“Loneliness, he discovered in the cold halls of his home, was the one color she had failed to teach him.”
Collections
The Grace Collection | Ryland Grace
Works
To Snakes and Stones | Hogwarts Legacy | Part I | Part II
In which Ominis is persuaded to open the Scriptorium for his closest friend and in doing so is faced with the horrors of his childhood.
Flame and Thorn | House of the Dragon | Prologue
In which Aemond Targaryen’s descent into the God’s Eye does not kill him, but rather turns him into a prisoner of his own family.
Tucked Away | Project Hail Mary | Post | ❤︎
In which Ryland Grace discovers a book tucked between his T-Shirts while on the Hail Mary that he can’t remember the significance of.
Hold the door! | Project Hail Mary | Post
In which Ryland Grace gets stuck in an elevator with a journalist who’s supposed to be in a press conference interviewing the crew of the Hail Mary.
Blurbs
For the Mortal and Machine | Arcane | Post
Viktor, who, in his pursuit to uncover the secrets of what may lie beneath the metal plates of the Hexcore, disrupts the very equilibrium of the Arcane.
Headcannons
Science of a Bookworm | Project Hail Mary | Post | ❤︎
What it’s like when Ryland Grace starts crushing on the girl at his local coffee shop who always seems to be reading a book.
Ryland Grace who… | Project Hail Mary | Post
What it’s like when Ryland Grace realizes he’s had a crush this whole time
Waiting to watch Iron Lung this weekend (once I’m officially free enough too) because I’ve had a oneshot concept for Simon floating around in my drafts for weeks and I’ve been waiting for the inspiration to hit me like a freight train so I can finally sit down and knock it out…
Summary: What happens when Ryland Grace gets stuck in an elevator with a journalist who's supposed to be at a press conference about Project Hail Mary?
Things to Note Prior to Reading: For the sake of the fic, let’s just pretend that there was a lot more time between the events of PHM and that the mission was at least a little bit more public and we should be all good. That all being said, I’m not overly fond of the ending so I might either amend it later or make a part 2 in the near future because I love the concept just not the current execution. Regardless, I hope some of you enjoy <3
Ryland had to drag his feet to get himself to move. It had been near 30 hours since he’d last slept and despite his mind persuading itself he could still adequately function, his body, evidently, disagreed.
His lower back ached with a stiffness he knew came from too many hours spent hunched over a desk or lab equipment and his shoulders were still sore from testing out some EVA equipment earlier in the week. It also didn’t help that he was starting to lose control over keeping his eyes open.
With a low groan under his breath, Ryland pushed the doors to the Space Center open. A blast of cool, controlled air greeted him, which, if he were being completely honest, felt incredibly nice compared to the hot, humid heat of the outside.
A part of him missed the grey, rainy weather of San Francisco. Ever since coming to Texas it had been nothing but sun, heat, and more sun. Although he couldn’t complain too much, most of if not all his time was spent indoors anyways so what difference did weather really make?
The door shut behind him with a heavy thud, startling him a little out of his sluggish daze. He blinked in slow succession, fighting back a yawn in his throat as he forcefully made himself head towards the elevators on the far side of the lobby. He passed by the front desk, giving Jerry—the friendly clerk who Ryland had talked to a couple of times—a warm, albeit languid, wave and smile.
Plodding along, Ryland finally made it to the elevator, scratching at the back of his neck as he pushed the call button.
Today he’d run a couple more minor tests on some Astrophage samples before having his next lesson with DuBois and Shapiro. Hopefully this time, he could get through the lesson without learning anything else about their…relationship? Hook-ups? He doesn’t really know and honestly, he doesn’t want to.
Not because he’s against it or anything, what they do is entirely up to them, they did sign up for a suicide mission so it kind of made sense he guesses—
“Hold the elevator!”
Ryland jumped.
He batted his eyes a couple of times before realizing that the elevator directly in front of him had opened and was now closing. Gosh, how long had he been standing there? He must’ve looked like an idiot…wait, what is he doing?! Move idiot! Move!
Scrambling, Ryland nearly tripped over his own feet to stop the doors from shutting. He threw his arm up, practically throwing himself into the elevator to alert the automatic cube to stop what it was doing and open back up. Luckily, it worked.
The metal doors instantly withdrew at his last minute gesture, receding back until they fully vanished. From around the corner a young woman he didn’t recognize dressed in far more formal attire than him appeared, slinking into the elevator with a huff.
She looked over at Ryland and gave him a slightly out of breath but appreciative smile. “Thanks.”
Ryland smiled back at her, trying to ignore the fact that her smile was really pretty. “Of course. It was no problem.”
The elevator doors returned, this time fully shutting without any last minute interference.
“What floor?”
Ryland blinked at her, not even realizing she had leaned forward a bit to try and get his attention, before he processed what she asked.
“Oh! Uh…six?”
She nodded and twisted to hit the sixth button, giving Ryland a chance to look away to hide the embarrassed flush of red he could feel spreading over his face. Had he been staring at her? If so it was an accident, he hopes she knows it was an accident, he’s not a creep.
Gosh, he needs a nap.
The elevator ride was quiet. He stayed glued to the corner of the box while she stood on the other side. He hadn’t noticed it until she’d reached down to fidget with it but she had a badge clipped onto the waistband of her pants. He couldn’t see the front.
He wasn’t able to think about it for much longer.
About halfway through the ride, somewhere between floor three and four, the elevator came to a screeching halt. There was a low groan from above them before the entire box shook to a pause.
Ryland frowned.
“That’s not good…”
The woman cursed under her breath as she nodded in agreement. Both of them turned their attention to the little screen beside the door. Perfect, it was frozen right between changing from 3 to 4, so it showed a weird ‘F’ looking symbol.
“We’re stuck.” Ryland stated before immediately cringing at himself. Gee, way to state the obvious Sherlock.
“I think so.”
The woman went ahead and pressed the emergency button, a high pitched ringing echoing out before a staticky voice came through.
‘Hello, what’s the emergency?’
“Hi.” She bent down a little to speak into the panel, her voice a little tighter than it was before. “We’re currently stuck in the elevator. I think we’re between floors 3 and 4.”
There was a short pause before the voice came back. ‘Okay. Help should arrive in about 30 to 45 minutes.’
He didn’t say anything, but Ryland saw the way her shoulders tensed at the given estimate.
“Okay, thank you.”
The static from the voice clicked once before going completely silent. Her head dropped a little before she took a step back.
“That’s not too bad.” Ryland attempted to offer, trying to sound as optimistic as possible despite given circumstances. “Hopefully they’ll get here sooner.”
With a sigh, the woman turned to press her back against the wall. “I hope so or I’ll miss the conference.”
Conference? What conference? Since when was there a—oh. She was a journalist here for the press conference with the Hail Mary crew that was happening that morning. He’d overheard DuBois talking about it with Shapiro during their lesson a couple of days prior but hadn’t paid it any mind because, well, why would he? It’s not like he’s the one being interviewed.
“The Press Conference?”
She pulled her gaze from the ceiling down to Ryland, the disappointment of potentially missing the conference evident on her face even though she tried to hide it with a tight smile. “Yeah.”
Ryland glanced down at his watch, squinting at it to distinguish which numbers each hand was hovering over. All things considered, he was still remarkably tired.
9:47 a.m.
The conferences starts at 10 and knowing Stratt, she would try and keep it as brief as possible even if she wasn’t actually in the room—which Ryland knew she wouldn’t be. The fact that there was even a conference to begin with was a quote-unquote miracle alone.
Ryland felt a weight land on him at the realization that the woman would more than likely miss most of if not the entire conference depending on how brief it would be.
He frowned again as he turned back to her.
“I’m sorry.”
She gave him a sympathetic look, “It’s not your fault we got stuck.”
“I know, but still.”
“I appreciate it.”
They both fell silent.
Ryland, despite himself, tried his best not to look at her. Partially because he still felt a little embarrassed at (potentially) having stared at her earlier and also because ever since she started facing him a bit more properly it became increasingly more difficult to ignore how pretty she was. He blamed his tired mind on the fact his thoughts kept drifting back to that no matter how hard he tried to not think about it.
But even he knew that wasn’t a full proof excuse.
“So…you're a scientist?”
Ryland's head snapped up at the question.
"Huh?"
She gave him an amused look, "You're shirt."
Oh. Right.
"'Ah! is the element of surprise'?"
A sheepish chuckle escaped him as he looked down at his shirt. Sure enough, there it was.
“Uh, yeah..." He awkwardly cleared his throat a bit before looking back up at her, scratching at the back of his neck with a lopsided smile, "I’m technically a molecular biologist.”
Her brows furrowed as her head tilted a little. For a second Ryland felt as if he were under some sort of intense study. Like she was trying to place him or analyze if he were telling the truth. But then her eyes lit up in the same way his students' used too when the pieces of a difficult concept would begin to click into place.
“You're working on the Astrophage problem, aren't you?"
He gulped.
For a moment he stayed silent. It was arguably reasonable enough to make the assumption that a molecular biologist who was currently stuck in an elevator at the Johnson Space Center had at least something to do with the recent crisis of the sun dying.
But then again, he couldn't just go around admitting that he was in fact working with Astrophage. Even though there was a press conference with the crew and the media was vaguely aware of the mission, the actual details of the project were still under intense secrecy. For obvious reasons.
Oh gosh, she's giving him a look.
Say something Ryland! Anything! Quick!
"No?"
There was a beat between them.
"You're a terrible liar."
Ryland deflated. Sighing out a weak "I know" before letting his head fall.
"I understand though." She offered him a sympathetic smile. "If I were in your situation I probably would've lied too."
"Really?"
"Of course. You may not know much about it because you're just one of what I assume is many other scientists but NASA hasn't exactly been cooperative with the media about anything involving Astrophage or this mission. They want to keep as many details about it as they can, under wraps." It was her turn then to glance down at her feet, "It's part of why this press conference is—was, a big deal."
Ryland couldn't help but frown. He had been so wrapped up with the studying and trying to figure out how to use Astrophage for Project Hail Mary that he hadn't even thought about the public other than how to save it. But now, standing in a stuck elevator with a journalist who knew not even fraction of what he did about their planetary crisis, it hit Ryland like an freight train just how little the rest of the world knew.
Unlike him, they didn't know that Astrophage migrated to Venus for its CO2 in order to breed. They had no clue that it was even an alien-microorganism that somehow was able to store energy, convert it into mass and then turn it back into energy when needed. They also had no idea that at every waking moment, him and hundreds of others were working tirelessly to send an interstellar spacecraft into deep space in the hopes of maybe, finding a solution before all of humanity dies.
All anyone knew was that the sun was dying; Astrophage was the reason why; and NASA was launching an undisclosed mission that had something to do with it all.
That must be terrifying.
Ryland swallowed the lump in his throat. It didn't have to be that terrifying. He could make it a little less terrifying.
He knew what he was about to do was admittedly, really, really stupid, but, if it meant he could make the world a little less scared by helping them understand the issue a tiny bit more, what was so bad about that?
"If you want, I could, uhm…" Ryland rubbed at his eyes, clearing his throat a little to try and seem at least a bit more confident than he felt, "try and answer some questions for you. You know, so you at least have something to work with..”
Her head snapped up so fast that for a second he feared she might have hurt herself.
“You would do that?”
Something in the way she was looking at him, made his cheeks flush with heat. He instead tried to ignore it by shrugging as if he hadn't just offered to give her a one-on-one interview with an Astrophage scientist.
“Only if you want.”
“Oh my god are you kidding?" The smile on her lips somehow seemed to brighten as she practically lit up in front of him. "I would love that, thank you."
Really, it wasn’t the end of the world if he answered a couple of questions for her. From her perspective he was probably one of hundreds of global scientists who were studying Astrophage to figure out how to stop the sun from dying. Which, technically, he was.
Only, strictly speaking, he was the first scientist to actually study Astrophage--he did come up with the name after all--and he was, maybe, a little more involved than the other scientists but not by much!
Okay, he needs to stop dwelling on the details. She hasn't even asked him anything yet that would even warrant him having to evade certain things. Just because he was studying Astrophage didn’t necessarily mean he knew anything about the mission, so as long as he just strayed away from any mention of the mission he should be fine.
Good thing he was a teacher with experience in evading prying questions, Stratt never bothered to put him through media training because why would she?
"Okay, are you ready?"
Ryland blinked. He must have had a look on his face because she gave him a knowing smile before he had a chance to say anything.
"For the questions."
"O-oh, yeah." Ryland ran a hand through his hair as he awkwardly mirrored her smile. "Fire away."
"Perfect."
The reassurance made his heart speed up a bit.
She moved to turn on the recorder before abruptly stopping in her tracks. For a second he thought she'd changed her mind, but then she was looking back up at him with a look he could only describe as resembling something akin to embarrassment.
"I never got your name."
Oh, that makes more sense.
"Ryland--uh, Dr. Grace."
There was a pause as she let it sink in. After a moment she repeated it quietly under her breath, like she was testing to see how it sounded. He had no idea why, but he hoped she did.
Satisfied, she offered him her name in return. It suited her.
“It's nice to meet you Dr. Grace."
He felt a sharp tug at his lips.
"The feeling’s mutual."
With a soft smile, she turned, switched the digital recorder on, and started their interview.
I have given no permission for my writing or work to be posted anywhere else other than this account. I hope you enjoyed the work <3
Things to note prior to proceeding: I’ve got a couple of other works slowly coming together, but for the time being, for those who are like me and can’t get enough of Grace, enjoy this short little spur of the moment post
Who didn’t realize that he had a crush on you until one, obscure day when it suddenly hit him.
Who panicked for the first two months after realizing just how much you meant to him, and couldn’t look you in the eye for at least a week without feeling an unpleasant amount of heat crawl up his neck and to his ears.
Who started asking you to do things with him far more frequently than before because just being in your proximity was enough to have him tripping over his own feet and smiling like a schoolboy.
Who subconsciously started mentioning you to other people, perking up in a conversation when the other person brought up something he knew that you liked or reminded him of you.
Who accidentally let it slip to his class that he was going to the weekend farmers market with you—you had invited him to tag along and he hadn’t missed a second before agreeing—and for the rest of the week was bombarded with teasing comments and incessant inquiries about you from his students.
Who knew that he was properly in love with you when you came over to his apartment one night and fell asleep beside him on his sofa. The two of you had been binging a season of the Twilight Zone when you had fallen asleep next to him, with your head leaning against the arm of the sofa and your legs curled up to your chest.
Who placed a blanket over you and refused to move from the couch because he was scared he’d wake you up.
Who had the worst neck ache of his life the next morning but refused to let it show because he didn’t want you thinking it was your fault he fell asleep sitting upright on the couch.
Who didn’t know how to tell you he loved you because he was scared that he would lose you if he did.
Who was so blindsided by his own feelings he never even realized you felt the same way, no matter how obvious it seemed or was.
Who was so shocked in discovering you loved him that he didn’t fully believe you at first. You had to assure him multiple times that you meant what you said and weren’t trying to make fun of him.
Who fell deeper and deeper in love with you every single day, and thanked whatever authority was out there that he was lucky enough to have you love him back.
Bonus:
Who while aboard the Hail Mary, discovered a bracelet with two charms dangling off it—a star and a sun—and put it on almost immediately after pulling it out of his bag.
Who refused to take the bracelet off, even when he was out doing an EVA.
And who had to explain to Rocky that even though he couldn’t remember her face nor her name, he did in fact have a ‘mate’ back on earth and he knew for a fact that he loved her to his sun and back.
Summary: If there’s one thing that Ryland Grace has ample of while in interstellar space, it’s time. And what better way to kill time than to try and figure out why there’s a book tucked between his T-shirts.
Things to note prior to proceeding: For the sake of emotional stability, I decided to blend aspects of the book and the movie in this to kind of keep the best of both worlds. For the cute anon who liked the idea of Grace and a bookworm, I hope you find this to be okay as I work on more stuff 🌷! Enjoy <3
The brunt of the hangover passed two hours ago. Now, all that remained was the dull ache between his temples and the ebbing waves of nausea that threatened him every time his body jerked too hard when he moved. He would like to say that lesser gravity somehow helped with getting over it but he didn't really believe that. If anything, Ryland somehow thinks that the lesser gravity made everything a little bit worse.
The sterile surroundings of the dormitory did little to make him feel any better. The robotic arm—Armando as he's thinking of naming it because for some reason he felt compelled to name it—had stood on standby when he nursed the bulk of his hangover, but now, with the worst being over with, Armando just sat dormant and waiting.
So in an attempt to distract himself from the gnawing loneliness and despair that had begun to sink like a weight in his gut, he moved down (is down even the correct way to describe it? Left? Right? How do you directionally label your movements aboard an interstellar spacecraft?) to the lab. He hoped maybe something about the environments basic familiarity might help soothe him.
But when he tried to poke around at the various equipment and tools available to him, Ryland very quickly realized he felt no different nor any better than he did in the dormitory.
His head pulsed for what felt like the sixth time in the past ten minutes. That, paired with the anguish of still grappling with the reality of his situation only made the feeling in his gut sink deeper.
No memory, no crew, and no more vodka.
Fighting off the urge to just slink back into his bed and sleep until he would hopefully feel better, Ryland drifted back to the dormitory and towards the small compartment hatch off to the side of where the beds were. In the pursuit of trying to find clothes after waking—not that he necessarily minded the makeshift toga he had thrown together—Ryland discovered the small hatch that housed three tightly fitted, sealed-up duffel bags that held not only his, but his crew mates’ personal belongs.
That’s where the vodka came from.
But despite having gone through the bags of his crew mates, Ryland had made a purposeful choice to not touch his own. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to try and remember who he was, of course he wanted to do that, but when he had found the bags he had been far too emotional over the loss of Yao and Ilyukhina to even think of opening his own. So he never did, at least, not until now.
Unlike the bags that had been packed by the others, Ryland's was for some reason a lot smaller. Not quite in size, it was still the same standard size of his crew mate’s bags, but rather his was small because of a lack of content. When he had first discovered the three bags, his had been smushed between the other two and looked far thinner than its counterparts. Now, as he looked at it—poorly shoved back into the compartment it came from—he couldn’t help but wonder why that is.
Maybe he just wasn’t a sentimental person back on earth. Maybe he was one of those insane minimalists who refused to own a bunch of material things.
He thought about, but something in the hypothetical didn’t sit right with him. He didn’t feel like he was an unsentimental person, in fact he felt oddly confident that he was a sentimental person, like he was the kind of man to hang onto things when he was on Earth. So why would his bag be less packed than Yao or Ilyukhina’s?
The only way to find out would be to open it up, so that’s what he did.
The bag came out with ease when Ryland pulled it from the compartment. The lessened gravity surely helped, making everything within the bag weigh next to nothing so it felt more as if he were just pulling air from between the two other kits as opposed to a whole other bag.
He set it onto the floor, crouching down beside it as he stared at the small patch in the bottom corner labeled ‘Grace’. He doesn’t remember packing the bag, but how could he when he barely even remembered his own name when he first woke up? Absently, he ran the pad of his thumb over the patch, the letters of his name sticking out more than anything.
Ryland Grace, interstellar astronaut.
Something in his subconscious twisted at the thought but he blamed the feeling on whatever was left of his hangover.
The bag unzipped easily, the flap taking longer than it probably should have to fall but at this point Ryland couldn’t bring himself to care too much. At 1.5g’s, everything still felt slightly off, he just embraced the fact that he’d have to get used to it.
The first thing he noticed in the bag was the small stack of neatly folded T-shirts. The one on top was a washed out blue with a glimpse of the periodic table that was no doubt printed onto the fabric in its original manufacturing. Something about it brought the smallest hint of a smile to his lips. He couldn’t explain why, but he just knew this was something he’d worn multiple times before. Ryland pulled it out and held it up before him, letting the shirt fall open to reveal the whole design and the punny phrase printed beneath the table saying, ‘I wear this shirt periodically’.
He knows it’s stupid, but he laughed.
Setting it aside, he began digging through the bag. He found an earth colored hacky sack that fit snug in the palm of his hand, a pair of gold wired glasses that immediately cleared up the fuzziness of all the items closest to him, a series of hand drawn pictures and cards that looked as if a child drew them, and a Polaroid of himself wearing a lab coat in what looked to be some big open warehouse.
But then, as he continued in his slow dissection of his personal bag, Ryland’s hand hit something surprisingly hard. Tucked between two of the many science-themed T-shirts he must have refused to part with, was, evidently, a book. His brows furrowed together at the realization and he wasted no time prying apart the shirts to reveal the cover only to discover it was packed upside down.
It wasn’t necessarily an old copy, but it definitely wasn’t a new one either. The corners of the paper cover were crinkled, one even beginning to peel apart from what he assumed was either frequent use or potential movement in the bag. As he went to pick the book up to turn it around and see the cover a single slip fell from between its pages, drifting down onto the now disorganized stack of shirts in the bag. He set the book down and picked up the slip.
It was another Polaroid, only this one was older with a date written on the back. Fall, a couple of years ago (well, a couple of years relative to what must have been when Ryland was still on Earth). Flipping the Polaroid around he didn’t know what he was expecting but it surely wasn’t the face that smiled back at him in the photo.
This was a woman. A young, beautiful, and smiling woman who looked as if she had been caught unknowingly by the camera. She held a hand up before her, attempting to block the lens from seeing her but whoever took the photo was much faster and managed to capture the unguarded smile over her lips as she looked at them.
He knew her.
He doesn't know how he knows her or what her name even is, but he's entirely confident that he knows that face.
With the gnawing feeling growing in his gut, Ryland set the Polaroid down and turned his attention back to the book. He flipped it around and stared at the cover.
Frankenstein.
Huh.
Was he a fan of Mary Shelley? That didn't sound right in his head but he couldn't completely rule it out because why else would there be a beat up copy of Frankenstein in his bag?
It had been a long day.
Ryland had been forced to get to the school far earlier than usual to prep for a lab that he had wanted to do with the kids for weeks. But instead of actually setting up the lab, he ended up spending most of his time re-arranging the desks in his room to make space for the lab.
Then, during his planning period, Ryland spent the whole time grading the most recent round of quizzes, which wasn't necessarily awful by any means he was just tired from having to play tetris with his classroom that morning. After school, he then had to stay behind longer than usual to attend a faculty meeting for the upcoming science fair which naturally he was going to be one of the judges of.
That part he didn't mind, he always loved when the science fair came around. But by six o'clock, Ryland couldn't deny how exhausted he was as he climbed onto his bike and began heading home.
His legs felt like jello as he climbed the stairs of his apartment building, sluggishly placing one foot in front of the other until he somehow made it to his front door. The mere idea of being able to lie down was enough to bring tears to his eyes.
After a minute or so of trying to place his keys, he finally pulled them out and unlocked the door. He ungraciously shuffled into the apartment, his keys still dangling in the door lock as he shimmied off his shoes and pushed them off to the side with his foot. He was barely able to pull his keys from the door before his senses were wholly consumed by the scent of Mexican food.
His mouth watered at the smell.
Ryland rounded the corner of the hallway and peeked into the open space of the living room, his exhaustion temporarily being replaced with a sudden wave hunger that reminded him it had been hours since his lunch. Gazing into the open space, he found exactly what he thought he would find.
Laid out across his small coffee table was an array of strategically arranged take-out boxes from the nearby Mexican restaurant. One side of the table was organized with what he assumed to be his order and the other was organized with his girlfriends. The latter of whom was stretched out on the sofa reading with her back pressed against the arm and three other books scattered at her feet.
At the sound of him shuffling into the room, she glanced up from the book, her eyes creasing at the ends as she flashed Ryland a warm smile. She pushed herself slightly upright, letting the book in her hands fall open against her stomach as she turned her attention to him.
"You look tired."
He snorted, "I’m not that tired."
“You’re a horrible liar.”
He was.
“Well, are you at least hungry? I stopped by that place you really like down the street after I got off work and went ahead and got us a couple of tacos since—oomph"
Whatever was to come next in her explanation died the second Rylands body weight found itself slumped atop of her. His feet dangled awkwardly off the other arm of the couch and the three books at her feet were digging into his calves, but he couldn’t be bothered all that much to care. Thankfully, however, she had been quick enough to pick up the book draped over her stomach and hold it up into the air to avoid it being smushed beneath Rylands head.
He made a muffled noise that shifted into one of protest when he felt her beginning to move beneath him. For a second he thought she was moving to get up, something that at that moment he was extraordinarily opposed too, but then he realized pretty quickly she was just repositioning herself to accommodate for the sudden added weight of his body being draped over hers.
"I take it you're not hungry?"
He made another muffled noise of dissent because as hungry as he might have been, Ryland had no desire to get up just yet.
“I’m just going to assume that means no.”
It took a tiny bit of trial and error, but after a couple of failed attempts Ryland felt her move her arms around until she ultimately came to a comfortable enough position to continue reading.
For a while it was quiet.
Until it started to get too quiet and Ryland grew antsy.
"Whadder-ouu-eadding?" It wasn’t intentional that his words came out both muffled and slurred, but it wasn't really all his fault. He was tired and she was far too comfortable to lay on.
Above him, Ryland could already see the look that she gave him. The scrunched up, half confused and half amused look that she gave whenever he said something she didn't understand. Like when he says a science joke or throws in a fun fact in their conversations that nobody but him would understand or find funny.
"What was that?"
He can hear the grin in her voice.
Ryland shifted a little, keeping his eyes comfortably shut but making it easier for him to talk by slightly changing how he was lying.
"What are you reading?" He repeated, this time giving the words time to come out slower and far more understandable.
“Frankenstein.”
“Oh!” He pushed himself up onto his elbows with a sort of renewed excitement. “One of my kids is reading that!”
Her eyes widened a little at his sudden surge of energy. She hummed in response as she watched his eyes light up from behind the frames of his glasses, another smile breaking out over her lips.
“Yeah! They pulled it out of their book-bag after they finished with the lab early. I think they said it was for their English class when I asked but it made me think of you because, well it’s a book and you love books, and this was one of those books that everyone reads or at least I think they do—”
He obviously wasn’t aware of it, but Ryland had started to ramble. Somewhere though, between his recollection and his endearingly chaotic stream of consciousness, he finally realized what was happening.
A flush of heat began to crawl up his neck and to his ears as an embarrassed grin weakly stretched over his lips. It would have been apologetic if it weren’t for how sheepish it actually was.
“You didn’t ask about any of that did you?” He tried to laugh it off but that somehow only made the heat across his neck grow hotter.
In front of him, nothing but pure amusement was etched across her features. At his question she couldn’t help the laugh that escaped her though as she shook her head, “No, I didn’t.”
But before he could let his head fall in an attempt to hide the ebbing blush that was threatening to cover his cheeks, she continued.
“But I’ll never not listen to what goes on in that strange mind of yours, Ryland Grace.”
He would have said something back about how his brain wasn’t strange at all, but the words died on his tongue at the sight of her. Looking at him in a way that made his thoughts short circuit and his face heat up. With a groan he let his head fall forward, his forehead pressed back against her sternum as he silently and simultaneously cursed and thanked whatever powers were out there that he was lucky enough to have her around.
She laughed, bringing her free hand up to run through ends of his hair as he grumbled out a poorly formed reply that turned to gibberish in the air.
“Whatever you say.”
His cheeks were wet.
Ryland blinked a couple of times, squeezing his eyes shut harder than was probably necessary as a small stream of tears fell viciously down his face. He wasn't sure when he had started to cry but he felt as if he couldn’t stop.
So that's why the book was in his bag.
He absently reached forward, picking up the Polaroid from where he had set it down on his thigh. Looking at it now, the pit in Rylands gut twisted harder. He not only knew the woman in the photograph but he actually missed her, a lot.
Ryland stared at the picture until his vision blurred and he could no longer hold back the hiccups in his throat.
He wasn't sure which hurt most, the knowledge that somewhere back on earth there was a woman who loved him or the fact that even with her Polaroid in his hands and her face staring back at his, he couldn’t for the life of him remember her name.
I have given no permission for my writing or work to be posted anywhere else other than this account. I hope you enjoyed. <3
Science of a Bookworm | Ryland Grace | 0.8k | Headcanon
Summary: What it’s like when Ryland Grace starts crushing on the woman who always seems to be reading at his local coffee shop
Things to note prior to proceeding: This is so self-indulgent it’s not even funny, but this definitely doesn’t apply just to me! So for all the girlies (again, this is incredibly self indulgent so it’s written with a women reader in mind, I apologize) who fell in love with Grace and don’t understand anything about physics, this is for us. Also, as with everything else, this is wholly third person <3
He starts hoping he’d see her every time he walks into the coffee shop.
At first he told himself he just liked the coffee there (denial) and that the staff was nice (they were).
But then he started looking forward to going every weekend, and not because of the coffee.
He keeps telling himself one of these days he’s going to muster enough courage to approach her.
It’s not like it’s hard. All he really has to do is just go: “What are you reading?” or “Your sweater is really pretty!” and then hopefully start a conversation from there.
How hard is that?
Apparently it’s a lot harder than he thinks because every time he does see her when he walks into the shop on a random Saturday or Sunday, every morsel of confidence and courage leave his body.
What is he thinking? The woman is drop dead gorgeous and wrapped up in her book. There’s no way he can approach her, he’d just end up spewing out gibberish and look like a fool.
So instead he just begins to take notice.
He notices that she’s been reading the same book for weeks now and that she always buys the same drink.
He notices that she always tends to sit in the same spot in front of the window if someone else isn’t there first.
He notices that she’s doesn’t use a bookmark but instead carries around little sticky tabs that she puts in the book. He catches her writing in them sometimes too.
After about a month of this, some power at be must have taken pity on him because he finally got to speak to her.
He didn’t plan on speaking to her when he woke up that day, it sort of just happened.
It was one of those days where he had to run a bunch of errands he hadn’t had time to get around too earlier in the week so he was somewhat in a rush.
But he still made time to go and get a coffee, hoping to maybe at least get to see her.
When he came in, the shop was packed. There were people at every table, the baristas were running around behind the counter and somewhere in the building a coffee machine was making a high pitched screaming noise.
He didn’t see her when his eyes skimmed across the room, but he very well could have missed her in the crowd.
That didn’t stop his shoulders from slumping a little though.
He shuffled forward in the line, mentally running through his imaginary to-do list for the day, trying not to forget anything as he was spacing out looking at his shoes.
He was far too caught up in his head to realize that people had started lining up behind him until there was a loud thud against the floor and a book went sliding up next to his foot.
The person behind him must have dropped it.
So without much thinking, Ryland bent down to pick it up and hand it back to its owner.
Only halfway down, he recognized the cover.
It was her. It had to be. Unless someone else was reading the exact same book she had been reading for two weeks, which was always a possibility, but something in Ryland's gut told him it was her.
To make matters worse (at least in Ryland's head), when he grabbed ahold of the book she did too.
He told himself not to panic when he felt her hand brush his. And to his credit, he did a pretty okay job at staying calm. It was just the blush already crawling up his neck and brushing his ears that gave him away.
When he turned to hand the book to her he nearly choked.
She was gorgeous. So much more gorgeous than he thought. If someone were to ask him right then and there if he was okay he was 99% certain all that would come out of him would be a squeak because she was so beautiful everything died on his tongue.
It was only when she reached forward to collect her book that Ryland came to and realized he had been standing there for a few seconds like an idiot.
She smiled and thanked him when he held out the paperback for her take.
And although Ryland doesn't believe in one, he thanked every power in the universe for giving him enough luck and quick thinking to not let this opportunity go to waste.
So he smiled, brushed off her thanks with a flustered "it's no problem!" and then offered to buy her a cup of coffee if she'd let him with his fingers crossed she’d say yes. Which she did.
After that, the only two things on Ryland’s to-do list of the day were: learn the name of the pretty girl he’d been crushing on for weeks and then go to the nearest bookstore the second he could.
Summary: Every time he shut his eyes he was met with the shadows of the God’s Eye. Even in memory he could feel the weight of the water colliding against him; submerging him, engulfing him, drowning him. Perhaps it would have been best he died in the waters, die a Targaryen Prince and not a prisoner.
Things to note prior to proceeding: This is again one of my excuses to indulge in my habit of character study, especially to help build my ability to find character’s voices, but in reality I really just wanted to write in the world of Westeros since HotD and GoT are my comfort shows (as obscure as that is). As usual, please read the tags before proceeding, and do enjoy the work!
It was said the Targaryens were closer to gods than they were to men; that dragon fire breathed within their veins, that power, however scarce it may be, would settle in their hands. They were conquerors; monarchs; a paragon for what it meant to be indomitable, to wield a power as ancient and impregnable as that of the blood of old Valyria. As it stood, the only force that could destroy the Targaryen’s was itself.
—
The waters of the Gods Eye were said to have bled red as the bodies of dragons sunk into its depths. A sky, stained by the flames of dragon fire, met the bloodied waters in a horrific refraction. From beneath the surface the lifeless eyes of an archaic beast stared beyond the ripples of crimson, watching as the waning sun turned its back on such a sanguinary scene. The poets would immortalise it, the politicians would scorn it, but no one would call it a victory, not even when the maimed body of Vhagar would grow to decay, rotting beneath the waters of the Gods Eye, or when the mutilated remains of Caraxes had crawled its way to shore, shrieking with blood filled lungs.
But a lack of victory was not always a guarantee of loss. From the bank of the Gods Eye, Daemon staggered his way from the depths, throat burning as he choked out the greenish water of the lake onto the blackened dirt that scarred the ground. Clad in armour burnt black with dragon fire, the Targaryen Prince could feel the weight of its steel weighing his every step down into the mud. Yet despite the pain of his ribs, the wounds that pulsed like fire beneath his skin, the Targaryen Prince was grinning. It was callous, triumphant in its vengeance, the grin that one would see when death was mercy not given to the one who searched for it.
From the waters behind him, Daemon dragged the weight of another in his grip, the metal slick in his gloved hand, the only foundation of his hold being the drenched fabric of a tunic beneath the steel. Strings of silver hair clung to the armour, the boy’s body limp with unconsciousness in Daemon’s hold, but it was not the defeat that brought the grin upon the Prince’s face, it was the glint of Dark Sister, the red stained blade piercing through the boy’s shoulder. A mistake made on Daemon’s part, he had been aiming for the boy’s other eye.
There was no noise beyond the huff of breath from Daemon as he further climbed the bank of the Lake, the sound of metal shuffling against metal with each laboured step, and the drag of Valeryian steel through the mud, cutting through roots and sediment. It was not until he was on steady ground that Daemon let his grasp on the boy grow slack, watching with a sadistic triumph as the armour collided with the earth, the blade stopping the boy from landing on his back or his chest, instead he lay at an awkward angle. Daemon brought his gloved hand to his face, wiping away soot, blood, and dirt that painted the skin, staring down at the boy with a sort of cruel gratification.
A son for a son; A Targaryen for a Targaryen he thought, his head tilting to the side as he watched the boy's chest rise with an erratic delay. He imagined Otto Hightower’s face when a raven, with its onyx wings and its pointed beak cawing at the strangers it fed its messages to, would come to the Red Keep, informing him of the death of Vhagar, of the death of Prince Aemond. From the floor the silver haired boy grew pale, the blade still taut in its position, torn through skin and muscle, but death was not a mercy Daemon was willing to give his nephew, but it was a lie he was willing to let the Hightowers believe.
Somewhere in the vastness of the bloodstained lake, the faded strip of leather sunk beneath the waters, lost beside the bodies of dragons.
—
The chain burrowed into the bone of his ankle, the grotesque angle it was clasped at only seemed to cause further discomfort with every step or movement Aemond made. He had attempted to fidget with the clasp when the doors were shut and Aemond was free to thrash and pull at the bonds as much as he pleased till he exhausted himself, but even then his efforts were utterly futile. There was no purpose in asking the guards either, when their rounds shifted and their positions altered every hour he could hear their muffled conversations through the door, scorning and ridiculing the imprisoned Prince for being so easily captured by his Uncle. Aemond did not doubt either that if he should ask they would not waste the opportunity to tighten the chains further.
A click echoed in the bare room, Aemonds attention flickering to the door as it began to peel itself open, one of the guards becoming visible through the doorway. For a moment Aemond caught his gaze, the chill distaste evident beneath the guards helm, eyes narrowed as if the Prince was an unfavored animal in a cage. The Maester shuffled in before the guard could glare at him any further, the old man regarding Aemond with a momentary nod (the extent, to which it appeared, was the most respect he could receive having been brought to Dragonstone as a prisoner rather than a Prince) before turning, placing a silver lined tray down on the nearest table, carrying only a single cup and a corked bottle. Without so much as a word spoken between them Aemond watched with a sardonic stoicism as the Maester uncapped the bottle, the faint scent of poppies filling the room.
‘It is a larger dose than is most commonly advised,’ The Maester informed, pouring the white liquid into the silver cup with a steady precision. Even then Aemond could not quite settle the spark of paranoia and doubt that came to him as he watched the man pour it into his cup, the analgesic not unfamiliar to him, yet, if Daemon or Rhaenyra had wanted him dead he would have been left to drown in the God's Eye, rotting alongside the corpse of his dragon. ‘But it will ease the brunt of the pain which is the desired effect.’
With his uninjured arm Aemond took the cup from the Maester as it was offered him, glancing down into its contents only to be met with the rippling reflection of himself, a broken and clouded visage, being able to make out the blackness swelling around his good eye. He could deny the drink, throw it to the floor and let the liquid seep into the cracks of the stone, give into the haunting idea of spite. But what would he gain from such an adolescent display? A momentary satisfaction of his anger? A fleeting sense of control? If he turned the Maester away now what was to say that he would return the next day to offer aid to the one-eyed Prince? Aemond may be resentful but he was not a fool, without the Milk of the Poppy or proper dressings of his wounds there was no guarantee he wouldn’t succumb to infection and pain.
He brought the cup to his lips, letting the contents of the drink trail down his throat, its taste as bitter and sharp as it had been every time before when the Milk of the Poppy was given to him. Its effects were equally as strong as they were instantaneous, the hollows of his cheeks growing numb as the cups' anaesthetic contents spread over the ache in his muscles and the pain that lingered deeper in his shoulder where Daemon’s blade had run through skin and tissue. It was near overwhelming all at once.
Despite himself the subtle wash of relief brought a breath from his lips, a tension he had yet to notice fading with each second that passed the further the anaesthetic worked its way over him. The Maester took the empty cup from him, shuffling the short distance back from Aemond and to the round table where the tray was set, returning the silver piece to its original place beside the corked bottle.
‘Given the condition of the wound, my Prince, it would be wise to continue with Milk of the Poppy for at least the fortnight whilst we monitor the injury.’ The Maester spoke, picking the tray back up as the guard, who Aemond had seen prior through the doorway, repositioned himself to hold the door open for the Maester.
Perhaps the silver haired prince would have said something in response were it not for the faint haze of fatigue that clouded him as the anaesthetic worked its way over him. The old man turned to Aemond for a moment, bowing his head slightly before straightening upright once more, and Aemond, in turn, said nothing at all. Then, as brief as he had come, the Maester disappeared beyond the threshold, leaving Aemond to stare once again at the wooden door as silence settled over the hollow room.
—
By the fifth night his shoulder had grown infected, the skin flushed to a sickening red whilst the muscles swelled, throbbing with every motion he made. The bandage that the Maester had initially wrapped over Aemond’s wound had all but soiled, stained with dried blood and pus, the stitches beneath rubbing against the cloth, pulling and tugging on the material. He was not ignorant to the nature of scars and injuries, he was familiar with when pain was meant to dwindle and when the flesh was meant to soothe, and he needed no word of a Maester to know that the state of his shoulder threatened him far more than he would like to admit.
It had been a bearable discomfort the first few nights but had grown to anguish the worse the wound became, sleep having already become a stranger to him had long since forsaken him much as he willed it not too. He had attempted to rest in the lightless hours, lying still on his back, searching for a faint inkling of comfort beyond the ache of his shoulder, the chain around his ankle, and the flush of heat from the night. He tried, silently asking the seven-faced god to at least allow him that respite, but no amount of prayer was able to give him what he wanted.
Every time he shut his eyes he was met with the shadows of the God’s Eye. Even in memory he could feel the weight of the water colliding against him; submerging him, engulfing him, drowning him. The stone ceiling above him morphed, rippling in the dark as it turned into the surface of the water, sunlight trembling as Aemond found himself sinking, the weight of Vhagar’s chains and ropes tangled in his feet dragging him deeper alongside the dying dragon. When he’d wake he’d find his breath hitched, trapped within his lungs as if he were sinking all over again.
He was fortunate then, that the guards beyond his door paid so little mind to him outside their mockery, which in passing days had since shifted from its scornful ridicule towards something far more closer to contempt and scathing. If they had been able to hear his breath after every nightmare, the way he’d force himself to stand and pace in the small clearing of the room, the soft echo of the chain trailing against stone, then they had chosen to ignore him. Or at least that is what he forced himself to believe. It was the same with the Maester, until the state where his infection yielded no ability to be disregarded, the old man had offered no comment to Aemond on his physical appearance, seemingly discounting the lack of sleep the prince was certain had become apparent beneath his eyes paired equally with the languid motion of his every movement.
When the infection grew worse and the Maester was forced to change his bandage, Aemond had become so lethargic he could only sit in silence as the man bent his arm, moving it in a way which would allow for the soiled bandage to be pried from his skin. He didn’t have to see the expression on the Maesters face to know that by the way his lips thinned and his brows creased, the wound had taken on an entirely more minatory appearance. Only then, in the stagnant heat of the cell with the Maester’s calloused hands pressing the newly torn cloth onto his skin—the bandage such a pristine white against him—that Aemond feared, for the first time since sinking beneath the water, that he would surely die within the next few days.
—
The note came on the eighth day.
The guard, a boy no younger than he, had been the one to step into the cell, the slip of parchment tucked between his forefinger and his thumb. At first he regarded the prince with a weary apprehension, his gaze frightful in the way it danced over him, residing nowhere and everywhere at once. Aemond imagined what he must look like; gaunt and pallid, his features hollowed from the shadows and sleepless nights, his shoulders maimed with the touch of infection. How detached he must be from the forbidding image of the prince he had been a mere week ago, that strange dissonance like a ripple in a reflection so distorted it had become a different person in its entirety.
The boy extended the note towards him, drawing a step closer to the Targaryen, yet his body reeled, his limbs caught in a stiff repulsion as the distance shortened. Aemond felt that if he were to make any sudden movements, lurch forward from where he was huddled against the wall, the chain around his ankle rattling with a near grievous viciousness, that the boy would startle and collapse backwards.
‘My prince.’ The title felt awkward, spoken with such a confused caution it made Aemond grimace which in turn brought the boys steps to a falter. He glanced to his feet, averting his eyes from the Targaryen, as he recoiled and extended his thumb over the parchment, fidgeting with it in desperation.
Aemond made no motion to take it even as it was held out to him. What worth was there to give a prisoner a note? What could not so simply just be said that it must be passed in writing?
Again the boy pressed on, perhaps aware now that it was a fruitless effort to try and coax Aemond to take the slip, so instead he only knelt. It was a stiff motion, ungraceful, the sound of metal greaves of the armour when it scrapped against the stone of the floor, the sound nothing beyond disconcerting and horrid. He watched, with a narrowed glare, as the creased note was left on the ground no more than a metre away from him. He expected the boy to stand and leave—the same kind of departure that comes with desperation for escape, hurried footsteps poorly shrouded by the attempt of dignitaries for the mere sake of preserving mutual emotion—but there was no move.
The boy’s lips parted, bated breath hitching somewhere in the back of his throat, still casting his gaze anywhere but at Aemond. A second passed before another and another, silence falling over them both, the parchment somehow tethering the entire moment, trapping the tension into a single breath. He saw the shift of the metal on the boys shoulders, something between a sigh and an inhale catching in the air before the boy stood, shuffling to his feet with the same awkwardness as when he had kneeled. Standing upright made him look no more a guard than a sheep in wolves clothing.
He turned, hurried and tactless, but it was not before the door was pulled open by the posted guard that the boy gave the prince one last, long look, muttering a forlorn phrase that left him in an inscrutable panic.
‘My deepest sympathies.’
The door shut and Aemond moved forward.
He had convinced himself that his movements were not urged by distress, that in his panic he had somehow remained composed even in the isolation of his cell with no one to see the crease of his brow and the frantic urgency at which he pried the note open. In the seconds before his eye found the shape of the first letter he thought of his mother; the curve of her frown, the way she had looked at him upon returning from Storm’s End, the sympathy of a mother and the horror of a Queen; his brother, the arrogant lines of his smirk, how they had so fiercely vanished once a part of him had been slaughtered a room away, the indents of the crown on his brow, the flesh that tightened and lingered due to dragonfire; then of his sister, sweet, strange Helaena who had no part in this war yet it shrouded her, plagued her, consumed her in her every breath. He wanted to see them again, as shattered as the illusion of family was.
The first five words bled through the parchment, staining his palm, mocking him.
She fell from her window.
Nausea seized him, the penmanship on the slip no longer legible beneath his gaze. Had the room always been this suffocating? The air left him, clawing from his lungs, tearing at the tissue in a desperate effort to leave, to forsake him once and for all. He made no sound nor motion to move, something having staked itself within him, burrowing between his ribs.
They found her body in the spikes.
Aemond’s vision tilted the longer he stared at the words before him. The room shrunk around him, eroded stone watching whilst the Targaryen prince paled, every feeling within his body numbed and motionless. If he moved he would be sick. The more he discerned the shape of the letters, the more the horrific string of one word to another, the more real the truth became.
We mourn for our Queen.
He thought of his sister, no more than nine in the walls of the library, candle light flickering by the books as Aemond, no more than eight, read in silence beside her. He thought of her at age eleven, sitting on the sands of Driftmark, a crab marching along her hands as she uttered words that made little sense to him, the beat of the sea washing along the shoreline, reaching for their feet, the only tether between them. Again at thirteen the day she was married to Aegon, and again the night she had watched her son die, and again days before he left for Harrenhal.
Then he thought of her impaled by the spikes of the Red Keep, her body descending from the high windows of the towers, the black veil wrapping around her face, her neck, her shoulders, her arms. From somewhere in his mind he heard the horrid split of flesh against wood, the spikes stained red as blood seeped into them. Had she fallen with her eyes to the ground? Or had she fallen with her back to the world, choosing, in a final moment of rebellion, to ignore its cries as it had so often done?
Aemond brought the parchment to the floor, pressing his palm to the stone, part of him withholding the fruitless hope that should he press hard enough the note would vanish and with it the death of his sister. Helaena who was the Light of the Realm, the Kind Queen, the Beloved, the Dreamer, now dead. How cruel it is that he should be the one so deserving of death yet be the one to live while his sister lay lifeless, gored on the spikes of the Red Keep.
He stood on legs that no longer felt his own, compelled to move by a force unrecognizable. She had not been killed, no, death had not greeted her in such a torturous way, instead she had chosen it and somehow that felt worse. Aemond paced, stalking to the nearest wall of the cell, the stone ragged beneath his fingertips, sharp enough to cut the fragile stain of his skin if he moved against it fast enough. He walked along the wall, his footsteps contorted into a distant taunt in his ears. Alive, alive, alive. Dead, dead, dead. His steps only grew faster.
From somewhere down the hall, where the guards turned to ascend stone steps and the shadows of Dragonstone were the only ones left to witness him, there came a crash and the Targaryen prince finally screamed.
I have given no permission for my writing or work to be posted anywhere else other than this account. I hope you enjoyed. <3
For the Mortal and Machine | Viktor | 1.1k | Blurb
Viktor, who, in his pursuit to uncover the secrets of what may lie beneath the metal plates of the Hexcore, disrupts the very equilibrium of the Arcane.
Things to note prior to proceeding: I have absolutely not the slightest of clues if this makes any sense at all, really I just opened a tab and forced myself to keep writing and here we are. I hope this is somewhat even remotely in the realm of his character.
Exposed; paled skin blooming a vicious red where the edge of the scalpel had torn through flesh and muscle, each individual vertebrae aching with the force of a discomforting stretch, lungs pressing against the hollowed bones of a weakened ribcage. Vulnerable; calloused fingers digging the cartilage of chipped nails into the plush of the palm, sunken eyes searching with a feverish desperation through the creased and folded papers on the desk, a dry lip drawn tight into a thinning line, chapped and blushing a violent pink where the skin threatened to crack. Alone; so completely and utterly alone.
Viktor did not resent the isolation brought upon him, nor did he find comfort in its hollow presence, instead he had grown somewhat accustomed to it. The desolation of the four-faced laboratory forced itself to become an inescapable familiarity, the quiet that had once been startling and foreign in the thrumming atmosphere of mechanical discovery and esoteric ambition, was now an instrument of focus not afforded before.
He uncovered in the silence a newfound means of potential, an opportunity to push beyond the limitations of physiological restriction, challenge the notions of scientific sanctity. No longer was anyone who could argue against a hypothesis or dissent to a proposal of experimentation. Now he simply could string out the calculations, weave together the prospects of potential and contrast it against the forces of reality. He could fail over and over and over again and spend however long it took until failure was nothing but a prospect of the past.
It was here in this desolate, haunting lab that the whispers of progress dripped itself into his desperate ears, pushing him further and further down its spiral. A moment longer before the desk, a second more to attune an equation, one step deeper into the labyrinth of something he would claw his way to discover.
Viktor set the metal blade against the cold surface of the desk, bloodied fingers staining the ridges of its handle. The wound stung, the opened nerves unwelcome against the still air of the lab, the muscles within his hand flexing with each drip of the liquid that seeped into the crevices of his palm. His skin itched, hand twitching with a subconscious longing for self-preservation, his fingers instinctively curling inward. It was with a principal force that he willed his muscles to straightened, splaying out his palm and fingers into a flat line, the sting of the stretched wound bitting at his nerves.
For science; for the taming of what has always remained so far out of reach, what has been intangible and arcane.
He let a breath fall from his lips, eyes fixated on the many faced machine that thrummed before him. Its metal plates shifting, clicking into place with a subdued agency, each form of movement accompanied only by a pulse of a cold, muted light. Viktor extended his arm out into the buzzing atmosphere of the core, his palm facing its dancing faces. Faint though it was, the vibrations that encased and coiled around his wrist as he ebbed closer and closer towards the machine were unmistakable. He could feel the buzzing air crawl its way around his forearm, tickling the skin like thousands of minuscule needles all placed onto it at once.
A splotch of red pulled itself from his hand, droplets of red drifting in the air like satellites. He watched with a curious eye as the dots gravitated towards the machine, floating in a slow and meticulous sequence. For a moment they were like stars, a moving constellation of red, outlining vague and unrecognizable shapes in the buzzing air, before they were drawn into a singular line. The metal faces of the core flashed, the specks of red beginning to vibrate as the proximity between them began to wane. They trembled, losing their circular shape as each dot began to bleed into the one behind it, uniform it the way they formed a single line. Then, in the moment it would take to blink, the liquid vanished, sucked into the heart of the machine with a gluttonous voracity.
The reaction was immediate: each of its metal faces jerking with a harrowing uniformity, the buzz of the air growing sharper, what had once pricked at him now pressed with a newfound cruelty into the pale barrier of his body. He drew his shoulder back, attempting to yank his hand away from the machine in an effort of retreat. The open wound of his hand began to burn against the light of the machine. Panic then seized him when he felt the buzzing air lock onto his forearm, his body lurching forward when the core grasped onto the scrunched fabric at his elbow, tugging his body closer. Viktor could feel it pull the blood from his body, coaxing it from beneath the flesh and muscle of his hand.
It spun, breathing with every spark of pain that shot through his body, each runic face trembling as they shifted in and out of place. He bit back the noise within his throat, his lungs withholding any sound or breath as panic gave way to desperation. Its pull grew harsher, tugging at the bone inside his hand, ripping away his skin in search of red and white. Around him the lab grew dark, shadows contorting in the corners behind pillars and beneath desks and equipment. The starless light of the night no longer fell into the room through the window, instead all sources of sight came from the twitching pulse of the core’s glow. It danced between shades of purple and blue, sparks of white garnering black dots in his vision.
Everything buzzed, tilting between horizontal and vertical, spinning as the atmosphere of the machine grew, clawing up his arm until he could it feel it from every limb. His hands, his arms, his neck, his back, his hip, his feet; it was consuming, swallowing him whole. He could feel the weight of its hold against him, the impaling pierce of the needle-like air puncturing into the weakening muscles of his limbs, its low resounding hum pounding itself against the walls of his skull.
The core gave another feral jerk, its mechanical form trembling as it grew unstable, the metal faces colliding and crashing against one another as they began to fall onto the hard surface of the desk. That was when Viktor could feel his eyes roll back, all sound in the room vanishing as a single reverberating shriek splintered through the lab, and all he could do was pray helplessly that he would wake up eventually.
I have given no permission for my writing or work to be posted anywhere else other than this account. I hope you enjoyed. <3
To Snakes and Stone | Ominis Gaunt | 3.4k | Part I | Part II
Summary: In which Ominis is persuaded to open the Scriptorium for his closest friend and in doing so is faced with the horrors of his childhood.
Things to note prior to proceeding: As said in the first part, this is meant to be a short series, and is an x reader fanfic, however that is more a subplot. This part deals with Ominis’ family, so there are darker elements to it. Read the tags and enjoy the piece!
If he had thought each previous room had felt stifling or laced with an unknown threat of unknown discomfort, then this corridor was death. It did not choke nor weigh itself upon him as the others had, instead it felt as if he had stepped into an abysmal emptiness. There was no presence of discomfort or any touch of cold against his skin. He was surrounded by nothing, a barren and apathetic space with no atmosphere to determine what it was that stood either meter or a kilometer before him. There was a torpid and pungent stench that drifted in the still air, scorching his sense and rendering it nearly impossible to discern where the source of its grotesque cause was located.
‘Lumos.’
The three split apart, Sebastian surging unabashed and impudent forward towards the end of the corridor, his wand outstretched. The girl moved swiftly behind him, although Ominis noted the slight drag of her boot on the stone floor. That left only him to linger behind, absent in the way he shifted from one foot to the other, listening half-heartedly to the mutterings of Sebastian and the girls commentary.
He tried to place the smell, not knowing if its identification could possibly aid them in uncovering an answer for some other unknown obstacle or if it would warn them of a threat best left undisturbed. It was too forceful to be any potion he had encountered in Sharp’s class, the decaying bite of it in the air told him it couldn’t have been any creature from his textbook either. There were no plants he was aware of that Professor Garlick had taught that mirrored such a bitter scent as the one that stained the corridor air.
‘Great, another dark, ominous corridor to walk through.’
There was a pause before he heard the girl huff, no doubt rolling her eyes at the freckled boys antics.
‘You never give up, do you?’
‘Come on! That was a good one.’
‘It felt a little desperate.’
He could hear the smile in her voice.
‘You just don’t understand the art of humor like I do.’
‘Oh, it’s an art is it?’
‘Do either of you smell that?’ Ominis’ brows scrunched together, the conversation halting as both eyes fell back to him.
‘I assumed it came with the scenery.’
At this Ominis gave an unamused glare, garnering a defensive ‘what?’ from Sebastian. He only shook his head, turning in what he presumed to be the direction the girl had descended towards, hoping she at the very least would provide some assurance it was not just him being bothered by the rancid stench. But her assurance never came, instead she took in a sharp breath, something that immediately caught Ominis’ attention, her footsteps dragging to a stop. Before he was able to question anything she spoke.
‘Oh god, is that—’
The final words of her sentence were crushed beneath the ripple of noise, the floor trembling as it had before. By the time any of them had turned their attention to the source or made any hurried motion to draw their wands and throw any charm or spell at it in a fruitless desperation, the open doorway had vanished, leaving only the flat, granite wall behind in its wake. The corridor grew suffocatingly small.
A string of curses slipped beneath Ominis’ breath, the words all falling flat in the still air. Any previous thought of the stench or of the reasoning behind opening the scriptorium all but vanished in the face of their waning escape. ‘We should’ve expected that.’ He muttered, running a bitter hand through his hair, his voice echoing alone in the room. He paced before the wall, making a sound between a sigh and a hiss, ‘Fuck! I knew we shouldn’t have come here. I never should have let you convince me to open the door, now we’re all going to die in here.’
‘We won’t be the first.’ It had been a quiet response, half-muttered and half-spoken by Sebastian but it had caught the blond’s ear regardless. Ominis would have remarked with something critical and disproving of the freckled boys ability to jest even in the worst of circumstances, but there was nothing factitious about Sebastian’s voice. Instead, the familiar edge of impishness was all but absent, replaced by an uncharacteristic severity.
‘What are talking about?’
‘There are bones in here,’ Her voice carried a morbidness he hadn’t heard from her before, her footsteps drifting farther to the right until they stopped again. A tremor tugging at the edges of her words, ‘human bones.’
An acrid taste formed on his tongue, the hollow shuffle of bones moving over the stone floor telling him she had moved closer, tapping the decayed cartilage with the toe of her boot. It was the stench of death that had been the smell permeating the still and damp air of the room; not any potion, plant, or creature from his books or classes as he let his naivety incline him to believe. The lingering odor of decayed, rotting flesh peeling off its bone, the muscle deteriorating, mold breathing to life between the floor and blackened body. How long had it sat there, the tissue of the body long since dried, putrescent and festering in a pile of its own decomposition? Was this their fate? Trapped in the doorless corridor of the scriptorium, withering away beneath the floors of their school and forced to become an omen of death to the next unfortunate and arrogant soul who would wander into the room as they had.
Ominis took a step forward, intending to cross the small distance dividing him from the other two, when a crack splintered beneath his foot. The hollowed sound shattered his resolve, and for a horrifying second he had imagined it had been the rotted bone of an arm or leg beneath his shoe, but the noise had been too sharp to be something that large. Instead, it had been more like a twig, frail and thin. Possessed by something he could not describe or name, he craned down, bending his knees towards his chest and reaching for what now lie in two pieces on the floor.
The moment the pad of his pointer and middle finger found the wooden twist of what had broken, all thought of his own death perishing. He had felt the wood before, its intricate curve as the two limbs melded and danced in a thinning spiral. He knew it without seeing it; honey colored cypress like when sunlight seeps through the leaves and warm specks of the bare skin of his face or neck, firm in but not rigid, a single unicorn hair woven into the wood. It had been a wand that snapped in two beneath his foot.
It was his Aunt; her wand, her bones, her death, her failed efforts. The corridor suddenly felt too tight, the stench of the dead tripling in strength, pouring itself into his throat and filling his lungs. He wanted to stop breathing, to escape the air of the room, to stop taking fragments of her death into him with every inhale and exhale from his nose or lips.
He pressed his thumb into the side of the wand, tracing the curve. Perhaps he had always known, somewhere deep within his consciousness where the shame and guilt of his own actions eroded at his hopefulness, like waves colliding against the cliffside and stripping parts of it from its home with each draw and crash of the salt water against the land. The rational part of him that knew no amount of hope could resurrect the past or resolve the aching cavity of feeling abandoned, forsaken when he scarcely even knew what the words meant. She had chosen to prove their family wrong and even as a child, even now in the depths of his mind and body, he had known that she would sooner be dead than be any closer to achieving such an impossible feat.
‘Ominis, what is it? Did you find something?’
He drew back at her questions, her softened tone, her proximity that he could feel shrinking with each fall echo of her voice. His knuckles turned white around the fragments of the broken wand.
‘It’s nothing.’ He pushed himself to his feet, tucking the pieces of the broken wand into his pocket beneath the fabric of his school robe. His hand lingered, but he was quick to force himself to straighten, glaring into the dark space ahead of him where he imagined her to be.
The girl retreated, forcing out a sigh at the brusqueness of his response, ‘I know this isn’t what we imagined would happen but—‘
‘No, it isn’t.’
‘—but, we’ll figure a way out.’
There was a bite to her tone that he couldn’t ignore if he tried.
‘And what do you propose to do then if you’re so optimistic about our circumstances? Blast each wall and see which one crumbles?’
‘No.’
Both heads turned to Sebastian. The one whom, in the time from when the wall restored itself shut and during the discovery of the bones, had taken it upon himself to be the first to cross the full length of the corridor to its opposing end. It was there, in the flickering light of his wand, that he found their only means of escape.
Situated within the far wall of the corridor was a mirror, its arching frame sculpted to resembled what appeared to be witches and wizards holding one another up. The lower Sebastian looked the more crumpled and agonized the carvings became, their arms and legs bent at obscure and unnatural angles, their bodies crushed and caving into their chests beneath the weight of all those held above them. Each chiseled face, however, was marked with a look of contrasting pain; some, Sebastian saw, had squeezed their eyes shut whilst others had their stone teeth bared in a scream he swore he could hear faintly in the air. His reflection, he discovered quickly, was entirely perverted and distorted in a haze of black, his own features he failed to make out beyond the rippled silhouette staring back at him.
‘To get out Ominis has to cast the Cruciatus Curse.’
‘What?’
‘Have you gone mad?’
‘A mirror with anguished faces carved into the wall, the last door being opened by blood,’ The freckled boy stepped back from the mirror, his features set in place. ‘It makes sense that the next way through would be something more difficult.’
‘So you took difficult to mean casting an unforgivable?’ Ominis accused, the pieces of his Aunt’s wand growing heavier in his pocket the longer Sebastian spoke.
‘It makes sense.’
‘No, Sebastian, it really doesn’t.’
‘I think he might be right.’
Ominis was starting to think they had gone mad.
‘What?’ It came out as a hiss. ‘You’re agreeing with him?’
The girl’s feet moved to the right of him, her voice in a solemn agreement to Sebastian’s, the hollow echo of bones being brushed aside following her movement. ‘Whoever was here before us scratched the curse into the floor.’
‘See. They just have died because they had no one to cast it on.’
He shook his head, ‘No.’
‘Ominis I know this will be difficult but you cannot think being trapped here is any better than casting the curse again just this once—‘
‘There has to be another way!’
‘You and I both know there’s not.’ And even if he knew it was true, Ominis refused to accept that Sebastian may have been right. The brunette gripped his wand, ‘You’re the only one here who has experience casting it.’
Betrayal would be too easy a word to describe the sudden nausea and anger that sparked within Ominis at the words. The guilt ridden memory thrown back at him so easily, what was spoken in confidence now fractured by Sebastian’s quick exploitation. ‘I vowed to never use dark magic again. You, of all people, should know that.’
‘I do! But this one time would be different, you would be casting it on someone willing, there would be no victim.’
‘That’s not how it works!’ A spark he had long since choked back flashed in his mind, the weight of the curse on his tongue, how broken and strained the syllabus had been, each scraping from the depths of his scorched and torn throat. What it had been like to listen, the screams of someone he could not see nor know begging for him to kill them, to take away what he had done in place of something far worse. The guilt that burrowed in his heart, his pulse breaking into an untamed staccato, the fogged over weightlessness that came from feeling so nauseous that he had taunted the line between consciousness and oblivion. ‘To cast it you have to mean it. You have to want to cause pain and for that there will always be a victim.’
‘It’s either that or we die in here.’ Sebastian matched Ominis’ conviction, if only for the entirely opposing reasons. ‘I know there is something in that Scriptorium that can help Anne and I’m not above casting a spell or two to make sure we get it.’
The silence that filled the space between them stretched as neither were willing to surrender their position.
Ominis understood the desperation behind the words, wanting nothing more than to cure Anne of whatever had latched itself upon her, but it was reckless of Sebastian to place his tenacity over his morals. The rabbit hole of corruption that dark magic would bleed into his veins and the way it would erode at any sense of ethics that he may have had should he stepped too deep into its grasp, would consume him.
‘If you cast that curse,’ Ominis warned, enunciating the words sharper than he knew he needed. He knew that even if he took Sebastian’s wand from his hand and ran, any further argument he made to try and sway his mind would be utterly pointless. Sebastian had made his choice. ‘I will have no part in it.’
‘If that’s what you choose, fine.’ Sebastian turned, his voice now directed to the girl, a newfound staunchness wrapped within it. ‘It’s your choice then, either we cast it or we die.’
She was quiet, her breathing the only sound that revealed any sort of inclination she may have had. It was slow, steady in the way it often was when one was caught between their thoughts. He had hoped, even if it was wishful and arrogant, that perhaps she would have found reason in his argument and that, in consequence, she might be the one to sink reason into Sebastian.
‘We cast it.’ But hope was rarely ever realistic anyways. ‘I think you’re right, it might be our only way out.’
‘I’m glad we agree.’ Sebastian paused, ‘Do you want me to cast it or should you?’
‘You.’ Her answer came quicker than he’d expected.
‘Are you sure?’
‘You’ve studied the dark arts more than I have, even if it’s only ever been in theory. Out of the two of us you’re more likely to be able to perform the curse successfully on the first try.’
‘I’d take that as a compliment under any other circumstances.’
‘Then don’t take it as one.’
Their footsteps shifted.
‘Ready?’
‘Ready.’
‘Crucio!’
Suddenly he was twelve again, frozen. His mother’s nails puncturing the skin beneath his cotton shirt as she grasped at his bicep, forcing his trembling hand to still and his wand to direct itself to the body at his feet. Even if he could not see the red streaks in their eyes, or the line of crimson connecting their nose and mouth to the puddle growing beneath their cheek on the floor, or the unnatural angle at which its legs were now bent and the bone protruding beneath raw flesh from where they had thrashed too hard against tile, he could hear it. He could hear them twitch in the darkness, their breath nothing more than a choked rasp.
From somewhere behind him his father seethed, a wretched impatience morphing into something malicious, unwilling to sit idle in Ominis’ reluctance. His mother hissing another command into his ear, her grip tightening with each admonishment she threw at him, creating a constellation of bruised reds beneath his sleeve. He no longer remembered each of her castigates, each guiltless threat and unfeeling reproach that she had tried before his father pulled her away. He had thought, if only for an ignorant moment, that their disappointment in his inability to cast the curse would have meant they would turn to his brother. To their prized son who was all but eager to watch the red light crack in the air, moving from his wand to the unwilling body on the floor.
But when the curse spilled from the lips of his father it was Ominis at the end of the light.
When it hit him, it had drowned him, swallowing his every sense until there was nothing but noise clawing through his throat. It coursed through him, scorching the blood inside his veins, the cells in his body tearing and ripping themselves apart over and over and over again in a continuous and broken cycle. In his calves the bones shattered, breaking beneath a weight that failed to lift off him, his knees buckling, the cap covering the joint, shifting out of place as he hit the tile floor. The nerves in his body revealed themselves with every sensation, heightening whatever pain groped and impaled itself into him.
His nails which had been buried in his arms from where he had clutched to himself, were ripped from their beds, yanked from his skin. He felt his fingers dislocate one by one, his knuckles being thrust from their place in his hand leaving them aching and sore. Frost burned at his skin, the prickling of an incessant cold seeping into his flesh with a searing persistence, no part of him being left untouched. The drums within his ears ruptured, every sound, every bone popping in and out of place, every breath coming from his constricting lungs, every scream from his drying lips piercing his hearing with a newfound anguish. His ribs pressed into his caving lungs, squeezing the air from him until he was rasping, suffocating on oxygen that was no longer there. The tears that fell from his eyes were hot, boiling water poured onto his skin.
He had begged, pleaded to his father and to his mother that he would do anything, anything, if only they would make the pain stop. He couldn’t hear them when his father told him he had needed to know what it was like to be the body on the floor if he was so willing to let it live. That he was no better than it if he was going to give it the mercy of his hesitation. Nor did he hear the way his mother scorned him, watching on with a malignant obstinance at her youngest son weeping, crying for a grace that had never existed in his family.
A scream ripped its way through her throat, the thud of her knees striking the stone floor submerged somewhere deep beneath the echo of her scream and the sparks of the curse still burning in the air. He’d lost count of how long the curse had lasted, each of his sense overwhelmed with the harrowing flood of her screams, each one dancing off the four, cold walls.
‘That’s enough!’ He shouted, his wand pulling at his wrist with a sharper urgency than before. ‘Sebastian you’ve enough, stop!’
The crackling in the air faltered. The echo of the screams replaced with Ominis’ hurried steps forward and Sebastian’s unsteady breathing.
No words were spared when the mirror stirred, its blackened fog vanishing amidst the splintering of the glass, the surface transforming into a mosaic of colorless shards. The rippled reflection now a shattered replay of the curse spilling from Sebastian’s wand, sparks of red dancing between each broken shard. Her screams echoing from somewhere deep inside the mirror, playing over and over again with each octave shifting. Then, piece by piece they began to fall, descending towards the floor before evaporating into dust, revealing glimpses of the room that lay abandoned behind it.
No one moved.
I have given no permission for my writing to be uploaded anywhere beyond where I upload it, please do not copy or plagiarize this work. <3
To Snakes and Stone | Ominis Gaunt | 2.8k | Part I | Part II
Summary: In which Ominis is persuaded to open the Scriptorium for his closest friend and in doing so is faced with the horrors of his childhood.
Things to note prior to proceeding: this is meant to be a very short series. It is an x reader, however it is a slower romance and is more an exploration into the mind of Ominis. That being said, there is no distinction of the reader’s name, they are purely referred too as ‘the girl’ and ‘she/her’ to create an open and interpretive character in the story. Read the tags!
Water dripped from above, the melodic thrum of each droplet collapsing against the stone floor a reminder of the labyrinthine school above. There were classrooms, cabinets, tile floors and spiral staircases, students who were all but ignorant of the damp, barren halls hidden beneath their feet. Hogwarts, he knew, held many secrets in his walls but this had been one he’d hoped to never discover. It might have been easier for him if he were to let it remain a whisper amongst his family, a mystery better left unsolved no matter how much grief grasped at it. From somewhere in between the cracks of the carved out walls a draft drifted into the space, cold and unyielding in its frost kissed touch.
The farther they descended down this spiral of riddles and shifting stone the colder it became, the slow drop in temperature something that Ominis took a keen notice too. Unlike the common room of his house, this was a cold that pinched at his skin, a needle being poked in his skin in sporadic and uncontrolled speeds. Sometimes it would attack him at once, prickling the exposed skin of his neck causing him to flinch away from it. Other times it crawled over him at an unnoticeable pace, the volume of an orchestra growing in strength and in power until it drowns out all other sound and feeling in the room.
‘Over here,’ Sebastian’s voice strung itself in the air, drowned with the same curious excitement that led him to places Ominis preferred to keep distant from. The freckled boy wasn’t far but he surely wasn’t any closer than he had been prior, ‘I think I’ve found something.’
The cacophony of footsteps that followed Sebastians voice carried itself in the cold air, bouncing off the narrow walls and the distributing the small puddles that had formed in dents in the floor. The familiar pull of his wand enveloped his arm, faint yet forceful enough to direct and bring him to place a few steps away from where Sebastian stood. The trail of footsteps moved past Ominis, continuing on till the sound of them stopped on the other side of the boy. Though there was little change in the physical world around him, there was a discomforting heaviness to the new area, a pressure resting itself on his chest and weighing like lead over his sternum. It felt suffocating, tighter even. Ominis brought his hand to his side, the pulse of the pine-wood wand growing softer as it lay idle against within his hold.
Unlike the walls enclosing them into the chamber, this one resembled an arched stained-glass window, like the ones in the Great Hall only carved into the physical stone. There was no figurehead in the center nor portrait of a dark witch or wizard to free them, only a coiled snake sitting in on itself, watching with a lifeless scrutiny.
‘What is it?’
‘A wall.’
‘Very helpful, Sebastian.’
‘No, he’s serious,’ Her voice came in a sudden wave. It shared the curiosity that consumed Sebastian’s but within the limits of reason which he quite liked. Yet it was far more volatile than his or Sebastian’s: wind that would swell in anger and destroy even the soundest of structures, yet capable of embracing and breathing life even into the lifeless. Her voice grew clearer as he assumed she turned her gaze to him, ‘there are markings all over it. Ancient runes I think but I can’t be sure, and there’s also-.’
‘A snake.’ Sebastian interjected, kneeling down to run his palm against the stone-scales.
‘Yes, there’s also a snake.’
The brunet gave little regard to her glare, ’Do you suppose it’s another door?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘Ominis do you hear anything?’
All attention was then turned to the blond, an expectant and anticipatory weight coming over him at the question. His lips thinned out, a distasteful dryness filling his mouth. Harmless though the question was, there was no denying nor avoiding the bitter pit it stirred in his stomach. He could feel them watching him, waiting for him to become the bridge that was so sorely necessary to continue on their path. He hated it, truly, he did.
‘No. I don’t hear anything, why would I?’
‘It’s a snake statue.’
‘So?’
The response seemed enough to abandon Sebastian’s attention, the freckled boy turning back to the stone carvings with a reverberating hum. Thoughtful, albeit challenged.
‘Could a charm unlock it?’
‘Depends on the charm.’
‘An unlocking one?’
‘You need a lock to use an unlocking charm Sebastian.’
‘A revealing one then.’
‘I doubt Salazar Slytherin would have made it that easy.’ Ominis pointed, a frown painted over his features.
A breath of silence fell over them. No ideas spared, and any attempt at proposing another solution being dissolved before it even had a chance to be uttered. Any idea was quickly thrown and deemed too easy or too juvenile. Blasting the wall with an impact spell? A brute display of force that very well might bring down the ceiling with the wall. Attempting an opening or unlocking charm? There was little guarantee the wall truly was a door, and if so there were no latches or locks to cast upon.
‘Perhaps we’ve missed something.’ The heel of her boot dug mistakenly into the puddle beneath her, the reflection of dripping stone disrupted and distorted by her unknowing assault. Her once confident steps found a quick, desperate succession of lost balance. The body betraying its equilibrium while gravity grasped desperately at it, beckoning its violent descent to the floor. Her palm skittered over the wall, flesh opening against broken stone.
The hiss that followed her was not her own; not to Ominis. What had been a hiss of pain fleeing from her lips had morphed into one of a crueler pitch. It shook in the air, vibrating until it no longer resembled her voice but something deafening, serpentine, consuming him from every corner of the room. He could feel it moving beneath his fingers, thrumming deep within his ears, syllables woven together in a whistled breath.
‘Dirty.’ The sound drummed from somewhere within his bones, burrowing into the cartilage as it were part of him. ‘Filthy.’ The word was serrated in the air, sharper than any curse that could be uttered. ‘Tainted.’ Each syllable biting into him, piercing and blanketing all at once, a vicious embrace.
‘Bloody hell, are you all right?’
Everything grew quiet, Sebastian’s voice crushingly sharp in the absence of noise. Somewhere in front of Ominis another droplet of water fell from a crack between the ceiling, colliding against the toe of his shoe.
‘I’m fine, I just lost my balance.’
‘And cut open your hand.’
‘It’s not anything serious.’
A scoff left Sebastian, ‘Your definition of serious is far different than mine if that’s the case.’
‘Really it’s nothing—‘
‘It’s blood.’
Both eyed turned to him. Sebastian spoke first.
‘Yes Ominis, oddly enough that’s what’s underneath your skin when you get cut.’
‘No, you idiot; blood is the answer to the wall.’
‘What?’
‘How do you know?’
‘I heard it.’
‘So you did hear something! Honestly I’m hurt you’d lie to me Ominis.’
‘I was not. I only heard something when she cut her hand.’
The remark on Sebastian’s lip was quickly cut before he could even sound out the first syllable.
‘What did it say?’
The conviction in her voice stopped him.
The words, though cruel, were not his own, so why was it so difficult to repeat them? It was well known that Salazar was a blood purist, the answer very well should have been obvious the moment they came before the wall. Yet it felt discomforting, standing there, knowing the objective answer to their question but being unwilling and unable to translate it. How could he do it without feeling as if it were his thoughts and his words? He was, after all, a boy with centuries of cruelty and prejudice threaded into the marrow of his bones, opinions that had been passed from generation to generation that became the spoken truth the moment he learned to speak. Of the three of them standing in that cold, damp chamber it would be him who would come to these sort of answers and it stirred something rancid in his stomach.
‘Ominis?’
He failed to realize just how long he had been silent. In his hand his wand gave a small pulse, its faint pressure reminding him of the girl sitting in front of him.
‘If I’m right,’ He began, trepidation lining his words, ‘the wall is only accessed through blood.’
‘Should be simple enough, she’s already bleeding so we can just—‘
‘No. It doesn’t work like that.’
It came out harsher than he had intended, instinct and habit possessing his tongue as the remark spilled past any barrier of hesitancy. They were all incisive enough to know what he was saying, the truth lingering in the space between the words. He hadn’t any need to physically see them to know the slow fall of ignorance from their faces. How any form of Sebastians reckless curiosity or her own intrigue vanished beneath the stoicism of cold realization. Ominis sighed.
‘It has to be someone with pure blood.’
‘Someone like you.’
He attempted to shield the wince that overcame him at the sudden force of her voice, the way it wrapped around him and struck like a knife between his shoulder blades. Someone like him, who came from a line of “purified and noble” wizards, whose every breath came from an intricate tapestry of breeding.
‘Someone like me.’ He repeated back to her, something in his voice far more distant than it had been before.
Sebastian stood, his hand finding purchase on Ominis’ tense one, the touch startling yet not wholly unfamiliar. It was the one that Sebastian had often used when attempting to persuade the blond into some unruly excursion or to lighten the circumstance when he received a rather harrowing and cryptic letter from his parents. The hold firm, grounding, telling Ominis that there was someone there beyond the dark, yet light enough to be recoiled back at a moment’s notice. He could hear the glint of a dangerous smile in Sebastian’s voice.
‘Shouldn’t be too bad Ominis. At least now you can finally prove you’re one of a kind.’
Despite it all, he rolled his eyes, secretly grateful for the normalcy of the joke.
‘I’m already one of a kind.’
‘I’d save that attitude for the wall, let it speak for you.’
There was no faltering the slight etch of a curve on his lip at the conversation, a fleeting blanket of escape falling over him before being ripped away. Sebastian’s hand slipped off his shoulder, the faint clicks of feet ebbing their way back giving him enough of an incentive to know it was entirely left to him. Like the flicker of heat licking at the bare skin of an arm or leg from a flame, Ominis had the short instinct to refuse, to step back and turn on his heel, demanding they leave and never turn back. He’d shut the scriptorium door and return to his dormitory as if nothing had happened and the floors and walls of Hogwarts were just as they were before: familiar and well-known.
But then he thought of his Aunt. The warm memory of who she had been in his idolized and child-like mind. The soft melody of her voice as she described to him the color of the tree in the manor garden, the twisted branches of a nearby shrub, the way his own hair resembled the cold-light of the moon as it hung itself in the dark sky, shining despite all its darkness. How she had been the first person to find him, curled on the tile floor of the manor corridor, his skin still prickling with an invisible agony he couldn’t scratch away. The brush of her fingertips over his wrist as she pried his hands away from his body, palms and fingertips shaded a violent crimson from where he’d held his hands before him as the curse crackled and hurtled itself to him.
What it had felt like when she no longer appeared in the garden, how silent and colorless the world had become as the elm tree lost its leaves and the shrubs withered. Loneliness, he discovered in the cold halls of his home, was the one color she had failed to teach him.
Ominis brought the tip of his wand to his left palm, holding it just barely below his knuckle.
‘Diffindo.’ He whispered, the pine-wood of his wand cracking as the pressure morphed into something sharper. The pain grew more refined as he slid it against his hand, the feel of skin tearing from skin, peeling away layer after layer until the warmth of his blood began to seep from the cut and into the creases of his palm. His fingers curled inward, an inherent motion to staunch the bleeding even though it had been his own hand that had caused it. When the line had been drawn from one end of his hand to the other his wand withdrew its force, the sting morphing into something weightless and familiar.
His features settled into a dark resignation, the wall offering nothing but a frigid greeting to his approach. From somewhere deep within the stone a guttural sound pulled itself towards his hand, the press of his touch sparking a wave of noise that drummed in his ear. There came a hiss, coiling and spreading through air around him until he could feel it thrumming beneath his hand and feet. Then, as blood dripped and stained the stone of the wall, the chiseled scales under his fingers began to move. A sickening groan moved through the room as the once lifeless and graven snake crackled to life, stone scratching against stone with each coil of its body.
His hand long since retreated to his side by the time he stepped back, the room opening as the snake stretched its carved body. The floor trembled beneath them all, the arch of the wall splintering, concaving onto itself as it drew back, revealing the short, lightless corridor that lay behind it. The stone settled, a haunting quiet falling over the trio, the only sound remaining being the sporadic fall of blood dripping from Ominis’ hand.
‘I suppose the flair for dramatics is hereditary.’ Sebastian mused, warranting only a disgruntled groan from the blond and an even poorer effort of shielding her laugh behind a sound of disapproval from the girl.
‘Christ, Sebastian, don’t you have any semblance of etiquette in that thick head of yours?’
‘What? It’s not like I’m wrong.’
‘I make no comment.’ Ominis mumbled in turn, although his words always came off more enunciated even in a mumble.
He could hear Sebastian take a step forward, but before he could bring himself to follow suit he felt a tug at his sleeve. Something gentle but firm, his brows scrunching together as instinct brought him to turn towards what had grabbed at him. In a moment of muffled panic he had imagined it to be the snake statue, reaching out from its carved out frame and lurching towards him. But then he felt the warmth of skin pressing against his wrist, pulling his hand up from his side and out to the empty space in front of him.
There was a faint shifting of fabric, then the cold touch of wood against the damp center of his bloodied palm. He heard her voice, brought to a whisper with the movement of her wand. Where the cut had torn through his flesh, opening up the hot blood beneath it, there was now nothing but a numbing warmth, like when heat dances towards the skin of those sat before a fireplace. She let go of his hand.
‘There,’ Again he could hear the smile in her voice, the slight curve of the syllables, ‘Now we’ll have matching scars.’
‘It wasn’t deep enough to scar.’
Not that he would care if it had, it wouldn’t make much difference to him other than the feeling of it.
‘That’s not the point.’ The sound of fabric rustling came again as she tucked her wand into her pocket.
And before he had the chance to ask what her point truly was, she was gone, walking in a steady beat down the corridor where Sebastian’s voice grew starker with each step he took. Ominis ran a thumb over the healed skin, perfectly an incandescently smooth just as it had been. He took a breath, dropping both hands.
He dug into his pocket, pulling out the familiar shape of his wand, allowing its pull to wrap around his wrist and bring him forward, towards the shadowed hall. Ahead of him Sebastian and the girl moved in quick succession, their steps all at war with each other: Sebastian’s confident ones, the girls firm ones, and Ominis’ own.
I have given no permission for my writing to be uploaded anywhere beyond where I upload it, please do not copy or plagiarize this work. <3
