the belts and sashes are undone by nimble fingers and as the layers peel away, you come to a stop. It was not a pretty sight, his wounds, the clawed lacerations criss crossing across his torso like patchwork. You doubt you could salvage much and you almost give up at the spot, pulling away the rest of his clothing. The worst one splits across his chest and you look to the side, battling out the vertigo and the nausea threatening to creep up. 

He’d have been dead at this point, had the blood in his veins be that of a mortal’s and not something inhuman. In some convoluted sense, he was lucky.

Stop cowering , you hiss internally. Pull yourself together .

The sound of rustling clothes is all you could hear after, followed by the clinking of metal and the sharp tang of alcohol. Your movements are almost robotic — and you had done this plenty of times before, cleaning the wounds of children and soldiers. But this wasn’t home and you doubt any soothing words would stoke at the feelings of a god. 

When you return to his side, his forehead is damp with sweat.

“ Shit — ”

His skin was warm . Could an immortal being fall ill? Was that even a possibility?

“I will be fine.” he rasps out and you jump, snapping his way as you hold the clothes closer to your chest in defense. He turns his head, peering at you and you think you see a stubborn glimmer beneath the usual masked strain and impassivity. “My wounds will heal in time…I…only seek shelter till they do…”

“Absolutely n-not.” you reply, splaying your palm out on his stomach to keep him still as you clean away the dirt and dried blood. The shallower wounds were slowly closing up again. “You’re in no state to argue right now.”

His mouth twitches and there is a momentary flash of teeth. You try not to let it frazzle you as much despite his initial protest, your movements slowing to a more delicate pace as you bathe the worst of his lesions till you were satisfied with the lack of dirt caking his body. “It seems choice no longer holds to be a luxury.” he utters under his breath.

“No.” you agree. “It does not.”

He falls silent, a petulant turn on his lips. “Are you a healer?” he asks. You bow down, unwinding the linen wraps you had stored away.

“My mother was.” you finally admit, your posture straightening. “I learned what I could from her to aid the people in my village. I never studied medicine formally, however…” you trail off. Talking seems to grow a little easier the more you speak. The hoarseness was slowly giving way and your stuttering grew less frequent.

“And I take it you shall try to help me as you do with any other human?” there was a sardonic sort of amusement in his tone that has you bristling. “Your medicines and methods will not work on an Adeptus. Put your tools away, you only waste your time.

“Adeptus…so you hail from the settlement south of Mt. Tianheng?”

“You’re ignoring my words,” he accuses. You bat your lashes at him innocently.

“Small talk.” you shrug. “You can tell me everything you want after I’m done tending to you.” you meet his gaze, tumultuous gold melded with an orange-red. He narrows his eyes, his unfocused vision scanning you, then the house, then at the bandages you held before he leans his head back with a defeated sigh.

By the time you conclude your task, he has fallen unconscious, his breathing deep and his heartbeat unnaturally slow for a human. You look down at your ruined clothing, at the stains at the hem of your tunic and at the sleeves and you hope you can salvage what you can from this, moving on to change out of them and fish out a cleaner pair of clothes. 

The smell of petrichor still persists through the day, the sky brewing with the makings of a new storm. Perhaps you had lost track of time and the monsoons were sitting in sooner than expected and you move on to salvage whatever you’d left outside to dry and board your windows up for the incoming onslaught.

The man wakes when night falls, form set aglow against the dim lamp light. 

“Let’s change your bandages.” you offer. He doesn’t protest this time, painfully sitting himself up with gritted teeth as you get back to work. His skin still radiates that uncomfortable temperature as you press up against it. You might need to get a wet rag ready lest he overheats

He speaks after the silence persists. “You shouldn’t see me like this.” it comes out as a whisper so soft, you almost miss it. His face however holds a distant look, with a hint of disappointment lurking within and you tug at the linen a little harder. You’ve heard that before, from the lips of men and women who had too much to hold and little weakness to show. You wonder what it would entail for a warrior, or a being whose years spanned farther than yours, to sink as low before a stranger.

It must be hard.

“We all get hurt sometimes.” you smile, hoping to lighten the air with a bit of humor ( it was getting too heavy, the air in the room ). “I’ve lost count of the number of times I've hit my head…and you think I'd be a little more cautious given my studies…”

A poor joke stays a poor joke no matter the delivery ( and yours was weak to begin with ). He does not say or do much, save for a slight twitch in his jaw and an unamused tilt in his head. You shrink back, skittishly throwing his used bandages aside in favor of new ones with a hasty “Nevermind.” on your tongue. 

“Do you truely not know who I am?” he asks, his touch skimming the sheets absently. You shake your head, confusion and that damned curiosity slowly lurking and clawing its way to the light. You want to stamp the ugly feeling down and out of sight. You try to. It does not disappear. He continues, “What of the civilization south of Tianheng?”

A shrug was the most you could manage. You guess that was where he hails from. “I know it’s the domain of a geo god, and that beings touched by longevity, ally beside him. “My old home is far, however, and our god hid us away from the world…my knowledge on this is sparse.” 

You’re almost ashamed to admit it, to acknowledge the bubble you had grown within, accepting the suffering of the men and women who ventured out and returned with broken bodies you and your mother had to fix. You weren’t sure what sort of terrible dichotomy it was, to live in ignorance amidst blatant horror and blood, and you don’t wish to return to it.

He seems to take this in, his eyes training up at the ceiling, then upon you with a lidded stare. “Who was your god?”

The icy set to your jaw was a hint he picks up on and he does not further the topic.

“...I am from there…from Liyue.” he says instead, in recollection of your previous question. The settlement was a distance from here, a few days worth of journeying by cart and hardly worth the risk of the travel with the demons that lurk and the gods that warred.

“What’s your name?” you ask.

His lips curl again, but it’s less of a grimace and more of a smile, his fangs tucked away to show a visage less feral, less dangerous. You find yourself relaxing a bit more unconsciously, seemingly charmed by this simple action ( and the thought almost scares you ). “What is your name, mortal?”

Ah, he wasn’t going to make this easy. You’re tempted to tug on his bandages a little harder if only to spite him.

You don’t reply till you are done with your chore and you lean back, massaging your stiff fingers. Your name slips out of your lips then, the action feeling natural in defiance of the years spent hardly having a friendly face within your home, save the occasional traveler. The adeptus seems satisfied. “You may call me Zhongli.” he replies, his voice softer, raspier.

“Zhongli.” you repeat. Zhongli .

There is a rustle of fabric and his fingertips brush against yours, the touch nearly having your arm lurch back in muted shock. He seems unphased but you — you watch a soft light shimmer through the dimness of your walls. When it fades, a single visage of gold stares back.

“It’s your reward. For aiding me.” there is a medley of pride and contentment and you liken it to that of a child offering a messily put together gift. Gold is coveted by most, but has little use here, and you have little use for it. But the gift is still cupped within your hands and you hold it as if it is something precious.

( Oh, your heart trembled just a bit and you feel a lump grow in your throat, bigger and bigger till you dip your head down out of his line of sight. )

His eyes bear down on you harder, set aglow and unyielding.

You smile to hide your trembling frame, thoughts revolting within your mind like the beat of war drums with a mix of unease and appreciation. Yet, who were you to question Zhongli’s secrets?

Maybe hypocrisy runs deeper in your blood than you initially assumed.

Mist dances at your fingertips.

It weaves and spreads and obscures the light and the woods around you and you run through blindly as the skin beneath your feet tears and the chill of the night clings to your skin and leaves behind dew and sweat.

You could see nothing; nothing save the pale glow of the moon above you as it tries to break through the barrier and light your way. It cannot, for Balam’s magic conjures obscurity, and obscurity was worshiped.

But you were human and you were curious and the voice that called your name was so familiar and warm and you wanted to weep and run towards it. The mist will not stop your folly and you will keep running to appease that growing thirst. In the end it will cost you.

The sound of your footsteps cease. The mist thins out and at the end of the veil, you poke your head out for the first time to witness the world outside. A set of teeth, white and sharp greet you. Then another and another, till the darkness itself glows as it does beneath the moonlight.

You hear her voice. It comes from the open maw.

The demons spot you and you run again, feeling their jaws clamp down and tear through muscle and bone and you scream and scream and scream at the white hot agony and the very feeling of your nerves set aflame before they numb.

Your curiosity cost you.

You wake to your fingers clawing at your shoulder with labored gasps and Zhongli panting, his fingers gripping at the sheets of the bedroll and his brow furrowed. You blink away the sleep in your eyes and tug the blanket off of your shoulders, shakily making your way to his side. His skin was hot again and panic lights in your chest, like the incoming winter.

“Fuck — it’s gotten worse.” you mumble a few more expletives as you stumble out to collect some more water and the few mistflower corollas you had stored away within your cabinets, hoping the elemental energy in them hadn’t dissipated completely. Setting the bucket down by his bedside with the corollas nestled within, you hiss at the cold pricking your palms and the frostbite coming to form.

Never mind that! The fucking adeptus is going to melt .

Oh my, thank you for pointing out the obvious! 

The cloth bath was set to a near feverish pace as you feel him twitch and convulse through the chills wracking his body. “Hot — ” he groans.

“It’s the fever.” you mutter, tugging his pants down, your eyes unconsciously trailing down the slope of his waist and dip of pelvis, then avert your eyes before you could see any more, face flushed whilst a cloth was thrown onto his hips to spare him some decency. “You need to cool down…please, stay still.”

His hand comes to grip your arm and the dormant strength within it, one etched into his very being, was frightening. The adeptus’ sights were set upon you, the fever-addled state of his blowing his pupils out till only a thin ring of gold remains, shining through the light of the oil lamp, brighter and brighter. You pull away and rest your free hand on his with a soothing squeeze. 

“You will be okay.” you assure. “It will come to pass soon enough. Let me take care of you for now.” You coax him to stay still as you continue the cloth bath, wiping away at his clammy skin while fatigue continues to weigh down on your shoulders and tug at your eyes. “I know you’re hiding something…and if you…if you’re one of the gods, then you must live. You’ll have people waiting for you…they need you, at a time like this.”

He lets out a weak exhale, shakily sitting himself up with sudden urgency. “ Liyue… ” he whispers, gait faltering and you steady him as he leans into you, resting his forehead against your shoulder. You struggle to push him back down atop the bedroll, his breaths growing pained with the passing seconds. 

“Liyue.” you nod and repeat. “You need to go back soon, don’t you? You’ll have to heal first, and for that, you must rest.” The cloth is pressed against his temple now, wiping away sweat all while the smell of petrichor grows stronger. The searing temperature hasn’t subsided and hopelessness stirs inside, an ugly feeling, a familiar feeling ( it was worse than your curiosity — it always was ).

Zhongli leans into your touch, his fingers tangling against yours. “ Stay… ” he whispers. You cease your movement as his body shifts and presses against your lap. “Stay….” he repeats.

“I…I’ll stay.” you slump in defeat, resting his head on your lap. Lightning flashes outside your window and the walls seem to shake as the rain comes pelting down. You continue the bath, listening to a leaky spot in your roof and the incessant downpour rattling against the tiles. Zhongli seems to still, his breaths still weighed down by that terrible heaviness.

The rain continues. His fever grows worse.

Then the pattering slows down, and the flush on his skin comes to cool. By the time the rains stop, his fever breaks and you lean against the wall of your home, shutting your eyes as you nearly weep, your worries allayed.

Morax was the first to wake in the early hours of the morning, the scent of petrichor pervading his senses followed by the faint lull of jasmine. Then comes the warmth and the softness, one his claws unconsciously dig into with a groan shuddering out of his chest.

It was you , slumped against the wall, lost in your own dreams and too tired to notice and the sight makes him swell with a conflicting mess of emotion. Then comes the pain, the aftermath of his fever coming to tear at him, at his limbs and his tendons till he ceases his stubborn movement and lets his body fall slack.

He does not understand your intent, but the faint memory of that familiar care against a muddled haze stills his tongue and his suspicion. Your muffled words, your hand in his, everything, blurred away yet so clear.

Humans were strange, so fragile, so determined…

“Fool…” he murmurs. The last of his strength is used to draw the blanket over your shoulders. “But thank you, nonetheless.” Sleep calls him again, and Morax shuts his eyes.

The jasmine lingers, stronger than most. He lets it swallow him whole.

You come to realize how much you hated it, the loneliness.

Your home was far removed from civilization, settled between regions  and away from main travel ways that weren’t blocked or destroyed. The quiet of your house was nothing like the bustle of the town you hailed from and the chaos that accompanies the stalls in the early mornings. The most noise that encloses your small plot of land were the local wildlife, the creaks and groans of wood born against strong winds and the weight of snow and the distant battles fought over the horizon.

During arbitrary moments of your routine, you question why Zhongli landed here of all places, in the midst of nowhere. You wonder if this is some grand scheme or punishment for your past mistakes and when you feel your curiosity dare to skitter forth and poke more holes into your blind acceptance, you drive it away with an angry hiss.

He is not an unwelcome guest, even if he holds a sense of urgency at times and a well kept secret whose nature you suspect . It’s almost comforting, no matter how contrived it seems, listening to him speak of an obscure plant or hearing his heavy footfalls a few days after his arrival. 

How desperate are you? The bitter pride in your heart speaks up, and it’s seedy and unhappy as you straighten out the drying sheets over the heated slab. Where is your self preservation? Your brain cells? You’re smarter than this you fool —

“Is something wrong?”

Zhongli’s voice snaps you out of your reverie and you start, nearly dropping your laundry on the grass.

“Nothing!” and it is a weak save on your part as you straighten the worn down basket to move to an empty patch of stone, ducking under to check the state of the flaming flowers underneath. His hands come to rest on the surface and he lets out a soft exhale, his eyes slipping shut in a seeming moment of peace. “You should be resting.” you remind him.

“I believe I'm past the need for excessive bedrest.” he intones with an amused lilt. “Do you need help? It is partly my fault you have far more work to sort through.” He wasn’t lying. What little linen you had was used up to change the sheets on your bedroll before his fever broke. You had little clue how illness amongst higher beings were treated, but simply washing the contaminated cloth was the best option you had on your for now.

Ah, sometimes you regret not moving closer to a town.

Your reply was short, when you notice the silence being drawn out for a little too long. “That does not mean you should strain yourself. The less of a load you place on yourself, the faster you will heal. I’m sure you are needed back at your colony. The war is far from over.”

The comment seems to tug at his emotions, a stern moroseness settling on his face. “That is true…but I trust my fellow adepti to hold the lines in my absence.” you bend over to collect another sheet from the basket, the hair at the back of your neck prickling when he moves behind you. “Even so, I should hasten my return.”

“Then — ” The sheet is snatched from your hands and you watch Zhongli step beside an unused slab to lay it across the surface, a mischievous smile touching his lips. “Oi!” you snap, reaching out to grab it.

“However,” he continues, ignoring your protest with a look of innocent serenity. You want to squawk, to stamp your foot down childishly and you almost do, your movements stilled by you clenching your fist to curb it. “I’ve fought battles with wounds far worse and won. Menial chores are hardly a labor and if it means aiding you then I shall take it.”

You let out a groan in defeat and push the basket between the two of you. Zhongli was preening in his small victory, setting the clothes out to dry with relative ease. “Guests shouldn’t partake in chores like these.” you repeat the line your mother had uttered so many times, one amongst many of her favorite maxims. 

He watches you from his spot behind the stone slab, a contemplative haze clouding his hues. “I simply return the favor. It is the nature of a contract, to balance out what is given with due compensation.” 

He isn’t going to let up, is he?

“Fine, fine…you can help me collect a few mist flowers later.” you concede.

“What do you need them for?” he asks, collecting your laundry basket as you kneel upon the grass, blowing some air into a patch. One of the flowers is set alight and you sigh, letting them burn awhile as you feel your fingers retain a little more warmth in them. 

“Preservation…I use them to make my herbs and food last a little longer…it’s not easy, coming across certain ingredients for a decent meal…” You let out a dry chuckle at that, which melts away into a mildly sheepish one. Even if you bear a slight annoyance to your choice of settlement, and even with the debilitating isolation that came with it — it was still home and it was still safer than most.

Zhongli takes this in, a hand resting against his chin. “I see…cooking is not a part of my skill set…unfortunately. But a friend of mine intends on relaying an old recipe of his should the war end soon. Perhaps I could pass it on to you, if you don’t mind it.”

It was an oddly sweet gesture coming from him and you hum, a genuine smile spreading across your face as you consider it. That also meant opening a tiny window of opportunity; a chance that you may see Zhongli again. The thought stirs a clash of emotion, of fear and of excitement and dare you say it, hope and it feels warm and cold and all sorts of things at once. “I’d like that…granted you don’t accidentally poison me.” 

He feigns annoyance as his head tilts to the side, quietly regarding you. “You overestimate my inadequacy. The last time I did partake in the culinary arts, the worst outcome was an offhand crystallize reaction and a burnt stove.” he pauses. “Besides, my skill in brewing tea is decent.”

Oh Gods —

“I’m just being cautious.” you laugh a little louder at that, holding up your hands in defense. “Dear Lords though…I hope that friend of yours is prepared then. You might turn out to be a genius in cuisine or a hopeless case.”

“Then I hope for the former.”

You grin, hanging up the last of your clothes. “If you turn out decent…then I wouldn’t mind sharing some of the recipes passed down to me. I couldn’t indulge myself in them as much, but i hope you may come to like them.”

Something in Zhongli’s eyes softens and he nods. “And I would like that in turn…” he utters slowly, watching you clear away any dry branches and grass close by. His fingers absently brush over his torso, where the bandages stay wrapped around him. You catch the subtle purse of his lips and the twinge in his jaw. “Do not be concerned…” he snaps up to meet your worried face. “I am fine.”

“...Right.” you knew it wasn’t wholly a lie. Zhongli proved to be a quick healer, perhaps a trait passed down by his inhuman lineage. But these displays of vulnerability only played into the damning knowledge you knew before; of the hidden fragility the gods held. “Come on…I think it’s time we get those bandages changed.”

Zhongli smiles but it doesn’t quite meet his eyes. Another secret , you think sadly, taking his hand as you lead him inside, taking in the momentary warmth he held even if his skin didn’t quite feel like skin or that they glowed a bit too bright between the cracks of your fingers.

You don’t ask him to collect the mist flower corollas again, staying at home with him with some tea set at the table for him to sip on while you inspect his lacerations. There was some idle chatter over dinner and Zhongli spoke a little more about his home.

“You’re going to leave tonight, aren’t you?” you ask suddenly, your voice soft. His words die out and you try to still the sharp edged pain in your chest. It refuses to fade and you accept the growing weight with an unwilling gait.

“Yes.” he whispers, setting his cup down and he looks ashamed.

“Then go.” you mumble. He opens his mouth again but you hold up a hand. “I…I know your name is not really Zhongli…it’s not is it?” His silence was damning and you finally piece it together, the knowledge you learned from your village and from your travels, no matter how meager, painting a slow picture in broad strokes.

The stories depict Morax to be more of a beast and less of a man. You would have glossed over it as well,expecting a dragon instead of the visage of a handsome stranger.

“I take it you’ve come to a conclusion.” he muses, looking a little apologetic, a little ashamed. “I never intended on deceit but the nature of our meeting called for it.”

“You were afraid I was going to kill you?” you guess. Zhongli — Morax laughs and shakes his head.

“Even in my weakened state, you would have been incapable of it.” well damn . “I feared someone of greater power would catch wind of talk of a wounded god…but given your lifestyle, they held no merit. I apologize though…I know you may have suspected a while.”

Morax smiles and you try not to battle the disbelief that a good sat across you, eating your food and drinking your tea. “However, I have a question to ask you.” 

A pause

“What became of your deity?”

Your breath seizes and you meet his gaze. His stare seems to hold so much more weight to it and you look down. Your old god was a memory you sought to bury away well out of sight. Recollecting them only brought in a bitter taste and a dull ache and Morax notices it. “That’s a story for another day.” you finally manage out after some deliberation. Your tea has gone cold by the time you take another sip out of it, the air feeling heavier again. You wrinkle your nose at the taste.

He nods. “Then I will return and pay my debt in whole as well.” he decides. “Your kindness is one I shall remember, little one.” You hate how a part of you melts into this buttery, weak mess and when he smiles, you hate how it’s so easy to feel yourself tear at the seams, to beg him to stay a little longer. “Thank you.”

He was gone the next morning, a fresh batch of mist flower corollas left behind in an earthen pot alongside a delicate flower preserved in amber.  

“Good riddance.” you tell yourself, the words feeling forced.

You will miss him, you think.

He returns three months later, or maybe it was more. Time was easy to lose track of and the seasons were all you had to know of a passing year. By the time he arrived, the last remnants of winter had receded and you found yourself in the midst of spring, restocking your stores and setting soup to boil in the hearth. 

Should I bow? You think when he appears at your doorstep. Extend a greeting? Address him by his title? Your great eminence…no that sounds pretentious… You reminisce about your old customs, of the times you spent watching your mother lay out scented flowers and fruits at the feet of your deity during festivals or during victory feasts. Morax however, steps inside with a smile in greeting, his hand coming to tuck some stray hair out of your face.

Then comes the deja vu. 

You question why his arrivals were always timed on days when your home was a mess.

“Wait! We can talk outside.” saving the last few traces of your dignity is all you had in mind as you blockade the entrance. It would hardly do any good, you realize then; he was tall and he was far bigger and when he stops with a puzzled look and scans the room and the traces of stalks and unswept and unused parts of the herbs you were sifting through, a glint of understanding flashes in his eyes and he steps back.

You want to sink into the ground with the traces and remainders of you. Oblivion seemed a tempting option with the way your face burned and your heart hammers at a pace nearly hard to keep up with.

“My apologies.” he utters, letting you lead him outside. He does not seem as bothered or flustered, thankfully; nor does he pry as he erects a few makeshift seats sculpted from geo and sits himself down alongside you with a soft sigh on his lips. “I wish we could have met sooner,” he admits.

“Is that so? It’s hard to believe you’d bother…” you hum with a shy dip of your head. Morax considers this.

“Did you not ask for it?”

“I did…but I accepted the possibility of you not returning.” you cease for a second, recalling your promise to give him the answer he sought. It felt like a cheap trick, back then and it still does now, of you running away as you always did. “I'm glad you came back though…it was nice having someone around to speak to.”

Moax looks pleased with this. “I simply find your company enjoyable.” you feel a stirring in your stomach when he says that, and it feels like a wonderful sort of sweetness, like honey. “Even if our first few days spent together lacked any delicacy in approach.”

“You were quite stubborn.” you admit.

“I was, wasn’t I?” he agrees. You snicker.

“I wouldn’t blame you though. Even I had a hard time staying still when bedrest was forced upon me…how have you been?” your fingers slot together as you pull your knees closer to your chest, your cheek resting against your thigh as you watch the scenery in the distance. The mist had abated, just a bit and you could see the copse of trees expanding then scattering as the plains began. 

Morax exhales. “As I’ve always been.”

“Stubborn?”

“ Busy .” he corrects, flashing you a look of warning. You grin innocently. “The war has come to a temporary standstill. Only smaller battles seem to keep up…with the weaker gods mostly weeded out, planning our next move is of importance. I only have a few hours to spare now before I leave for Liyue.”

“Oh…” you take this in. Perhaps this was a sign of the war slowly coming to a close. Maybe during your time, if you were lucky enough, or in another hundred years or so. “Then…tell me about Liyue.”

Morax raises a brow but he smiles, humoring your question. “What would you like to know?”

“Plant life? What’s it like there?” you supply, leaning forward in quiet anticipation.

He chuckles. “Not of the people? Or its history?” he asks.

“You can tell me that too!”

He hums, his gaze softening. “It’s not uncommon to see mountains in Liyue,” he admits. “To say our weather has a stark contrast in the plains and the peaks would be an understatement. Juehyun Karst, the realm of the adepti is pleasantly cool most of the time, but the plains are hot and humid. That being said, our flora seems to take on this diversity as well…”

He tells you about the yellow sand bearer and the gold ginkgo trees that spot Liyue’s landscape, of the horsetail that covets the marshes and the reclusive glaze lilies that grow within the terraces. He tells you about the silk flowers nestled amidst the red bushes, always found in pairs and the violet grass sprouting forth off of cliffs. And he tells you of the qingxins that turned away from the warmth of the plains and grew in the distant peaks, looking down upon Liyue as a whole.

There was a sort of magic, listening to Morax speak of his nation with a layer of fondness and sadness. 

“Maybe when the war ends, I’ll visit. I think I'd like to start a garden some time.” you hum, surveying the empty patches of land in front of you. It would be nice to have a few more flowers around to brighten up the monotony you have grown accustomed to. His expression shifts, a brighter shine lighting up his eyes.

“You could stay there if you wish.” Disbelief rattles through your ribs and it steals your breath and pushes against your lungs. You fall silent, ceasing the anxious play with your clothes. “I could find a place for you amidst my people…would you like that?”

There was disbelief, yes, and a stutter in your words, but there is also the pang of appreciation and the tingle at your fingertips. However cold dread settles down ( for it is an old bedmate ) and Morax seems to catch on. “Have I misspoken in any way?” he questions, his hooded gaze appraising. 

You jerk your head. He had it all wrong and the last thing you need is a messy misunderstanding to fall into your pile of terrible mistakes. “No, no…I don’t think I'm ready to return to a land ruled by a god…or even around so many people…not yet…” you couldn’t bring yourself to word it out and it shames you. You are an adult. You needed to speak like one.

There is a faint brush on your cheek, the barest hint of a touch and when you look up, you see the suspicion he holds paired with concern. You want to shrink back, make yourself smaller, unknowable, something you were before he came along and made you care and vie after company and something as simple as touch.

“I assume it has something to do with your old settlement?” he asks.

You nod.

“We were hidden behind our god’s mist and illusions…our people were cut off from the rest of the world save a few soldiers and those who joined our god in battle. My mother would accompany them sometimes…she’d tell me about the world outside and we promised to visit a lake just a short walk from the barrier…” you hold out your hands, trying to grasp the words she had tattered. “She called it starlight on earth…or…something like a mirror clearer than any metal she’d seen. I wanted to go, but we were not allowed to leave.”

“You were not?” Morax asks. He leans in, listening closer.

“We were not.” you affirm softly. “Or god never spoke it…but we knew. They talked about demons lurking out and we were scared. One day…I couldn’t find her amidst the returning line of soldiers she left with…I did later…and I couldn’t even stand to look at the state she was in.” you stare ahead, the weight of his gaze resting even harder now. “I don’t know why…if it was grief or curiosity or a mix of both…but I thought I heard her voice one day…calling out to me. And I knew it was a trap, but I ran towards it, out of the forest, and the mist…”

You swallow hard. You felt cold. Cold all over, like that night, where the silence was unsettling and the sound of your name was a taunting whisper. Your mother, it was your mother, rigid at some times with her own rough edges and flaws, but loving for the most part. Your mother — and it was an old hurt you had locked in a box a long time ago, that time had weathered down till it was the embers scraped to the side of the charcoal pit.

“They were right…my deity warded off those things that attacked me…but they were bleeding everywhere . Balam was strong , but as a god…I doubt they held much in par to some of the others who warred out there…” Like you , you almost add. “They were weakened…unfit to fight in a state like that and we tried what we could. The wounds didn’t heal as we thought they should. I was banished for endangering their life and as I traveled…I heard of Balam’s passing in the hands of an invading god.”

“...and now, I'm here.” you finish, wryness coating every syllable. You wished your apathy was more than a weak front to bury away the stab in your heart; you wish you could be stronger than the coward you are. Morax shuts his eyes, his arms crossing over his chest.

He looks a little more like the god you were told about; sharp, pragmatic, with a presence that looms over most. “If there was a law that stated so, that forbade stepping out of your deity’s territory, then yes, you have committed a wrong. I have heard tell of Balam, whispers of their whereabouts and they did try to protect your people from a harsher way of life…” 

Ah, so that was his response. You wilt a little, feeling a mix of fury and defeat, at Morax, at the gods, at this war and at your own childish stupidity and audacity to even dare to feel this way. “I see…” you mumble. Morax holds up a hand, cutting you off. The words die in your throat faster than embers in snow.

“But,” he behind and his expression pulls into something gentler, lacking the initial rigid sternness it held. “Demons are still a force to be reckoned with. Even my adepti struggle with stifling down their noxious presence, whether it be the weight of karma or a disparity in power itself.”

Coherency is now a lost subject.

“I doubt you could have resisted its influence and Balam knew of the battle they would throw themselves into. Your god was willing to make that sacrifice, something of a rare sight amongst a few of the divine. Remember this well.”

A lump grows in your throat. It’s not an unwelcome one, quietly easing the nerves that crackled and frazzled beyond possible repair. You look down at your hands and your eyes slip shut as you take his words in, bit by bit. Balam was a god who, while distant within the front lines of battle, still loved their people.

It’s ironic how the gods can be capable of human sentiment and human error. 

“Thank you, Morax.” you mutter. “I needed that.”

“The bitter truth, or the comfort?” he jests softly. “Because while I deal well with the former, my skill with the latter falls abysmally short.” 

You laugh softly.

“For both .”

( His eyes light with surprise. Then you spot it, the faint flush on his cheeks and a dangerous thought enters your mind. You shake your head. It was best you didn’t raise your paltry hopes . ) 

He does not visit for a few weeks, but you spot a few saplings left behind at your doorstep, of plants and flowers you had never seen before.

You pick one up and a single word echoes in your mind — qingxins .

A smile tugs at your lips.

The distant noise of battle has grown reticent.

You tell it to Morax on one of his visits and he dares to flash a knowing smile in response. “The war is coming to its close. Only a few handfuls remain.” he states, tracing your bandaged hands; a new set of souvenirs from a stray whopperflower. You shiver involuntarily, leaning into him a bit more while longing tears your insides raw. “Hopefully you will come to enjoy an era of peace soon.”

“Will it end soon? The war?” you ask, wincing a little when he presses his fingertips down on the afflicted skin, bathing it in honeyed gold. “Ah! Gently!” you hiss, pulling back on reflex. Morax holds you fast, drawing you back to him with a playful tut and a sheepish glance your way.

“Apologies. Is this alright?” The pressure on your wrist still brings forth a sting, but it’s far more bearable. You nod. “Alright. Now hold still …” The glow returns, as does the tingling warmth and the tense nervousness gives way to a content sigh as the pain ebbs to obscurity. You watch your bandages fall away to skin mostly unblemished, save the faint traces of a scar left behind. “Better?” he asks.

You nod. “Much better…I wonder why you didn’t try healing yourself earlier. You’re not too bad at it.” he wasn't. Only a few humans were ever imbibed with the grace of divine power. You always longed to be gifted with the strength to heal, and you feet the slightest hint of envy as you take in the sight.

Morax blinks. “I was in too weak a state to do so. Healing is not my greatest strength either…I simply learned it, should it come to use amidst battle.” he flexes his fingers, the last flickers of gold falling away. His gaze meets yours with its usual intensity before he reaches for your other hand. 

“Hm…I suppose this means you’ve paid your part of the debt?” you tease. “You’ve healed me as I've healed you, right?” 

“True…” his lips quirk up as he mends the last of the burns, then presses a delicate kiss on your knuckles. “Does this mark the end of our contract?” The gesture only serves to fluster you further, bringing forth the feeling of fluttering warmth and the near lightness in your chest. Morax chuckles, his voice dipped to a teasing whisper as he calls out your name in a low, purring timbre.

“H-hold up!” you choke out, terrified of potentially overheating as you push his face away, stifling away the shy laughter that threatens to burst out. Morax shifts closer, closer still, his close presence having grown familiar through the meetings and the shared conversations and meals ( you missed the gentleness in his touch, you missed so much of him ).

“Hm? Stop what?” he teases, a cheeky glint lighting up in his gaze. “My, your face feels warm.” he adds with a soft simper, tilting your chin his way as he scans your features.

A desperate attempt to shift his attention comes to form. “Look at the qingxins you gifted me! They’re growing nicely, right?” you try to smile, looking at the flowers growing just a small ways from your home. Morax hums.

“They are. Give them a few months and they will come to bloom.” he replies, his wandering touch tracing up your arm, grazing at fragile skin and faint scars and the sensation has you shuddering. The glow in his eyes brightens and he huffs out something unintelligible, then asks you, “Would you like me to stop?”

You fall silent. “No it’s fine…” you sigh, reaching up to grasp his hand gently, ignoring the phantom stings as your finger splays out over Morax’s palm, at the dazzling gold dipped at the edges fading away to a spider web of veins and dark scales. “I like this.” you hum. Morax blinks, his cheeks coloring pink.

The intensity burns brighter in his gaze. It scorches at his touch and in the way he looks upon you now and as acute as it was, you felt blanketed beneath a safe warmth.

Morax speaks up, “I will make sure this war ends soon.” It was a promise, holding the weight of his blood. You feel it in every syllable, every rise and drop in his cadence. He leans in and the spice in his scent pervades your senses.

His lips are softer than you expected, mildly chapped from the heat and the battlefield, and between the buzz slowly beginning to sound off in your head and the feel of his touch brush away at your hair and rest on your cheek, your heart hammers hard in your ribcage. You feel the earth shift and watch the sky sweep away as you fall back on the grass and Morax palms at your hips and kisses you some more.

It feels like a distant dream, something you’d rather not wake from and when he pulls away to look you in the eye, you watch the smirk in his face grow as he dips down and buries his face into your neck, his pace languid, his claws gentle against the softness of your skin. You bite back a stray mewl when his teeth prickle down on sensitive flesh, slowly and deliberately making his way down down down, and his hand pressing flat on your thigh.

A glow flickers within his chest. He stops and tugs away with clear frustration, heaving as he watches you try to recover from the fog clogging up your thoughts, the memory of his touch warming every inch of you. Morax chews at his bottom lip. “I am needed again.”

“...oh…” you croak out, even if you wish to scream at the unfairness, to pull him back down atop of you and finish what he started. You shut your eyes, easing at your frayed nerves at the trembling and the traitorous dampness that was gradually settling in. The god in front of you holds a shadow of amusement and he kisses you again, gentler, with less teeth and tongue and more tenderness.

“I’ll come back,” he whispers. It holds another promise masked beneath the assurance, it’s cheekiness lighting his gaze.

When Morax’s form departs, you let out a shaky sigh, one hand delving into your heat while the other clamps over your mouth. The moment your slick coats your fingers, you moan into the silence, the promise persisting.

Morax thinks about you when the rains fall once more.

He thinks about you on the battlefield, waiting with that patient smile.

He thinks about you when his adepti fall and the last god is slain — when he finds his numbers dwindle, their blood staining his victory. He holds that memory of you close, that cherished warmth. His little flower.

Morax thinks about you. And he longs .

You came to know of patience’s workings through the days and months in between Morax’s visits, and this one is his longest thus far. The war persists still, the sound of the heavens screaming slowly growing quieter as deities were felled and the lands were stitched together by victories and defeats. You wonder where your old home lies now beneath the seven seats, what it would grow into in the near future.

Then one day, you wake to complete and utter silence.

The war is over. The roads had cleared. One day, when the world stills just a little more and the last few scars left behind have healed, you could try to visit the towns and cities beyond your isolated home.

Morax stays absent. You go on with your life. The qingxins he gifted you bloom in your garden. You wait, shedding away the accusatory remarks, the words that dare you to doubt his victory, that take your mind to darker spaces with the image of his still form and cold hands. No, absolutely not, you could not doubt him .

You repeat it over and over, beating down at the cynical whispering. Do not doubt him .

A storm rises again, blustering through the lands with the threat of tearing your home down from its stubborn foundations. You stay inside, the change in weather setting forth a persistent chill that your meager hearth could hardly hold against. Finally, after a few hours of running about, your body hunches over the blocks, feeding the fire with the last of your firewood.

“How much longer…” you mutter, storing away the last of your herbs when the rain refuses to cease and it grows harder to differentiate between night and day. The lightning thunders in response, asserting it’s long stay and you curl up by the warmth you fed, numb fingers gripping at old blankets and watching the rain beat down incessantly on your roof. It would be a long wait, you realize. It’s best if you find a way to pass the time.

There was another clap of thunder, then a crash that felt all too intimate with your memories. Then came the knocking and you scuttle up to let a drenched Morax in, his pupils blown wide and his body hot to the touch as he stumbles in. You’re almost afraid he’s fallen ill once more, but the insistent tug at your wrists has you follow him.

“Are you okay?” you ask, seating him down by the fire, moving to dry his hair after draping a sheet on his shoulder. “Morax, what’s wrong.” Despite the sudden appearance, you feel relief crash down and tug out a lump in your throat. You hold back the tears for his sake. You did not want to startle him in this state.

“A visit.” he shrugs.

“In this weather?” you question every ounce of wisdom he holds. He looks unbothered, pulling you closer to him while you squeeze the water out of his tresses, his chin coming to rest on your shoulder. Warm breath pools out and hits your neck and a shiver racks at your body. “Morax — ”

“I missed you…” The hoarseness of his voice steals the words in your mouth. You latch onto him tightly, fisting at his robes, uncaring of the silk wrinkling beneath your rough hands. Morax does not stay silent or stay still, his hands sliding down your sides, pulling you closer up against him. “I missed you…” he repeats feverishly. The hunger in his stare is an answer enough.

The fire crackles and lets out a sputter.

Morax lays you on your back with a gentle thump and hooks a hand beneath your knee, pushing it up against your chest as he steals a kiss from you, heated and impatient after weeks of mulling over his affection and lust. “Stay still.” he orders as you squirm a little, wanting more, needing more, trying to bury yourself into him as much as humanly possible. 

Your open mouthed breaths did not help in the slightest as he steals another kiss, then another, the wetness of his tongue delving deep down your throat as he muffles out any sounds of shock from you —

— was it forked ?

You could not ponder over it for long, choking against the invading muscle while his lips caress yours with growing need and intensity. It made sense, for one like Morax — who adored talking about the origins of an obscure tea leaf to the festivities that littered the streets of his city — to fancy the act of kissing you. And he still keeps kissing you, over and over till your head spins and his body is pressed up flush against yours.

He noses at your neck with a noticeable huff, fingers dragging up the side of your hips, slowly, deliberately, till they tug at the hem of your clothes. Molten gold catches the anxious excitement bubbling within you and your eyes and you catch the smirk on Morax’s face.

“I’d like to continue.” he sounds breathless.

“ Go on then .” that threadbare line that held you together had snapped now. You do not think you could wait any longer than you have for him. Morax chuckles, bending down with a narrowed gaze till his nose brushes against yours.

“I haven’t finished my statement.” he chides and you don’t know what is worse, him dragging this out to a near painful pace, or the hand that caresses the inside of your thigh teasingly, drawing out a stray moan from your lips. “If you feel overwhelmed, or you wish to stop, we must establish a safe word.”

He waits expectantly and you scour your mind for the first word that pops into your head. “Squid.” you decide, shifting your hips closer to him. Morax lets out something between a wince and an amused chuckle, his hand leaving your thigh. You wine in protest, grabbing at his wrists to pull him closer.

“So needy.” he lilts. “Are you sure you want this?”

How cruel , you think unhappily, unsure of how to take his consideration; a loosely veiled attempt to drive you further into wanting or a call of sincere concern. You think you know Morax. You think it’s both.

“ Yes !” you cannot wait any more and neither could Morax, his claws curling round to clutch and tangle at the back of your head while he captures you in a devouring kiss. Your own experience hardly held a candle to his own practiced ease, but you do what you can, groaning into the clacking of teeth and the teasing little nips he leaves on your lower lip. 

His thumb traces down the side of your neck and hooks at your clothes, tugging away at the fabric to stroke your now bare shoulder. Morax leaves no trace of skin untouched by his lips and he brushes down the line of your collar bone, his teeth flashing in the candle light till you feel him bite down at the spot with a muffled growl.

The rush of pain and pleasure has you pressing your face down into the mattress with reeling shock, any moan held back in the midst of the hazy shock lighting up inside you. The action was mostly unintentional, but you were glad it could have saved you any further embarrassment in Morax’s eyes.

“Not a sound?” he asks, licking his lips with a predatory tilt to his head, regarding every inch of you with voracity. You stubbornly refuse to respond, lips sealed tight with a set of eyelashes batting up at him. Morax likes a chase and you give it to him, no matter how small it may be. “No matter. We’ll see how silent you are by the end of the night.”

The words hang in the air like an impending omen. You do not doubt him.

His voice dips to a sultry whisper as he undoes your top and lets it slide past your shoulders and down your waist till it was bunched to the side and lay there forgotten. The storm rumbles outside your window, and the wind prickles at your skin. Between Morax eyeing you down, mapping out every detail with his fingertips and the chill in the air, your arms instinctively move to hug yourself. 

“No.” His word was stern, absolute as he tugs at whatever covers your entirety from his gaze. “I’ve never seen you this shy before… adorable .” he purrs, stroking your cheek. 

“ Tease .” you test out.

Morax’s expression lapses to a playful smile in the midst of your indignation, leaning back to watch you with clear intent. He guides your legs around his waist and shifts you partly atop his lap, gently moving your hips to a slow grind against his torso. The sudden stimulation draws out a squeak, your cheeks set aflush.

“ Beautiful… ” his claws linger over your chest before it trails down to stroke your stomach. “You’re so soft , little love…” they stop at your shoulder, raking around the scar settled there, gnarled marks and torn flesh left behind by talons and teeth. You feel the flare of doubt and self consciousness flare back up, but it fizzles out when he bends to leave a kiss atop it.

It was hard to find a spot that he did not touch. Morax was precise, diligent, learning what spots made your squirm and whimper and shake beneath him with white hot pleasure. The rain’s roar was a distant muffle between the pleasant buzz in your head and Morax’s ragged breaths sounding in the otherwise quiet room. He hunches over you, nosing at your neck with near obsessive need, nipping, kissing — anything to cast on some semblance of his scent and essence.

Your chin nestles atop his shoulder, your sight trained upwards, oblivious to where Morax may choose to touch you next. The clinking of metal does draw in a few questions, most quickly answered when you feel his clothes give way and settle on your stomach. Then comes his teeth, sharp fangs sinking into you. You hardly register the moan you let out, or the heat that you sink into, desperate for more, for more skinship, for more of Morax.

“ Beautiful .” he repeats, a growl bleeding into every syllable, down to the rumble in his chest. He still donned his pants, but most of his clothes now lay scattered across the mattress, pushed aside a moment later with an impatient huff. 

You have seen Morax bare chested plenty of times before, when he first arrived wounded on the slope of your little mountain home. There was no denying he was a beautiful man, sharply lined with the faintest of silvered scars scattered beneath stark gold tattoos. “ Morax .” you mutter, lacing your fingers into his, tugging at him instantly. “Keep going.”

He smiles. 

“Patience.” he croons. You squeeze your eyes shut and hold back the swear resting on your tongue. “I have waited for so long…” his teeth don’t hold the old hesitance it did, now wholly marking you with delicious bruises and love bites. “...and I intend on savoring… ” his lips linger on the line of your jaw, tickling your ear. “... each… ” they brush down, down, down. “... bite… ” and true to his words, he sinks his teeth down again.

Your hands tangle at his hair, his hair tie snapping to your insistent tugging till burnt brown strands pool around him. He looked a little wilder, with how his eyes glow beneath the shadow cast on his face. You comb through them with a soft “So pretty.” earning a flattered hum whilst he cups your breasts, chanting your name lovingly.

You gasp at the feel of a soft pinch on your nipples. Morax lights up, a dangerous splay of his fangs flashing in your field of vision before he engulfs one breast within his mouth, suckling, biting, devouring greedily and the other grows sensitive to his slow strokes. “M-Mor–AX!” Your mewls peak and your hands grab at his shoulders, his back, at the sheets — somewhere , trying to ground you to the sensation. 

( He could hear your racing heart beneath his grasp and the sound of it makes Morax purr with an emotion so old and primal and possessive. )

He pulls away with a wet pop. “How do you feel?” he asks.

“H-hot.” you barely manage to blurt out. “Hot everywhere.”

That smile was back again, the one with the barest flash of primality. “Hot?” he repeats. You nod. It was hot, in your cheeks, your chest and your stomach and core — and you could hardly bring yourself to wait. With Morax’s resolve to take his slower pace. You curse his patience. You wish he was just as desperate. 

“I am.” he muses nonchalantly, ducking down to take your other breast in his mouth. “I crave every inch of you. I want to hear you sing, wǒ qīn'ài de .” his hand drags down, teasing the inside of your thighs with circular strokes. You buck your hips into him with a pathetic whimper, and Morax pounces at the lapse, tugging your underwear down with a single fluid motion then pushing his fingers into your drenched heat.

“Oh how obscene.” he lilts, a delighted shine in his eyes, momentarily bringing his slickened digits for you to see. “You’re drenched.”

“ Shut .” you snap, a depraved cry cutting you off as he teases at your entrance with one finger, thumbing up your core till he settles on your clit with a peased grunt. Your hips snap and shudder, tears slowly pricking at your eyes. It was an odd sensation, a buildup of pressure far greater than what you could coax out that tightens in your gut. 

Morax slides a finger in, slowly, gently. “ Ah — ” you bury your face into your mattress, spreading your legs further for him. He continues his slow thrusts, in and out and you revel in the sweet sensation. “Feels — f-feels good — ” 

His scrutiny comes with its merits, stroking your walls with an out of place gentleness as he watches every shift, keen and whine with a deep found appreciation and yearning. “You’re quite tight , little one.” he rumbles. You warble in response, bucking your hips into him as the pressure steadily builds and builds and builds.  

“I’ll be adding another.” he decides and he does, a second finger slipping in. the stretch stung and you fist at the sheets with a groan.

“N-no…t-too much — ah!” The broken whimper does elicit a sympathetic look from him and he kisses away the tears, thankfully easing his movements.

“I know, little love. I know.” you sink into his warmth, melting at the delicacy in how he holds you close. “But we’ll need to prepare you, don’t we? And you’re taking me so well too…” you think you are when the pain slowly subsides and the pleasure returns, your very being trembling when he scissors you. “Ah, witnessing the state you're in…it makes me wonder how well you’ll take something else of mine, hm?”

“M-morax!” you squeak, cheeks flushed. The embarrassing squelch from your core shuts you up immediately. You decide you’re better off muffling out your moans out of petty spite at this point and you seek your refuge in the covers, burying your face into your mattress.

Ha! You think, naively, foolishly, daring to assume that Morax would fold at the face of a challenge. A third finger slips through and the moan is smothered. You think you hear him chuckle and you think you see the excited flash in his eyes as he shifts and twists your body, laying you down on your stomach.

“So stubborn.” The delight is apparent in his cadence. His hand presses down at the small of your back, then his torso presses up against you, continuing his slow and agonizing thrusts with practiced pace. “The vitriol in your silence hardly diminishes how soaked you are. Your body is far more honest, it seems.”

“ MMPH !”

You gasp, feeling his fingertips stroke your g-spot, pulling you apart at the seams and chipping away at your mind. Everything feels distant and muddled and the pleasure was almost too much to bear. “Does it feel good when I touch you here?” you shut your eyes and curl up, bucking up into him uselessly. His weight restricted your movements and you doubt you could wiggle away for a temporary respite ( even if some masochistic part of you liked the deluge of sensations pile up steadily ). “I need words.”

Another thrust. You wail into your hands, whatever dogged decision to stay silent, now shattered. “Yes. Yes — P- please!” you haven’t the foggiest clue what you’re begging for at this point, but the fullness you feel from his fingers alone is enough. “L-like that. Morax please keep going.”

He adds a fourth finger.

“You keep tightening up…” he whispers, as if trapped in a trance of his own, your head lifting to press against his bicep while his movements momentarily slow to ease you in before his pace picks up and that slow, brutal torture begins again. 

You squirm, squeal, bite into his arm with vigor. Morax laughs, kissing your temple with comforting croons. “Good.” he coos, dipping his nose into your hair with a victorious purr. Your thighs squeeze around him and your hips jolt forth. The pressure steadily building up in your stomach seems to crest while you chime out his name. Your orgasm seeps closer and closer and closer —

He pulls his fingers out and you bite back a cry, a protest, tears pooling out as dismay settles fast. Was it something you said? Was it something you’ve done? Why did he stop?

“Why…” you manage out, stroking his hair. Morax raises a brow then slides down, his lips latching onto your inner thigh with a groan. You fist at the sheets again, a vague idea coming to form between the haze and the jumbled confusion and disappointment and it sets a spark of excitement. 

A pause.

Morax meets your gaze.

He smirks.

You stifle back a scream when he bows his head down and laves at your heat, catching the receding traces of your buildup and letting it reel in steadily. His tongue was greedy, warm, devouring you whole as he slicks it through your drenched folds, and — oh gods —

Whatever praise that you cry out turns into a feverish mantra being babbled out over and over, the sharp mountainous air taking on a headier scent. Your validation was enough to spur him on, it seems, every bit of Morax, from the practiced gentleness to his eagerness to undo you coming to shine with the fervor of a starved animal. 

“ Good .” he growls out, claws digging down a little harder into the softness of your thigh, his teeth and tongue grazing and toying at your clit. You clap your hands over your mouth once more, a squeak cut short, only to have them pinned down by him. He flashes you a warning glare before gold light illuminates your wrists and you feel the weight of geo press them down to your chest.

The cuffs were heavy, and they did their job well as you could only grab at air while his licks grow more languid. Your thighs were pushed back with a single fluid movement and a flustered cry escaped with your sudden exposure. 

“Ah — ”

You tug at his hair, drawing out another delicious moan from his throat. Liquid gold appraises you, taking every detail in, between your fucked out expression and your twitching body. Morax presses against your sweet spots, and you could have sworn some strange magic were at play, with every careful thrust and every slow vibration. You could hard;y word out the state you were in, your mind all cotton wool with little thought.

Overwhelming…indescribable…that was a way to put it.

Morax does not complain about your growing insistence, your moans growing louder, your thighs squeezing round his shoulders, your attempts to free yourself from the stone shackles he placed on you.he must be just as far gone with your arousal in his mouth ( and that was true ). You hope he won’t turn to cruelty like the last time and deny you of your orgasm. It was a delirious pitch in the back of your mind, a soft cry.

“I-I think i’m close — ” you gasp, feeling that knot grow tight as the tell tale spill of an incoming release shudders up your spine and fingertips. Morax looks at you, the gold of his eyes wide and his pupils blown out with suppressed mischief. A well-timed thrust from his fingers served your undoing.

“Go on then.” he relents.

You sob into the sheets gratefully, pleasure rippling through as the coil snaps and you crumple and sink into a state of unawareness. You could only just register Morax sitting up, thumb swiping at his lips, licking away at the mess you made, smeared between his thighs and on him. “S-sorry!”

He shuts his eyes, quiet bliss washing over him. “I could devour you here and now…” he mutters in indulgence. He rubs your sore wrists down, pressing kisses against the expanse of skin with an apologetic smile. “You look tired. Shall we stop here?”

Alarm lines your features. “What about you?” you blurt out, bug eyed and still fatigued from your orgasm. Morax doesn’t respond, laying down next to you. You feel a bitterness line your mouth and you find yourself pushing your body up and crawling atop him. Morax opens one eye, amusement quirking at his lips.

“Oh?” he doesnt bother feigning surprise as his clawed grip settles on your hips. You try to hide yourself, embarrassment from your bold move hardly aiding in your focus as you slide his pants down and stare, he bore two of them, standing erect against your stomach. You helplessly glance at him. 

“You’re…you’re big..” you tell him dumbly. “I-I don’t…I don’t think I can take both of them…” Morax chuckles.

“We’ll take it slow then. You only need one.” he decides, helping you up. You steady yourself on his shoulders, carefully laving your entrance with him before you lower yourself onto him, feeling the first telltale sting that has you stop with a whine. “Careful.” he speaks up, rubbing at your sides and you try to be, taking him bit by bit. Morax stretched you out in a way his fingers couldn’t and his second shaft rubs at your sore clit, leaving you jolting with sparks of pleasure.

He was roving every inch of you, biting down at his bottom lip when you clench around him. Every bit of him screamed of his self control hovering a step away from a more viscous beast. You don’t think you’re ready for what Morax tucks away in the corners of his mind, but you hope, hope that you could indulge him some day.

You were soaked enough for him to slip in with ease, a collective of your and his arousal trailing down with an audible squelch every time he dared to grind up a little more against you. “Fuck….” he whispers out, a rare lapse in demeanor. “D-does it hurt?”

“No.” you shake your head, a half lie. It stings, yes, but the slow haze of euphoria was pressing up and you knew he would stop if you showed the slightest sign of discomfort — and you did not want him to stop. Not with this lovely warmth, and with him holding you like you were the most delicate of flowers.

The sound he makes is animalistic and he thrusts, just a little, into you. He could hardly help himself, seemingly just as lost as you were ( and he was, with his parted lips and fluttering lashes ). You curl into him, pressing your face into his neck. “That’s it.” he whispers mindlessly. “Wonderful, y-you’re taking me so well…don’t rush now…”

You take the rest of him, seated snugly on his lap with a shaky mewl, tears pricking at your eyes. Morax bares his teeth, groaning freely as the air itself seems to crackle against you. You open your mouth, trying to say something, anything, but he pins you down with a single look. “Little minx .” he rasps.

A laugh bubbles up. You wonder if it’s from amusement, or from the overwhelming rush of dopamine or both. 

He kisses the corner of your lips, gathering his bearings. “You’ve had your moment of fun, little love. Now move .”

“Yes sir…” you sigh, and do just that, lifting your hips just a bit before you rock back down onto him. “S-shit…s-so good…” 

Morax hums, pursing his lips. His face was flushed and the tattoos on his arms were cast in gold and light. He takes matters into his own hands, pounding up into him with sudden force and your teeth chatter and your eyes roll back with a pathetic whimper.

A few marks of your own were delivered, from your nibbling as Morax continues to thrust up into your drenched cunt, and from your nails scratching at his back. His approval was punctuated by a particularly hard one, that made your head spin and had you see stars. You vaguely register the scent of petrichor through everything else.

“ Morax — ” 

The state you were in only behind to sink in. That he was inside you, that he was taking every chance to draw out these obscene sounds from your lips. Even gods could not escape the perversion of mortal desires. Was this even considered blasphemy at this point, when he seemed to be stuck on the same boat as you were, sinking so fast into his lust?

“ — so good for me .” he guides your legs around his abdomen, whispering your name with a weak whine. He bites at your neck, at the marks he inflicted, then soothes them with kisses. He rubs your back and strokes your hair, his tender touch contrasting against his rough movements, grinding into your sweet spots and paired with his second cock rubbing at your clit, you could only lose yourself a second time.

That knot tightens and you feel the onset of your release. It was close, fast coming and you tug at his hair to warn him. Morax growls, his tail winding round your ankle. You try to keep up, try to ride him, but his pace far outmatches yours, stretching you out, pulling you flush against him. You let him use you, your monks reaching a feverish peak, grasping a taste of heaven on your tongue.

“Morax — ah!”

He curls into you, around you with an engulfing embrace with whispered words being uttered into your ear, “Do you want to cum?” You jolt your head. “Then cum… ”

And the bliss washes over you as you finally find it, slumping up into Morax;s patient arms with a near boneless stance. Your eyes met his, the hunger that still rages as he watches with awed fascination at how you come apart and piece back together again with teary eyes and a debauched smile.

“Beautiful.” he mumbles, then presses you face first into the sheets, still sheathed deep inside you. You only just realize he still has reached his own peak yet when he moves, absently reaching out for a pillow for you to grasp.

“God…M- morax — ” you were tired but with overstimulation settling fast and your own desires to see his pleasures being met, you bite into the pillow with a helpless whine. There was a rush in the pain you felt, from feeling all that pleasure wrap into a tight knot while he slicks back and forth into you, hitting your g-spot again with insistent grunts. His pupils were blown wide, like he was trying to take in as much of you as he could.

“M-more!” you blurt out then wince, feeling a hint of shame prick at you for being so greedy. It was about him now; sure you could put your own needs aside.

Morax however, smiles. “ More ?” he coos. “You want more?”

A gasp. You feel his hand settle on your clit, his untouched cock brush against your thigh. “Now who am I to deny you?” He continues his rough thrusts, godly stamina barely denting at his reserves and his pace. Perhaps that came with being an adeptus, this unending virility and endurance. Morax kisses at the back of your neck, laying down more marks to serve as a reminder for the next few days ( that you were, undoubtedly and irrevocably his now ).

Wanton moans pour out easily. Morax delights in them, carefully stimulating spots that were sure to bring the most out of you. The initial phase of searching and mapping out and learning was long gone — he was always quick to pick up on things, and things that make you fall apart into a quivering mess so easily were no exception.

It feels so good. So good —

“Do you want to keep going?” he asks. You feel sore in the best of ways and you nod. You don’t want him to stop. You don't ever want him to stop, drunk on the overstimulation, the euphoria, his cock, him —

Morax lets out a shaky exhale and slams even harder into you. “You’ll be my undoing...” he whispers and you turn your head, catching a glimpse of him. His straight faced composure was long gone, what careful parts of him he keeps hidden from sight having fallen over. Claws prickle at your ass, his eyes are trained on you, you you and when he meets your gaze, he captures your lips in a heated kiss.

“What kind of spell have you ensnared me with, little love?”

You could say the same thing. You try to, cut off by a rough grind on your clit. A lump builds up in your throat, vaguely recalling his small gestures of affection, his admissions, through your heat hazed mind and you arch your back into him to catch another kiss. Morax never needed to say the words and you were fine with it. 

“I love you.” you tell him instead, taking everything you had to get your tongue to move. Morax freezes up. He shuts his eyes and strokes your cheeks and buries his face into your neck.

“My Qingxin.” he whispers, tenderly, lovingly. The faltering in his pace, the sloppier jerks of his hips, then undertones of strained control beneath his moans signal his release. You grasp at his free shaft, and the gasp that echoes out was a rewarding one as you stroke him along into his release. “In or out?” he grits out, stuttering for a second. You feel the drag of his cock against your walls. “In.” you blubber.

You blank out after, feeling the rush, the fullness, him spilling out of you, between your legs, onto the mattress, over your stomach. Morax lets out a shudder, his marks glowing a faint gold before he pulls out. His hand does not leave your clit. Coaxing your third peak out with gentle kisses and insistent mumbles. The pain was sharp but you drink it in, pride lining every crevice of you till you jolt, that pressure finally releasing.

“Thank you.” you mumble. Intimacy was always so foreign, and a kind touch was a far away thought. Morax settles down, pulling you to him as he kisses away the drying tears and the sated touch starvation. He kisses you on the lips. Then the tip of your nose. Then at the bites he inflicted. 

“Rest.” he whispers. 

The cadence of his voice made it hard to disagree with and you feel unconsciousness wash over you fast. You could vaguely make out the sheets being changed and a damp cloth washing you down.

Morax’s weight next to you was the last thing you register.

“Are you well?”

Morax could count the number of times you sought refuge beneath his arm, eyes roving the stalls in the harbor with caution and nervousness. Your jumpiness was an expected clause, and a slightly endearing one as he walks you along the streets as a mortal man and his lover. There were no gods in Liyue Harbor today, at least none the people were aware of.

“Zhongli.”

He turns his head. “Yes, love?”

You fall into earnest silence. “I think I'm going to freak out.” you say. As taught as a bowstring against him. You grip at his hanfu tighter. “They’re staring. Why are they staring?”

“I suppose a new face does bring raised brows. That…” he dips his head down, nose brushing against your cheek with a loving chuckle. “...and you look exceptionally beautiful today, love.” You tug at his sleeve. “Ah, would some food ease my flower’s nerves then?” another tug. He takes that as a yes.

Even so, Morax knew you. Qingxins were flowers that know the intimate dangers of the mountain side and the bustle of the harbor below. You will grow, as you do and you will adapt as you do, maybe slowly, maybe quickly. He knows not to rush it along and he contents himself with your company and your curious question and the bliss on your face when you try a skewer.

“Liyue is beautiful.” you admit after a while. “Crowded, but beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m not used to this.” you tell him for the umpteenth time, quick, apologetic and Morax has none of that ( why would he ever see it fit to fault you? ). He takes your hand, pressing a fluttering kiss on your palm. 

You shoot him a flustered glare. He smiles. “We’ll take our time. This old man has much to spare.” and he does.

He’ll wait millennia if it is for you. 

📼 — AUTHORS NOTES

reposting done XD.

TAGLIST ノ join the taglist. — @silentmoths @meimeimeirin @sleepynoons @meirvelle @endursent.

@jessamine-rose @ofoceansandtombsanew @chiyoso @4acoffee @loveliluc.

[pranabefall]

⠀⠀THE DEVIL'S ANESTHETIC. ⠀⠀⸺ ⠀⠀blade.

syn. you were just a doctor, at the start of it all. then came the chaos, the knife, the bits and pieces of madness and coming horror. and in the center of it all, stood him ( a gentle cruelty ).

TW. ⸺ yandere + smut and dark content ahead. reader is south asian coded, blade is a little fucked up and inevitably fucks the reader up a little too. murder, corruption arcs, medical terminologies i only half know, breaking of medical ethics, the reader is a pathetic wet cat, gang violence, death, manipulation, angst, acts of murder and mentioned dismemberment, suicidal ideation, dub-con, non consensual kissing, hatefucking, blade having violent thoughts, the reader is not daijobu, blade getting off on being killed.

LOG. ⸺ this is another repost of this fic after my old account got deleted on accident. this work has been marked mature for containing smut & dead dove content. readers below the age of 18 / ageless blogs and antis, do not interact. PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS BEFORE PROCEEDING.

"you can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid."

— FRANZ KAFKA.

I. DEATHBED

“We have another one.” The receptionist echoes out from the front desk.

Another one. The words still the twitch in your muscles, the incessant cleaning and arranging and scrubbing away blood from medical chairs and forceps that should not be here. There are thoughts in your head. They’re dangerous ones, lingering in places that are grimy and soaked in something tarred. They should not be there.

Another one and that’s enough to coat your stomach with ugly, stifling coldness. You don’t reply, keep your eyes down and let the man walk in.

There were never any faces to your clients. They had hands, ringed, tattooed, scarred. Some had suits. Some stank of iron. And they all had guns, or bats, or rusty crowbars and attitudes that were knife edged and brutally coarse. This one is much like the rest. He tells you he was shot in the waist and his voice is static and white noise and discord leaking out of your ears in droves till —

“— will you get moving?! It fucking hurts.”

“Yes.” you choke out. “Yes of course.”

It comes easily to you now, after months of repeating it over and over with varying degrees of perfection and prompt. Find the shrapnel, pull it free, clean the wound, suture it. Find the shrapnel, pull it free, clean the wound, suture it. Find the shrapnel, pull it free, clean the wound, suture it. Find the —

( Your thoughts unravel and they’re a mess in your hands like several bits of coloured petals. The scent has washed away. They almost seem to wither, bit by aching bit. )

You step away. “Done.” you tell the suited man and ask for no payments. Your receptionist does not either when he strides outside and it’s smart because patience was a whim when you reeked of viscera. That brazen naivete was drilled out of her a long time ago ( and you too ) and the rules were set forth, rules that must never be broken. You’d seen too many zipped up body bags scattered in the gutters to dare to. You do not want to be one of them.

( Coward, that spiteful half of you snarls and you know it’s right. )

Only he does reach in and throw some loose notes against the counter. You shuffle up to her, nails crusted with brown and red and count fifty kaas. It’s peanuts. It will do.

You were a doctor.

Or at least you’re certain you were. You’d spent the better part of your decade rooted within a small university where standard IPC dialect was taught as a secondary language and the fans hadn’t been replaced for the last thirty years. It was torture during the summer and the hospital adjacent had patients who spoke in tongues you didn’t quite understand. But you manage. You tried, you graduated.

You were a doctor. Your license reads you specialised in paediatrics. Children were all you needed to deal with, some too loud to listen to their parents' chides for silence. Some so young they were small enough to fit in your desk drawer. Some of them liked to talk too and ask questions during checkups and vaccine appointments ( nerves, you reason and you answer the questions ). It wasn’t much. It was peaceful. It was alright. This is your clinic, something you'd built from sleepless nights and mountains of referral literature.

Then you’d see less children and more of those suited men as the streets grow with a cacophony you can’t call safe after this. The carpet was worn down by blood and heavy footfalls, over the thread work and your mother’s faded name in the bottom.

You weren’t treating children anymore.

Still, you hold it together. This is yours, all of this. This is yours and it's a feeling locked away in your beating heart.

When the man returns — and you know it’s him because the birth mark on his hands were hauntingly similar — he brings company. The company in itself would have seemed unassuming, and they were, lingering by the doors speaking in words too fast to comprehend till the gunfire rang out and the windows shattered.

A part of you is thankful that it’s so late, where the streets are silent and the bustle is calm. The files you were rearranging fall to the floor. You duck beneath your desk and stay there, enclosed within tumult, within chaos, within something you wanted no part of ( and you grip your hands tight, quietly wondering if that persistent cat would be fed, if your father would care to know what happened to you ).

You hear glass break, fall, fall and hit the floor with a sadistic sort of tinkling.

You hear frantic footsteps thundering up by the door.

You hear the screaming.

( You hear your heartbeat. You want it to stop. )

Something crashes into the storeroom. It was large, heavy, clothed and it let out a strangled cry before iron clogs up your nose and heat and cold fizzles up and hammers into every crevice and pore and turns your chest inside out. The man tries to shift, to get up and out of the way, shoulders knocking against the shelves in panic that feels painfully palpable. He’s crying. You see that when you bundle into a corner, eyes burning.

His body jerks and is dragged to the door.

“Don’t,” he begs till the desperation chokes his reasoning and it meters into panicked threats. “You’ll be torn apart by this, I swear, you’ll be hunted down — ”

He’s pulled at again, his limp form slipping out of sight. You hear a sick sound — a squelch, the dripping of blood and viscera and the gamey crack of bones. Your teeth dig into your cold fingers. The stinging is numbed, dim and distant, while you press against the wall and try not to wail.

There is only a single set of footsteps now. It paces like a starved animal, like a caged beast. Leave, your thoughts scramble and correct themselves. Just leave. And it repeats, over and over like a maddening chant. Please leave, leave, leave. The footsteps stop at the door followed by a slow scrape against marble. A shadow falls over the doorway. That’s when you see him.

You think he could have been pretty. But there's terror beneath that veil of frozen numbness. You don’t think he’s pretty now, when he’s stalking into the room, bloodied sword in hand ( it’s mired and cracked and mended like kintsugi but twisted and terrible ). He walks like a man who’d been broken and sewn together and he reeks of death and a sickening sweetness.

His gaze meets yours for that fleeting moment.

( it felt like that throbbing helplessness. Of everything going wrong. )

One of the suited men had not died. Not yet, in some inane act of stubbornness. He’s tackled down immediately and you flinch back and finally scream, watching the writhing pile of bodies smack each other down with ease. The swordsman ends it. There’s a chilling disparity in strength with how his bare hands tear into flesh and rips his opponent’s arm off. He’s laughing, laughing like a madman and the insane hysteria sparks a primal instinct nestled in your mind.

You’re moving before you realise it, when you spot his fingers twitch for his fallen sword. Your hands close around metal. You’re surging forward, taut at the edges. That part of you screams into the void, stripping away morality, reason, the simpler parts of shame that could have stopped you then and there.

When your fractured mind pieces together and lets the spinning room rest into clinical stillness, you’re aware of the hysterical laughter that man trembles into. He slumps against your legs, weighted, boneless. He’s still laughing, like the world had whispered a funny joke into his ear and left him to rot.

The dislodged pole slips out of your hands. You watch him crumple down onto the floor, staining the tiles. A swing, a hit to the back of his head, a break to the vertebral artery, a medullary haemorrhage, a stroke, neuron death —

You spend the next hour tucked away in that storeroom, watching the swordsman’s body convulse, then his breathing still and his body run cold.

II. NEWLY DECEASED

Once upon a time, you told yourself that you could get by. You could get by and let yourself think you were a good person despite the ugly cracks tucked away and the bated disappointment breathing down your neck. It’s the human experience, a conditioned way of convincing yourself, a way you wish to live in the quieter corners of you.

It’s a lie. A lie. A lie.

The body does not move, as dead bodies usually do. As a frame of reference, dead bodies don’t do much to begin with. You stand back up and feel nausea coat the back of your throat, then wordlessly stumble to the man. Your fingers press against his pulse. Nothing.

A part of you wants to laugh at yourself for hoping.

The police take it all away. They don’t know what you did. Or maybe they do and care so little they swat that detail aside. Death is so natural here, so common and where is the sympathy for the damned when the damned were everywhere and your kindness wears thin?

( You’re left to pick up the pieces. The cracked photo frames, the toys and magazines salvaged, the bowl of tamarind candy tipped over. Bits and pieces gathered together and sewn back together. There was a heart in these walls. The pain was always there, but a dogged part of you loves this place. )

You answer what questions were asked and let them walk away, knowing they’ll do nothing about the situation to begin with. They never do. Most policemen were tucked up in the pockets and played dogs to gang members. Some lost themselves to apathy. Money could buy loyalty in droves. It was an open secret.

You get back home and let the hot water run into your bucket. You feed the visiting cat. You wipe the counters down and unearth some food from the previous night. You turn the water off. You bathe. You eat.

( “I’m fine.” you lie to Aleena when she calls you, frantic, scared. More frantic and scared than you present yourself to be. You don't tell her you’re a murderer.

“I don’t think you should go back tomorrow. I’m not saying this to get off of work or anything but after all that?” she falls silent.

“Maybe. But I need to keep the income coming in somehow.” )

Walking into the bedroom feels harder than it should. Lead bleeds into muscle as you patter along and try to keep yourself steady against the walls. For a moment, you stop and lean your forehead against it and tell yourself not to cry ( because cowards cry, and idiots cry and it was a pointless endeavour anyway because nothing — nothing about this would change ). Your degree falls into your line of sight, framed up against the wall.

You are a doctor. You are a doctor. You are a doctor.

That guilt knocks you in the knees. The guilt, the disgusted guilt that comes from killing a man.

( It’s engulfing, like tar and cloth pressed up against your face. The breathlessness, the storm rattling against the window, the messiness of it all. You’re screaming at the pillow. You’re clawing at it. You swipe till your arm bleeds and the cacophony dies down. )

The veneer shatters and the frame is clenched and thrown to the floor. The casing cracks. You heave, look at the mess at your feet and think to yourself :

What were those eight years for?

You killed a man.

You killed a man.

You killed a man.

A gasp tears through. It's painful, heavy and it's glass and shrapnel. The voice in your head whispers. Nothing. It's all for nothing.

Another one crackles through the muffled distortion, straining and rattling. A clear “I told you so.” grating past the chaos, disappointed, smug, knowing.

You shut your eyes and dream of jasmine and marigolds.

( You listened to Aleena when you passed the register and took a day off in the end. It’s the one kindness you let yourself have.

You did not eat for most of the day. Your gut gnaws. Your limbs feel weak. But food, as delicious as the thought seemed, invoked a visceral response. Of corpses and blood and things that you thought yourself too far removed to disgust you. A caved in skull did all this. A caved in skull made you retch and empty your stomach out into the toilet.

You think you deserve it. )

Your watchman stops you when you head back out again a few days later for a grocery run. "Are you alright?" he asks, peering through sleep. The cat curls round his legs and he gives it a gentle pat. You can hear the content purr it lets out from where you stand, and you venture a little closer.

"A little." you reply, smiling a little. The watchman tilts his head in consideration. You'd lost count of how long he's been here. Some of the older tenants mention he'd settled in over a decade ago, when the building still had four floors instead of five and a little more space to park out back.

"You still seem scared is all." he glances over at you again. It's the worry in his furrowed brow that makes you give pause. He reminded you of your grandfather then, strong jawed, stern eyed before that softness pervades through when he'd let you scoot over next to him to sneak a look at the newspaper ( cricket scores and stock prices were all he looked at. And the Sudoku ) .

You shift in place, tugging at the hem of your jacket. "It was a little jarring. The sudden attack, that is." you admit. You don't tell him about the death, the way deceitful monsters do.

The watchman shakes his head. "Horrible thing to go through, I agree. Especially for one as young as you." The cat slinks pat his legs and under the bed. he leans forward, tire heaving at his bones and his joints. A decade. One would assume he'd retire at this point given his age. "Try not to let it wear down on you, is all."

"It's easier said then done." You mumble.

"It is." the watchman snorts. "I told my daughter about you though. She's taking medicine too…Oncology. I scraped together every Kaas I had to pay her tuition fee off." he flexes his arthritic hands. You keep listening, that sliver of curiosity winning out. "She hasn't met you…but she knows about your clinic. The children you're helping…suited men aside. It gives her a bit of spark at least. So you keep going too."

You feel gutted, eyes stinging a bit. He puts too much faith in you, you realise. But there is a small touch of warmth against the rattling cold. "Thanks…" you nod. The watchman leans back.

Keep going. What a mess, really.

You return to your clinic, the day after. You decide it's the last time you'd let reckless hope bar the instinctive tearing in your gut.

There is a woman sitting on the waiting room chairs with a dangerous smile. She’s dressed well, like those elegant omen-bringers or dapper businessmen. She’s dressed like the coming consequences and it’s there, that sadistic delight, hidden behind that lazy tilt to her head.

“Good morning.” she greets, like she hadn't broken into your clinic. “Hope we’re not intruding.”

You look to her companion next to her.

The dead man ( and he was dead. He was supposed to be — you were certain ) stares right back.

“Do you have anything to drink?”

“There’s a coffee machine…”

“Hm, never mind. I was never too fond of the instant stuff. What do you think Bladie?”

'The man named ‘Bladie’ does not respond. You’d have laughed a little — if your nerves weren't frayed. You’d have laughed over a silly, inconsequential nickname slapped onto some scary looking man, then gone on your way. But the scary looking man was a murderer. And you were certain, so certain, that he was dead.

( His blood coated your hands days ago. You can’t have imagined it — not something so innately ingrained within your psyche like some sadistic firebrand.

How is he alive? How is he alive?! Why is he — )

“I could pick up some tea.” you suggest, because playing meek was the way of a coward and you were that in the end. You still had to open your clinic in another half hour. There are still parts of the storeroom that need cleaning and a window that needs replacing. The woman laughs. She looks at you like you were an adorable specimen. A pet…or perhaps a bug to be stepped on.

( It’s a cruel sort of beauty that edges her face. You’d hate to admit you were staring a little longer than you should be. )

“There’s no need for that.” she looks to the side for a moment. “Bladie was here a few days ago, you know.” you flinch, perhaps knowing the ugly scene to follow. “Got into a bit of a tussle. Of course, I wasn’t worried…he’s got a knack for seeing things through, you know…” She’s staring straight at you now. “And he’s good at not dying, one could say.”

“That’s nice.” you mumble, shifting uncomfortably. Your cheeks are cold. Don’t look at me, you try to tell the should-have-been-dead swordsman. Like that would have worked ( he keeps staring ).

The woman continues. “It's funny though. After that affair at your clinic, I had to pick Blade up at some hospital’s morgue of all places. Quite the detour if you ask me.”

You still.

She knows.

Fuck. She knows.

“I…I see.” you play into stupidity, wring your hands a bit and force a far away smile. “I wonder how that happened.”

“Yes.” she nods, solemnly flicking dust off of her velvet coat. The playful lilt to her tone is back, delicately poking and prodding away and you feel the walls close in bit by bit. You can see the man tilt his head. You want to disappear. “I’d think you know though…so how about you tell us?”

You don’t look at her. You can’t, with that horror filtering through and spotting your vision.

“Now….listen to me.” she stands, saunters up to you and you stay rooted. Your mind fogs over with cotton wool and the aftertaste of wine blooms through your mouth. There is consideration there, her pointedly dragging her eyes across your figure and taking a sick pleasure in the fear that trembles at your fingertips. A tiny part of you that still remains too torturously aware recoils. “Were you the one who killed Bladie?”

“Yes.” you reply and it isn’t you. You wouldn’t have said that. You wouldn’t have.

Her lips curl. “How did you kill him?”

“I hit him on the back of his neck.”

Her face glows. “Good girl.” she pats your cheek. “We have a favour to ask you. How about you hear us out?”

She gives your shoulders a squeeze and you’re gasping for air. “That wasn’t so hard.” she grins. The cotton wool strangles and is caught at the edges, whisping, grasping, stubbornly trying to stay. You still pull at it incessantly while you back away from her touch. It burns. What did she do to you? What did she fucking do to you —

You’re pulled closer. It’s just a tug, a simple coil of her fingers round your arm. “I’m sorry.” you blurt out. “I’m sorry. I never meant it.” There are cracks against the surface, a spiderweb and it keeps going and going and going the more you talk ( you need to shut up ).

“There there.” She coos. “How about we sit down, hm? Bladie, think you could make some space?”

You don’t want to sit down with them. You try to pull back, to run because that’s what you should have done in the first place; instead of entertaining a pair of strangers with that stupid, naive hope of safety. She pulls back. Bladie catches your wrist when you try to squirm free and you’re half dragged onto the seat between them. “Honestly. A drink would have been nice. Oh don’t worry. I could hardly blame you for that.”

The woman fixes her sleeve. “I take it you don’t know who we are?”

“No.” you admit.

“Ah. the IPC influence here isn't as deep, huh? I heard there was an overhaul a few decades ago. The revolt drove most of them out…I wouldn’t count on it staying that way.” She passes you a measured flash of her teeth. It’s all good manners and etiquette you can’t return. “But we’re not here to talk politics. I’d like you to babysit Blade for a while.”

Blade seems to be expecting it. He does not mirror your dismayed shock.

“Why — ”

“Can’t say. It’s all a part of some very important work.” She holds a finger to her lips. “Would you be a lamb and do it?”

You grip at the metal armrests hard. The room is a blurred scape, a watered down stain ( ink tracked against damp paper ). “I won’t.”

“Come now. After that stunt you pulled with him, it’s the least you could do.”

It settles hard. “I told you I didn’t mean it.” you snap. “I didn’t mean to kill him. I didn’t mean to kill you.” Your unravelling seeps into something dangerous. You try to step back. To keep it together. It tangles, knots, frays and snaps and tangles again and the foundations crumble. You cannot think despite the clarity slowly creeping and the fog metering out. You cannot think because the man you killed is alive and right next to you and dead men don’t just come back to life.

The woman forces you to turn her way. “You didn't mean it?” she repeats, inquisitive, amused. “Doctor please, any normal person would have gone for the head. You made a very calculated move there…and I'm sure that pretty little brain of yours knows the consequences that come with it.”

It’s a coveted part of you that dies there, withering, burning, clipped away and cast aside and you shake your head as you’re retrained. “Don’t touch me!” you scream. “Don’t touch me!”

Because humanity despises the naked truths in the world. They’ll deny, deny, deny what stares them in the face for those fleeting, selfish little comforts skewed in ignorance. Better the downy coverlet to the thin blanket, better the sweeter lie that bitter sincerity. You’re no different. Not really. You’re not different at all.

And that woman was not a liar.

III. DISTENSION

Aleena doesn’t take well to a strange man lurking within the backrooms. Her eyes always flit to the doors and her shoulders stay tense as she directs a few straggling patients to the waiting room and updates their details into the salvaged computers. “I don’t like the look in his eye.” she whispers hurriedly. “Doctor. Have you seen him?”

“Yes . I have.” you reply simply. “Could you pull up the files from a month ago? We have a follow up due today.”

She hums, and you nod to the messy clattering from the keyboard. “He’s not from here, is he? His clothes aren’t local.” her voice dips. “Is he an outworlder?”

“Yes.” You flit through a case history. The ink has run a bit, the edges flicked a dirty red. Bile and acid sears the edges of your mouth. You don’t think throwing up here and now would be professional. And your receptionist has a very nice shawl on. “Have the police called?” you add, helplessly rubbing away at the browned stains.

“You know they won’t.” she clicks her tongue, wrinkling her nose to the injustice of it all. You bite back your tired humour. She might descend into an angry little ramble then curse those men in three different tongues. You were guilty of listening in ( it’s amusing, and she had plenty of anger for the two of you, and then some more for the smaller things ). “They’re too busy sipping cha at the local angadi.”

She keeps tap tapping away. “Do you want me to send a soft copy? Or will you directly look into the logs?”

You cease flipping through the files. “Just send me a PDF.” you mutter. “You still have a few cases to input from yesterday right? I won’t hold you up.” Another report is pushed your way. Two more patients, two more medical histories to pore over. The throbbing in your forehead is incessant and stubbornly clinging on.

Gang activity in your neighbourhood has stifled from its initial raucous to a cautious thrum. There were still glimpses and the ignored nods, and that delicate rope-work still standing strong despite men from their brackets dying some terrible death. They don’t suspect you. It would be stupid to ( because you could hardly hold a gun in their eyes, or fight back. Your claws are chipped and your fangs blunted. It’s not a mystery ).

It does not stop the occasional loitering goon up front as parents grow a little braver and a little more desperate to bring their sick children in.

You settle with your work email, tapping your foot against the faint buzz from the streets outside and the waiting area. There is the occasional loud call. Kids being kids, shushed by mothers and fathers with warnings of naughty ones being fed the nastiest medicines for bad behaviour. You’re not cruel enough to do so maliciously, but it quiets them down amidst the worried ogling.

A ping pulls you from sinking further into your pit of thoughts. The document pops up in your inbox and Aleena slows her typing to two finger taps. “Can I take a week off?” She pipes up, nervously picking at her fingers. “Next month, that is.”

“For the agelu?” you guess, a new sort of weariness settling. “I suppose you can.”

Aleena stifles away a relieved smile followed by a : “You're not going?” She looks a little surprised, then lets her eyes sweep across the clinic. “I mean…yeah I guess you won't, given the state things are in right now…”

You wince. Your father had sent a text in. He asks for you, in his own, distant way. Maybe he misses you. Maybe you miss him beneath the hurt and the anger. But feelings were messy, scary things and it was better to look away and stick your head into papers and books and words that could be read. “I’m not sure.” is the soft admission. “It's a little early, I think, for me to make a proper decision.”

( Going home feels like a fever dream now. You’d almost come to loathe the smell of marigold and incense smoke. )

That and you can't be certain if Kafka would pick your guest up any time soon. She never gave you a timing, or any sense of clarity and control in this mad scramble. Blade was to lurk in his little window in the backrooms with all the year-old files for as long as he should.

“Besides.” You finish with a hint of good humour. “I'll take full responsibility for any ancestral hauntings after. Maybe my great grandmother could make a nice home on my couch.”

Aleena purses her lips. It’s says enough. A little more if you squint hard.

“Okay that wasn’t very funny.” you admit.

“No. It wasn’t.” She tilts her head sympathetically, pressing the pads of her fingertips to the edge of the desk, half pushing up against hardwood and paper. “I have plenty to say…but you’re my boss and that would be unprofessional.”

You bite back that twitch to your lips. “A wise choice. Take care of yourself now…and don’t forget about the rest of the reports.”

Primal fear rear its ugly head and scrapes at the bars when you meet Blade’s gaze.

“I have two patients due in the next hour.” you manage to pull out, turning your heel immediately after. Any inch for a quick escape, really. “So don’t come out. You’ll scare them.” you add for good measure, like he’s a child himself, or a feisty dog muzzled and chained up.

( The kind of dogs who bite at anything and everything. The kind who quietly bare their teeth at cruel hands and kind. You aren’t certain of Blade’s stance here and now, if he was pleased with his arrangements — stuck in a room too small for him, with someone who clearly didn't want him here.

Because you don’t. There’s something about you and your face and the way it’s a traitor. It gives away your thoughts, your heart, the things you want to keep tucked away at the back but seep under the doors and stain the carpets. And your displeasure seeing him is on full display.

His corpse comes to mind. Still, dead, cold took the touch with the beginnings of rigour mortis settling when he was hauled over the stretcher and wheeled away. )

He says nothing back, unsurprisingly. He didn’t even bother speaking out as much when Kafka came in and dropped him off with all the unceremonious sneaking and threatening. You think he’ll carry on with his silence, letting whatever this delicate little semblance of distant amiability stay within its stagnant state. An untouched web.

You turn. Keep walking. You really don't want him here, you think miserably. The paradoxical warmth in his body now, when for a moment there was none. His gaze, unsettlingly intense. You don’t want him here at all.

Still, you turn once more. You speak. “Is there anything else you need?” be polite. Be polite.

Blade considers it. He looks at you. You fool yourself into believing the hunger simmering beneath harsh vermilion does not exist.

“No…” he finally relents. His voice is coarse, heavy, the whisper of a growl.

( You leave faster than you should have. )

He follows you home after the day is done ( you wish he didn’t ).

Blade keeps you within his line of sight — just within reach and just close enough to feel that faint prickle of body heat against the back of his neck. It’s an uncomfortable itch. It’s unwelcome. So you turn your head back to his silent figure and test your fingers against your bicep.

“Could you walk in front of me?” you ask.

Blade seems to consider it. “No.” he finally decides with finality edging every word. “You might run.”

“I don’t think you’d let me get very far to begin with.” you mutter under your breath. His footsteps are heavy, kicking aside loose concrete you avoid. Blade still stays an unwanted spectre behind you, treading in a way that is too soft to be human.

“I won’t.” he agrees, sounding sure of himself. Bored even. There is a scuffing sound, cloth against cloth. You’re tense again, anticipatory ( and yet, you don't dare to look back, to look at him ). “It saves inconvenience. That is all.”

You decide you’d like to be an inconvenient annoyance. That should drive him back to wherever he came from.

“I still don't think you should walk behind me though.” You repeat. Your fingers curl. You wish you had a taser. Your last bottle of pepper spray was spent as is on a few other thugs the past couple months. “You look like a creep. And a stalker. You might mug me.”

“I won't.”

“How do I know that?” You keep rambling, hysteria trickling down. It's a leaky tap, that anxious mess in your chest.

Blade blinks. “Kafka told me not to.” ( like it was the most obvious thing. You might be imagining the heavy condescension oozing through ).

That does not make you feel better. Kafka seems as reliable as a tsunami, or a flood, or any natural hazard creeping into its first few stages of utter destruction. It shows on your face, that muted mix of disbelief and horror. Blade's gaze is sharp, not quite the disconnected distance it held before. Kafka was suffocating as is but blade feels like rubble bearing down, down, down. You hate it.

“And it would be pointless, trying.” He continues. “Killing you would change nothing.”

You wordlessly rub at your knuckles, at the pulled skin of your hand. You do not talk to him for the rest of the walk. You should be more polite, you tell yourself. Be more polite. You killed this man, watched him die as his brain slowly collapsed in on itself. The least you could do after those fifteen and a half dumpster fires is extend some basic human decency, right? Be polite.

A scream ringing out gives you another thing to focus on. They're normal to hear, even as it wrenches open your viscera and leaves something sick on your tongue. It continues, growing increasingly hysterical, then stops.

( You almost run for the source, You want to. You do not. )

By the time you slip into the parking lot of the apartment and head for the elevator, you’re half hurrying Blade along. There’s nothing glamorous about the place — a standard five storey tall building just like the other projects lining most lower middle class neighbourhoods. The watchman was found out back, half passed out from his shift and stinking of beedi smoke, leaving the dog that frequented the neighbour's doors to rip into any intruders.

You don't think Blade is wholly impressed as he nudges at him with his foot. The watchman jolts with a huff and a startled snore, then passes out, head lolling to the side a little. The dog does not bark, simply trotting up to accept a few pats on the head. And indignant annoyance flares up. You sharply tug at the hem of his sleeve.

Blade jolts. The vermilion of his stare burns you.

"Leave him alone." you warn, giving his sleeve another tug for good measure. Blade's lips purse, his displeasure a quiet shift on his face for the most part, burying away immediately into the corners and crevices where things were never brought up again. "I hope you like cats." you add. "I have one who visits sometimes. She's a terror and a half…"

He grunts, stepping to the side as you fiddle with your keys, pulling away the string from your key chain and getting your door open. It’s a welcome ritual, feeling the cool breeze from your apartment filter in after a while. The cat is passed out on the balcony floor, cracking open a single yellow eye in greeting when you shuffle forth to take a peek.

“Hello, pretty girl.” you coo, feeling that heavy warmth in your arms and the softness of her fur against your palms. It eases you just enough to face Blade again.

Be polite, you tell yourself because you killed him, because he could snap your neck in two, because you think that the last thing you need is pissing off a pair of seeming psychos. “You won’t mind tea, right?”

Blade leans against the wall, maybe trying to make himself as small as possible within the cloistered rooms. “It’s a waste.” he replies, ignoring everything else; the hum from the streets below, the occasional flicker from the lights, the cat settling on the couch and sleeping an arm’s length away.

“Okay.” you mumble and set down two cups anyway.

You do not like Blade’s silence. His silence means he’d rather think about something and him thinking could involve certain death. There is a disturbed sheen glossing over his gaze. He does not look wholly there, the less he talks. Most conversions your parents had with guests were about the weather, then delving headfirst into some obscure gossip about a family three kilometres away.

Another fleeting glance at Blade has you reason that he’s not one for gossip.

( You let this silence settle in. It’s still a suffocating thing, an unwanted presence and an unwelcome guest. You think of the suited men and the gangs amok in the dirty corners and you think the silence looks like them. )

“So…our first meeting wasn’t…wholly ideal.” You speak up after a while, handing him his tea. Blade looks vaguely surprised when he takes it. “I don’t think ‘ideal’ would be the right word for it…”

“You killed me.”

You swallow. “Yes.” your voice shakes. “I killed you.” Your legs are drawn a little closer to you before you talk and you lower your voice, all that shame and guilt subduing the last bits of that cocktail of fear and tumult and annoyance. “I’m sorry for killing you. Even if you’re still alive…somehow…it wasn’t the best course of action, to be fair — ”

Blade’s lips twitch. He takes a sip of his tea, letting you stew there with your fumbling, your shame. It still goes unspoken. That damning ‘how are you still alive’. You don’t bother asking it. He can’t stay dead — Kafka said so herself. The very notion feels like an existential terror moulded to the shape of a man and you want it to stay far away from it.

“Four days.” he finally utters out, inspecting the last bit of tea staining the bottom of his cup. “I was dead for four days.”

Oh. Oh that stung.

“I’m sorry.” your voice cracks and your eyelids start to prickle. Stupid. Stupid stupid, you curse at yourself, claw at the offending load inside.

Blade snaps his head towards you. There is a twitch in his hands, slow, dog-like in the way strays jolt in alarm. You do not comment on it, awkwardly pressing at the surface of your cup while the tears are quickly wiped away and smudged against your cheeks. There's no use crying over it, you scold yourself. Grow a spine.

“Spare yourself the pity. It is not an uncommon occurrence.” is his uncomfortable dismissal. The words are nonchalant and his forehead crinkles to match the perplexed hitch to his shoulders. He probably wants to say more, speak more, tear you apart. Or he was just too put off by how pathetic you are.

“You’ve been killed before?”

“Yes.”

Horror stirs deep in your gut and a small sliver of morbid fascination shunting beneath the murky waters and glimmering up in those seconds of resurfacing.

( Can he not die? He’s still here after dying from a stroke. Does he regenerate? How does he do that? Do his cells simply have a faster metabolism? That means his neurons can too despite their limited replication in most normal people. Does he — )

The tear tracks are drying. Your face feels stiff.

“I was trying to protect myself.” you even talk like a guilty person ( it does not help. It’s subdued, the way you speak. Beaten down, half hearted. You wonder if you even want to protect yourself at all ). You don’t want to look at him anymore.

“I don’t blame you.” he replies. It’s soft, missable, sympathetic and you know that can’t be the case. Blade blinks slowly, setting his cup aside. “Would you do it again?” he asks solemnly. His hands twitch again, out of its usual bent stiffness. Beneath the dim lighting, the paleness of his skin is a corpse like macabre; greyish, sallow. He seems starved. “Would you kill me?”

Your lips part. Bile and acid burn your throat. You shut it again and shake your head and the desperation, you assume, is enough. No, no never again. You don’t want that nausea. You don’t want any more of the griping aches in your stomach and the incessant pound of your capillaries.

Blade straightens up and gives you a long, thoughtful look. He steps back and returns to his stony silence without a word. The air is restive, poisonous in how it melts away the peace.

You really should pray to that nameless god, to soften that blow. You really should pray because nothing good ever comes out of this. There’s that brush of scale against your foot, the shrinking courage when faced with dour vermilion. It’s wolfish; its jaws bear down. The cat cracks open an eye again, letting out an annoyed mewl.

No, never mind that.

IV. EXUDATION OF BLOOD

You should have prayed. The questionable existence of a god or not, maybe you'd have given yourself that tiny bit of assurance.

Even your ancestors would have done well enough. What would your grandmother say?

( Her old spirit's possibly disowned you, if she hasn’t already. She must have burned your seat in the afterlife and spat on the ashes. Bringing a man into your home, no matter the circumstance would have incited all the wrong reactions. )

You learn quick enough that Blade never sleeps. The third night after spent between lurking within the stuffy storage space and wedged next to old folders, you’d spotted him sitting upon the couch in the middle of the night. “What are you doing—” you croak out after the initial scream. He scrutinised you with clinical indifference, sweeping over your bare legs to your face. You tamp down the urge to pull your shirt down, cheeks burning.

“Thinking.” he says. There is no further elaboration to it. Blade turns to peer outside your window and the dead streets below. There is a faint echo of the strays barking trailing behind the occasional hum of a passing car. Your little town was far sleepier than the cities, where the traffic continues on, long past the morning calls and the reedy music from 24-hour bars.

“You scared me for a moment.” you purse your lips, picking at your hands. Blade blinks. “I mean, you're just standing there.” You try to justify it, fumbling a bit and coming across as far more slow than anything else. Blade tugs at his sleeve and smoothens over the damp spots.

“I'm not trying to kill you.” he reasons.

You dig your thumb down into the thicker skinned parts of your palm. It reeks of iron. He always reeks of iron. “Startled me, then. I thought you were asleep.”

Blade considers it. “I do not need sleep. Not more than what is necessary.”

Uneasiness filters in. Your throat bobs with it, unsure. “Everyone needs sleep.” you stumble out. Blade shifts, tracing along his nape with a purposeful look. His regeneration. Yes, his regeneration. Tissue rest and repair would be unnecessary with that, wouldn't it? Sleep, food perhaps, the little necessities taken for granted — peeling that away and pulling back the blinds to peer down that gaping hole, it's strange.

The grislier parts of his curse seemed to strip away those human needs. It likes to gnaw out any sense of humanity from his bones, in fact, scavenging away the bare ligaments and swallowing it whole.

“So…you’re just going to stay there then...” .

“Yes.”

Blade’s shoulders are set into its perpetual hunch. There’s something unfettered about him, roiling within deeper confines with a sense of wildness and entropy. You take your cautious step back and steel the nerves you have left ( there aren’t many to begin with — you still try ). It’s far from the moodiness he usually holds himself with and the cyclical introspection. “Could you be less…disturbing, then…?” you ask.

Silence. “Disturbing.” he echoes, tasting every breadth of the word on his tongue. You feel metal coming to rest in your mouth and dig into the insides of your cheeks. There’s a flicker from the apartment across and sterilised white shines upon the side of his face. He looks worn down, worse for wear. The darkened spots on his clothes are dyed red round his torso and dried blood crests across the rim of his fingernails. Red. Red on his clothes. Red on the floor. Red on your couch. Red —

“Did you leave this room?” it’s not a question. You’re not asking questions.

“No.”

You don't quite realise it, the scrambling and the frantically locked doors till the cold nip from your room settles against your skin and your shaky hand holds up your phone. It takes a moment for the buzzing numbness to fade to a tumultuous undercurrent and for you to dial down that emergency contact, seconds away from calling —

— a notification.

It's an unlisted contact, and a single message.

Unknown. I wouldn't do that if I were you.

A moment of pause. You don't move, balking at the sight of it.

Unknown. There's a good girl. I hope Bladie isn't giving you any trouble. If he's made a mess, just help him get cleaned up, please.

You. Is this Kafka?

Unknown. Look at you playing detective! That's cute. It is, by the way.

You. How did you get my number..

Unknown. Oh I have my ways. And I wouldn’t call the police. I can’t say I’ll stay quiet and pin the blame on you. It would be easy, hiding a few bodies in your storeroom. I like Bladie, you know. Can’t have him getting arrested and all.

It feels like you’re grasping at ice, with the way it feels cold. Cold, so cold and uncomfortably harsh against your cheeks. You want to tear into something, into your pillow, into yourself. You want to throw your phone across the room and scream till your lungs are hoarse. You want to call the police anyway and shove that into Kafka’s face. You want to cast them out into some forgettable void and be done with this fear and this painful grip in your stomach and…

…you do none of that.

Some small defeated part of you whispers its comfort. You ignore it, cast it aside, call it a fool. You’re gutless, maybe a little brainless and honestly, you half consider going back to your hometown and — no. You will not think about that. Not now. Not ever. You broke that life apart, stepped over the fragments and let your bloodied footsteps lead you here. All that hurt is not worth the quiet defeat.

The door creaks open. You peer back out at Blade. “Sorry…” you mumble. He glances up at you. “I just…i was shocked…there’s blood all over you.” You think about what you should say next. You chose your words carefully. “Did you…”

You don’t get to finish. Blade leans back and shakes his head. “I did not kill anyone.” A wry little tug twitches at his lips. “Not now at least.”

It takes a tentative step, then another for you to exit the room completely. Blade doesn’t look bothered, content in his solitude where sits. You look down at the tiled floor trying to summon forth whatever blind insanity you had. It takes a special sort for this, for this specifically where the cracks fissure into the sides and down down down to the foundations. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” A lie. There’s blood on him for crying out loud.

Still, you do not pry. “Should I…” you stop. It takes some struggle, reaching down deep and wrenching the words out into something stringed and legible. “Do you want to clean up?” you offer softly, motioning to the bathroom. “Just…a shower, I guess. I can get those washed.. Blood’s really hard to get off after all and they’re nice clothes…from my personal experience at least…”

Blade watches you, tilting his head a bit. He does look a little like a dog now, one with a wrinkled muzzle and dark, serious eyes. “Fine.” he relents after some consideration, impassively getting to his feet. He follows you to the bath, delicately sidestepping your frame to enter. You let the water heat before letting it run into the bucket, offering him a pitcher and some soap.

“You’ll have to make do with the towel…I might have some spare blankets around.” you add, because you will not have a naked man walking around your house. There’s so much your ancestors might allow at this point. This would be toeing the line from possibly being dragged into the afterlife.

He spares a grunt in response while bandages come undone. You chew against the inside of your cheek, inhaling stale metal and collecting blotched brown linen from him. He’s hesitant, letting you close, but it takes a quick turn of his wrist for you to pick out the worst of his wounds. These ones do not heal away the rawness and the sick pink of flesh. These ones still bleed.

“Can you manage?” you peep out. Blade stares at his hand, at yours grasping his.

“Yes,” he says after a while. His fingers brush against the inside of your palm as you let him go, and you take that shaky step out of the bath, leaving behind a clean roll of bandages and antiseptic at the door.

V. PUTREFACTION

The woman beside you looks tired, worn away at the eyes and around the edges of her face. “Stay still.” she whispers hurriedly, stuffing her phone back into her purse as she gathers the skirts of her seere.

The boy on the bed does not stay still, tapping his fingers away at his lap as you shoot him a reassuring smile. There’s plenty of nervous energy stuffed away in the cracks and crevices of that tiny body of his, and it barely abates with the ticking second hand from your analog clock. “Are you nervous?” you offer, taking a knee beside him. The boy purses his lips, brown eyes focused wholly onto the floor below.

“No.” he decides to be brave and squares his shoulders up. You appreciate the effort as you press at the inside of his arm.

“That’s nice.” you nod. “But it’s okay to be scared sometimes. I know how scary needles can be.”

“I’m not scared.” he insists. He challenges you, looks at you dead in the eye with the most determination he could pluck away at his reserves and gather together. “Last week I chased a ghost away from my room. I turned the lights on and screamed at it.”

You crack a smile. “Is that so? Did it try to come inside?” you entertain the thought, poke away at his imagination till you find the faint blue of a vein. You see how his mother bows her head down, looking a little sick. The boy doesn’t seem to catch on in the way his eyes light up and he draws himself up. You don;t think she wants him to see. Sometimes there are instances where you see parents squirrelling away those bits of childish innocence like uncut diamonds; biting down at grimy hands that try to snatch it away.

You cannot fault her for wanting him to be happy. He was only four.

“Yeah. I was all GRAAAAAHHHH’!” you flinch at his spirited demonstration. He’s pleased with the audience and the invoked emotion as his mother winces and tries to pull at his ear to keep him quiet. It’s too late given his excitement, ducking down to continue his babbling. “And it went ‘AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH’! Then it left and I went to see if amma and appa were alright. They were and I hugged them to make them feel better.”

“That is brave.” you nod. “You be careful out there, okay? Don’t stop hugging your amma and appa. I’m sure they love your hugs.”

“After this, can I have the chocolate at the desk?” he asks, batting his lashes. He flashes you a cherubic grin, and you might have caught yourself smiling a little wider. It’s a rare instance of silly happiness after the mounting strain on your shoulders and the urge to rip your eyes out bloody and raw. “The one in the big bowl.” he adds for clarity; because adults, he might be thinking, needed plenty of that.

You look over your shoulder to the door with a thoughtful little hum. “It’s not chocolate. It’s tamarind candy. The sweet kind. But it’s sour too.” You admit. “Do you still want some?”

The boy draws his lips back. “I’d still like some. I like tammy-rind.”

“Well, listen to your amma and stay still, okay?” he does, his small hand reaching out to grasp at her seere’s pallu. She holds her hand out and he takes it, tugging at her fingers, then her thumb as the nervousness slowly trickles in and scrunches away at his brow and nose. “Don’t get all stiff. Deep breath in…deep breath out. You can tell me about things you like if it helps…what games do you like playing?”

“I like football.” he offers. “My cousins say I'm a baby so I can't play with them. But I'll grow big and tall one day and I will kick their legs and show them.”

“Don’t start there.” his mother warns. “You’re not kicking anyone.”

The boy makes a face just as you give him his shot, then yelps a moment at the pin prick. His eyes squeeze shut for a second, his grip white knuckled till you finally pull the needle out and pat his cheek. “Done. That’s his DTP vaccine done with. He’ll need to get his booster next year as well so keep a reminder on for that.” His mother nods, handing in the little booklet as you scribble away the recommendations and mark away at the sheet.

The boy grumbles, poking at his arm. “Do I get the tammy-rind now?”

“Of course. The brave kids always get an extra one too.” you appease, walking them out.

“Great.” he’s mollified at least, wiping away any residual tears with a discreet turn away. “And i think you’re brave too. I saw a ghost here. In the door at the back.”

You freeze up a bit. “Did you now?” you’re feeling your voice crack a bit at the end of that question. Even the mother glances over, unsettled. You shake your head and the reassurance returns. It’s nothing, nothing at all, you try to say.

“Yes. He looked super scary. But he just looked at me and told me to go back to amma.” the boy sighs.

“I’m sure that was just one of the boys who helps the doctor.” his mother reasons, her words taking a sterner edge. She’s bustling him out, putting away at his back as she straightens her pleats and fixes her pallu. “It’s not nice saying things like that now. You’d better apologise to that man if you said that to him.”

“I didn’t say anything.” the boy insists as you pause by the door and see them off after handing him his hard earned candy, ( “thank you, doctor. Say thank you to the doctor auntie.” the mother urges. The boy echoes it drolly then slips back into his stubborn insistence, pulling at her arm ). Their voices fade into the faint music playing at the lounge and the chatter in the waiting room. Aleena turns to call for the next person, peering down at the files.

A hush filters through. One of the men stands over the row of seated people. They draw some of their children closer, muted shock and fear splayed across and you feel flayed open. “Tell the clients to leave.” you mumble. She nods and sends the word out. Some of them seemed to catch on quick and pack away their folders and gather their companions. A line of men and women mill out, leaving that sole frame standing, arms crossed in wait.

You keep your eyes down as you motion to the doors. Aleena hides away as she usually does ( you’d torn into her when she’d gotten too mouthy, too brave the last time ).

“Is something wrong? I’m sure I paid off the fee two weeks ago.” you test out.

The suited man doesn’t reply yet, sinking into the backdrop of static and the panicked thudding in your ribs. You vaguely remember Blade hiding away within the archives and hope he doesn’t wander back out again. He takes his time, dragging out the seconds as he idles past your framed degree and a few photos from your childhood home.

“A few weeks ago there was an…altercation in your clinic, correct?” he states more than he asks it, rubbing at his chin.

Oh shit.

“Yes…” you nod when you sense his wait. Your nerves wither away and you lose your sense of touch.

“Some of the men on my side died here. I was sent in to get to the bottom of it all.” His narrowed gaze settles on you. “It’s funny. We know there’s a third party involved but his body went missing from the morgue before he could be ID’d. Any footage of him? Wiped clean, and aeons forbid the police trying anything when it comes to getting witnesses to speak a consistent story.” His footsteps are an echo in the back of your mind, too loud, too distracting. Blade, dear lord, his presence here is a mistake. “Now, I'm here to ask if you had a hand in it, doctor.”

“No.” you choke out. “I don’t.”

“Were you working with that man who killed them?”

“No — ”

“Did you see him?”

You're too slow to respond and it takes him grabbing a fistful of your hair to rattle it out faster. “No I did not!” you insist, squeezing your eyes shut. You recall what you tell the boy, and the empty words about bravery. You feel like a liar steeped in bitter hypocrisy. It makes you want to rip your insides out and claw at your viscera.

Nails dig into the softer parts of your cheeks as your face is slammed into the wall. It draws out a choked, gasping wheeze from your ribs and white hot pain screaming at your skull, your muscles. The small, scared animal in you is crying, crying, crying away into bleak emptiness. It tries to run, eyes blown out and mouth hung open. It tries to make you run before you’re gutted clean through. “Are you lying?” the man asks quietly.

“No. No I didn’t.” You stutter it out, pressing your fingertips into the chipped paint. “I was hiding…I-I was hiding till t-they took the bodies.” The pressure against your head builds, builds till you yelp and struggle, terrified of him digging down hard enough to cut away at your airflow and snap your neck in two. For a moment, you wonder if he’ll do just that when he finally, thankfully, lets you go…

( Your eyes flit up, desperate, moving things and you look at him, actually look at him and the cold death in his gaze. You never assumed someone could look like that — empty and scooped clean of any humanity lingering at the edges. He’s hollow, and angry*.*

You made your mistake. )

…You’re slammed back in. The scream in muffled into your wrist. “You saw nothing?” he repeats, guttural in how he addresses and enunciates every word. It’s like reasoning with a man eater. You nod, nod because it’s all you had. “Nothing at all? No faces?” another nod and the man slips back and lets you crumple to the floor with that warning.

“You better not be lying.” he tells you, slipping to the speedy notes of your local tongue. “There will be hell to pay for that.”

You’re lucky, you think, for getting off that easily. The buzz in your mind builds and smothers you against your spot and you shift a bit when Aleena presses a hand to your shoulder. Blade is right behind her and she’s flattening her lips.

“You’re a nuisance.” you tell him, annoyance and anger and all that frustration meandering and stubbornly oozing through the cracks. Blade fixes you with a glare, drawing his mouth back to a half sneer.

“Who did this?” he asks, voice dipping to trembling danger, entropy brewing underneath all that. “Who did this to you?”

“None of your business.” you snip in turn, wobbling to your feet. Your coat is blotched red around the collar and the shoulders. You didn’t realise you were bleeding till your fingertips came away sticky and wet ( you feel like you’re careening off of the edge of a cliff, in a car you have no control of ). “You’re more trouble than you’re worth.” you add, croaking through your words and the buzz and the annoyance. “So just leave. Leave, tell her I can't babysit you if this…this is what I have to deal with.”

Blade narrows his eyes. “I cannot.” he states and leaves no room for argument as his hand grabs you at the scruff and half tugs you alongside him. You’re not spared any more dignity around him, and he treats you like a wet cat nipping and scratching at his arm. “You.” he adds, turning to your receptionist. “She needs to be tended to.”

Aleena mumbles something under her breath but seeks out the first aid kit. She swats Blade’s hands away once she approaches you again. You appreciate it. You don’t want him touching you and the crawling chilliness of his body invites an ugly sort of desperation that blocks away your throat and nudges at all the parts of you you’re less than proud of.

Blade does not leave. He never does, on that bitter note, looming over the two of you by the wall, that beast twisting in his eyes like a snake.

He unsettles you with the way he stalks the emptiness of your apartment rooms, pressing his body to the wall with shaky breaths. You watch him from the crack of your door and wonder if this is what unravelling sanity looks like. If it is the face of a man ripping open his chest and screaming through the guts until that beating heart is carved clean from the cavity.

Blade is more animal than human in how he walks. The room smells strange too. You do not know what it is, in its pungent notes and the unpleasantness of it all. It’s not rot, you’ve smelled rot before, and tasted that stench of decay lain thickly on your tongue.

This is more rancid, like regurgitated food and butter. You spot a single leaf on the floor, fan shaped and dipped in sunlit gold. Then more at his feet.

His form flickers by, rustling past your door. He’s at the balcony, then he’s not. You pad out and scan the dark streets, spotting his hunched frame nestled within the alleyways tucked at the side. There is a glimpse of purple from Kafka’s hair as she presses her lips to his cheek, whispering something to his ear.

Blade seems to melt and you watch on, half transfixed from the scandal, cheeks warming when Kafka leans to the side and waves, a playful grin curling on her face. She whispers something again and has Blade turn too, and you think you’re almost drawn in, dizzyingly close to the edge of your balcony rails till reason snaps you back and you return to your apartment.

( “Bladie…” Kafka coos at him, her gloved fingers pressing up against the seam of his lips. Blade tries to hide away the dry hunger in his stomach and his mouth. “Do you like this one?” she asks.

He thinks about it. The release of death. The warmth of your hands. The tears. He thinks of the man sawed apart on the concrete, down to tendons and bones and muscle and flesh. He thinks of the scattered limbs and the bruise and your blood.

Her hands press to his cheeks. “Listen to me. Push the mara down…we don’t want to keep upsetting her now do we?” she asks, teasing in how her teeth flash. Kafka feels like a dream lost in the haze of it all. He leans into her touch and lets the flowering roots in his chest rupture and decay.

“No.” Blade admits, surreality dragging him under. He does not spare her a reply to that question. Kafka already knows. )

VI. DISCOLOURATION AND DESICCATION

“Tell me who did it.”

“No.”

Blade looks annoyed, scraping and haunting the walls of your apartment as he follows you through the kitchenette like a ghost. The brewing…whatever it was…from the past couple of days seemed to have cowed after that visit from Kafka, nothing more now than a placid beast ( as placid as a rabid mutt could be ). You clench fist into your knife’s handle a little harder than you should have.

She could have taken him back, her little lover boy guard dog and his strange balcony crawling ass —

Blade hovers close, so close. There’s an absence of heat beside you. He’s always cold, colder than a man, warmer than a corpse. That in-between he seemed to linger in. His limbo. “He hurt you. He will do it again. Tell me who it was.”

“Absolutely not.” You state, voice flattened against bemusement. “You'll just kill him.”

He stills, his eye letting out something of a neurotic twitch. He might just strangle you now, carve you open with that sword, eat your insides…maybe. “He suspects something. He must die.” He says it slowly, irritation budding through the dryness of his countenance. Your nose wrinkles at this.

“That's nice and all but you stink of death enough, and ‘enough’ is still far too much.” You angle your knife, pressing into the tender outer layers of the onion till you slice through it. The blade shudders against the impact and your hand strains into it. You bite back a curse.

( You're thinking about too many things.

You're thinking about Aleena turning in her resignation letter, and her apologies. A marriage, she'd said. And how could she turn down her parents’ demands after everything? They care. Despite the pain, you knew that too. It's that painful kind of love where you'd hurt and hurt and keep hurting them when the choices seemed so sparse. Better a bloodied knife, they'd try to say. Better a few cuts than being torn apart.

She only just found out, she admits. There was an uncomfortable shift in her body. She looked ready to crumple into herself and shatter into a million pieces. She's meant to meet him during the agelu. It's been arranged for.

How did you? you'd asked. You were afraid to ask. You shouldn't have asked. That meant looking ugly things in the eye through to the nauseating technicalities. Aleena swallows. She looks more distressed than she should. You let her weep a little and nurse those gaping cuts. Your bruises don’t smart anymore. You’d forgotten they were there.

She shows you a newspaper. And you stare on with an empty kind of apathy as you spot her details within the bridal adverts, down to her college degree and the colour of her eyes. )

( You were reminded that there's a kind of love fuelled by bitter hate. You were reminded of the sight of her shrinking back and fading into the walls of your clinic, like a collapsing black hole. It's how daughters and duties were here, a little better than the north but broken in a way where broken things couldn't be fixed.

You've seen it in a mirror once, hollow and void and dead in your eyes, and your mehendi stained hands tearing apart the the jasmine in your hair. )

Blade tilts his head and angles the knife just a bit before you could cleave a finger straight off. “I’m being reasonable. He won’t hurt you if you let me.” he tries to reason, playing clumsy diplomacy. But Blade still pauses between his words with that perplexed unsureness. He didn’t know what to tell you when you were sobbing on that couch. He doesn’t know what to say now, when your insides were burning away your peace.

You brush him away and viscerally visualise grinding him to a bloodied pulp with your grandmother’s mortar. The violence in your head helps a little.

Blade keeps watching you, turning his head away from the spattering chillies and the sour notes of tamarind staining your hands. The onions are still a bother. You think it can't quite get worse at this point, with stubborn tunicated bulbs and a dull blade. The over-stimulation you're half subjected to feels like claws on a chalkboard, gratingly demanding every bit of your attention.

“Give it to me.” It's not a request. He takes the knife before you could really mutter out sneering ‘no’. He slices through the onion, passes you a pointed look and keeps slicing ( why does he make it seem so easy? Why??? ).

“Give it back.” you try.

“No.”

“Please…?”

He nudges at your shoulder, towards the stove. Your shoulders sag and a frustrated lump gathers at your throat. At least he’s helping, you reason. You shouldn’t be so angry over this. A normal person wouldn’t want to throw a fuss over a stolen chore and a stubborn wraith. You light the stove and gather what you’d prepared. Blade was done with onions. It’s only been a minute.

…You decide to not question that.

( Please don’t kill me, you add in your mind for good measure. )

There’s something therapeutic in indulging with this familiarity. Your old home smells like this, like comfort and nostalgia in the idyllic sorts of memories. They’re the ones you lock away in a box, nestling that key deep inside your ribs. Even so, that horrible weight swells up like a tumour. It could burst any minute. It’s wearing you down and frying the ends of your nerves.

“Aleena is leaving.” you blurt out. Blade blinks. “My receptionist.”

“She told me.” Blade nods.

“She’s getting married.” you continue.

Blade considers this. “She is…young, yes?”

You nod. “Twenty four.” you swallow. Your throat is parched. “Some families do marry their children off at this age. Not all of them, of course…and not every arrangement is all that bad…I've seen some good ones.” He keeps listening, you know it in the way his head tilts ever so slightly to you. Your senses are clumped together, messy, messy, messy. “It’s none of my business.” you add feverishly. “I shouldn’t be getting upset.”

“...why aren’t you?” the question is sudden. You feel your confusion knock away reason. Blade tries again. “Married. Why aren’t you married?”

“That’s a very impolite thing to ask.” you reply quickly.

“I see.” he struggles, pondering over his next few words. “I will not push further.” You purse your lips, the conversation delicately fraying and fading out. You let the silence stagnate, hovering by the stove with your vessel-full of coconut milk.

Something inside you tugs.

“I was supposed to be.” you mumble. “He was a nice guy, was working for a stable job and had plans to buy a house close to the beach. The kid you’d see in movies, you know?” you laugh a little. “And maybe I was a little swept up. But then we talked and we both realised that…we had dreams of our own. Things we weren’t willing to let go of, a relationship he was serious about.”

The chicken goes next, as the gravy settles into a shade of brown-red. Blade is staring, something in his face set in an odd way. He looks off putting. Hungry, like those night spent pacing through your living room.

“We parted ways. There weren't any dramatic rejections…he seemed just as pleased with it, to be fair. I hear he’s settled nicely with his boyfriend…good for him.”

“So you came…here…” Blade works it out.

“Quite. Those choices weren’t wholly supported by my family. They kept trying to find someone and I kept pushing it away…I was scared I guess, and people got angrier and insistent and I started feeling less…human.” you take a deep breath in. “So I left one day. They never contacted me. My father only started again after my grandmother died. And I opened this clinic up…”

The room is blurred out. All you see are splotches of colour and a blemished, dark blue whee Blade stands, rimmed by the sunset.

You wipe the tears away.

“It’s all I have now.” you whisper, a painful crackle coating the peaks. “All of it. And it’s a nice place…I used my grandfather’s photo frames in the reception…my mother’s carpet too. It was a souvenir from the north. And…and some of the toys were my own. It took some digging and cleaning and repairing but they’re just as good as any other…” It’s flaking at the surface. You aren’t a strong person. It’s always been so easy to crumble with the weight ( like a paper doll ). “So please…please just leave before you make it worse.”

Blade regards you. He always is, watching, watching, watching, like there’s nothing else that could tug him away, take up his mind when he’s not snapping necks till they shatter.

“I cannot.” His brows are set, pulling together just a little.

“You can.” You insist, feeling stupid, childish. Its pointless trying to convince him otherwise anyway, Not without feeling hacked down and near helpless beneath his looming shadow. “You can leave. You and Kafka can, it's not that hard.”

“We have work to do and it must be done.” driven finality settles deep. He feels so far away, repeating words like a robot. It's hard to think of Blade as human in times like these, where he's either too robotic or too animalistic. It feels scripted, all wrong, all twisted up and chewed apart. “You wouldn't understand it. Leave it be.”

“I won't, if it's my business you're intruding on.” You set the coconut milk down, the steel vessel striking polished granite with a sharp ring. Your teeth grit together ( you hate feeling angry. You hate the cloudiness that comes with it ). “What if I run then?”

Blade's glare is cutting. “You will not run.” He asserts, scruffing you so easily, tugging you just a little closer. You fight back the urge to swat at him. At least you could think a little. At least you still had a tiny hand digging it's claws into your self control. “I'll drag you back. I will keep dragging you back till you cease this foolishness.”

( How were you being foolish? All you have are fragmented snapshots, the lingering sense of dread, the knowledge of something sinister brewing beneath the surface. You have a man in your house, a murderer. You have a man in your house you swore you killed. You have a man in this house who doesn't die.

How were you being foolish? You want to scream at him till your vocal chords fray and your arytenoids collapse. But Blade has probably never felt fear. You can't imagine his sympathy.

And you still killed him though. You stop. The guilt is back, and the anxious Turn of it, and the seething edge of your rage burning, burning, burning. )

“Did Kafka tell you to do that too?” poison burns holes into your words. You and Blade are sinking deeper and deeper beneath it, boring holes through your skin.

( You need to stop. You need to stop talking. )

“She wouldn't be as kind.” He asserts simply, rolling his eyes at the mention.

Defeat comes for you from the corners. You huff. “Let go of me.” your arm is shoved back, elbowing his ribs. Blade doesn't flinch, but his grip loosens and he dips his head down in acknowledgement. “Are you ever going to leave me alone?”

“When we collect what we need, yes.”

“...get it over with quickly then.” You mutter, stalking away from him. “Tell me when the chicken is cooked. Leave me alone till then.”

Blade takes a moment. “Alright.”

“Bladie, you're upset.”

Is he? Blade doesn't quite see it. But there is an ache where his heart should be. It's been there since you'd locked yourself away and he’s left to stare at the curry bubbling at the edges. Kafka laughs from the other end of the line, light, airy; she's probably wiping blood away from her swords.

“You are. Has the doctor been softening you up?” She's playful, prodding, poking, stringing along her words. “Cute. Is she why you’re calling?”

“She’s asking questions.” he steadies his phone. It’s so easy, how it slips between his fingers. It’s not the firm immovability of his sword hilt and it’s slippery, almost unusable with his twitching. Blade hears Kafka hum against his ear, kneading away at the issue before her voice picks up again.

“You know you can’t give too much away, right? We need to follow the script and if she meddles too much…”

“I know.” Blade cuts in, apathy sinking deeper. The script, yes, the script. There’s that flash of familiar awareness. The script is something to be followed, right down to the bare details. If pinstripes needed to be worn, then pinstripes must be worn and if Blade must cut a hand off, that hand must go. But even he knows of the variables being difficult, breaching at destiny’s thin skin.

“And she’ll only get hurt, Bladie.” Kafka coos it out gently, placating the tenseness building in his shoulders. “It’s unfortunate how scared little things tend to bite more. Listen to me, try appeasing her a little, yeah? I’m sure a treat or two should keep her from stepping too out of line.”

“How much longer do I have to stay here?”

“You want to leave so soon?”

Blade does not. He can feel the roots tugging at his feet, fixing him down here, leeching, leeching, leeching. The fluttering ache in his stomach has grown worse. Blade fears never slipping away and that won’t do. Wolves aren’t to be leashed. That fractured memory, the writhing ocean in those eyes…there is no place for him here.

( Destiny, destiny, destiny. The unattainable, the inescapable…Kafka whispers something else. He wants to break his wrists. )

And still, Kafka knows. He can practically see the cheshire curl to her lips. “Cute.” she repeats, drawling the word out. “I’m almost done. Just a bit of the usual…we’ll have the stellaron collected in no time and we can head out. Till then, lie low and be a doll for me before I come to collect you, okay?” he can hear the faint echo of her footsteps echoing past empty hallways. She might spare a visit soon, he realises. “And again. Try not to upset the doctor too much, yeah?”

Blade dips his head down, mollified. “Alright.”

The phone cuts away. You’re still in your room, cut away from most of his conversation. The chicken looks cooked so he turns the stove off and gropes about absently till he feels a plastic handle. Then he knocks on your door.

It takes you a moment to open it for him. “Is it done?” you ask. Blade stares down at your wide, tired eyes. “Yes.” he replies, dizzy and blotted out in the centre all at once. He can’t quite stop it, the rapid undergrowth, the rustling call of mara, that need to seize you by the face and tear into the softness of your cheeks, to bite, to taste blood, to break your bones and devour you. To feel the dig of your nails against his arms, something sharper, you scooping out his chest, his ribs and his heart till it’s beat ceases and he curls into your warmth —

“Do you hate me?” he asks quietly, unwavering. Its swelling. “Do you want me gone?”

You swallow, halfway out of your room. Blade wants to grab you, taste —

“I do.” you mumble.

Appease her. Kafka’s echo fades out once more in the back of his head. Blade presses the knife to your hand, holding its edge just over his stomach, pressing till he feels its prickle numb out. It’s where the fluttering was, unfettered when he tore his intestines out upon your couch and let the blood seep into the fabric ( you hadn’t liked that, so he stopped ).

He stops, gripping you just above the beat of your pulse. It speeds up, vivacious, so alive ( Blade is used to his steady thrum, slow, so slow unlike that of a human ). “You can kill me then.” he tells you. “If it pleases you.”

There’s a shift. The handle slips away and you snatch your hand back, face twisting to what he recognises as distress. Then you look angry, slamming the door back shut. “Don’t talk to me.” You scream through, muffled by hardwood.

Blade feels empty. He collects the knife and turns back into the kitchen, temptations spilling out when he lingers a little too long and thinks of sweet oblivion.

He muzzles himself as most dogs should be. His teeth are blunted, his claws filed.

He doesn't want to scare you.

VII. SCAVENGING

Aleena hasn't spoken much since she'd told you about 'the arrangement' ( you make it sound like some cold business deal. A travesty. Maybe you were being far too pessimistic with this whole ordeal, putting in too many chunks of those ugly memories into that basket. You could be wrong. You could be wrong about it all ). It's an all too familiar disconnect, a silent misery that you'd watch every day after. She's letting it fill out her whittled spaces, and it worries you. Worries you in the way your heart twists and your insides turn.

( Won't you be coming, he'd asked again over a messy phone call. There's a lot of things to catch up on. We'll lay off the insisting, we'll let you choose the groom this time. That would be far better, right?

And your father's words meter out to warbled static, spilling through your ears and onto the floor. )

Maybe you should put something out in penance. Let those ghosts keep to themselves and continue their silent vigils. You're not superstitious, and rituals like these feel more a far away dream since you'd moved away.

"Aleena…"

"Yes?"

"How about we go get some cha during our break?" you offer a kind smile, tired, a little neurotic but you think it will ache a lot more if you say nothing at all. That wound up and coiled-away thing in her, pulling at the set to her jaw and the firm stoicism she displays — it slowly lapses. She looks down at her feet, back up at you and blinks a long, slow blink.

"That sounds nice." she croaks out, pushing aside a stack of papers. You check the analog clock above the two of you. A lunch break was due in another fifteen minutes and there a few checkups and medical records to fill in for school diaries. You could finish soon enough."Is it at the local place? I like the one with the cardamom."

"Sure you can."

Aleena seems to think a thousand thoughts all at once. "Thank you." she whispers when you step back, trained down to the keyboard. She's not typing, tracing the plastic frame itself . You leave her be, let her stew a while before gently gathering her up and leading her to the closest stall.

( Blade was cornered in the stores. You tell him not to stir up any trouble.

"Where?" he asks.

"None of your concern. I'd like some time alone with her, please." He reaches out, curling his hands into the sleeve of your coat. His eyes look like smelted iron. You tell yourself not to flinch, to skitter away because you will not be a rabbit. For once you will not be a rabbit. "I'm going." you repeat with more purpose. "You can't tell me otherwise."

Blade lets you go. )

It's crowded as is, and you try not to let yourself be pushed out by the squeezing throng. Not until you and Aleena leave with your tea and a packet of glucose biscuits to sit by a roadside ledge beneath the tree cover.

She takes a few bites before she starts talking again.

"Sorry about the suddenness of it all."

"The marriage?"

"Yes." She picks away at some of the crumbs.

"It's okay." You pat her hand in assurance. "I was wondering if you were doing alright

Aleena seems to ponder over it. "A little. I know him. We went to the same school…so it's not all bad." She drains the last of her tea, throwing the Styrofoam cup into a dustbin. "I'm just…angry I suppose."

"At your parents?" You guess.

"Yeah." She swallows. "They've been pestering me since my second year in college. I had to keep telling them that I wanted more stability…a job. Something. I can't just keep relying on my spouse for money and all that, you know…my parents said I could do that after. That I was being selfish for putting it off."

You purse your lips. "It's good to be stable." You agree. "Sometimes it's easy to point fingers and blame it on unnecessary worry and paranoia…but from my experience, marriages like these are a gamble. You can't be too sure, even with people you think you know." You must be rambling. Embarrassment floods into your cheeks. You have the grace to look a little sheepish.

"Right! And I told them that and…" She shakes her head. "They don't get it, I guess. I mean…I don't mind settling down, really, but they keep pushing me and rushing into it and then they just put up that advert without saying anything and..." Her wide eyed hysteria is palpable. You might want to hug her, steal her away. Familiar pains tend to do that, stinging at your soft insides.

"Am I not a good daughter?" The fragility spotting it aches, unfurling, spreading forth. You shut your eyes.

"I'm sure you are." You tell her honestly. And she is. You know she is.

Aleena's face stretches, pained. "It feels the exact opposite. I might be making it all more difficult…I should be grateful, shouldn't I? They care about me, I know that and…this…" The words are turned over, thought upon. Her hands twitch, gesturing at the air with wild frustration. Aleena is shrinking by the second, cracking at the corners. "What do I do?"

Your throat dries.

"I don't know. I ran away from mine and now my family refuses to talk to me." You tell her. "There's a lot of different ways this could go. Parents react in different ways…all I can say is…you need to trust your instincts."

"I don't want to lose them." She admits shamefully, wiping away a tear. "I'm a coward."

You purse your lips. "I think we all are." You sigh. Your tea has cooled against your fingertips. “But…but I'd say it's better than being miserable the rest of our lives. It's selfish, I agree…” you feel defeat trickle down — defeat, hopelessness, a cocktail of too-many-things-at-once.. “it could work out too. It could work out and it will be alright after that. But there's a lot more before it all as well…I'm sorry. I'm not very good with advice.”

Aleena shakes her head, rubbing at her eyes. "It's better than people telling me that I'm being a nuisance."

"You said you knew him too." You add.

She scoffs. "He might have changed. The most I remember is him pulling at my hair and calling me ugly."

"Oh. Hopefully for the better, then."

Aleena rubs at her knuckles, humming softly as a trill of birdsong echoes above the two of you. "Thanks for taking me in." She says, and it's spoken so softly you almost miss it. "I learned a lot working under you.and you were good to me. Better than some other bosses I had…hopefully I should still be able to work after…" She breaks away.

A gooey sort of warmth trembles inside. It's the sort that cracks you open. "You're welcome."

She kicks out her feet, letting her footwear flap shutter against the balls of her feet, then stands back up. "We'll head back then? I don't think I'd want to leave you with unfinished work on my last day…"

"That would be terrible." you agree, cracking a grin.

Aleena veers the subject away to the common pleasantries. She talks about the weather, the new park in the better parts of the city and the flowers there. She talks about the old lady who invites her to feed the pigeons. You listen as you do, till you slip back into the clinic and start the afternoon shift again. Clockwork, familiar clockwork. Still, you ache. It's selfish.

"Blade." you call out when you step back into the stores. You're greeted with silence. You're greeted with emptiness.

"Doctor? we have another checkup!" You straighten up, smooth away the frazzle, the jumbled nerves and the frayed ends. There is a time and place for panic. Not now. Not when you have work to do. So you work. You work till the minutes and hours bleed in and the sun spills past the concrete rises. You work till the night falls and you realise the silence in the storeroom seems to have grown past the occasional rattle from the shutters and the wind.

You heave in a breath. Aleena has left, pulling you into a final hug. You find yourself looking for him.

( Where is he? )

It's Kafka who drops by after closing. The anxiety nips at you, your face, your hands, everywhere, between Blade still not making a reappearance and now…this.

You hadn't met her face to face in a while and you've almost forgotten the weight she carries. She'd turned you around before you could walks away any further, her gloved hands snaking round your waist and her lips brushing against the shell of your ear. "Sorry for the visit, doc." she speaks out, like you're old friends. "Had some work to look into."

You hunch your shoulders, cowed of any initial annoyance. Something in you draws back, scared around her. It's the cat-like preening, the way Kafka smiles so emptily at you. "Right." you mumble.

"Bladie's been treating you well? I told him to be on his best behaviour."

"He's…he's alright. If you're here to pick him up…well he's been missing since this afternoon. I…i swear I didn't — "

Kafka shakes her head. "Oh no, I sent him on a little errand." she assures you, sitting down in the waiting room. She pulls you down next to her. "I've noticed he's been doing his best around you too…granted I'm sure some of his habits are a little…of putting." That smile is back, razor edged.

"It's fine." You try to say.

"Mhm. If you say so." Kafka crosses a leg over the other. "I've been souvenir shopping between work and all. I might pack up a larger haul after this final matter is dealt with. So many things to do…" She trails off, drumming his fingers against her chin as if deep in thought. "Have any places you recommend visiting? I've heard the silks here are to die for."

You hadn't known that either. "That's…nice." You lower your head, that far away beeping growing louder and louder against the chills clawing up your spine. You breath in, feeling the point of her nails press up against your cheek and turn you around to face her.

"Oh dear. I don't think you're very happy to see me." she coos. "Bladie hasn't been very good to you, has he?"

You open your mouth.

"You don't have to say anything." she cuts in with what seems to be kindness. You were almost fooled by it, set adrift, running straight into that tangle of webbing. Kafka feels predatory the way Blade does, and in ways that doesn't feel like him either, spinning you around and around in circles for those simple little amusements.

"He scares me." you blurt.

"Is that so?" Pity weighs in her sentence, cloying it together like resinous amber and sundew. She looks delighted.

"He does." you nod, feeling helplessness undo your seams. Kafka leans in close, close enough for the warmth from her breath to spill over your jaw. You want to push her off — you should, given who she is. But she clings so close, drinking it all in with strange euphoria. She's still holding your face, and Kafka was far stronger than she presents herself to be.

"You poor lamb. I hope he didn't bite you too hard." She smiles, caught in a trance as you sink further into magenta and pink and the smell of her perfume. "Then again, Bladie's always rough with the things he likes. I'm almost tempted to take you with us."

You shutter, blank out, flail about internally before all reasoning bears down with the impact of a comet. "I don't want to go with you though." You squeak, the words sinking in so quick and it shocks you.

Kafka considers you, tilting her head with assured grace. "Are you sure?" She asks again, thumb pressing up against the apple of your cheek. "It complicates things quite a bit for you. I'd say you'd be more miserable staying here than giving in, no? For one…" She's enjoying herself, her lazy gaze scanning the clinic again. "…you'll be loosing all of this."

You seize up. "…What — "

"This." Kafka repeats. "All of this. It'll be gone soon enough. Bladie and I have dipped into businesses that most should keep out of…I'll spare you the details, really…though you might just have more popping up in that little head of yours." She taps a nail against your temple.

"What are you talking about." You croak out, falling into a gaping bit. The vestiges of horror start taking root in your lungs. Kafka bites her bottom lip, playing coy.

"Oh dear, I've said too much. May as well let you in on it then." She croons. "The IPC don't have much of a hold here, do they? No wonder…granted it made going through this operation far easier." Kafka lets you go. You lean back, back away from her, sputtering. "To keep it simple, we were here to collect something. A very important something…and out of all the possibilities we had…your little route happened to give us the least amount of grief to deal with."

You grip at the armrests hard. "I don't…I don't understand…" You choke every syllable out with a tongue that feels like lead. "I don't understand." you repeat, the mania arching your higher notes. Your clinic, this clinic, the only thing standing between giving up and going back and…Your clinic ( You remember the money, the scraping together and the loans upon loans and that less naive part of you still folded into the walls and corners ).

Kafka shrugs. "I don't expect you to. You've been a tucked away and coddled into this peace your planet has blanketed you with. There's plenty more in this universe you can't quite comprehend; and there are plenty of big bad things out there that Bladie and I could hardly hold a candle to…" She grins. It's a vicious, predatory thing. Your fear is a feast to her, one lazy bite after the other.

"I don't want this. You're lying — "

"In another five minutes…" Kafka begins. "Bladie will come back , dragging a little friend of ours along with him. He'll have sustained a hit to his head, half healed. The hem of his coat will be ripped off." Her gaze darts to the clock. "Tick tock. I'll be busy after that so you'll need to be quick with what you have to say."

You're stunned to silence. Blade. An associate. It's a nightmare in the making. strangling every bit of air from your lungs. Kafka seems terrifyingly sure, watching the way you move, scramble, feeling disjointed and not all there or all quite present in your body.

"I don't want this." You tear up.

She kisses your cheek. "I know, sweetie." Kafka gives your shoulder a condescending squeeze. You may as well be stabbed in the stomach too, revulsion burning your throat, jerking you away from her. It makes you want to grow claws, to make her hurt somewhere, anywhere. "It's too bad, really. Maybe if you were a little braver, a little more gutsy, we might have struck you from that list." She laughs. "Honestly, I find it adorable. You're like a scared little stray…"

A sickening thunk suddenly echoes out back, soft against the tile, and moving trough whimpered struggles. Kafka's eyes narrow. "That seems to be our cue." she comments lightly. You look at the clock. Five minutes.

Your voice is stolen away, a failed note against the hand crushing your windpipe. You feel dizzy, dizzy, dizzy, almost stumbling over the chair. Kafka is drunk off of it, shoulder brushing against yours. It's just her, those footsteps, the smell of her perfume. "So…" she whispers. "What's it like?" Her touch sears at your wrist, edging higher. "Being scared?"

Blade steps between the two of you. His hand coming to grasp at your arm, smearing a brown, bloodied stain against the expanse and dwarfing your wrist ( he can break it so easily ). He stinks of iron and rot and you don't dare to face that monstrous view of him, just like that first day, feeling his pulse recede and the massacre he left behind under the fading colour of his eyes.

( And still, you feel guilty. Because Kafka is right. You are a coward. )

"Kafka." Blade utters, a warning stained against his stressed inflections. "Leave her be."

Kafka's lips pull at the corners, serene, seemingly innocent. She doesn't even try to hide the deception. "Jealous much?" she snickers, letting you go. Blade feels agitated, the beginnings of a riptide streaking beneath a still surface. He yanks at you, fingertips pressing at your cheek, the spot between your ear and the column of your neck. It's the most he's touched you.

( Has she hurt you, he wants to demand. Has she? )

"Don't touch her."

Kafka holds her hands up in surrender. "Okay." she relents, content and entertained with the way things seem to be. From the corner of your eye, you see a mass…something close to human, move. A scream is lodged in your pharynx. Your nails dig into Blade's hand, a hoarse, wheezing sound heaving from the depths of your lungs. The mass stretches, tries to move away. You see red plaster the white tiles beneath it.

Blade's gait shifts to awareness, sharp eyed, watching the man try to escape.

"You didn't break his legs?" Kafka asks.

"I did. This one is stubborn." Blade snarls. He looks dog like, wolf like, fangs borne between a drooling muzzle. Your eyes sting as you try to tug away, away from him as Kafka stands and saunters over to the body, that elusive little smile still present.

"Well, we have plenty to ask of him. He still has a few details to give away now, doesn't he?" She hums a little tune, yanking the man by the hair till his broken whimpers turn to miserable screaming. "Come on Bladie, I need help. And you…" She fixes that stare on the man. "Listen to me. You can't speak anymore, or scream, or cry. Not till I tell you to."

The man's cries fade out into open mouthed gasps, his face a bruised and bloodied mess of tears and snort. Blade was not kind in handling him, not with his torn tendons and the unearthly jut his legs were angled at. Your skin crawls at the sight. You reach for your bag, your phone, shaking past the initial terror to give a final call for help.

Blade looks at you. It's enough to completely shatter it, unwinding, undoing, pressing down harder against the fragile cracks in your walls and letting that mess slip away past the desperate grasp of your arms and down away on the floor.

You shut your eyes and tell yourself you saw nothing.

VIII. SKELETONIZATION

You don't hear much of the man, save for Kafka's questions muffled behind the walls. The whats, whens, wheres and hows that you can't keep track off without giving too much of yourself up ( you're afraid you do, a thousand different things will split. You tell yourself there's nothing there ). You focus in the clock instead, watching minutes after minutes pass beneath the incessant sound of it ticking, ticking, ticking.

Minutes after minutes after minutes.

There's a final exchange of words. You hear a tumble, a body hitting the ground. Kafka walks out, hardly bothered in the slightest and pristine save for that dampness of her gloves. She shoots you a charming smile, taking in how you'd tucked into yourself. "Well you're a sight for sore eyes. Scared, lamb?"

You're scared of a lot of things now, of the woman in front of you and the man outback and the man whose words they stole and the impending aftermath predicted. You're trapped in your own burning house, doors jammed shut and the window too high to take a jump. You'll suffocate in here, choke till your lungs collapse and your organs scream and fragment.

Kafka cups your cheek. "Hm, a pity. Scripts have to be followed though…sorry about that doc." She draws away and you let out a wet little sob. "Don't be too sad about it." She coos, patting your cheek. "On the bright side, I'll be leaving soon. Stay close to Bladie, okay? Can't have you running off and throwing a fuss now."

Dear lord no. Not Blade. Not Blade after all this. It feels like a joke and a half, an empty attempt at drawing out any laughter from an unenthused crowd of blank eyed faces. You stay seated, wide eyed and insistent. "No." you choke for good measure. Kafka's expression glows.

"No?" she echoes, a hand resting against either side of the armrest. You try to make yourself small, edging away from her farther and farther till her knee slots between your legs and you nearly cry out and kick her off. "Come on now." She coaxes, hand tugging at your waist, sitting you up proper. "Don't be too difficult. Bladie's not half bad."

You shake your head, blanking out through her crooning as your struggle intensifies. "Stop it." you repeat, shaking your head, seized and maniacal till your nails dig in. Kafka doesn't flinch. She's still smiling. "Don't you dare tell me I'm being —" You sob. it's messy, so messy and that pain in your chest only grows, spreading across like blooming rot. " — that I'm being difficult." You spit. "After all this, I'm allowed to. You're both insane, you fucks, I — "

Kafka presses a thumb over your lips. You bite, hard.

"Listen to me." She keeps talking. She won't stop. "Stop crying."

You stop crying. Your mind is empty white and fuzzy static stretching out like elastic. You feel her laughter against you. "Good girl." She praises. "Now, go on along with Bladie, okay? He'll do a good job looking after you."

You claw at the walls, trying to protest as your body lifts, padding out back, trapped within the long winding of corridors that didn't quite look like that once. "Kafka." you hear Blade echo again, his hands resting heavy on your shoulders. It sounds exasperated? Why? You're fine. You think you're fine. You see a magenta blur flutter around you and words spatter apart and stitch back together into nonsense and noise.

Blade takes you by the arm. You're half leaning against him, the soft, shaky breaths against his ribs and his heartbeat ( it's a slow, faint sound ). He seems to linger in place, letting you be as your nose screws against the smell of blood spotting his clothes. Then, he's leading you along the less crowded roads, shuffling past the harsh blaze of streetlights. Vaguely, you remember where this route takes you and you try to join the pieces — the memories feel so far, far away.

The mass tucked under Blade's arm moves. You look the man straight in the eye and do nothing. Your mind, your ribs are barren spaces.

You smell salt, hear the sea, the waves, the wind. The man in his arms struggles ( you're not here ). You see the panic stretched across, the way he pales to what looks like ash grey ( you're not here ). You watch Blade turn your face away, annoyance sparking in his eyes ( you're not here ). You look on anyway, as his fingers claw at his throat, so easily tearing apart soft flesh and tendon and muscle till his hands are stained warm red ( you're not here ). You're lain bare to those death throes, a wheezing from a broken windpipe, the yellow of subcutaneous fat and the ruptured arteries ( you're not here ).

"You should have looked away."

Blade's voice pulls you out. You finally breathe. Take it all in again as the cotton and the fuzz and the silk web is untangled from your notches. The man falls to the sand, nothing more than dead weight at this point.

( This could be you. )

You take a good, long look at him, at that tear stricken, marred face, that distended jaw and the awful angle to his limbs. The sand is already soaking up beneath him — he was alive once. You didn't know this person, you'd never met him and…

( You let him die. You're a doctor and you let him die. )

Blade's brow furrows when you take a shaky step back, two clear words; 'do not'. You look around you, spot one clear rout of escape amidst that hopeless need to collapse, the world spinning faster and faster and fraying and burning away at the far extremities. You try to run.

He doesn't lie when he says it's easy to catch you again.

You're drawn close, your back practically colliding against his chest before you could make it too far. That rabid, scrambling beast in your snarls and you sink your teeth into his wrist, kicking wildly till your foot connects with his shin. Blade grunts, and you slip away just a little, an inch, one more. But he's bigger, bigger and stronger and it takes a moment for you to fall to the floor, swiping into the buzz and feeling his heaving chest pressed against yours.

His hold closes round your throat. "No — " You burst out,. "No, no don't — "

Blade doesn't move as much against your kicks, face drawn to stony apathy while you try to pry his fingers away, vision blurring against tears and snot. His thumb presses down against your thyroid, breaths unevenly paced to an animalistic rhythm. He doesn't seem all there with how he seems so steeped in madness and…

…fuck it, you're terrified.

Your hand gropes to the side, closing round the uneven surface of a stone. You drive it into the side of Blade's skull, a faint crack ringing out. He falters, wide eyed as one hand presses against the wound and comes away wet. You take a gasping breath in, pushing yourself up but Blade drives you down hard, down to your back till it hits something soft, and still and dead —

( No no no nono no no no NO NO. )

The vermilion of his gaze burns you ( just like all those nights ago ).

It's already started to heal, collapsed parts of his skull scraping and pushing itself back out, repairing damaged bone and muscle. And Blade looks half drunk, sunken into rapture and starvation, his hand sliding up from your throat to press at your cheeks. You freeze, ceasing your assault to his chest and stomach.

He curls over your form, shrugging and swatting away your hands to pin you down proper. There is a wet squelch against your arm pressing against that open wound. "Stop…" You whine, trying to tug him back. "Blade. Blade stop — "

He presses his lips to yours. You slam your fist into his sternum, tasting his blood in his mouth. His teeth come next, biting against your bottom lip, taking, taking, taking. It feels infecting, like a disease, like something that shouldn't be there and you squirm. Blade's fingers tangle into your hair, giving it a sharp tug. You feel your back press against the corpse's shoulder, practically crushing you against it.

He's not gentle. Blade can't be gentle with the violence that comes with him. It's too deeply embedded into the crevices of his bone and marrow and in his veins and blood. It's the oxygen he breathes in, the lead that poisons his alveoli and files away at the pliable parts of his abdomen.

His tongue peeks through, pushing past your lips to take a taste. There's that heady taste in you, disgusting, curling in your guts and just about threatening to batter out. You kick him again.

His eyes flash, dyed more red than orange. He comes away with spit and blood smeared across his lips. You heave, staring up at him, then break down, sobbing openly. Blade keeps you still, bending down to kiss you another time, just at the corner of your lips.

"Enough." You beg him, sounding small. You feel defeated, the load wearing down the bones of your shoulder till you're crushed and collapse. "Please."

Blade blinks. He sits up and sits you up with him, nestled between his legs. You look behind you, the man's larynx having come turn free from your struggle, hanging out a hairs breath and cushioned by fat and crushed muscle fibres. You croak, tipping your weight over and emptying your stomach out onto the beach; till all you are retching out is acid and bile. He pulls your hair back, halting your mess from getting caught in it.

"Done?" he asks, drawing you back close to him, his gaze lidded. You shut your eyes.

"I want to go back home." you whisper.

"Alright." Blade promises you, putting you back down on the sand. "Don't move." You don't think you can. Your limbs weight down more and more with the passing minute. Blade drags the body out into the ocean, for a moment, disappearing beneath the surface. He returns, of course. He can't drown, or die ( He's not human, never will be ). "Come." he tells you.

You allow it, him gathering you in his arms. You don't make a fuss, or shout. "Keys." he reminds you. You hand them to him, leaning your head into his shoulder. Your tears prickle beneath your eyelids.

He takes you back home.

You don't know how he'd avoided the security guard's questioning, or the neighbours, But Blade sets you down on the little stool, pulling the bucket beneath the tap to let the hot water run. You draw your legs to your chest, thoughts collapsing into each other, fracturing and splintering as your trembling grows worse. All you can think of is gargling till the taste of blood is gone and the memory of that kiss is gone.

Blade fixes his attention on you. "You need to bathe." He says, taking a knee. You're exhausted, too exhausted to protest, trembling when he pulls away at your jacket and your pants, letting it pile up by the door.

"I can do it myself." You mumble. You question the necessity of it. He won't listen, after all.

He unhooks your bra and tugs down your underwear. "You're tired." He states. "Your attempts will not be as effective."

"Does that matter?"

Blade hums. "Kafka mentioned the need for hygiene. You could fall sick. Besides, you are a doctor." Not anymore, you nearly snap. He moves on to himself next, unbuttoning his jacket. "Detergent?" he asks when you squeeze your eyes shut and refuse to see any more. The sound of his belt buckle is next and his trousers being pulled down.

"Cabinet under the kitchen sink." you mutter. Blade steps out and you lean up against the bucket, watching the water steadily fill till it reaches your fingertips. You hear the beeping from the washing machine and Blade's returning footsteps. He settles behind you

"Turn around."

You turn. You do not look down.

He spends a moment regarding you, then empties a pitcher-full of water over your head. It's warm enough and you let your eyes slip shut as he works on scrubbing away the blood and sweat from your hair. That rotten thing curls in your belly, ringing round like a centipede crawling.

Blade's thumb wipes away the smudge on your cheek with sandalwood soap and he tips his chin up. "Don't fall asleep yet."

"Okay." you passively reply, opening your eyes. he hums and continues to wash you, treating your body with clinical indifference. You don't know what's worse, the hunger or the distance. The act of being viewed as anything but human leaves a sour taste in your mouth. "What about you?" You ask, filling the empty space. You don't want to think about tonight. You don't want to think at all.

Blade hums. "You can help." He shrugs right after. "We will be done sooner at least."

"Okay." You echo, reaching for the soap. You come to realise that he does need the help. Pulling the bandages off of him was a hard enough task. They were messily strewn on, almost cutting away his blood flow and he sweeps it aside. His wrists and his forearms are next. You don't undo the one on his thigh, furiously washing the dried fluids off of him.

What are you doing?

A part of you laughs at the obscene humour. A few hours ago, you'd have dropped dead at the very idea of doing this, if the hopelessness wasn't torn away from you the reins and left you on the backseat of a crashing car.

"You can…turn around."

Blade grunts and turns. you spurt too much shampoo into your hands. Some of it spills over. "You're scared." He says.

"I am."

He bends down a bit. It's easier to reach his head this way. "You should be. You should have killed me." He states, severity weighing his words.

Your shoulders slump, fatigued. "Please. Just stop." Your voice dips into a whisper. "Just stop. I want to rest, alright?" Blade falls silent, knitting his brow together. He nods wordlessly as you rake your fingers through his hair, undoing some of the knot building up against the shampoo suds.

( Blade thinks you're still too gentle with him, in how you trace one of his scars. But he feels the shudder, the roiling beat under your skin, the fear. He sees how easy it is to bring the tears out again and turn that mind of yours off.

He turns a little, pressing his fingertips to the softness of your thigh, just in case you try to run again. )

When you're both done, he has you swaddled in your blankets and deposited on your bed, clothes in tow. It's horrible, this tenderness. You don't think he's used to it either, in how he shuffles and cautiously pads at your arm like you're a fragile little thing, like he wasn't the one who took the mallet to it in the first place.

"Will you hurt me?" You ask, dead eyed.

Blade's lips part ( sometimes he does, when the mara blooms forth florets in his chest and stomach and he wants to break something that breathes beneath his hands ). "Will you run?" he asks.

"If I do, will you hurt me?"

"Yes." he replies bluntly, his hand resting on your calves. You know what that means. You squeeze your eyes shut and nod, laying down on the bed and curling up into yourself.

"You're a monster." you tell him with a shaky, illegible slur. All this for a preordained destiny, for convenience, because you're a coward. All this and you'll be left with nothing tomorrow. You think of your clinic and what you'd salvaged before opening it. It's foundations and the grey walls of the empty rooms it once had. Your heart poured into it all. "Both you and her."

Blade lowers his head. "We know."

IX. DISJOINTING

You did not sleep at all, last night. Blade still stalks the hallways at the unearthly hours you wake at ( five thirty on the dot ). A man is dead, a man you barely know, whose body now below the ocean's surface. Maybe the sharks ate him. And your clinic…you curse it all, and you curse that compulsion that has you reaching for your phone.

It doesn't take long to find it after browsing the local news network. A few live footage of the collapsed interior and the busted furniture. Years of work torn apart ( At least Aleena quit. At least she doesn't have to see this ).

"Do you know why they did this?" you ask, your voice scratchy when Blade comes to linger by your door frame. He'd washed his clothes last night, having pulled his trousers back on with a loose fitted tank top. Kafka must have dropped by.

Blade looks away.

"You know." You spit out, fury bubbling up, clouding your eyes, painting it all red. "You know, don't you? Look me in the eye and tell me you do, you little — "

"The man." Blade cuts in. "The man who hurt you."

You grip the sheets. "What did you do?" you whisper, numbness taking foot and taking away more and more reasoning.

"I killed him." he passes you a sharp look. "Letting him live would have put both of us at risk."

You let out a mirthless laugh. "So it's your fault then. You…you come in and just assume I would be fine with you just…" You laugh. You laugh and laugh and laugh till your ribs hurt and your sides ache because it was so unnecessary, all of this. He must be sick in the head, him and Kafka, to twist apart your livelihood and step all over it. Monsters, the lot of them. Monsters.

"Oh god you're a fucking riot. Now what should I do? I have no job…should I go back? Maybe you could get a kick out of me being sold off again, right?" You flash him a bright little smile, mania at it's finest, and anger. So, so much anger it boils your body alive.

He narrows his eyes. "You will not be leaving. They'll come after you next."

You giggle. "Of course they would." You whisper. "Of-fucking course they would. Then I'll just die. Let my father douse my ashes, if there's even a body to cremate because that just seems the best way to go." You lay back down, tugging at your hair with frustration. The mattress dips as he lays next to you, lips drawn against your nape.

It's possessive, demanding of every little thing and every little part you had to offer.

"I won't be leaving." You snarl, feeling all that spite gather. "I can't because of you. remember?"

"I know."

You press your cheek against your pillow. You're tired again. You want to sleep. "You may as well just kill me at this point." You state flatly. "There isn't much use keeping me alive. I've served my purpose right? What was it, some glorified shield?"

His grip on you constricts. You're pulled closer to his chest. "You will not die." He tells you, his nose pressing up against your neck. Blade inhales, tangling his fingers into your hair. "And I won't kill you."

You bare your teeth at him. Then you stop, and press your face to the pillow again. "Enough." you tell him, feeling angry and tired and empty and more. You try to push Blade off of you, the small of your back brushing against him. Blade lets out a hiss, nails digging into your forearm and you freeze.

He's pressed up, half hard against you.

You throw yourself away from him.

Your eye sockets burn as you flinch and struggle. "Stop." He rasps his order, pressing you stomach down against the mattress as you curl over the edge, letting out a panicked whimper, a migraine searing through your forehead. It turns into an ugly sob, into cries that bleed into the sheets, tracking saliva down as you're dragged back.

His weight bears down hard on your back, his mane curtaining your line of sight. You try to elbow him off and he wrestles your hands down, pinning them behind you. He's panting, letting out a stray growl every now and then. The edge of his nails dig a little deeper into your wrists, just as the other hand fixes itself firmly against your thigh.

You shake. You don't try to hide the glassy eyed look. You only shake.

Blade's annoyances seem to mount, his forehead pressing against your temple. ( Appease her, Kafka's voice whispers to his ear. Blade feels too much of you beneath his palm, and it stokes a selfish hunger that comes down violently ).

He trails his hand upwards. You lay slack, surrendering to it with a tense form. It tugs your nightwear down, spreads your legs a little more. You cry a little, then give up on it, his fingers exploring the softness of your thighs and slipping to the inside. He lets your hands go and you come to grasp at the pillows, nipping down at your bottom lip.

"Blade…?" You whisper, unsure.

He traces the seam of your cunt, dipping a finger inside to toy at your clit and you squeak, grabbing his arm. "H-hold on that's — "

Blade turns you over, draping your legs on either side of his hips. You look at him, pupils shrunken down at the sight of him surveying you, his lips pressing over the curve of your knee, then further down. You squirm beneath him, movements stilled by a firm hand on your belly. Blade bites hard, tearing into the skin of your thigh, breaking capillaries and drawing blood.

He pulls away to witness the bruising and the wet wail you shudder out, soothing you with his tongue brushing over the wound like a dog. You slam your foot against his shoulder. Blade simply grabs it and hoists it above his shoulder.

"Let me…" he mumbles, groaning up against your skin, spacing your thighs apart some more. You're squirming, and he roughly pulls you closer. "Stay still."

You can't, you want to say. You can't when he's touching you like that and —

He stills. "You haven't done this before, have you?" he guesses. You want to sink, sink down into a place that was far away from here. Blade's eyes are unnaturally bright, burning like coals against the dim lighting.

"Shut up and get this over with." You rasp. There's nothing here, nothing between the two of you. Maybe a few sick feelings from his side. You want it to be done with and let the maggots eat away at your body after ( if that makes it easier for him in the end ). Blade huffs, vague amusement flitting past his expression. His cheek is smushed against your thigh.

"Your first…" he mumbles, a vague story playing out in his eyes. Your legs are pushed back, and he sits himself down before you, teeth grazing through soft flesh till he latches his mouth to your cunt and presses the expanse of his tongue over your bundle of nerves. You mewl into it, jolting under his touch as his hands come to massage circles at your hips.

You stay steadfastly quiet after that, as the assault continues and he licks a strip up your slit while gauging every little shift and twitch on your face. You could have fooled anyone else with the forced apathy, fooled Blade with you looking at anything but him. He suckles at your clit, rolling it over the tip of his tongue and you twitch, bucking your hips into the grind.

Blade demands. He demands and keeps demanding, eating you out half starved and at a pace you couldn't keep up with; feeling that appendage slip into you at some point of it all. You moan ( this doesn't feel good. It shouldn't. How fucking pathetic are you?! ) trembling at all the new feelings blurring out your mind.

You tell yourself to take it. Take it and let him leave you be after that taste of satisfaction. Blade nuzzles into your cunt, smearing your building slick against your outer lips till smelted orange meets the fatigue in yours.

"You're being stubborn." he comments, pulling away for a moment. You grit your teeth, open your mouth to snap back. Blade dips down then, a finger slipping into you, massaging your insides and pacing himself with more gentleness than you'd expected. Gasping and grasping at the sheets, your narrowed gaze fixates on his, fuming, fuming.

You push his face away when he leans in close and he persists, teeth latching over your neck, licking a delicate strip up the column of it. His chest seems to vibrate — it's not a purr. It rattles at you, it's unnatural.

"Make it quick then!" you sob. "Please."

His finger curls inside you and you curl your toes into the sheets, keening into his hair. You hate this. You hate this. There is a warmth in your insides that stirs and seeps through the cracks. Blade seems to notice and takes it in with a hunger that terrifies you. He presses his pads against that sweet spot, a thumb returning to your clit. You whine, shake your head.

"Good?" he asks. It feels like a taunt.

"Shut up." you grimace, rocking your hips in pace with him. It's little jolts of that buttery feeling that has your mind sink further and farther away. Blade kisses your neck, grinding up against your ass through it all. It's awful. It's all wrong, this facade of gentleness.

You mumble, grinding at his hand as another finger is added and he stretches you out a little, testing your limits with rapture. That heat grows, grows, grows bit by bit, tuned to the way his finger curls into that spot. A moan spills out, then another and you spa a hand over your mouthy, shaking your head. You want it to stop. You want this to stop now and —

Blade's digits nudge against your cervix and he bears down on your clit hard.

It snaps, that warmth. You tighten round his gingers, clenching, sucking him in deeper and his lips part as he watches you fall apart with a jumble of words and begging. You fall back into the sheets as he pulls his hand away, laving at your mess while he undoes the buttons of your shirt. It spares a peak of the sweet of your breasts, the soft expanse of your stomach. He's seen it before. There's nothing new to it.

He bites again, not as deep this time as he pulls his pants down. You spare a glance, snapping out of the afterglow when you catch sight of him. "That won't fit." You whisper.

Blade shudders, his cock resting at your stomach. It's hot, an angry res that makes you feel uneasy. You half expect pain when he slides down to breach you entrance, you expect tears and you expect it with hunched shoulders. Blade is slow instead, thoughtful, almost. He keeps his progress slow, watching you wince against the stretch before he thrusts in deeper, finally nudging his tip to your cervix and staying there a moment.

Somewhere between all that, his hand finds yours, pressing down at your palm in awkward assurance.

You can't take it.

"What are you doing?!" you demand, whining against how full you felt. It's strange, so strange and you think you see the mad ramblings from friends and gossip over how good sex felt sometimes. But this is Blade. Blade, with his violence and his slashed wrists and the way he stank of death.

Blade pushes some of his weight on you. "It's your first time." he replies.

Your first time. A rare consideration. An emotion that bud out too late for your tastes. "Why should you care then?!" You snap, grabbing his tank top. "For fucks sake, stop treating me like I'm your lover! I'm not! You're not doing this to me because you have feelings do you?!"

The question was wholly rhetorical. It's a harsh accusation, mounted by everything else he'd done wrong. Blade falls silent, eyes wide. You leer up at him, then chortle with disbelief. "Oh god, you are." You choke out, feeling violated in a way. Feeling more violated than you were already. Blade keeps staring at you as you cover your face, cackling. "Oh god, oh god this is just unbelievable! You like me? Me?!"

You feel venom drip into your words. You feel that ache, the urge to tear his eyes out then and there. Boys will be boys. The words keep echoing through and it makes you physically ill to think of it.

"You're pathetic. You're absolutely fucking pathetic!" you cut through, grabbing his hair and pulling at it. Blade grunts, annoyed. You don't care, ripping at his face, his neck, his shoulders. "Fuck! Fuck you! After all this bullshit, fuck you!" Blade hisses, trying to shift a bit, move some more but you kick out at his thigh.

"Do not." he grits out, his voice low and angry. "Your anger is an inconsequential thing. I've seen far worse."

"You think I want your guilt, you ass?!" you demand. "You think I want you begging and grovelling for forgiveness?!" Blade thrusts. You dig down, fight against it and the sweet burn it brings. You feel that storm brew in your chest and you spit at him, jarring Blade enough with wide eyed shock ( it's a satisfying thing to see ) to slam your weight into him and roll the two of you over, your hands grabbing at his throat.

He nudges deeper into you and you cry out, feeling his tip coax into your g-spot. Still, you hold on.

Blade still watches, gauging the sudden shift, waiting to see you move. When you take a moment to gain your bearings, he grasps at your hips, guiding you down his cock and you almost falter, feeling his free hand tweak your nipples. sputtering a little, you persist, your thumbs coming to press against his Adam's apple.

Blade lets out a gasp, snapping his hips up again, drawing himself out then back into you. You feel him grind against those sensitive spaces he'd gauged out earlier and a few flustered cries sputter out before your grip tightens round your neck.

He sets his speed, increasing that pace to a faster rhythm, grasping at what parts he could, letting you take from him for a moment. You double over, teeth tearing into his cheek. "I despise you." You tell him. "I hate you for taking everything away from me. I hate you for ruining my life." You pour it all in, all the vitriol and the fury. Blade's eyes shut.

"I know." he grunts, feeling you clench down on his cock.

"I wish you'd stayed dead." You add, feeling it all pile up into a raw mass that eats you alive. "Do you hear me?"

"I know." He repeats.

"I hate you." You sob out, your tears splattering against his jaw. Your thumb presses down harder. Blade moans, his tempo increasing and catching you in it's midst, hitting your sweet spot over and over till it tumbles through to make a mess between the two of you, the baggage and the tucked away harshness. "You're pathetic. Absolutely fucking pathetic."

It feels so fuzzy, the heat, the faint warmth from Blade, blocking out his airflow. His movements grow frantic, almost, his grip on you bruising your hips till finally, you find you release again, legs weakening below you. Still, you hold fast, dragging yourself over the expanse of his body as he keeps up with thrusting faster and faster to a brink of near over-stimulation, all of it animalistic grunts and grows and teeth nudging at your chest.

You press down hard enough and Blade finally cums, his release coming in spurts inside of you. The cartilages in his larynx give out and you feel tissue collapse into itself ( just like that man on the beach with his throat torn out, poetic in a gruesome sense ). You watch him struggle to breath and you push down harder, hysteria bursting as you bare your teeth and drive him closer to another death.

Blade goes still below you. He's cold as a corpse.

You sway a bit, lifting yourself off of his cock, falling into a haze of cotton wool and sick satisfaction, tipping into the space next to him. He's dead. He's dead.

You shut your eyes, and you feel nothing.

You have better to do now, the unsaid and the undone. The empty buzz of pleasure slowly recedes and you grasp your phone between your hands, tapping at the message app. You let out a soft cry, shoulders shaking. There was a life once that felt far too distant. Where you'd been tugged away and folded into silk and gold till you were shackled down and told to stay quiet. 

( There are many things you want to tell them. Many angry things, many quiet, introspective things. Many with a little more love lining your words, a little more longing. They still wait for you, even after shutting their doors. You know this too. )

So, you start to type.

Dear Appa…

Blade wakes when the sunlight filters in, and his arm winds round you in the silence, listening to the rustle down below and the coming commotion. Then, he rises, buttoning his pants up proper and drawing the blanket over your head. "Stay here." he tells you.

You listen to the angry voices and the encroaching footsteps from the staircase outside. Blade summons his sword, stalking out of the room, dog-like, wolf-like, his violence returned to him after briefly being cowed by your venom. 

The doorbell rings ( you know who it is, through the ringing metal and the acrid voices ) and you draw into yourself.

You are not here. You tell yourself. You close your eyes and open them back up, petrichor seeping through and your feet sunk into damp soil. You let yourself stay there, in the garden in front of your childhood home, away from torn flesh and the building agony.

You are not here.

📼 — AUTHORS NOTES + ETYMYOLOGIES //

MANY MANY THANKS TO MOTH FOR BETA READING THIS.

this fic was something that took me months to write ( and honestly it shows with the mess and the rush XD ). either way, tda does touch on a few cultural topics and reflects on some of the good old desi trauma when it comes to the arranged marriage scape, something i wish i could have explored more in depth. but with a fic nearly hitting 20k and my own set deadlines...perhaps another time. so here are some of the stuff i mentioned that were picked straight off of my own experiences :

the newspaper adverts listing out bride and groom details amongst other stuff is a pretty common sight here. within my own personal experiences, arranged marriages are a gamble to say the least, considering i only knew two within my immediate sphere that worked out pretty well. add in the stigma surrounding divorce and hooooo boi.

needless to say, there is a lot of shit to unpack with arranged marriage culture ( specifically down in the south where a lot of women and men are given the illusion of 'control' but are still heavily pressured into it ). it's not as overt or obvious to be fair, nor as deeply touched upon.

there's also the weird dynamics within our families where children cannot wholly cut themselves free from their familial unit, disownment and distancing aside. due to how community takes center stage here, family plays a pretty heavy handed role when we're raised. this is mostly due to assumptions of familial disownment being tied into 'questionable behaviour' in a sense. one of my friends was turned away during job hunting solely because some employers were unnecessarily quick to judge.

add in the sheer dependancy you grow into and how tight social circles tend to be and hoooooo b o i. ( you're dead if you live in a small town ).

the reader here does exist within these two spheres, half pressured into arrangements and a duty to be a 'good daughter' by proving financial stability. the clinic isn't just a ways of keeping her away from her family and the matrimonial expectations they have on her ( and trust me, it's not just the parents ) but also her own little act of rebellion by showing them that she can manage just fine.

some of the stuff are more in line with my own community's practices. the agelu is a feast laid out to pay respects to ancestral ghosts. cha is our way of saying 'chai' within my language.

blade in this fic was also initially supposed to be very unhinged. maybe a little more out there with far darker scenes. there was an instance where the reader was actually married prior but had a difficult relationship with her husband. the divorce was what incited the disownment.

she was also a liiitttlle more involved with the stellaron hunter's plans, but i thought the sheer disconnect and the painting of the hunters in this shadowed, unclear light made more sense XD. that and how i was sadistic enough to write a whole scene depicting aleena's marriage and a few unsaoury aftermaths.

anyway, thank you for taking the time to read tda!!! this fic took a WHILE to write out given my busy schedule so i appreciate it so very much!!!

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