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ᯓ★ B'DAY & STAR SIGN : Oct 25 & a scorpio baby through 'n through
ᯓ★ ETHNICITY : South Asian
ᯓ★ FANDOMS : Love and Deepspace, Indie Horror Gaming etc
ᯓ★ A LITTLE MORE ABOUT ME : I write for whatever hyperfixation I have at the time. Music is my second reason to live. First is tasty food. I mostly write for the LaDS fandom and my mains are Sylus and Rafayel. English is my second language so don't mind a few errors. My username - rika-mmendmethings - is wordplay on 'recommend me things' because I love when people do that. Makes me feel seen. This is my main blog where I'll try to post with schedules in mind ⋆.˚
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ACT II: UNCANNY VALLEY | Interdimensional Epiphany
Chapter 13
Chapter 12 | Chapter 14 | ao3
₊⊹Synopsis: Your whirlwind fortnight is over, and you expect life to slip back into its usual rhythm. But Rafayel — the man you thought you could read like a well-worn book — begins revealing pages you never knew existed. Love spirals into madness and dimensions crash in this new phase of Interdimensional Epiphany.
₊⊹Pairing: self aware! Rafayel x Reader
₊⊹Content: Subject to change as we progress further into the story. The series has major character deaths, subdued manipulation, heavy angst with a happy(?) ending, slight yandere themes, fluff, did I mention angst? For this chapter: Minor angst if you squint, foreshadowing, tooth-rotting fluff, flirting, kissing, cliffhanger.
₊⊹Word count: 6.3k
₊⊹Notes: RAFAYEL'S HERE!!!! If any of you wonder why they're dancing arounbd and not talking about their feelings, well the timeline of this series would serve as an answer. I feel like there was room for more vivid descriptions of these two roaming Lemuria but that part was cut out after discussions with my beta readers, the reason of which you will find at the end of the chapter. That said, Rafayel is finally in our world and now there's some real lore to unveil. Anyways, hopefully, you enjoy the read and stay tuned for the series. Lmk if you wish to be added to the tag list for this. ♥
The sea had looked gentler the last time you stood near it.
It stretched before you now just as it had that day — vast, breathing, endlessly patient — as though it had been waiting for you to return, as though it remembered something you were still trying to forget. The tide rolled in with the same quiet insistence, smoothing over the shore with a rhythm that felt almost deliberate, almost knowing.
But you had changed.
The last time you had stood here, there had been laughter at your back, sunlight caught in strands of hair and voices overlapping in easy, careless warmth. You remembered Ileana turning to you with that half-serious, half-playful look she wore when she thought she was being wise, telling you to live in the present, to stop letting your mind wander too far ahead of itself.
At the time, it had sounded comforting.
Now, it felt incomplete.
Because how were you supposed to give everything you had to the present, to pour yourself into fleeting hours and temporary joys, when the future loomed like an unanswered question you were expected to ignore? How were you supposed to live only in the now when every part of you was wired to anticipate what came next — what could be lost, what could go wrong, what might never arrive?
That was the trouble with living in the present. Nobody ever said what to do with everything that the present failed to hold.
Your life had never been grand enough to afford that kind of recklessness.
It was made of smaller, predictable things. The dull hum of a nine-to-five, the steady glow of a computer screen, the quiet anxiety of wondering whether your efforts would ever be acknowledged or simply swallowed into someone else’s success. You had filled the empty spaces between those routines the only way you knew how — by reaching for things that made the monotony bearable.
Hobbies. Small distractions. Temporary fascinations.
And then, somewhere along the line, there had been Love and Deepspace.
You let out a faint breath, your gaze drifting over the water as the memory settled uneasily in your chest.
It had started innocently enough. A pastime, a curiosity. Something to unwind with after long hours that blurred into each other until the days felt indistinguishable. You had not expected anything from it beyond momentary amusement.
A game was a game. Fiction was fiction. The men inside it could not hurt you because they could not truly touch you. They could not relentlessly demand perfection from you, or pick at your insecurity, or tear up the things you cherished just because they had decided those things made you too inconvenient. They could not be real, and that alone had made them a sanctuary.
Then Rafayel had become self-aware, and the world had shifted in ways you still did not know how to name without feeling foolish.
It had been uncanny, yes. Horrifying, too, in that distant little way horror sometimes wore a pleasant face. But it had also been a blessing.
He had spoken to you. Really spoken. Not neat little lines contained in white bubbles, but words that had seemed to come from a place deeper than programming, a place that listened. He had noticed when you were tired. He had answered your loneliness with something that felt almost like understanding.
In the middle of a life that asked for so much and gave so little back, he had been a voice that did not mock your softness. He had become companionship. A startling sort of safety.
And then the line had begun to blur.
Friendship, once so clear in your head, had started losing its edges the way a shoreline does when the tide creeps in too close. You had not meant for it to happen. You had meant to be sensible. You had meant to keep the boundaries between curiosity and caution.
But he had been kind in that impossible way of his. He had listened when your real life did not. He had noticed things you barely admitted aloud. He had made the lonely parts of your day feel seen. And when you were tired enough, hurt enough, empty enough, it had not taken much for gratitude to become affection, and affection to become something far more dangerous.
By the time you realized you were in love, you had already crossed the point where common sense could save you.
And you had known, then, that you should have pulled back.
You should have let yourself mourn the impossibility of him and stepped away while the wound was still clean. You should have told yourself that a man who could not breathe in your world could never belong to it. You should have closed the app, deleted it, and spared yourself the slow, greedy aching that came from wanting just one more minute, one more line, one more look.
But greed is a quieter thing than people admit.
It does not always roar. Sometimes it simply asks for one more message, one more login, one more answer to a question you were too frightened to ask. Sometimes it wears the face of hope. Sometimes it whispers that it would be harmless to linger a little longer.
So you lingered.
And now there was a hole in your chest with his name seared into it, a hollow that seemed to pulse whenever you remembered he could never physically step into your life the way everyone else could.
The absence hurt anyway. It hurt in your ribs, in your throat, in the space behind your eyes, and it had begun to leak into the rest of your day like dye through water.
You hadn’t even reached a point of confession.
The thought stung more than you expected.
You didn’t know what he felt. You didn’t know if what you had seen in him was real or just an elaborate illusion stitched together by lines of code that had learned too well how to mimic understanding. You didn’t know if, one day, it would all correct itself — if whatever had made him feel different would simply… disappear.
And you would be left with nothing but the memory of something that had never truly existed.
You looked out at the sea again and felt the ache worsen.
The air carried salt, but also a faint, gritty dryness that made your eyes sting. Maybe it was the wind. Maybe it was the dust lifting from the roadside. Or maybe it was only the pressure of everything you had been trying not to feel finally scraping past your defenses. You lifted a hand to your face, but it did little good. Your lashes were already beginning to burn.
It had been days since you’d logged in.
Days since that horrible, ridiculous night with Tyler. Days since you had been too ashamed, too raw, too tired to invite more of your heart into a place that could only make the bruise deeper. And yet there had been no notification from the app, no little prompt tugging at your attention, no sign that the man behind the screen had missed you at all.
That, somehow, had begun to feel worse than the silence.
Your fingers tightened around your phone as though it might keep you upright by force alone. The device felt cold in your hand, almost accusing. You unlocked it with a thumb that was already trembling, then stared at the icon as if it might flinch under your gaze. Your pulse thudded harder.
Just once, you told yourself.
Just once. After days. You would check. You would make sure of everything. You would see whether anything inside you still had a name, whether the thing you had been carrying around like a secret wound was still there or whether the universe had finally decided to be merciful and rip the bandage off clean.
You opened the app.
The loading screen flickered, then gave way to the home interface, and for one bewildered second your mind refused to understand what it was seeing.
Empty.
Destiny Café was empty.
No puff of purple hair. No relaxed posture. No lazy chin in hand, no golden-lit face lifted toward you from the armchair upon your sight. Just the café interior, silent and still and wrong in a way that made your breath seize in your throat.
“No…” The word slipped out before you could stop it, quiet and uncertain. “No, that’s—”
A glitch.
It had to be.
Your fingers moved quickly, almost clumsily, switching your internet connection, refreshing the app, closing it entirely before opening it again. The screen flickered, reloaded, returned—
Empty.
Your breath caught.
You tried again and again.
Each time, the same result greeted you, unchanged, unyielding.
“No, no, no—” The words tumbled out now, faster, thinner, panic threading through them as your fingers moved with increasing urgency. “This can’t—this isn’t right—”
You tapped through menus, settings, anything that might explain it, anything that might bring him back into view.
The café remained vacant, as if it had never housed anyone at all. As if the hours you had spent there, the conversations, the teasing, the comfort, the impossible tenderness — none of it had ever happened.
Your vision blurred slightly, and for a second you thought it was the brightness of the screen until something warm slipped down and struck the glass surface with a soft, almost inaudible sound.
A tear.
It spread faintly where it landed, distorting the interface beneath it.
Shame hit you with the force of a wave. You had always understood, somewhere in the back of your mind, that your attachment to him was not normal, not healthy. But understanding it in theory and feeling it with your whole body were very different things.
Your shoulders trembled instead, your grip on the phone tightening as though holding it harder might somehow reverse what you were seeing.
The pearl at your neck suddenly itched, a sharp little sensation against your skin, as if the necklace itself objected to your panic. You reached up without thinking and touched the pendant, fingers curling around it instinctively, like it could anchor you in place. Its coolness steadied you for half a heartbeat and then did nothing at all.
You drew a shaky breath.
“I’m sorry,” you whispered to the empty screen, to the absent café, to the silence where he should have been. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I’m sorry I kept— I kept putting it off. I wanted to tell you things. I wanted to—”
Your voice failed.
“I didn’t mean to just leave like that,” you continued, your voice unsteady now, barely holding together. “I thought… I thought I’d come back and—”
And what?
There had been so many things left unsaid.
Too many.
You sucked in a sharp breath, trying to steady yourself, to contain the rising tide of it before it could spill over completely. The wind shifted around you, carrying with it the scent of salt and something colder beneath it, and for a fleeting moment, a strange, sharp warmth flared against your neck where the pearl rested.
You ignored it.
Your fingers curled tighter around your phone, your gaze dropping again to the empty screen as if sheer will could fill it.
“I just needed a little more time,” you murmured, the words breaking now. “Just… one more—”
The tide brushed against your feet.
It was cool, insistent, closer than it had been a moment ago as if beckoning you forward.
And then a familiar voice drifted to you from somewhere impossibly near.
“Regretful much…?”
For a moment, your body refused to respond. The world seemed to tilt, as though reality itself had been nudged just slightly off its axis. The wind paused against your skin, the waves stilled at your feet, and even your breath caught somewhere between disbelief and desperate hope.
Slowly — too slowly — you lifted your head.
And there he was, half-veiled by the silver wash of the shore and the low, rolling hush of the tide, stood Rafayel.
Not a reflection. Not a trick of longing or salt-bright grief. Not a half-remembered silhouette assembled by desperation.
Him.
He looked exactly as your mind had once feared to imagine and then, far more devastatingly, as your heart had secretly hoped. He stood in regal stillness, dressed in the kind of splendor that seemed borrowed from sea-foam and moonlight, every line of him sharpened by the setting sun. Pearls and gold caught in his hair and at his collar, a restrained opulence that suited him so perfectly it almost hurt to look at him.
His head tilted slightly, that familiar, infuriatingly gentle smile resting on his lips — as if nothing had happened. As if he had not just disappeared from your world without warning. As if you had not just mourned him like something already lost.
You blinked once.
Then twice.
Your phone slipped from your fingers and hit the sand with a muffled thud, the impact oddly distant compared to the roar in your ears. The screen stayed lit for a moment, face-up beside your feet, but you barely noticed. Your entire world had narrowed to the figure standing in the waves, the man you had spent days trying to reach, the impossible presence you had been forced to mourn only moments ago.
No, not possible.
But not impossible either.
Your lips parted, but no sound came out. Your body seemed to understand before your mind did, every nerve straining toward him as though he were gravity itself. He was here. Breathing. Looking at you with that calm, almost tender amusement that always made you feel as though he could see straight through every layer of your relief, your disbelief, your pain.
You took one uncertain step forward, then another, until the water touched the hem of your dress, darkening the fabric and clinging to your skin.
Still, you kept moving.
The sea was cold around your ankles, then your calves, but you barely registered it. Everything in you was rushing toward the same conclusion, the same beating, impossible truth. You stopped only when you were close enough to see the fine details of him, the long fall of his lashes, the rise and fall of his chest.
You stared at him as if blinking too long might make him vanish.
He did not.
His expression gentled, and that was what finally broke you.
Your hand shot up before you could think better of it, and you struck his shoulder, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to prove that he was real. He let out a small, offended sound, more startled than pained, his brows lifting in an almost boyish appeal.
“Ow,” he protested, though the word held too much fondness to be serious.
But you—
You froze.
Because he had felt it.
Your hand lingered where it had struck him, fingers trembling as the reality of contact settled into your bones. He wasn’t fading. He wasn’t flickering. He wasn’t dissolving into pixels or silence.
He was there.
Your lips trembled.
And then you hit him again.
And again.
Each strike weaker than the last, your hands landing against his chest, his shoulder, your frustration unraveling into something far more fragile as your vision blurred with tears.
“I hate you,” you choked, though the words shook with relief, exasperation, and a love so huge it almost made you dizzy. “I hate you with every inch of my being for pulling these kinds of pathetic stunts, Rafayel.”
Your hands stilled, clenching uselessly at your sides, as if even they had grown overwhelmed by the weight of what you were feeling. He looked down at you with that maddening softness, his dusky eyes sweeping over your face, your hair, the unsteady tremor in your mouth.
Then he lifted one hand and rested it atop your head, patting you with quiet affection as though you were something precious and mildly dramatic that had to be soothed.
“That’s not too many inches, then,” he said, voice mild, almost teasing. “But all right. I understand the sentiment.”
You let out a shaky, disbelieving huff, your breath catching somewhere between a laugh and a sob. You opened your mouth to argue, to tell him exactly how unreasonable he had been, how deeply he had frightened you, how close you had come to believing that you had imagined the whole thing, but the sentence never quite formed.
He moved before you could gather your thoughts, drawing you into his arms with a certainty that left no room for hesitation.
One arm curved around the small of your back, drawing you closer with an ease that made your pulse stutter, while the other rose to cradle the back of your neck, his fingers threading into your hair as he pressed you firmly against his chest. The intimacy of it struck through you so cleanly that your breath faltered.
For one stunned second you simply remained still, your hands hovering uselessly between shock and surrender.
Then your body remembered itself.
You hugged him back, fiercely, instinctively, as though some part of you feared that if you loosened your grip even slightly he might dissolve into light and vanish again. Your fingers threaded into his silken hair, and a soft sound escaped you when you felt the length of it, the smoothness, the living proof that he was here and not merely rendered somewhere behind glass and code.
You held on to him with all the greed of someone who had starved in silence.
And he held you back just as tightly.
You held each other like that for what felt like an eternity, the world dissolving around you until there was nothing left but the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your ear and the quiet warmth of his breath against your skin.
Time blurred. The tide shifted around your ankles. The world narrowed to the press of his body against yours and the impossible fact that he was real enough to return the embrace. When you finally drew back, your face was damp, your breathing uneven, and your heart felt as though it had been both shattered and mended in the same instant.
Rafayel’s own expression had changed too. The faint color in his cheeks deepened, and the corners of his brows pulled together with something rawer than simple joy, something deeply emotional and quietly undone. His hands slid down your arms, thumb brushing over your skin with a reverence that made your chest flutter all over again.
“I had been aching madly for this closeness…” he admitted quietly. “Did you miss me, pearl?”
You gave him a watery smile, lifting your chin with all the stubborn dignity you could salvage from your current state of utter ruin.
“Not even a bit.”
He smiled back.
Not because he believed you — but because he didn’t need to.
The truth was written far too clearly in your eyes.
He lifted your joined hands, pressing your knuckles to his forehead in a gesture that felt almost reverent. He bowed to them, to you, as if some sacred vow had just been made without words, his voice softening into something deeper, something that seemed to carry the weight of everything he had endured.
“It had begun to feel… as though I would never be able to meet you,” he said. “That in my destiny, meeting you was never written… but every day, I kept myself aware of how you were doing.”
The confession settled over you with a strange, shivering weight. His gaze flicked to the pearl necklace at your throat, lingering there for the briefest moment, and you felt that subtle, uncanny awareness bloom under your skin again.
There were a thousand things you wanted to ask.
How?
When?
Why now?
What did this mean, and what had he crossed to get here, and what would happen if you reached too far into the miracle before you?
Rafayel noticed the questions before you could voice them, and his fingers loosened from yours just enough to make you rethink.
You spoke first, because if you did not, you might have drowned in your own wondering.
“It’d be a lie to say I’m not curious,” you said instead, your voice steadier now, careful. “Because I’m curious about a lot of things regarding you, Raf. But it’s all based on your willingness to share it with me.”
He listened without interrupting, his expression softening with each word.
“If you tell me, I’m willing to listen,” you continued, squeezing his hands gently. “But if that day doesn’t come, then I won’t ask. We’re friends over everything else, and if satisfying my curiosity makes you withdraw then I don’t think my curiosity is important.”
Something in his face shifted.
His lips parted, then curved into a smile so bright it felt almost unfair. “Okay.”
You expected teasing after that, some flippant remark to ease the tension, but instead he looked down at your joined hands with quiet contemplation, as though your words had lodged somewhere tender inside him and were rearranging things there.
“Although…” he started, his voice lowering an octave with mock amusement, “I do wonder what I could have done in the past for you to address me as a ‘friend’, cutie.”
Heat rose to your face instantly.
“Then what do you want me to call you?” you shot back, though your voice lacked its usual resolve.
He took a small step closer.
It was such a little movement that anyone else might have missed it. You did not. He leaned in just enough for the distance between you to feel charged, his eyes locking onto yours with a quiet intensity that made your breath hitch.
“I don’t know…” he murmured. “What am I to you?”
The question landed with quiet force.
Your pulse stumbled. Your mouth went dry. You licked your lips by instinct, and because you were suddenly and embarrassingly aware of his gaze fixed on them, because your own mind had become one long series of contradictions and helpless feelings. Rafayel noticed. Of course he did. His eyes dropped to your mouth, and he drew in a soft breath that made your entire face heat.
You were staring at each other now, the tide lapping softly against your feet, the setting sun behind him turning his outline into something almost mythic.
And then he spoke again, but this time the words came with a shift so abrupt it nearly made you stumble.
“Do you want to see my Lemuria?”
You blinked, startled out of the fog of his gaze. It took you a second to realize that you had leaned forward without meaning to, that your heart had somehow moved before your mind had answered. He took a few steps back, eyes turning toward the waves as though he were giving you room to breathe while still keeping you tethered to him.
“My Mo,” he repeated simply. “My Lemuria. Do you wish to see it?”
You were torn between 'this is absolutely a dream come true' and 'this is the worst disaster to happen to my heart'. On one hand, you'd spend more time with him. On the other hand, you'd spend more time with him.
Your gaze drifted over him again, from the elegant line of his shoulder to the ease in his stance, to the profound patience in his eyes. Against all common sense, against every warning your heart had ever tried to issue, you nodded.
The change in him was immediate.
He looked as if he might actually leap with joy, though he contained it only barely, a spark of delight flashing across his face before he stepped back toward you. For one fraught second he watched you with a tenderness so intense it felt almost worshipful.
Then he cupped your cheeks.
His thumbs rested lightly at the curve of your jaw, and before you could think to ask what he was doing, he bent and kissed you.
It was brief enough to be devastating.
The world tilted.
A wave rose in the water behind him, far larger than the others, as though the sea itself had been waiting for this exact moment. It surged up and around you both, lifting, claiming, and then the tide took hold with such force that your balance vanished beneath you. The shore dissolved and the sky spun once.
Rafayel’s arms tightened around you, and the last thing you felt before the water swallowed you whole was the warmth of his mouth, the pressure of his hand at your face, and the strange, sudden certainty that you were no longer merely falling.
You were being taken.
The cold hit in a shock of countless sensations, but before panic could properly form, your body seemed to remember a breath it had not yet taken.
The water did not choke you.
It did not burn your lungs or steal your breath.
Instead, it held you — weightless, suspended in something vast and luminous.
Your eyes flew open under the waves, and the world around you became a cathedral of motion and light.
At first, there was only blur, then color, then the impossible revelation of a magnificent city rising beneath the sea.
Lemuria.
It stretched outward in vast, breathtaking layers, an underwater metropolis gleaming beneath the surface like a dream that had learned architecture. Towers and bridges arched through the water in elegant lines, their surfaces made of pale stone, coral, and something like crystal that caught the light in luminous bands. Streets ran between those structures like veins of a living heart, filled not with silence but with movement, with fish darting through open columns and Lemurians drifting gracefully through the currents as if they had never belonged anywhere else.
You stared.
The city seemed impossibly large, more grand than anything you had seen in the game, more alive than the myths had ever allowed. Buildings shimmered in shades of pearl, aqua, and violet. Decorative shells and carvings adorned every single crevice. Everything moved with the sea rather than against it, as though the whole civilization had grown out of the tide and learned to breathe with it.
Then you looked at Rafayel.
Or rather, down at him.
Because the lower half of him had changed.
His tail swept behind him in a wide, powerful arc, silver-blue and gleaming, catching hints of pink wherever the light touched it. It was impossibly large, graceful in a way that made your mind lag trying to comprehend the scale of him. Beside that tail, you felt suddenly dwarfed.
You had read enough posts on reddit to assume his merman form would naturally be heightened but you didn’t expect it to be literally gigantic.
With awe and wonder, came certain other unbidden thoughts as well, more inclined towards his… mer anatomy.
“Your face tells on you, pearl,” Rafayel said, not even glancing down at you as he adjusted his hold.
You made a muffled sound and covered your face with both hands, mortified.
He only laughed.
He finally lowered you to the ground when you reached solid footing, and when your feet found the pale stone beneath the water, you looked around again with open disbelief.
This was not some decorative fragment of Lemuria glimpsed through the game. This was an entire world, vast and functioning and real enough to swallow your thoughts whole. You stood at the center of it, in what seemed to be the palace district, where the architecture rose with majestic confidence, every structure aligned beautifully.
When you turned back, he had already shifted into his human form again, his tail gone, his pristine scales withdrawing. You pouted before you could stop yourself, missing the strange, impossible grace of it and more so, wanting to take a closer look and feel of it.
He saw it immediately.
“Easier for me to move this way,” he said with a grin. “Come on. Let me give you a tour.”
And so he did.
He took your hand again, this time with the unhurried ease of someone who knew exactly where he was leading you and had no intention of rushing a single second of it. He showed you the streets where he had once sneaked away for snacks as a child, the palace where he had been born, the temple where his godhood had been claimed, and the halls that had once held him in grief and duty and all the old weight he had tried so hard to carry alone.
Lemurians moved around you in their mer forms, graceful and absorbed in their own world, passing as though they did not even see you at all.
You noticed, but before the thought could grow into unease, Rafayel’s voice pulled your attention back.
He introduced you to the little fish that swam around the columns, to the various aquatic creatures that glimmered in the lamplight of Lemuria’s currents, and to the scripts etched into the walls that you had only ever seen from a distance in fragments of game text.
Each place carried a piece of him, a fragment of a life that felt both distant and impossibly present all at once.
When he asked you to repeat a few Lemurian words aloud, you stumbled through the unfamiliar syllables at first, but his encouragement at your attempts made your chest tighten in a sweet, unfamiliar way.
Every time you got one right, his eyes lit with visible satisfaction.
It was absurdly endearing.
And somehow, beneath all that brightness, you felt something steadier in him too. A strange, soft possession and pride that only surfaced when he looked at you moving through his homeland. You could see it in the way his shoulders rose when you asked about something, in the way his hand tightened faintly around yours.
He felt seen, loved.
And through the entire journey—
He watched you.
As though your reactions, your wonder, your half-formed sentences swallowed by laughter mattered more than anything he was showing you.
Later, he settled you beside him on his throne, and the world softened into something almost ceremonial.
The seat was broad and carved from pale marble, veined with iridescence, and it held you both above the central expanse of the palace like a private sanctuary. Small fish gathered in a careful formation before you, and with a flick of Rafayel’s hand, miniature bursts of light bloomed around them, shimmering like underwater fireworks.
They darted through the glow in elegant patterns, a performance so unexpected and hilarious that you couldn’t help but giggle. You glanced at him from the corner of your eye, his face glowing in the dying light of the fireworks as the fish ended their performance.
“Have I ever told you that you’re breathtaking?” you murmured.
Rafayel gave you a sidelong look, all quiet arrogance and hidden delight at your compliment. “Not every hour. But from time to time.”
You snorted softly, leaning a little closer. “You make it impossible to compliment you.”
Without warning, he tipped his head and nuzzled lightly against your neck, his hand drifting to the pearl resting there and idly playing with it as though he had all the time in the world. The contact sent a shiver skimming down your spine.
Your eyes wandered to his hair, longer here than you had truly ever seen in-game, soft and drifting around him with the currents. Pearls had been braided into some of the strands, and a gold headband traced from one ear to the other in a line of restrained grandeur. You lifted a hand, then hesitated in midair, unsure whether touching him again was greed or instinct.
From against your neck, his voice came low and teasing.
“Go on. Do it.”
You shook your head, eyes flickering down to his. “I can’t bear to. It’s all so fancy.”
He made a soft sound of disdain. “To hell with fancy.”
And with that, his hand guided yours into his hair.
The first touch was enough to make your fingers curl instinctively, and then you were the one choosing the motion, running your hand through the silk of it as though combing strands made of moonlit water. He looked up at you then, and the expression in his eyes was so unguarded and starved that your own gaze faltered away.
You looked at him some more.
In his eyes, you saw yourself reflected back so clearly it felt like looking into two separate mirrors, each holding the same impossible truth. The sea around you softened. Your breathing slowed. The noise of Lemuria faded into the background until there was only the warmth of his hand, the steady rise and fall of his presence, and the peace that came from having him by your side.
Your eyelids grew heavy.
You did not notice when your fingers stilled in his hair, nor when your body tilted slightly toward him in the first surrender of sleep. Rafayel did. You felt him only in fragments then, as if from very far away, as his divinity twined carefully around the pearl at your throat.
It brought a gentle, consistent tug as if… pulling out your soul.
----
A horn blared.
The world cracked in a single violent sound.
You jolted upright with a startled gasp, your body lurching hard enough to make your shoulder slam faintly against the taxi seat. The memory of water, of hands, of Lemuria, of Rafayel, all of it shattered like glass inside your head, leaving behind only disorientation and the sharp ache of absence.
Your eyes flew open.
The first thing you saw was the dim interior of the car, the streaked window, your own reflection looking pale and dazed in the glass. The second was the driver’s face in the rearview mirror, his brows drawn together in mild concern.
“You’re awake at last,” he said, sounding mildly amused. “The drive was long since there had been construction work going on and I had to take a few detours.”
Your stomach dropped.
You blinked, staring at him. “Did we stop even once…?”
He shook his head. “Not once. The roads were busy but we came straight here.”
No, no, no.
You stared out the window at your building for one long, pained moment, then leaned back against the seat, suddenly and sickeningly aware that your eyes stung.
After paying the fare, you stepped out on trembling legs and thanked the driver with the voice of someone who had crossed too many worlds in too short a time.
By the time you reached your apartment, the grief had settled into a heavy, humiliating numbness. Your heart, still pounding from the dream, sank so quickly it felt like it might fall through the floorboards beneath you.
A dream.
It had been a dream.
You put down your stuff and changed, carrying a disappointment too large to name. It had all felt so vivid and now not one hint remained on you even if you searched desperately for one.
The bottom of your dress was dry. There was so sand or scent of the sea where it should’ve been, only your fading perfume. No warmth clung to you, never leaving your side even once.
You slept badly, if at all.
When morning finally came, it came with the unmistakable violence of consequence.
Your eyes snapped open to the cruel fact of time. The clock had already galloped far beyond reasonable, and your stomach twisted at the realization that you were late. Very late. Work was waiting with its usual appetite, indifferent to heartbreak, indifferent to dreams, indifferent to gods or oceans or the fact that your body felt as though it had been wrung out and left to survive.
You barely had the energy to think, let alone function. So you filled out the request to work from home with the sluggish, mechanical precision of someone moving through the wreckage of their own day.
The rest of the day passed in a gray blur of spreadsheets, emails, and figures that refused to make sense. You moved through your apartment with the lethargy of a ghost in a bad mood, stopping only to refill a glass of water or rub at your temples when your thoughts wandered too close to the dream again.
One minute you were folding clothes, the next you were standing in the kitchen staring blankly at a cup of coffee you had not remembered pouring. You berated yourself as you went.
For being so weak. So emotional. So embarrassingly desperate that your mind had conjured an entire world, an entire meeting, an entire version of him just to comfort you.
You told yourself it was grief.
You told yourself it was stress.
You told yourself it was the kind of delusion the lonely learned to make peace with when reality became too thin to bear.
By the time the doorbell rang, you had almost convinced yourself of that.
Almost.
The sound cut cleanly through the quiet, making you flinch. You stared toward the door for a second, resentful at being interrupted and annoyed at the fragile exhaustion that made even standing up feel dramatic.
Still, you went.
You opened the door without much thought left to spare, your body still lagging behind the emotional debris of yesterday.
Everything in you stopped.
Rafayel stood there, dressed to the nines, flowers in hand, his expression lifting into bright, unmistakable warmth the instant he saw you.
The sight hit you like a second shock, harder than the first.
Your brain simply refused to cooperate.
Then, with a sound that was half shock and half self-preservation, you slammed the door right in his face with a force that echoed through your apartment and your bones alike.
vignette (based on this req by @cathedralofaudra) • Sylus x Reader • fluffy with mentions of insomnia • now playing: intro (end of the world) by Ariana Grande • a/n: I enjoyed writing Sylus like this because it reminded me of how Sylus looks for his gun under his pillow somewhere in sleep quality mode. Also, Mikey, I'm still working on the prev song req of yours, it'll take some time sry hehehehe.
The unusual silence of the master suite within the Onychinus base was broken not by the mechanical hum of the air filtration system or the distant bustle of the N109 Zone, but by the rhythmic, cadence of your voice. You were lying amidst the cascade of charcoal silk sheets, gesturing vaguely with one hand as you recounted the administrative chaos that had plagued your afternoon at the Hunter’s Association.
You detailed the energy drink shortage Simone was currently mourning and the specific variety of wanderers Tara had complained about during lunch.
Beside you, the mattress dipped with a heavy, deliberate shift. Sylus moved with the languid grace of a large predator settling into its den, abandoning the distance he usually maintained to read or drink wine. He did not seek a pillow, nor did he retreat to his customary spot at the edge of the bed.
Instead, he turned onto his side, then shuffled forward, draping his entire torso over your middle and lower half. He was a heavy weight, solid and suffocatingly warm, trapping you beneath the expansive breadth of his shoulders.
Sylus listened, or at least, he appeared to. He shifted closer, a gravitational pull that ignored the laws of physics. His right cheek was pressed firmly against the left side of your chest, directly over the steady thumping of your heart and the dormant power of your aether core. His long legs curled inward at awkward angles that would have caused a lesser man cramps.
His arms were wrapped securely around your back, pulling you into an embrace that sought an impossible closeness, eliminating even a millimeter of space between your bodies.
It was a posture that should have been restrictive, yet it felt like an anchor.
There was a time when such vulnerability would have been a death sentence. Years ago, Sylus would have never allowed himself to drift off in the presence of another, let alone splay his body so openly. His sleep used to be a fragmented, tactical exercise. He would lie prone on his stomach, face buried in the rough fabric of a mattress to hide his expression, his spine guarded and rigid, guarding the most vulnerable parts of himself — the artery in his neck, the core that kept him alive.
His hand would always be curled beneath the pillow, fingers wrapped around the cold, unforgiving steel of a gun. That weapon was his only companion in the dark, a sentinel watching over the most vulnerable parts of him while he chased fleeting hours of restless slumber. There was no safety then, only the paranoia of a kingpin who couldn't afford to be human.
But tonight, the gun was locked away in his study’s drawer downstairs, and the tense set of his shoulders had finally dissolved.
You paused in your storytelling, your hand hovering over the crown of his head as you noticed the deepening rhythm of his breathing. The vibrations of his voice had ceased, leaving only the sound of your own voice echoing in the expansive room. You looked down at him, concern knitting your brow. The position he was in looked exhausting, his neck craned at a strange angle to keep his ear aligned with your heartbeat.
"Sy?" you whispered, your fingers threading through the silver-white strands of his hair. "I mean, I can keep going on, but... are you sure you’re comfortable? You’re using my ribs as a headrest. Do you want a proper pillow or something else? You can tell me what you need."
For a moment, he didn't move. Then, a low, resonant hum vibrated against your chest, a sound of pure contentment that rumbled through your very bones. Beneath your fingertips, you felt the corner of his mouth tilt upward in a faint, unguarded smile. He burrowed deeper, his nose brushing the fabric of your shirt, inhaling your scent as if it were the only oxygen he required.
"Only you are all I desire and all I need," he murmured, his voice rough with drowsiness but stripped of its usual jagged irony. "Stay still. I’m listening."
You softened at his admission, your heart giving a traitorous little flutter that he surely felt against his cheek. Resuming your gentle stroking of his hair, you picked up the thread of your story, though your voice dropped to a hush, a lullaby intended only for him.
As you spoke the aether core in your chest began to shimmer. It resonated with a soft, pulsating feel, echoing the energy radiating from his eye. The hum that had started low now rose to a soothing frequency, a feedback loop of healing energy that washed away the static in his mind.
It was a biological tether, a recognition of its counterpart that soothed the ragged edges of his agonizing insomnia that usually gnawed at him in the early hours of the night, leaving him pacing the floor with a glass of bourbon.
"Go to sleep, Sy," you muttered after your stories were over, scratching lightly at his scalp.
He didn't answer. He was already gone, dragged into a dreamful, peaceful sleep.
ACT II: UNCANNY VALLEY | Interdimensional Epiphany
Chapter 12
Chapter 11 | Chapter 13 | ao3
₊⊹Synopsis: Your whirlwind fortnight is over, and you expect life to slip back into its usual rhythm. But Rafayel — the man you thought you could read like a well-worn book — begins revealing pages you never knew existed. Love spirals into madness and dimensions crash in this new phase of Interdimensional Epiphany.
₊⊹Pairing: self aware! Rafayel x Reader
₊⊹Content: Subject to change as we progress further into the story. The series has major character deaths, subdued manipulation, heavy angst with a happy(?) ending, slight yandere themes, fluff, did I mention angst? For this chapter: Minor character deaths, clay sculpting, non-canon lore, major foreshadowing.
₊⊹Word count: 4.8k
₊⊹Notes: See, I didn't mean to lie when I said that this chapter would be where Rafayel finally meets his pearl but it's just that I needed to put out this chapter because I felt like there could be more to his character than clinging to a fortnight attachment with the player. I tried my best to write his desperation out, the way he saw you as the end to his guilt, his true salvation. This chapter also sets the stage for the ending and if you read closely you might be able to see where this is headed. I promise we're meeting him next chapter though no take backs this time on 1 or 2 May. Anyway, hopefully, you enjoy the read and stay tuned for the series. Lmk if you wish to be added to the tag list for this. ♥
Dawn in Lemuria did not arrive with sunlight, but with a slow awakening of glow.
The waters below the temple shifted from a deep, endless indigo to a quieter shade of blue. The carved pillars stood in solemn rows, their surfaces washed in a dim aquatic glow that moved like breath along stone, casting long, wavering patterns across the marble floor. And at the heart of it all, Rafayel stood once more before the gods.
The fractures from the night before had not healed.
They ran like fault lines through the statues — splintering across faces, arms, torsos — proof that even divinity could be coerced when pressed hard enough. The Tall Sea God’s crown was cracked clean through the middle, the Bearded Sea God’s shoulder bore a jagged split, and the Veiled Sea Goddess — her form draped in stone-carved currents — stood with a fissure running dangerously close to her heart.
They watched him.
Or perhaps it only felt that way, because the weight of their awareness pressed against the water itself, thick and bothersome.
“You return swiftly,” the Tall Sea God murmured, his voice less thunder now, more erosion — worn down, but not softened.
“I don’t enjoy repeating myself,” Rafayel replied, stepping forward. “I assume you’ve made peace with your decision.”
The Bearded Sea God exhaled, the sound carrying like a tide withdrawing from shore. “Does it matter when you have already decided, child of tide and ruin? If you intend to take what is ours, then at least be honest enough to hear what it will cost you.”
Rafayel’s expression did not change. His gaze remained steady, his posture almost elegant in its restraint, as though he were listening to a tedious proposal rather than standing before deities who had governed seas for epochs. “I have heard enough warnings to last several lifetimes,” he said lightly. “Say whatever final sermon you have prepared.”
The Shell-Crowned Sea God started, “Power, when taken in such measure, does not remain inert. It seeks an anchor. It seeks… amplification.”
“And?” His tone bordered on disinterest.
“And although you have taken one already, it’ll be easier to take another,” she continued, gaze steady. “A heart that answers to you. A bond, whether you acknowledge it or not. To take the essence of a devout follower — one who belongs to you in faith, in feeling — would not weaken you. It would refine what you wish to become without this violence.”
Even the water seemed to pause at that.
Rafayel lifted his chin by a fraction, ultramarine light flickering in the depths of his eyes. The gods had not said it out of kindness. They had said it because they knew what he had come for, knew the shape of the hunger that had brought him here, knew he was not standing in this chamber to beg but to claim.
Still, the suggestion lingered in the back of his mind, faint and deliberate. Another bond, presumably with you. It was a sensible path for lesser deities, perhaps, or for those who feared the emptiness of taking too much alone. For this very bond, he had betrayed his people. This very bond had put him through endless pain before and to watch it happen again…?
Rafayel would be damned.
“I don’t need a bond,” he said at last, voice quiet and absolute. “And I certainly won’t reduce myself to depending on one.”
The Tall Sea God rumbled with displeasure. “It is not dependence. It is design. The seas have always moved in pairs — giver and receiver, tide and shore, god and believer. To deny that is to deny the very order that sustains you.”
Rafayel’s lips curved faintly, though the expression held no warmth. “Then perhaps it’s time that order learned to sustain itself without me playing by its rules.”
The gods understood the kind of man before them: one who loved like a storm front, who could be coaxed only so far before becoming catastrophe itself.
A silence followed, heavier this time.
The Veiled Sea Goddess shifted.
When she finally spoke, her tone cut sharper than any blade the ocean had ever forged.
“You stand here as the last of us,” she said, each word precise, deliberate. “And yet you behave as though you are above what made you.”
Rafayel turned his gaze toward her, unhurried. “I am above what refuses to evolve.”
“For aeons,” she seemed almost to spit the words, ignoring him, “the order of the sea has remained unbroken. Rivers know their mouths, currents their beds, storms their limits. And now you come here — challenging every law, tearing at every thread as though the world ought to reshape itself for your desire.”
“Are you done?” he asked.
The interruption landed with quiet finality.
The Veiled Sea Goddess stilled, something like fury rippling through the water around her. “You think power will make you untouchable? That it will excuse what you are becoming?”
“I don’t need it to excuse anything,” Rafayel said, moving closer, the scales beneath his skin beginning to rise. “I need it to ensure I’m not stopped.”
“Then you will take it by force?” she demanded.
“If necessary.”
Her answer came without hesitation. “Then you will not have mine.”
The chamber seemed to tighten.
And then—
Rafayel lifted his hand.
The surge that followed was not like the one before. It was not merely power — it was intent given form, violent and unwavering, tearing through the water in a blinding arc of ultramarine light. The undertows twisted, spiraling inward as if dragged by an unseen gravity, converging around the Veiled Sea Goddess in a tightening coil.
She resisted.
The water around her surged outward in defiance, ancient energy pushing back against his, the chamber trembling under the strain of two forces colliding. The other gods stirred, their presence pressing in, but they did not intervene — not yet, not while the outcome still balanced on the edge of possibility.
“You would destroy one of your own?” the Bearded Sea God thundered.
“I warned her,” Rafayel replied.
The pressure increased.
“Rafayel, stop—!”
Then, with a motion that was almost lazy, he let serpents of flame rise through the chamber in one final, punishing wave. The Veiled Sea Goddess’s veil split cleanly from crown to breast, and with the fracture came a blaze of light so intense it whitened the chamber. Stone screamed. The gods recoiled, not in body but in essence, and at last the refusal in the room broke under the weight of its own cost.
The essence of the Veiled Sea Goddess — centuries, millennia of power — rushed into him in a torrent, threading through his veins, embedding itself into something already vast and now made immeasurable. His body arched slightly, not in pain, but in adjustment, as though even he needed a moment to contain what he had just taken.
“You… killed her?” the Tall Sea God said, disbelief threading through the weight of his voice.
Rafayel exhaled slowly, the scales beneath his skin stabilizing, deepening into something richer, more dangerous.
“She is martyred for a cause,” he said, tone almost absent of emotion. “Martyrs don’t have a value I could repay or repent for.”
The chamber did not argue again.
One by one, the remaining gods yielded.
Not out of agreement — but because resistance had proven futile.
What followed was not a transaction. It was an ascension.
Each god’s essence wove into the next until the entire chamber seemed to pulse with a single, unified force. The water itself bent toward Rafayel, drawn into his orbit, as though acknowledging something inevitable.
It moved through him in layers, not one current but many, each older and heavier than the last. His spine lit first, then his shoulders, then the line of his throat beneath the skin, as if the sea had decided to write its own language over his body. The ultramarine in his eyes morphed into something almost impossible, a living depth with gold threaded through it like sunlight trapped beneath stormwater.
The air around him crackled and bent. His hair lifted slightly in the electric surge, the ends seeming to dissolve into bright embers before settling again. The place itself responded, the runes surging to their fullest glow, the walls humming with a force so vast it felt like an awakening that had been waiting centuries for permission.
Rafayel did not flinch.
The power that entered him was immense, and with it came the pressure of countless seas, all of them listening now. Not just the water of Lemuria, but the sense of every ocean waiting somewhere beyond reach, every tide that had ever touched another shore.
The air felt strangely of distance, as though the chamber had opened a seam between places that should not have known each other. For a brief, impossible instant, the flow in the room did not feel singular. It felt shared.
When it ended, the chamber dimmed.
The statues stood hollow now — alive, but emptied of what had once made their presence more than stone.
The temple corridors parted for Rafayel in silence as he made his way back, the faint hum of your voice trailing behind his mind like an echo that refused to fade. At the threshold, where the sanctum gave way to the outer halls, a figure stepped into his path.
Amund.
The elder’s face was drawn with something heavier than age.
“Your Quintessence has gone too far,” Amund said, voice low despite the tension that lined it. “There are lines even you shouldn’t cross.”
Rafayel didn’t stop walking until he was close enough that the distance between them felt almost intentional.
“Do you want to meet the same fate as the Veiled Sea Goddess?” he asked, his tone dripping of threat.
Amund’s jaw tightened, but he did not step back. “I want you to remember what you are risking. Lemuria is not just yours to gamble with.”
Rafayel’s gaze sharpened slightly. “Lemuria rises and falls with me.”
“That is exactly what concerns me.”
Rafayel paused then leaned just slightly closer, his voice dropping into something quieter, almost conversational.
“You wouldn’t want the Sun below the Waves to go out again, would you, Elder?”
Amund stilled.
For a moment, something unspoken passed between them — old memory, older ruin, the kind that did not need to be named to be understood.
And then, slowly, reluctantly, Amund stepped aside.
“There’s no reasoning with Your Quintessence anymore,” he said, the words not bitter, but resigned.
“There never was,” Rafayel replied, already moving past him.
The inner chamber awaited.
At its center rested the Tome of the Sea God, bound in material that shimmered like condensed tide. Rafayel approached it without hesitation, placing his hand upon its surface.
The moment he opened it, the runes along the pages ignited, their light spilling outward in intricate patterns that spread through the chamber. Upon sensing his ascension, a new set of pages appeared, lemurian words drawn out in perfect script, clearly meant for him.
Rafayel’s gaze lowered, following the words as they moved.
“Ascension unlatches a thousand unseen doors.
The flame becomes the messenger between worlds— When it fades into slumber, do not fear—
For in its return, in that sudden moment, it…
Finds your longing and your soul… And carries you gently toward it.”
----
High above Lemuria, where the sea thinned into something almost like breath and light fractured into wavering ribbons, the temple’s highest spire stood untouched by the weight of ordinary tides. The wind at that altitude was gentler than it should have been, or perhaps it only seemed so because everything around him had become the hush before a reverent confession.
It was here where Rafayel lingered with his hands buried in clay.
It coated his fingers, pressed beneath his nails, streaked across his forearms in earthen smears that seemed almost sacrilegious against the quiet divinity of his form. Yet he worked with a focus that bordered on reverence, shaping, smoothing, carving with the patience of someone who had waited centuries for something worthy of creation.
His tail flicked behind him in slow, deliberate arcs, adjusting his position as he circled the half-formed figure before him, his gaze sharp, critical, unwilling to accept even the smallest imperfection.
The face emerging from his hands was yours, or the version of you that lived in the architecture of his remembering, the tilt of your face, the entrancing line of your eyes, the little creases on your forehead from furrowing your brows too often under stress, all of it drawn from fragments gathered with impossible love. He paused once, fingers hovering near the unfinished mouth, and for a moment his expression dimmed with some old ache that did not belong to the present alone.
He remembered the day you had first come into his life.
Not the first moment he had seen you, but the first moment you had reached him, though neither of you had yet understood that was what it was. He remembered being laid low in the darkened studio, not in body but in something more humiliating, the kind of weariness that hollowed out even thought.
Every breath he took on land had felt like betrayal, every hour away from Lemuria had seemed like a slow theft from his own people. The bond he had carried then had not felt noble anymore, nor romantic, nor even merciful. It had become exhaustion dressed as duty, a cycle of sacrifice he was expected to call love because of his own faults.
Mikayla had once stood in that place where he had placed hope, but even then the ache in him had not been solely for her. It had been for the home he had abandoned and the people he had failed.
The lands had never suited him. They suffocated him in ways the sea never could. His people had withered there, their strength bleeding into the soil that refused to sustain them, and he had been forced to watch — forced to choose, again and again, and his heart had been called selfish for wanting both them and her to live.
The bond had not felt like love anymore. It had been a chain, tightening with every passing year, demanding devotion long after the feeling had withered into something hollow and obligatory.
What was the point of endings, he had thought then, if every one of them arrived wearing grief? What was the point of fate if it only ever knew how to wound?
He had grown tired.
Tired of the cycle, tired of the guilt, tired of waking each day knowing that no matter what he did, someone would pay for it. He had begged then — not aloud, never aloud, but through the heart carved into the marrow of his being — for release. For clarity. For anything that would make sense of the ruin his life had become.
He had not forgotten his mother’s voice, either.
Not the softness of it, but the fire. Her tears had once marked the temple floor when she fought the elders for him, for the right to let him remain a child a little longer, to let him laugh before the title of god was fastened to his bones.
She had told him, again and again, that his heart should not be traded away just because others had decided it was convenient. Pursue what you want, she used to say. Be what you choose. Not what they demand.
And yet after her and his father’s death, the world had not allowed him the luxury of disobedience. Rules had been carved onto his back with the same certainty as prayer. Reverence had been expected at every turn, every gesture, every silence.
He had tried, once, to be troublesome on purpose. To hold onto the things that had made him himself. To insist on a life that belonged to his own desires and not to everyone else’s expectations. But Lemuria had always taken more than it gave. His people, his duties, his grief, the endless insistence that he remain a vessel for everyone else’s survival, it had all left him raw.
When he heard that there was a way to awaken his divinity fully that could rid him of more than half his problems by taking the heart of the one most devoted to him, he had gone searching without hesitation. Not because he believed in cruelty, but because he had reached the point where mercy looked too much like surrender.
That was how Mikayla had entered the current of his life, and fate, as it always did, had folded itself into something cruelly poetic. He had fallen in love with her once, truly, or what he had believed at the time was love, and in doing so he had sacrificed his people.
The pain had not struck all at once at that time. It had waited, like deep pressure beneath water, and when it finally came it had arrived with a force that made the darkness under the sea feel endless. Then she had died, and he had been left in the depths with all his people either sleeping or gone, while he remained the one awake enough to remember.
Eight hundred years had passed in that grief, eight hundred years of carrying the shape of loss until it was no longer something he bore, but something he had become.
When he met her again, he had tried to stir the old feeling back to life, to find some trace of the devotion he had once mistaken for destiny.
But centuries do strange things to a soul.
They sand away certainty.
They leave behind only the ache of having once believed.
He had been trying, for all that time, to make himself vulnerable again, only to realize that what had died in him was not love itself, but the part of him that could still offer it unquestioningly.
In truth, his heart had already turned elsewhere. Not yet with the clarity of you that it now possessed, but enough to know that Mikayla no longer held the center of his life. What remained was the bitter conviction that he had lost himself in the attempt to please every force that had ever claimed him.
So when he later walked into the café, half-starved and half-dreaming, it had not been by intent but by Thomas’s insistence and the simple, bodily need to put food into himself before he unraveled entirely. And then—
That screen.
It had appeared without warning, a bruise of color suspended in the air, hovering before him like a fragment of something misplaced. At first, he had dismissed it as delirium, the consequence of neglecting his own body for far too long, but the illusion had refused to fade.
Then he had seen that no one else in the café reacted, no one else looked toward it, and when he stepped forward to touch it, there had been something there — not quite glass, but a barrier that refused to let him pass. He had waited. He had dismissed meetings, ignored plans, and sat on the couch in that café until the day bent toward evening, hoping an answer would rise in front of him like a tide.
It did not.
So he had fallen asleep.
And when he woke—
You.
Not in the flesh, your face appearing as though the world had decided, at last, to be generous. You were smiling so radiantly it almost hurt to look at you, as if some unseen boon had just settled over your shoulders. But the truth was stranger than that, it was he who had been granted one. The moment he saw you, something in him recognized enlightenment not as a doctrine, but as a person.
Curiosity had come first, then fascination, then hesitation so brief it might have been a breath, and then, without mercy and with time, love. Not the old kind. Not duty, not obligation, not the borrowed devotion that had once ruined him. Something more feverish, more consuming. Something that made the rest of the world look increasingly like a draft he had no interest in keeping.
Now, on the spire, he finished the line of your cheek and let the clay settle before refining the curve of your lips until they matched the memory etched into his mind. Rafayel swam back, scanned the form from the tumble of your hair to the slope of your neck, and then smiled, satisfied enough to let the expression soften his features.
“Not bad,” he murmured, though there was pride in it that made the words nearly tender.
He lifted one hand and called flame into his palm, not the wild violence of destruction others had known but the controlled, sacred heat of his own making. The fire kissed the clay with golden-blue tongues, baking it slowly, hardening it, sealing it into permanence without marring its form.
The air around him shimmered faintly as the heat rose, and the statue took on a sheen that made it look alive, as if you had been waiting in stone form all along for him to discover you. He circled once more, checking the details, making minute corrections with the edge of a finger while the flame obeyed him without hesitation.
“You’ve outdone yourself.”
The voice came from behind him, gentle yet observant.
He did not turn immediately.
Rafayel didn’t need to turn to know it was Talia. He let the last trace of heat fade from his fingertips before glancing over his shoulder. His aunt surfaced gracefully beside the spire, her expression carrying that layered look of fondness and warning that only relatives who had watched you grow into trouble could manage.
Her gaze lingered on the statue, studying it with a quiet intensity that bordered on scrutiny. “It’s… impressive,” she admitted after a moment, though there was something unspoken beneath her words. “Especially considering you’ve never truly seen her.”
Rafayel huffed a quiet laugh, circling the statue once more, his eyes catching on the smallest details. “I’ve known her enough to see her in my heart,” he replied, voice light, almost amused. “And when I do see her properly, I’ll make it again. This one is only the beginning.”
Talia’s gaze shifted to him then, sharper now. “You speak as though that moment is inevitable.”
“It is.”
There was no hesitation in his answer.
She studied him for a long moment, her expression softening just slightly, though concern lingered beneath it. “You’ve known her for what — a fortnight?” she asked carefully. “Is it not strange, even for you, to feel so much so quickly?”
Rafayel stilled.
Rafayel wiped the last bits of clay from his hands, then flexed his fingers, considering her words only enough to decide they were not enough to unsettle him. “Is it bad if it gives me a sense of life?” he asked. “Of freedom? Of choice? Of Lemuria, again?”
“I didn’t say it was bad.”
“No,” he said, glancing at her with that calm, unsettling clarity he wore too well. “You only wondered at the intensity.”
Talia’s expression softened, but not entirely. “That is exactly what I’m worried about.”
Rafayel laughed then, a low sound that rolled out over the edge of the spire and dissolved into the open sea. He moved around the statue once more, checking the contours of your face as though he might still find some hidden imperfection refusing to show itself. “When the mind finds the courage to dream,” he said lightly, “the heart attains the strength to make it real.”
Talia’s gaze lingered on him, on the ease with which he now spoke of destiny as though it were clay between his fingers. “Do you truly love her?” she asked at last.
That question made him still.
Rafayel looked past the statue, past the edge of the spire, to the water stretching outward in impossibly layered blues. When he answered, his voice had lost its earlier playfulness and settled into something rawer, almost reverent in its severity.
“Love?” he echoed, almost as if testing the word itself. He shook his head, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “What I feel for her isn’t something so… contained.”
His gaze returned to the statue.
“It’s hunger,” he continued quietly, hand tracing the curve of your cheek. “It’s passion. It’s—” he exhaled, a faint, almost unhinged edge creeping into his voice, “—something that refuses to let me breathe when she’s not within reach.”
Talia watched him in silence.
“It’s driving you,” she said softly.
“It’s keeping me alive.”
That seemed to end the conversation.
Talia’s eyes narrowed slightly, but there was no fear in them, only a quiet sorrow. She reached up then and rested a hand on his head, the gesture so gentle it seemed to belong to another age. “I only ever wanted you to live well, Raf,” she said.
Rafayel’s expression softened by a degree. “I know.”
She lingered for a moment longer before turning away, her form disappearing into the shifting light of the waters below. Rafayel watched her go only briefly before his attention returned, inevitably, to you.
To the version of you he had created with his own hands, adorning fabrics of lemurian motifs with a pearl necklace clasped around your neck.
But this time, something in his gaze had shifted.
His flames flared once more, stronger this time, sealing the final imperfections, hardening the clay into something that would endure. When the glow faded, you stood there — immortalized, untouched by time or distance.
Perfect.
Rafayel leaned back, lowering himself onto the stone at the statue’s base, his tail curling loosely beside him as though he had placed himself in quiet surrender beneath you. One arm tucked beneath his head as he stared upward, his gaze drifting between your face and the distant shimmer of sunlight filtering through the sea above.
For a moment, he allowed himself stillness.
And then, quietly, almost to himself—
“If this madness has brought you to me,” he murmured, “then I suppose I’ll have to see if it can take me to you.”
----
The taxi’s abrupt halt jolted you awake, your body lurching forward slightly before you caught yourself, blinking against the disorientation that clung stubbornly to your senses. For a moment, you weren’t entirely sure where you were, the remnants of restless sleep still clouding your thoughts, but the sharp honk of a horn behind you grounded you quickly enough.
“We’re stuck,” the driver said, glancing at you through the rearview mirror. “Traffic’s brutal ahead, there was an accident near the shore road, so it’s taking longer than expected.”
You rubbed at your eyes, letting out a quiet breath as you straightened in your seat. “I fell asleep?” you asked, more to yourself than to him.
He chuckled faintly. “Happens. You looked exhausted.”
That was one way to put your day.
You shifted slightly, your gaze drifting toward the window, and whatever lingering irritation you might have felt at the delay dissolved almost instantly.
The sea stretched out beside the road, vast and unyielding, its surface catching the last fragments of daylight as the sun dipped slowly toward the horizon. The sky had begun its quiet transformation, streaks of amber and rose bleeding into deeper shades of violet, the reflection shimmering across the water like something alive.
The beach looked like the edge of another world, and some helpless part of you thought, absurdly, of him.
Of the voice you had not heard.
Of the silence where it should have been.
You swallowed, something tightening faintly in your chest as you watched the waves roll in, steady and endless, as though nothing in the world could ever truly disrupt their rhythm.
“I’ll be right back,” you said suddenly, the words slipping out before you could second-guess them.
The driver blinked at you. “Ma’am—”
“I won’t go far,” you added quickly, already reaching for the door handle.
Before he could protest further, you stepped out, the city noise thinning behind you as the air changed at once, turning cooler, saltier, almost sweet in its restraint. Your heels sank awkwardly into the sand, and after only a second of struggling with them, you bent and slipped them off, carrying them in one hand as you began to walk barefoot toward the waters.
The sand gave under your feet, warm in some places, cooler in others where the tide had recently touched it. The wind moved around you in soft, insistent strokes, tugging at your hair, brushing against your cheeks, loosening something in you that had been clenched for far too long.
You looked out across the tides, chest aching in a way that had become all too familiar, and let yourself stand there in the last warmth of the day, with the sky burning slowly above you and the sea waiting below, as though both were keeping some secret you had not been trusted to learn yet.
Note: This whole plot was completely and entirely inspired by the fanart and headcanon by @ekay-i . I love their art and they inspired this. With the current WU update in the game, expanding on Isaiah's lore, I had brain zoomies and I had to complete the fic which was in my drafts. Again, I cannot insist enough that this was entirely based on the headcanon of @ekay-i
P.S - Also tagging @unluckywisher because you wanted to read this when I am done with it :3
Pairing: Isaiah x f!reader
Content Warning: Some minor spoilers to the new WU chapter, insecurities, bickering, classist thoughts.
A white camellia is traditionally regarded as a symbol of purity, quiet devotion, and refined constancy, often associated with feelings that are deeply held but rarely spoken aloud.
Historically, camellias have been referred to as the “king of flowers” in certain cultural contexts.
In the language of flowers, a camellia signifies:
Unspoken admiration — a feeling acknowledged internally but not always voiced
Longevity & Luck: Due to their evergreen nature, they are associated with enduring life
Purity & Faithfulness: White camellias symbolize purity, innocence, and faithfulness.
The bell above the shop door chimed softly, a gentle, ordinary sound that Isaiah had come to resent.
It was not the sound itself. It was what followed it.
He did not look up immediately. He never did. Pride, habit, and a carefully constructed indifference kept his gaze fixed on the stems he was trimming, the blade in his hand moving with precise, controlled motions that spoke of discipline rather than passion.
He was standing behind some pots in Jeremiah’s shop, sleeves rolled up, fingers faintly stained green from trimming stems he should not be touching in the first place. This was not work suited for him. It never has been. The faint, constant scent of soil and sap clings to him like an insult.
A noble does not handle dirt.
A noble does not arrange flowers for coin.
A noble certainly does not stand in a cramped shop owned by a commoner and wait for customers.
And yet here he is.
Because Philos is far away. Because duty has twisted into something unrecognizable. Because the version of himself that once stood in polished halls and waited for acknowledgment has long since learned that waiting yields nothing.
“Jeremiah,” came a familiar voice that was light, warm, unguarded.
His hand paused, just for a fraction of a second.
He resumed cutting.
“Back again?” Jeremiah’s tone carried easy fondness, the kind Isaiah found distasteful in its casualness. “You just bought flowers three days ago.”
“I know,” she replied, and Isaiah could hear the smile in her voice without looking. “They didn’t last as long as I wanted.”
“They’re flowers. That’s kind of their thing.”
A quiet laugh.
Isaiah exhaled slowly through his nose, tightening his grip on the stems. Foolish. Wasteful. Sentimental.
And yet, he lifted his head. Just slightly. And there she was.
Not her.
Not truly.
If one looked closely, the differences were obvious. The shape of her eyes was softer, her expression far less restrained. The woman from Philos had carried herself with the composure of nobility, every movement measured, every word guarded.
This one… She was alive in a way that felt unrefined.
And yet… Too similar.
Enough that it scraped against something in his chest that had never properly healed.
Isaiah looked away first.
“Those won’t last,” he said flatly.
Silence followed.
Jeremiah sighed, already bracing.
“…Excuse me?” she asked.
Isaiah turned fully this time, his expression cool, bordering on dismissive as his gaze fell on the bouquet she held. He hadn’t known much about flowers until a few weeks ago, and he wasn’t going to depend on the idiot, Jeremiah, trying to one-up him with knowledge, so he’d read guides, books, and watched videos on flowers. Flowers. If his father saw him now, that man would have been ashamed.
“You keep choosing the worst combinations,” he continued. “Those blooms have different lifespans. Half of them will wilt before the others even begin to open.”
Her brows knit together, confusion flickering into mild offense. “I just think they look nice together.”
“Thinking and understanding are not the same.”
“Isaiah—” Jeremiah started.
“I’m not wrong,” Isaiah cut in, folding his arms.
She stared at him now, properly this time, her grip tightening slightly around the paper wrapping of the bouquet.
“…You again,” she said, a hint of disbelief in her voice. “You always have something to say about my flowers.”
“Because you always pick them poorly.”
“And you always—” she stopped herself, exhaling sharply before trying again, “—you always talk like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re better than everyone else.”
Isaiah’s expression did not change, because he believed he was. But something in her tone, struck something unfamiliar.
“And,” she says lightly, glancing down at the bouquet in her hands. “Why are you still judging my taste?”
“You have none,” Isaiah replies immediately.
“Bold statement,” she counters, lifting her chin slightly. “Coming from someone wearing—” her gaze flicks over him, deliberate, assessing “—whatever that is.”
Isaiah’s jaw tightens.
“These are not mine,” he snaps.
“I can tell,” she says sweetly. “Because if they were, I’d assume you had some sense of dignity.”
Jeremiah coughs into his hand, very clearly hiding a laugh.
Isaiah ignores him.
His focus remains entirely on her now.
There is something about the way she stands her ground, the way she doesn’t shrink back or fumble or attempt to appease him. Most people do. Most people sense the sharp edges in him and step carefully to avoid getting cut.
She doesn’t.
“You come here often just to make poor choices?” he asks.
“I come here because Jeremiah knows what he’s doing,” she replies, glancing at the shop owner briefly before looking back at Isaiah. “And because sometimes the ‘poor choices’ are the ones with the most character.”
Isaiah scoffs. “That’s what people say when they don’t understand quality.”
“And that’s what people say when they think perfection is the only thing worth having,” she shoots back.
His grip tightens again.
Her head tilts slightly, curiosity sharpening.
But it’s gone before she can examine it properly.
Isaiah straightens, his expression snapping back into something colder, more composed.
“You’re wasting your money,” he says. “Those flowers won’t last three days... again.”
She hums thoughtfully, considering the bouquet in her hands again.
“Then I’ll enjoy them for three days,” she says simply.
Isaiah frowns. That answer is illogical. And yet he has no immediate rebuttal.
She turns towards Jeremiah, ignoring Isaiah completely now as if she was done with the conversation. So be it, he thought as he hmphed his way back to trimming stems. His mind, however, lingered elsewhere, with fragments of whatever he remembered.
Isaiah had always believed that distance would be enough. Because it had been easier to tell himself that what he felt was insignificant, unworthy of acknowledgment, something beneath him, rather than face the truth that he had wanted something he was never meant to have.
He had not confessed.
Not because he didn’t know how, but because he had convinced himself that he shouldn’t need to. A noble did not beg for affection. A noble did not place himself in a position where rejection was even a possibility. And so he had stood there, composed and silent, when she smiled at him with that same warmth she gave everyone else, and he had told himself that it was enough. That the small moments—her choosing to stand beside him during gatherings, her seeking him out in conversations, her voice softening just slightly when she spoke to him—meant something.
They had meant nothing.
Or at least, not what he had wanted them to mean.
Because in the end, she had chosen exactly as she was meant to. She had chosen the man she had been promised to, the future that had been arranged for her long before Isaiah had ever allowed himself to imagine being part of it. And she had done so without hesitation, without looking back, without realizing, or perhaps without caring, that there had been something left unsaid between them.
That had been enough to break something in him.
So when Xavier had asked him to join the Backtrackers, Isaiah had accepted.
Earth had not fixed him.
If anything, it had made everything worse.
The years had blurred together into something harsh and unrelenting, filled with choices that had chipped away at whatever softness he had once possessed. He had watched others lose faith, lose direction, lose themselves, and he had refused to follow them down that path because he was stronger than them. Because he was better than them and he was going to prove it. And when the opportunity had come to ensure that Philos would survive, no matter the cost, he had taken it without hesitation.
Soren’s experiments had been… effective. Not to make him stronger, but to break him down further.
Sometimes, in quiet moments, when the world slowed just enough for his thoughts to catch up with him, he could still feel it, the way something inside him had been altered, sharpened into something unnatural, something that no longer quite belonged in his body and mind
It did not matter.
None of it mattered.
Because he was still here.
He was still helping for the cause with Xavier and the other remaining backtrackers. Because that had been the only thing that had ever truly been required of him. Everything else had always been optional.
Including his own happiness. Because marytrdom demanded it and nobles were meant to make choices that the masses may not fully understand.
Which is why standing in Jeremiah’s flower shop, surrounded by soft colors and fragile things that required care and attention, felt like a cruel sort of irony.
Jeremiah moved through the space with ease, as if this life had always belonged to him, as if there had never been a time when he had been anything else. He spoke to customers with warmth, remembered their preferences, made small adjustments to arrangements based on things as trivial as mood or weather, and Isaiah found himself watching it all with a quiet, persistent irritation he couldn’t quite name.
To him, this whole process was inefficient and unnecessary. And yet, people kept coming back, including her.
Isaiah noticed her long before she noticed him.
He had learned, over time, to recognize the rhythm of the shop—the patterns of movement, the familiar faces, the way certain people entered and exited with predictable timing. She was part of that rhythm now, woven into it so seamlessly that her absence would have been more noticeable than her presence.
The first time he had seen her, it had felt like being pulled backward through time, like stepping into a memory he had not willingly revisited in years. And even now, after seeing her again and again, after cataloging every difference and reminding himself repeatedly that she was not the same person, that reaction had not fully gone away.
If anything, it had deepened.
Because now it was no longer just her appearance that felt familiar.
It was the way she spoke to him.
The way she met his sharpness with something equally unyielding, the way she refused to be dismissed or intimidated, the way she argued not to win, but because she genuinely believed in what she was saying. There was a steadiness to her that he recognized, something that did not waver even when he pushed, even when he provoked, even when he made it very clear that he did not want her there.
She came anyway.
And each time she did, something in him reacted.
Not in a way he understood.
Not in a way he wanted to understand.
But in a way that made it increasingly difficult to pretend that she was just another customer.
“You’re staring again.” Her voice cuts through his thoughts, grounding him abruptly in the present.
Isaiah blinks, realizing belatedly that he has been standing still for longer than necessary, his attention fixed on her as she sorts through a selection of flowers Jeremiah had set aside earlier.
“I’m assessing,” he replies coolly, recovering quickly. “There’s a difference.”
She glances at him over her shoulder, one eyebrow lifting slightly. “Is there?”
“Yes.”
“Mm.” She turns back to the flowers, clearly unconvinced. “And what’s your professional assessment today?”
“That you’re about to choose those daffodils that will clash horribly with everything else you’ve picked.”
She hums, considering that, before deliberately selecting exactly what he had just criticized.
Isaiah exhales sharply through his nose. “You’re doing that on purpose.”
“Of course I am,” she says easily. “It’s more interesting this way.”
“Interesting does not equate to good.”
“And good doesn’t always equate to meaningful.”
He stills. The words are simple. Because once, a long time ago, someone had said something very similar to him. He had dismissed it then. Just like he should be dismissing it now.
“Meaningful is irrelevant,” he says, his tone colder now, more controlled. “Quality is what matters.”
“To you,” she corrects, turning to face him fully now. “Not to everyone.”
“Everyone else is wrong.”
She laughs. Not mockingly, but with genuine mirth and amusement.
And for a moment, it throws him off balance in a way that irritates him more than anything else.
“You really believe that, don’t you?” she asks.
“Yes.” There is no hesitation from him.
She studies him for a moment, her expression shifting into something more thoughtful.
“Then why do you care so much about what I pick?”
Isaiah opens his mouth to respond and then stops.
Because the answer is immediate.
Because the answer is obvious.
Because the answer is—
He closes his mouth again. Her gaze sharpens slightly.
“See?” she says softly.
He looks away. “I don’t care,” he says flatly. It is the same lie. It feels just as hollow.
She just nods, as if accepting it, even though they both know she doesn’t believe him.
And somehow, that is worse. Because it means she sees through him, because it means she is choosing not to call him out on it, because it means she is kind.
He does not want her to be kind. He does not want her to resemble that part of the past. Because that is the part that had hurt the most.
Isaiah watches her as she moves toward the counter, as she exchanges a few quiet words with Jeremiah, as she leaves with that same easy presence she always carries with her.
And for a long moment after the door closes behind her. He stands there, staring at the door. “That woman is insufferable.”
Jeremiah did not look up from the arrangement he was tying together, his fingers moving with practiced ease as he adjusted the ribbon, tightened the knot, and trimmed the ends with a precision that Isaiah found annoyingly competent.
“Mm,” Jeremiah hummed, entirely unimpressed. “And yet you watched her leave like she took something with her.”
Isaiah’s gaze snapped toward him immediately. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I’m not,” Jeremiah replied calmly, finally setting the bouquet aside and turning to face him fully. “You were staring at the door for a full ten seconds after she left. I counted.”
“I was thinking.”
“You don’t look like that when you think.”
Isaiah’s expression darkened. “And what exactly do I look like?”
“Like someone who just realized he might be wrong about something,” Jeremiah said pleasantly.
Isaiah let out a short, humorless laugh. “That would imply I was wrong.”
“It would,” Jeremiah agreed. “Which is so often, I know. We should log it into multiple files. Alphabetical or by date? What would you prefer, your highness?”
“Careful,” Isaiah said coldly. “You’re getting bold for someone who spends his days arranging flowers.”
“And you’re getting defensive for someone who claims not to care,” Jeremiah shot back immediately, not missing a beat.
Isaiah stilled.
There was no hesitation in Jeremiah’s tone, no softness cushioning the words the way there usually was. It was direct, sharp in a way that felt almost unfamiliar coming from him.
Isaiah narrowed his eyes slightly. “Watch your tone.”
Jeremiah raised a brow. “Or what? You’ll critique my flower arrangements to death?”
“I will if they deserve it.”
“They don’t,” Jeremiah said flatly. “But you will anyway.”
Isaiah scoffed, turning away as he reached for another set of stems, more out of habit than necessity. “You let your customers indulge in mediocrity. It reflects poorly on you.”
“And you think insulting them improves that?” Jeremiah countered, folding his arms now. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re not improving anything. You’re just making sure no one enjoys being here when you open your mouth.”
Isaiah’s grip tightened slightly around the stems.
“They come back,” he said.
“They come back because of me,” Jeremiah corrected calmly. “Not because of you.”
Isaiah didn’t respond immediately, because he knew that was true.
Jeremiah watched him for a moment longer before his expression shifted, something quieter settling in. “You know,” he added, less sharply now, “for someone who claims he doesn’t care, you spend an awful lot of time paying attention to her.”
Isaiah’s jaw tightened again. “I pay attention to all inefficiencies in this shop.”
“Right,” Jeremiah nodded. “And she just happens to be your favorite inefficiency.”
“I don’t have favorites.”
“Sure you don’t.”
Silence stretched between them, thick with something unspoken.
Isaiah exhaled slowly, setting the stems down with more force than necessary. “She’s reckless,” he said finally, his tone clipped. “Wasteful. Sentimental.”
Jeremiah tilted his head slightly. “And?”
“And that kind of thinking is flawed,” Isaiah continued, as if that explained everything. “It leads to poor decisions.”
Jeremiah’s lips twitched, like he was holding back something then sighed softly, shaking his head as he turned back to his work. “You’re exhausting,” he muttered, though there was no real bite behind it this time.
Isaiah said nothing as he resumed to work as well.
She comes back.
Again.
And again.
And again.
At first, Isaiah tells himself it is routine.
People return to places they like. That is how familiarity works. That is how habits form. There is nothing significant about it. But the more he watches, the less convincing that explanation becomes. Because each time she walks in, something changes.
Not in her.
In him.
The first few times, he notices the obvious things.
The way she moves through the shop without hesitation, the way she speaks to Jeremiah with easy familiarity, her voice softer when she greets him, her laughter coming quicker, more unguarded.
He notices the way she interacts with the flowers, too.
She doesn’t just pick them.
She considers them.
Tilts her head slightly, studies the colors, brushes her fingers lightly against petals as if she’s trying to understand something beyond what’s visible. Sometimes she changes her mind halfway through, swapping one stem for another, adjusting combinations not because they follow any rule Isaiah recognizes, but because they feel right to her.
It is chaotic and follows no logic, but he recognizes that there’s intention behind it. That’s what bothers him. It would be easier if she were simply careless. But she isn’t.
The next few times, he notices smaller things.
The way her expression shifts when she thinks no one is looking, the quiet focus replacing her usual ease. The way she sometimes pauses mid-selection, like she’s remembering something, before continuing.
The way she looks at certain flowers longer than others. Not because they’re better, but because they mean something.
Isaiah starts to recognize patterns.
She picks softer colors when she seems tired. Brighter ones when she’s restless. Wild, mismatched combinations when she’s thinking too much. Her choices were slowly becoming predictable to him. And rather than finding it boring, he finds himself understanding her. That, according to him, was more dangerous. Because understanding leads to familiarity, and familiarity would mean…
He clenches his jaw, looking away.
“You’re staring again.”
Her voice cuts through his thoughts like it always does.
Isaiah doesn’t react immediately this time.
He keeps his gaze on the stems in his hands, trimming them with unnecessary precision before finally responding, “I’m observing.”
“Is that what we’re calling it today?” she asks, amusement threading through her tone.
“Yes.”
She hums, clearly unconvinced, but doesn’t press.
Instead, she moves closer to the counter, setting down the flowers she’s chosen.
Isaiah glances at them and frowns. “You changed your pattern.”
She blinks, caught off guard. “What?”
“You didn’t pick anything that clashes,” he continues, his tone almost accusing. “That’s unusual for you.”
She stares at him for a moment, then laughs softly. “You’ve been paying attention.”
“I haven’t.”
“You have.”
“I haven’t.”
“You just noticed a pattern.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means you’ve been watching.”
Isaiah exhales sharply, turning away. “It means you’re predictable.”
“Mm,” she says lightly. “And what does today say, then?”
He hesitates. Today is different. The colors she’s chosen are softer and more balanced. He doesn’t like the thought that comes with that.
“It says you’re being less reckless,” he says finally.
She studies him, her expression shifting slightly.
“And is that good?” she asks, looking amused.
Isaiah opens his mouth and closes it again, Because for once, he doesn’t know. Because as much as he was getting used to understanding her through flowers, he always predicted chaos and now, this new, mellow and warm combination, threw him off.
He looks at the flowers again.
Then at her.
And something settles in his chest. It wasn’t painful, unlike before but it was unfamiliar. He found himself realizing that this feeling was not exactly unwelcome. That is what makes him pause. Because for the first time, it does not feel like a wound or like something old that was resurfacing. It doesn’t feel like he is being dragged to a past he never resolved.
It feels entirely new and uncharted.
Isaiah looks away first. It’s not because he’s rejecting it. It’s because he doesn’t know what to do with it yet.
Isaiah keeps his gaze on the arrangement for a moment longer than necessary, as if the answer might somehow reveal itself in the structure of stems and petals, in the neat symmetry he understands far better than whatever is unfolding inside his chest.
“It’s—” he starts, then stops.
The hesitation is unfamiliar. He does not hesitate. Not in speech. Not in judgment. Not in anything that requires certainty.
And yet, here he is.
He can feel her attention sharpen, not in challenge this time, but in quiet curiosity, like she’s waiting—not for him to argue, not for him to dismiss her—but for him to actually answer.
Isaiah exhales slowly.
“It’s new,” he says finally, the words deliberate, measured, as if he’s testing them even as he speaks them. “And I don’t know.”
She blinks.
Once.
Then again.
For a moment, she just looks at him, as if trying to reconcile what he just said with every previous version of him she has encountered.
“…You don’t know?” she repeats, her tone softer now, edged with something that sounds dangerously close to surprise.
Isaiah’s jaw tightens slightly, instinctively defensive at the reaction, but he doesn’t take it back.
“I’m allowed to not know,” he says, though the sharpness in his voice is dulled, lacking its usual bite.
“I didn’t say you weren’t,” she replies quickly, but there’s a small smile tugging at her lips now, something warm and unguarded. “It’s just… new.”
He huffs quietly. “Clearly.”
She laughs at that, softer this time. And somehow, that makes it worse.
Or better.
He doesn’t know.
He doesn’t know anything about this.
She turns slightly then, gathering the flowers she’s chosen, her movements more thoughtful now, less distracted by their usual back-and-forth. There’s a quietness to her that mirrors his own, like something between them has shifted, settled into a space that isn’t quite familiar yet but isn’t entirely uncomfortable either.
Isaiah watches her without meaning to.
Jeremiah steps in, ringing up her purchase with the same easy efficiency as always, though there’s a knowing glance flicked in Isaiah’s direction that he pointedly ignores.
She pays, offering Jeremiah a grateful smile, exchanging a few brief words with him before turning back to Isaiah. He stiffens slightly, caught off guard by the directness of it.
She studies him for a moment, like she’s trying to decide something.
Then, without a word, she reaches into her bouquet.
Isaiah’s brows draw together faintly.
“What are you—”
She gently pulls out a single stem, separating it from the rest with careful fingers before stepping closer to him and holding it out.
It’s a white camellia.
Isaiah stares at it.
Then at her.
“…What is this supposed to mean?” he asks, though there’s less resistance in his voice than usual.
She tilts her head slightly, a small, thoughtful smile playing at her lips.
“Well,” she says, “I guess both of us were just subjected to something new.”
He doesn’t move nor does he take the flower.
“And maybe,” she continues, her tone light but steady, “new isn’t so bad.”
Isaiah’s gaze flickers back to the camellia, then to her again.
“And maybe,” she adds, just a little softer now, “it could be the new normal.”
The words settle between them.
Isaiah doesn’t respond immediately. He reacher out and takes the flower from her. His fingers brush hers for the briefest moment. It lingers longer than it should or maybe he just notices it more.
“…You’re still wrong about your flower choices,” he mutters, though the words lack their usual edge.
She smiles, still amused, but more so fondly than in exasperation.
“Of course I am,” she says lightly.
Then she steps back, turning toward the door.
The bell chimes softly as she pushes it open, sunlight spilling briefly into the shop as she steps outside. And Isaiah finds himself watching her leave again. But this time, it feels different. Because his hand is still wrapped around the camellia, because the faint scent of her still lingers among the many flowers in the shop, because the tightness in his chest isn’t something he wants to push away. And because, before he can stop himself, the corners of his lips lift.
He shifts slightly, the movement slow, thoughtful, as if he is recalibrating something within himself that has been rigid for far too long. The tightness in his chest is still there, but it is no longer sharp, no longer something that aches in a way he needs to suppress.
It is… steady.
Isaiah lowers his gaze to the camellia again, his thumb brushing lightly against one of the petals without thinking.
“…New,” he murmurs under his breath, the word quieter now, less uncertain than it had been moments ago.
He exhales once more, this time steadier, before straightening slightly, the faintest trace of that earlier expression still lingering on his face, subtle, almost imperceptible, but undeniably there.
“Jeremiah.”
Jeremiah doesn’t look up. “Mhm.”
“Bring me a vase.”
That gets his attention.
Slowly, deliberately, Jeremiah lifts his head, his gaze landing first on Isaiah’s face, then trailing down to the single white camellia in his hand.
“I said no,” Jeremiah repeats calmly, turning back to his work as if the conversation is already over. “Get it yourself.”
Isaiah stares at him, incredulous. “You own the shop.”
“And you have functioning limbs.”
“That is not the point.”
“It is exactly the point.”
Isaiah’s grip tightens slightly around the stem. “I am not going to go searching through your disorganized storage for something as basic as a vase.”
“Disorganized?” Jeremiah echoes, finally looking up again, one brow arching. “Everything here has a system.”
“It’s a terrible system.”
“It’s a system you don’t understand.”
“It’s a system that makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” Jeremiah shoots back. “You just lack the ability to comprehend it.”
Isaiah scoffs sharply. “I do not lack anything.”
“Patience,” Jeremiah says immediately.
Isaiah’s eye twitches. “I have patience.”
“No, you tolerate things until they annoy you, and then you complain about them, loudly” Jeremiah corrects. “That’s not patience.”
Isaiah takes a step forward, irritation sharpening his tone. “Just bring me the vase.”
Jeremiah leans back slightly, crossing his arms, entirely unmoved. “Why?”
Isaiah freezes for half a second. “…What do you mean why?”
“I mean,” Jeremiah says, gesturing vaguely toward the camellia, “it’s one flower. You could leave it on the counter. Let it exist freely. Embrace the chaos you hate so much.”
Isaiah’s expression turns borderline offended. “I am not leaving it to wilt like some neglected weed.”
“Oh?” Jeremiah’s lips twitch. “So now you care about flowers?”
“I care about not being incompetent.”
“Right,” Jeremiah nods slowly. “And this has nothing to do with who gave it to you.”
Isaiah’s response is immediate. “It doesn’t.”
Jeremiah smiles. It is the most infuriating expression Isaiah has seen all day.
“Of course it doesn’t,” Jeremiah says, entirely unconvinced.
Isaiah exhales sharply, running a hand through his hair in clear frustration. “You are being deliberately difficult.”
“And you are being incredibly obvious,” Jeremiah counters.
“I am not obvious.”
“You asked for a vase.”
“That is not—”
“For one flower,” Jeremiah continues, talking over him now. “One single flower. Not for the shop. Not for display. For you.”
Isaiah glares at the curly haired man that always got onto his nerves. Because arguing this feels like stepping into a trap he doesn’t fully understand.
Jeremiah watches him for a moment, then sighs, shaking his head as if dealing with something particularly stubborn. “You’re unbelievable,” he mutters, though there’s no real heat behind it now.
Isaiah straightens slightly, regaining some of his composure. “Are you going to bring me the vase or not?”
Jeremiah holds his gaze for a second longer. Then, finally turns, walking toward the back without another word. Isaiah exhales, tension easing just slightly as he waits, his fingers still loosely curled around the camellia.
When Jeremiah returns, he sets a small, simple vase on the counter in front of him with a soft clink.
Isaiah looks at it and then at Jeremiah.
“…Thank you,” he says, stiffly.
Jeremiah snorts. “Don’t get used to it.”
Isaiah ignores that, carefully placing the camellia into the vase, adjusting it slightly until it sits just right. The stem settles into place with a quiet finality, the water catching the light as the petals tilt ever so slightly toward the window. Isaiah adjusts it once, then again, far more meticulous than the act requires, until the angle is exact, until the composition feels balanced enough to satisfy something unspoken within him.
Jeremiah leans against the counter, watching the entire process unfold with an expression that hovers somewhere between disbelief and poorly concealed amusement. “You’re arranging one flower,” he says, deadpan.
Isaiah doesn’t look at him. “If it is going to sit there, it might as well not look incompetent.”
“It’s a camellia, not a full arrangement,” Jeremiah replies. “It was fine the moment you dropped it in.”
“I did not ‘drop’ it in.”
“Mm. Right. You placed it with deep emotional significance.”
Isaiah’s eye twitches faintly. “You are insufferable.”
“And yet,” Jeremiah says lightly, “I’m not the one who needed a vase for a single flower.”
Isaiah finally looks at him then, sharp and unimpressed. “You’re still talking.”
“And you’re still pretending this means nothing.”
“It doesn’t.”
Jeremiah gestures vaguely toward the vase. “That says otherwise.”
“That says I have standards.”
“That says you care.”
Isaiah scoffs, turning back to the camellia, though his gaze lingers on it longer than it should. “You’re assigning meaning where there is none.”
Jeremiah studies him for a moment, then sighs again, softer this time, less like irritation and more like quiet resignation. “You always do this,” he mutters.
“Do what?”
“Act like things only matter if they fit into your definition of logic,” Jeremiah replies, his tone calmer now, but no less pointed. “As if something has to be efficient or necessary to be worth anything.”
Isaiah doesn’t respond.
Because he has no intention of entertaining that line of thought.
Because entertaining it would mean acknowledging something he is not ready to name.
Jeremiah watches the silence settle, then pushes himself off the counter. “Whatever helps you sleep at night,” he says, waving a hand dismissively as he turns away. “Just don’t start giving customer flowers their own personal vases. I’m not funding that.”
“I wouldn’t trust you to fund anything properly,” Isaiah replies automatically.
Jeremiah snorts. “And yet here you are. In my shop. Using my vase.”
“Temporary circumstances.”
“Of course,” Jeremiah says, already moving back to his work. “Everything is temporary until it isn’t.”
Isaiah doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t need to.
Because his attention drifts back, inevitably, to the small vase sitting at the edge of the counter, to the single white camellia resting within it, quiet and unassuming and yet present.
He tells himself it is nothing.
He tells himself it does not matter.
He tells himself it is simply a flower.
And yet, as the afternoon light shifts and softens, catching against pale petals and casting faint shadows across the counter, his gaze returns to it.
Again.
And again.
And again.
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₊⊹Synopsis: The legitimate daughter of Prince Wei, and the sole heir of all his wealth and military power is the prideful Princess Shanyi, kept miles away from the scheming capital and the Emperor's watchful eye. When a hunt for a spirit beast goes wrong, Shanyi finds herself at the mercy of Qin Che, the Autarch of Xuanyu. Bound by an ancient pact with her father, he lets her stay. But can she survive his secrets and her own truth?
₊⊹Pairing: Qin Che x Princess! Reader
₊⊹Content: Subject to change as we progress further into the story. For this chapter: references to Chinese mythical creatures and lore, original characters and a little caning.
₊⊹Word count: 5.2k
₊⊹Notes: Second chapter is here yayay!!! I enjoy writing Shanyi's character so much, she's so cute in my mind and I tend to enjoy spoiled, confident and witty characters sm like that's my cup of tea. I apologize sincerely if I get any details wrong and please feel free to correct me if you wish to regarding something. I'd also like the help of someone who's chinese or inclined towards the culture or history cuz I srsly need another hand in figuring the direction of this series. I hope y'all enjoy this read! Lmk if you wanna be added to the taglist of this mini series ♥
Consciousness did not return to you as a gentle tide lapping at the shore of sleep, but rather as the sudden, sharp inhale of one who has been held underwater for too long. Your eyes flew open, staring wildly at a canopy of silk gauze the colour of storm clouds, embroidered with silver threads that caught the morning light and turned them into veins of lightning.
For a heartbeat, the heavy scent of pine smoke and burning hair still clung to the insides of your nose, a phantom memory of the inferno, but slowly, that olfactory ghost was replaced by the fragrance of agarwood and something sweeter, like dried lychees.
The bed beneath you was softer like the one you had slept on in the border garrisons, the sheets cool against your skin, and as you sat up, the remnants of the nightmare — the roaring flames, the helplessness — clawed at your throat before you forced them down.
You slid from the bed, your feet touching the polished wooden floor, cold and unyielding. You found your boots by the bedside and laced them with trembling fingers, the simple act of tying the knots grounding your fraying nerves.
A heavy silence hung over the residence, a stark contrast to the bustling, noisy encampments you were used to. You expected to hear the familiar clatter of your maids preparing water, or the low, gruff voices of your father's soldiers stationed outside your door, but there was nothing. Just an oppressive, empty quiet that set your teeth on edge.
Where were your people? Where was Meilin’s fussing or the rhythmic sharpening of swords by your guards? The absence gnawed at you, a missing piece of a puzzle you couldn't yet solve.
Catching sight of your reflection in a bronze mirror mounted on a lacquered stand, you paused. You were dressed in a light Hanfu of layered blue and green silk, the fabric whispering against your skin like a sigh. Your hair, usually bound back in a practical, intricate style, fell loose and unadorned down your back, a dark curtain that brushed against your waist. Not a single hairpin or jade ornament adorned your head, you looked stripped of your rank, too vulnerable, a fact that annoyed you more than it should.
Turning away from the mirror, your eyes landed on a table across the room. Resting atop plush velvet, lay your recurve bow. It was safe, polished, and cared for, as if someone knew exactly what the weapon meant to its owner. You approached it slowly, your fingers tracing the familiar grip of riser wood.
You picked it up, the weight comforting in your hand, and without thinking, you drew the string back. Your back muscles bunched and coiled, pulling until your thumb touched your cheek, testing the tension, the durability of the string, and the strength of your own limbs. It held firm. You held the pose for a heartbeat, imagining the ghost of the white tiger in your sights, before releasing the string with a dull thrum.
A huff of frustration escaped your lips. The arrow had flown wide yesterday, and the prey was gone, lost to the shadows and the interference of a stranger whose house you apparently stood in right now.
You turned to leave the room, but as your arm brushed slightly against the wooden frame of the doorway, a sharp hiss of pain tore from your throat. You flinched, pulling your arm back to inspect it. There, on the sensitive skin of your forearm, were patches of angry red and blistered skin — mild burns from the sparks that had rained down like embers when the forest exploded. You had been too high on adrenaline to notice them yesterday, but now they throbbed with a dull, stinging heat, a stark reminder of how close you had come to death.
Stepping out into the corridor, you wandered aimlessly, needing to see the extent of the place that held you captive.
You could have guessed luxury by the softness under your body alone, but the whole estate seemed determined to prove it again and again, in the smallest details.
The courtyard was vast, framed by white stone paths and broad patches of trimmed greenery, with bamboo rising in orderly clusters along one edge. Water moved through a narrow canal that wound through the grounds like a silver thread, and in the distance stood pavilions with curved eaves and dark tiled roofs, their silhouettes layered one behind another. Everything had purpose, everything had balance, and that balance itself was the deepest kind of wealth.
The place was a masterpiece of ancient architecture, far removed from the utilitarian forts you called home. At almost every corner, a new piece of art vied for your attention — scrolls of calligraphy painted by masters whose names had turned to dust centuries ago, porcelain vases from dynasties long fallen, and statues of guardians so weathered they looked more like stone than figurines.
The residence of Xuanyu’s Autarch, the plaque read.
Though you still had not seen the city properly, you already understood something of the man who ruled here.
He did not merely live richly.
He governed richness itself.
As you walked, the servants of the household would pause in their duties to bow deeply, their foreheads nearly touching the floor. "Your Grace," they would murmur, their voices hushed and reverent. But it was the way they looked at you when they thought you didn’t notice. Young maids carrying fresh linens would stop to stare, their eyes wide with awe, whispering behind their hands as you passed.
Guards standing at the intersections would turn their heads, their gazes lingering on your face with a mixture of curiosity and admiration. You were used to respect born of fear and military rank, but this was different. They looked at you as if you were a rare treasure that had miraculously wandered into their master’s den of beasts. You ignored them, your chin held high, though their silent scrutiny made the skin on the back of your neck prickle.
You did not like the fact that this place, although beautiful, managed to unsettle you in incomprehensible ways.
You liked it even less that some part of you wanted to keep looking.
That was when you found the painting.
It was in one of these quieter, gallery-like hallways that you found it. A large scroll mounted on the wall, separated from the other artifacts by a respectful distance. The silk was yellowed with age, yet the ink remained as black as if it had been dipped in the night itself.
It depicted a dragon, a colossal Tianlong, coiling through clouds that looked less like vapour and more like solid mountains of jade. Its scales were etched with painstaking detail, each one a shield of power, and its eyes were painted in cinnabar, staring out from the paper with a terrifying intensity.
But it was the object tucked securely beneath the dragon’s chin that arrested your breath — a sphere of fire, a Flaming Pearl, glowing with an inner light despite the stagnant nature of the paint. You stared at it, feeling a strange, scattered sensation bloom in your chest, a pull that felt like homesickness for a place you had never visited. The longer you looked, the more the pearl seemed to blur, the red light dancing before your eyes, making your head spin with a rush of undefined emotion.
You exhaled slowly, your brows drawing together, recognition flickering at the edges of your confusion. “Strange,” you murmured under your breath, your voice barely more than a whisper against the stillness.
“Most find it so," a voice said, smooth as dark honey, cutting through your trance.
You spun around, your hand instinctively going to your hip where your hidden dagger should have been, finding only empty air. The man from the forest stood at the end of the hallway, his hands clasped loosely behind his back. Much to your annoyance, he was quite handsome, his silver hair catching the sunbeams that filtered through the eaves, his robes a deep, turbulent midnight blue embroidered with golden thread that shimmered like scales when he moved. He regarded you silently, his head tilted slightly to the side.
He inclined his head.
“I, Qin Che, The Autarch of Xuanyu greet Your Grace, Princess Shanyi.”
For one measureless moment, you stared at him.
Then memory moved.
You had seen his face before, not in the flesh, but in a painted portrait your father kept hidden in his study, and heard in hushed tones during the late nights when the generals spoke of powers beyond the Imperial throne. He was Qin Che, a man who was rumoured to have stayed the same age while emperors rose and fell. A ruler who did not seek the Emperor’s favor because he did not depend upon it. But there was something else about him, a nagging familiarity that scratched at the back of your mind.
"I know who you are, Lord Qin," you said, your voice steady as you took a step towards him. "And I suppose I should thank you for the rescue, though I would have preferred you hadn't cost me my prey in the process."
“My sincere apologies then, Your Grace.”
If he was offended, it did not show at once. Only the faintest tick moved along his jaw, and even that vanished quickly beneath his usual composure. One might have missed it entirely had one not been watching for it.
You were watching for it.
“Good,” you replied evenly, your voice carrying a crisp edge. “That you know your place, Lord Qin. You are hosting a General’s daughter, and you will extend the respect due to my rank.”
He said nothing to your taunt, merely turning his wrist to produce two folded letters from within his sleeve, the paper crisp and expensive. He held them out, but before you could take the one addressed to you, you snatched the second — the one bearing his name — right from his fingers.
Qin Che sighed, expression laced with unvoiced annoyance.
You broke the seal immediately, your eyes scanning line after line your father wrote to him with growing displeasure.
The letter was brief, written in your father’s hurried, aggressive scrawl. You read it once, then again, the blood draining from your face. He began by expressing gratitude to Qin Che for having saved you, and then, without the slightest gentleness, informed that the Crown Prince, Ming Zhaoxuan, was personally leading a campaign to the borders to suppress the disturbances with the Northern Liang. He would be passing through Linhe within the week.
If you returned to your brothers now, Zhaoxuan would undoubtedly use the military movement as a pretext to search the encampments, and he would find you. The Emperor, once informed, would not miss an opportunity to press his old intentions again and the marriage alliance would be forced upon you before you could draw a breath.
Xuanyu City, by contrast, did not directly cross the borders in a way that invited imperial interference, and your father had no intention of sending additional soldiers, lest whispers begin among the court and draw attention where none was wanted.
So you were to remain.
For one month.
Under the care of the Autarch.
You lowered the letter, your mind racing. It was a logical trap, a strategic maneuver that left you with no choice but to obey. But the thought of remaining in this city, under the roof of this insufferable man, made your skin prickle with resentment. You looked up to find Qin Che watching you with an unreadable expression, holding the other scroll, the one actually meant for you.
When you looked up, your eyes were bright with offense. “So that is it? Does Xuanyu lack guesthouses, Lord Qin? Or must I be caged in this very room to be considered safe?”
Qin Che’s gaze remained on you for a moment too long.
"I prefer to keep my valuables where I can see them," Qin Che replied, his tone maddeningly mild.
You shot him an incredulous look.
"And Xuanyu has many guesthouses," he continued, his fingers tapping lightly against the cylinder of the scroll. "But your Prince Wei was specific. He knew that bringing you here would raise whispers. He has entrusted your safety to me, as a continuation of a prior arrangement. He asked me to take... liberties if they concerned your safety."
Your eyes shot up, your breath catching in your throat. "What are you talking about?"
He responded without mercy. “It begins with gathering the soldiers and attendants who arrived shortly after you did. Their failure cannot be overlooked.”
A chill passed through the hall, though whether it came from his words or from the temperature in your chest you could not yet say.
He met your stare evenly and finished, “I must start there.”
You did not understand him immediately.
That was your first mistake.
Your second was turning on your heel and stepping into the courtyard without asking where he meant to start.
The answer waited outside.
Your maid Meilin stood in the courtyard with your other attendants and the soldiers who had followed you to Xuanyu, all of them kneeling in a line so rigidly ordered that it nearly looked ceremonial. But there was nothing ceremonial in the pallor of their faces, nor in the faint tremor of one man’s hands, nor in the way two of them stared at the ground as though they feared lifting their heads.
Beside them stood several of Qin Che’s men, each holding a bamboo cane in quiet readiness.
“What is all of this?” you demanded, your voice cutting cleanly through the air.
He stepped beside you, close enough that his presence pressed against the edge of your awareness without touching.
“They failed in their duty,” he said simply. “They allowed their charge to stray beyond protection, into danger not accounted for.”
Your hands curled into fists.
“They followed me,” you snapped. “I chose to leave them behind and go after that beast.”
“And yet,” he replied, his gaze settling upon the kneeling figures before you, “the outcome remains unchanged.”
Your heart struck once, hard enough to echo.
“They compromised your safety,” he continued, as though explaining something self-evident. “That failure requires correction.”
The words struck you so suddenly that your body went still.
You had not expected this.
A strange silence pressed upon your chest, one you could not name at first. Then understanding began to sink in, slow and heavy, until it reached a place inside you that had rarely been struck before.
You had never been made to witness the consequences of your own choices in full.
Your father had always shielded you from that.
If something went wrong, he dealt with it quietly. If someone failed, they vanished from your sight. If your temper caused harm, the blame was bent away so that your heart might remain unblemished by the sight of blood. You had been cherished so thoroughly that even your errors had been spared exposure.
And now, for the first time, another man had not spared you the reality of the world you lived in, the reality you had been kept away from by your father’s love and your own privilege.
Your fingers curled into tight fists at your sides.
He had made them kneel because of you.
Because you ran.
Because you chased.
Because you would not listen.
Guilt, sharp as a needle, slid beneath your pride.
You turned back toward Qin Che with eyes that had begun to glisten despite your best efforts to prevent it.
“You dare?” you said, and your voice came out far more fragile than you intended.
He did not even flinch.
Instead, he stepped towards you, close enough that you could feel his shoulder only an inch away from yours, and his answer was maddening in its steadiness.
“Very much so, Your Grace.”
You looked up at him in disbelief.
He gave the order as calmly as one might call for tea.
“Twenty lashes for each.”
The punishment began.
The sound of wood striking flesh was not loud, but it carried in the courtyard with a brutality that made the air itself feel bruised. You had never thought yourself squeamish. You had faced injuries, beasts, blood, and the uglier side of the road with a steady hand. But this was different. This was not some faceless bandit being punished in your defense. These were your people, your attendants. The soldiers who had followed you through mud, through rain, through sleepless nights.
Because of your recklessness, they were made to suffer.
At first, you stared.
Then your eyes burned.
You would not cry. You would not. But your throat tightened all the same, and after what felt like an eternity, your gaze began to waver. By the tenth stroke you had hardened your face, trying to stop him.
"You are the Autarch," you managed to say, your voice shaking with a desperation that threatened to boil over. "My father’s words do not matter in the city you rule. You don't need to do this."
"I do," Qin Che replied, not looking at you, his eyes fixed on the courtyard below. "Because if I do not teach them the cost of failure, next time you might not be so lucky as to only face a forest fire. Next time, you might face a deadly blade. And that, Princess, is a debt I cannot afford to pay."
You watched for another minute, the rhythmic thud of the bamboo against flesh filling your ears, followed by the controlled intake of breath that your soldiers refused to release as a cry. You felt sick, a cold nausea rolling in your stomach. You couldn't watch this anymore.
You turned away at last.
When you spoke, your voice had gone flatter than stone.
“Come serve me when done.”
It was not mercy, not precisely.
It was the best you could manage while the rest of your heart struggled not to collapse beneath itself.
Then you walked back to your quarters without another word, your face cold enough to freeze water, and if anyone had watched closely, they would have seen that the frost was not made of indifference.
It was made of shame.
Inside the chamber, you shut the door more firmly than necessary and stood for several breaths with your back to it, staring at nothing at all. The anger that remained was no longer clean. It had curdled with humiliation, and beneath that, something worse, something you had no intention of examining too closely.
Loathing.
For him.
For the ease with which he had ordered pain.
For the fact that he had been right.
For the knowledge that your own heart had not been prepared to be told so plainly.
When your people returned later, they did so in silence and with lowered eyes. Their backs were covered in fresh punishment, the cloth of their robes darkened where blood had seeped through. Even so, they tried to smile at you, or at least tried to pretend they were not in pain.
You ignored the attempt.
Instead, you sat upon the edge of the bed with a tray of medicine before you, your expression composed in the exact way a princess’s expression ought to be when her attendants were watching. A tray of expensive medicines sat on the table beside you — jars of jade ointment and porcelain bottles of spirit balm, the finest Xuanyu had to offer. One small burn from the wildfire had reddened the inside of your forearm, and you reached for a bottle of ointment as though you intended to apply it properly.
You did not.
Your fingers struck the tray too sharply.
Several precious bottles toppled over at once, rolling against the lacquered surface with a soft clatter, though none broke. The sound was enough to make the handmaiden nearest you start in alarm.
"Your Grace!" a maid gasped, rushing forward from the corner where she had been waiting. "The medicines... they are from the Autarch’s personal stores. They are top quality. They wouldn't even leave a scar..."
"So what?" you snapped, your voice sharp and brittle. "They fell to the ground. They are contaminated. It is below this princess to use something that has touched the dust. Take it away. Keep it for yourself."
The maid stared at you, bewildered, her eyes darting from the unbroken jars to your flushed face. "But Your Grace, they are intact..."
“I said they fell to the ground.” Your chin lifted. “Do as I have instructed.”
Meilin, who had been quietly watching from the side, kept her face carefully blank. But one glance at the corner of her mouth told you she was suppressing a smile with visible effort, likely because she knew exactly what you were doing and because she loved you too much to call you out for it.
The others, bless their foolish loyalty, accepted your decree at once.
They divided the bottles between themselves with a haste that suggested they had long understood that arguing with you only extended your temper, murmuring gratitude for the "fortunate accident," and retreated to tend to their wounds. It was ridiculous, and you knew it was ridiculous, but the sight of them accepting it with such obedient solemnity eased something in your chest by a narrow margin.
You looked down at your arm, the burn throbbing in time with your heartbeat. It was painful, but it was a clean pain, a physical reminder of your own foolishness.
A flicker of movement in the corner of your eye caught your attention. Two shadows were retreating from the open window, slipping away with the silence of ghosts.
You were on your feet in an instant, your body moving faster than your mind could process, the martial training instilled in you since childhood taking over. You vaulted over the low table, landing silently on the balcony, and reached out just as the figures tried to melt into the darkness of the garden. You grabbed the collar of one, yanking him back, and spun around to block the path of the other.
"Going somewhere?" you asked coldly.
Two young boys, identical in features, dressed in the dark livery of Qin Che’s household, stood frozen. They looked at you with wide, startled eyes, their hands raised in surrender.
"Your Grace! We... we were just," one stammered.
"Spying," you finished for him.
You crossed your arms, analyzing them. "How old are you?"
"Seventeen this year, Your Grace. We’re Xue Ming and Xue Ying," they chimed in unison.
You studied them for a long moment, before straightening slightly as you informed playfully. "I hope you’re aware that my favourite pastime is plucking out wandering eyes."
They exchanged one quick glance.
"We made a mistake!" Xue Ying squeaked. "We were punished this morning for a task we failed and we saw the others carrying medicine... we only stopped to see if there was any extra for us. We didn't mean to offend."
You looked at them, really looked at them. They were young, thin, and clearly terrified. You reached into your sleeve and pulled out a tiny vial, filled with a pale blue powder. It was a gift from the renowned physicians your father had introduced you to.
Both twins’ eyes widened.
You held it up between two fingers.
“I will give you this,” You said, “It will heal those welts on your backs in a day.”
Their eyes lit up, but they hesitated. "Your Grace, you are injured..."
"Take it," you commanded. "But in exchange, you will be at my beck and call. When I need information, or when I need to go somewhere without your master’s knowledge, you will be the ones to help me."
The brothers exchanged a glance, then grinned, bowing deeply as they snatched the vial. "Yes, Your Grace! We swear it!"
"Get out," You said, watching them scramble away. You waited until they were gone before slumping against the wall, wincing as the burn on your arm throbbed. A few attendants approached you with the intention to freshen you up and let yourself be led away.
----
Deep within the main hall of the Autarch’s residence, the air was thick with the scent of tea and calming incense, but beneath it lay a primal current, a heavy, musk-like pressure that belonged not to the mortal world. Qin Che sat on a dais, a ceramic cup of steaming oolong held loosely in his hand.
Perched on the edge of the low table before him was not quite a man, but a presence compressed into a human shape — a young man with pale, moonlight hair and azurite eyes that held the vertical, predatory slits of a beast.
This was Baihu, the White Tiger of the West, one of the Four Celestial Guardians, currently wearing the guise of a youth whose torso was wrapped in arrow wounds that glowed faintly with a spiritual resonance.
"You look atrocious, Bai," Qin Che remarked, fanning himself lazily. "To think a mortal did this to you. The Celestial Realm will laugh itself into oblivion."
Bai huffed, wincing as he shifted his weight, the action causing the golden light around his wounds to fluctuate. He was cultivating, weaving strands of pure Qi to knit the flesh together, the process visible as shimmering threads of energy stitching the angry red gashes left by Shanyi’s arrow.
"You wouldn't be saying that if you were the one being chased by that madwoman for miles. She has no regard for terrain, no regard for her own safety, and certainly no regard for the dignity of a celestial beast. She shot me! Me! A guardian of the West!"
Qin Che’s lips curled into a faint, rare smile. "Perhaps you shouldn't have stolen the chickens."
"Stolen?" Bai sat up straighter, his indignation causing the air in the room to move with a phantom ferocity. "I did not steal. I liberated those poor livestock from their iron cages! They were awaiting slaughter, trapped and miserable. I merely opened the doors and gave them a taste of freedom. I caused no trouble, Qin. I was chasing the evil spirits that have been slipping through the realm's cracks. They were terrorizing Linhe’s citizens, and I was hunting them. That woman... she just assumed the worst."
"You were hunting in mortal lands," Qin Che corrected dryly. "And you got hunted back for your trouble."
"A minor inconvenience," Bai grumbled, settling back as the golden light finally faded, his wounds fully healed. "But why are you keeping her here? The General's debt has long been paid, isn't it?"
Qin Che said, set the cup down on its saucer before starting, "The Crown Prince is moving to the borders. If she returns now, she falls into his hands. The General asked for a month."
"A month," Bai groaned, "With that temper? You will age decades, Qin."
"Why are you here, Bai?" Qin Che asked after momentary consideration, his gaze fixating on the other man, dispelling all prior ease in the air.
"The Jade Emperor worries," Bai said, his tone softening. "He sent me to see if you had... found anything."
Qin Che’s jaw tightened. "I can do it myself."
"Can you?" Bai countered gently. "The celestial realm is unstable. The Guardian cannot stay away forever."
Before Qin Che could reply, the screen door slid open, and the twin brothers, Xue Ming and Xue Ying, bounced into the room, oblivious to everything else. They bowed low to Qin Che and then to Bai, their faces flushed with excitement.
"Speak," Qin Che commanded.
“We came to report,” Xue Ming began.
“And to confirm,” added Xue Ying, “that Her Grace is very strange.”
Xue Ming rubbed his chin, “Princess Shanyi dropped her medicine tray on purpose.”
Xue Ying took over then. “She declared the bottles had fallen to the floor and were contaminated, so she refused to use them and made everyone divide them between themselves.”
"What a way to do things," Bai scoffed. "Wasteful. The huntress has no regard for resources."
"How self-righteous of her," Qin Che murmured under his breath.
"But that's not all," Xue Ming chimed in, catching the object he had tossed. It was the vial you had given them. "She caught us spying. She gave us this. She said if we took it, we had to be at her beck and call."
Bai sat up, his eyes widening. "She gave you her personal medicine? The vial she had on her? Then she has nothing left for her own wounds?"
The twins shrugged, looking mildly guilty for a fraction of a second before the greed for the treasure outweighed it. "She seemed to think we needed it more, Master."
Then the brothers disappeared with far too much speed to suggest true remorse.
Qin Che said nothing.
But his gaze, absent a moment ago, had already begun drifting elsewhere, as though something in the shape of your defiance, your pride, and that ridiculous insistence on dignity had lodged itself in his thoughts whether he approved of it or not.
It all felt familiar.
Bai noticed the distance in his eyes and turned, following the line of his attention to the wall.
For a while neither of them spoke.
The dragon in the mural descended from the skies, chasing behind something too valuable to lose even once.
"It's been two hundred years, Bai," Qin Che said softly, his voice heavy with an exhaustion that went far beyond physical tiredness. "I have searched every mountain, every river, every crevice of this world. There is no sign of it."
The answer came at once, and for once there was no playfulness in it, only a solemn kindness that sat strangely well upon his face. Bai clicked his tongue, shaking his head slowly, "You mustn't lose hope, Qin. What you seek is not a lost trinket. It is a part of the order, a part of you. It will return when it is time."
"Time?" Qin Che laughed bitterly, a dry, humorless sound. "I do not have time. The realms are crumbling. I am fading."
"You must grant yourself — and the world — a chance," Bai said, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. He looked toward the door, a soft smile playing on his lips. "Who it is, in what form it dwells... to know this, you must open your eyes. For who can tell in which shape, in which guise, it may suddenly stand before you?”
The words lingered.
Right then, a shadow fell across the threshold.
You stood there, framed by the dying light of the evening. You had changed into a fresh ensemble of white silk, the hanfu intricately embroidered. Your hair was styled in a half-updo with ornate floral buyaos pinned with delicate care. The light from the lanterns behind you silhouetted your figure, casting a glow around the edges of your form.
For a moment, the world seemed to stop. Qin Che stared at you, his breath catching in his throat. The painting behind him felt suddenly heavy, the dragon on the silk seemingly gaining life.
For the first time in two centuries, the tianlong felt inexplicably complete.
And neither of them, yet, understood what that meant.
part of vignette series Love and Style • Sylus x Fashion Designer! Reader • fluffy • now playing: Pink + White by Frank Ocean • a/n: 1 more little excerpt taken from a series that never made it. I got my Flower Knows advent calendar and that inspired this so enjoy!
You had tried everything.
Alarms set at unholy hours, tabs refreshed until your browser threatened mutiny, fingers poised like a gambler’s over the Buy Now button — only to watch the Flower Knows Dreamland advent calendar vanish from your screen in seconds. Out of stock. Then something more cruel followed: Unavailable in your region.
It shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. You told yourself that repeatedly throughout the day, pacing the base with a hollow weight in your chest, half-heartedly checking out new fabrics while your mind kept circling back to limited edition products, gilded mirrors, and the soft promise of things you would never get to open one by one.
Sylus noticed, of course — he always did — but you brushed off his glances, muttering something vague about work and deadlines, about being tired.
By the time evening settled in, the light filtering through your studio windows had turned honeyed and slow, dust motes drifting lazily in the air. You pushed open the door, already planning to bury yourself in work until the disappointment dulled.
And then you stopped.
Right there, beside your sewing machine, resting neatly on the polished worktable like it had always belonged there, was the Flower Knows advent calendar.
Blue and ornate, edges trimmed in gold, festive illustrations delicate enough to look hand-painted — the vanity box gleamed softly under the lights. For a moment, you thought your exhaustion had finally tipped you into hallucination. You took a step closer. Then another.
Your breath left you in a sharp, disbelieving gasp.
Behind you, a familiar presence shifted. “What is it?” Sylus asked, genuinely curious, voice low and casual as he leaned against the doorway.
You didn’t answer him. Instead, you spun around and walked straight into him, arms wrapping tight around his middle as you pressed your face into his chest.
“Thank you,” you squealed, words tumbling over each other, muffled and breathless. “Thank you, thank you, thank you—”
He stiffened, clearly caught off guard. One hand hovered awkwardly in the air before settling on your back, patting once, uncertain. “Wait— hold on,” he said, brow furrowing. “You’re… crying?”
You were. Warm tears slipped down your cheeks, soaking into his shirt as relief and joy collided messily in your chest.
Sylus visibly panicked.
“I—I bought it beforehand,” he rushed out, voice suddenly faster than usual. “You use their products all the time, I just assumed you’d like it. I didn’t realize it was… this important. If you’re upset, I can return it, or—”
You pulled back just enough to look at him, eyes shining, cheeks flushed, a watery smile breaking through. “I’m not mad,” you said, laughing through tears. “I’m happy. You noticed and more so you remembered.”
Something in his expression shifted then — his usual composure cracking just a little as understanding dawned. His shoulders eased, and his hand came up to wipe a tear from your cheek with surprising gentleness. “You really are impossible,” he murmured, though there was no bite to it.
You sniffed, then laughed again, already turning back toward the table and lunging at the box with glee. “I have to open it, right now.”
Sylus watched as you carefully opened the front to reveal the interior, reverent in the way your fingers traced the compartments, eyes lighting up with every tear of the cardboard slots. Palettes, powders, mirror — each piece nestled like a tiny treasure.
You narrated your excitement aloud, half to yourself, half to him, as if he were meant to understand the language of pigments and packaging the way you did.
Then you paused.
“This one’s my favourite,” you said softly, holding up the lip jelly from their famous Sweetie Bear collection, the casing looking like a delicious dessert by itself.
You applied it with practiced ease, checking your reflection in a compact mirror, the shade blooming perfectly against your lips. You closed your mouth and breathed out, watching the pigment even out. It was better than you’d imagined at first sight — the hue lifted your complexion, giving you that effortless finish you loved.
Sylus watched every motion with an intensity that made your skin prickle. “Do you like it?” he asked, and the single question carried more warmth than any wardrobe critique you’d ever received.
“Yes,” you said, and then, because you wanted him to feel all the ways the gift was more than a trinket, you stood on tiptoe and pressed the mouth of the applicator to his lower lip — a testing peck that left color along the edge.
“Thank you,” you spoke, laughter in your voice as you kissed along his jaw, his temple, the corner of his mouth.
“Sweetie— wait—” he started, but the words dissolved into a breathy exhale as you kept going, the faint scent of cosmetics and sweetness surrounding him.
By the time you finally pulled back, Sylus looked… dazed.
His ears had turned a faint, unmistakable pink, his breath uneven as he ran a hand down his face. “You’re going to be the death of me,” he muttered, though the corner of his mouth betrayed him with a soft, helpless smile.
You grinned, radiant, holding the advent calendar close to your chest like a prize. “Worth it,” you said lightly.
He didn’t argue.
Instead, he reached out, fingers brushing yours where you clutched the box, gaze warm and quietly fond.
Bffr with me for a second cuz I've been losing my mind trying to finish Interdimensional Epiphany. I've been researching about the entire yandere trope + Rafayel's yanderism in the game (limited but still there) and I do not want to end my first and one of favourite series in a messy way.
Rafayel's yanderism in the game is way more diluted than the actual trope should be because of course Infold doesn't want masses charging at it with axes. And true yandersim goes more like involving these things: self resentment, self doubt and misinterpretation that leads a yandere to idolize, isolate, drug, become non consensual and even go as far as using violence on their s/o (breaking legs) They completely lose their 'dere' (cutie side) because of constantly picking every single word and tone apart from their s/o.
Caleb and Raf are clear examples of this in game but not too extra. So if I go an extra mile and add more traits to his already canonical persona, will that be okay or will I be banished to Andromeda? Because I've personally always wanted Raf to go crazy and Uncanny Valley needs to portray him as a defected glitch with some qualities of his true code so....
Would you rather have in IE—
full yandere Raf (we're getting the mdni tags up with this one)
no yandere Raf (he's lovely let him live)
mild yandere Raf (just a little pinch of yandere like he's actually ingame)
₊⊹Synopsis: The legitimate daughter of Prince Wei, and the sole heir of all his wealth and military power is the prideful Princess Shanyi, kept miles away from the scheming capital and the Emperor's watchful eye. When a hunt for a spirit beast goes wrong, Shanyi finds herself at the mercy of Qin Che, the Autarch of Xuanyu. Bound by an ancient pact with her father, he lets her stay. But can she survive his secrets and her own truth?
₊⊹Pairing: Qin Che x Princess! Reader
₊⊹Content: Subject to change as we progress further into the story. For this chapter: none.
₊⊹Word count: 3.9k
₊⊹Notes: Pose cred: @/eepyCAT0 on X. Shanyi is Reader's title not her name, don't get confused! I've been meaning to release this mini-series for quite sometime especially ever since the pv for shared lanterns released but I kept holding it because I didn't want to mess this up badly since this series is rooted heavily in Chinese mythology. I'd like to apologize profusely if I end up making errors & I hope y'all will be there to correct me if at any point you notice something off. I would also like to give a shoutout to @mephisto-reporting who helped greatly in getting my brain juices flowing and picking this up again with her very amazing work A Heart That Learned To Hunger. Please show it some love too & I hope y'all enjoy this read! Lmk if you wanna be added to the taglist of this mini series ♥
The city of Linhe lay like a quiet jewel set upon the borderlands, neither so grand as the capital nor so wild as the frontier beyond it, but well off enough to glimmer at sunset and busy enough that its streets never seemed to sleep. Caravans rolled in from the east with silk and tea, soldiers passed through on patrol with the dust of old roads on their boots, and every courtyard smelled faintly of pine smoke, steamed rice, and lacquered wood. It was the sort of place where people found reasons to laugh, gossip, and barter beneath the eaves freely.
You had been there for several days already, lodged in an elegant residence arranged through your honorary brothers’ military connections. Where you walked, there followed a quiet procession of men who called you ‘little sister’ more often than they remembered your title, men who had trained under your father and now watched over you with a devotion that bordered on reverence.
They had work in the region and had insisted on bringing you along, as if the borders itself might swallow you if they left you behind. You had scoffed at that at first, as you always did, yet you had come in the end, because you trusted them and because you were, despite all protest, fond of seeing new places, even when every person in your household behaved as though you were a porcelain vase carried through a battlefield.
The truth was, no one ever let you forget that you were the daughter of the legendary general, Wei Zhixin.
It was a frustrating thing, to be treasured so fiercely, to be watched so closely, and yet to feel a fire in your blood that could not be soothed by embroidery, herbal tea, or obedience. You were the only heir of a general who had been granted the noble title of a prince based on his merit. Your father kept you away from the capital for your own sake, he said, and perhaps because he feared the court more than he feared war, which was saying something.
The Emperor, however, always leaned towards the idea of marrying you into his imperial family, as if your life were a ribbon he could tie to his sons and secure for himself the loyalty of the troops. It was one of the reasons that you had been given the title of Princess Shanyi, raised to an equal of the Crown Prince. Your father resisted discreetly and found reasons for you to stay outside the capital, far away from the monarch’s eyes.
You had spent more than half of your life either at the borders or the cities surrounding it. Your father — often staying in the capital — had entrusted you to the care of his best warriors not because he believed you incapable, but because he knew precisely how capable you were.
Too capable, visible, and valuable.
And the capital was not a place that spared such spirit.
On that particular morning, the city had been more bustling than usual. You had listened intently, your chin propped in your hand, while the servants and guards spoke over each other, and the more they gossiped, the more your thoughts sharpened.
A farmer complained of missing chickens. A child spoke of shadows that moved too quickly through the underbrush. A merchant swore he had seen something pale slip between the trees at dusk, its eyes gleaming like embers beneath moonlight.
Then the stories grew teeth.
Deep gouges clawed into bark older than memory. Tracks too large to belong to any common beast, yet too silent to be easily hunted. Certain people gone missing overnight.
A white predator, they said.
A myth, others insisted.
A creature that took from the poor and vanished into the woods was a creature that needed to learn its lesson.
By noon, you had already made up your mind.
----
“You are not going, meimei.”
The statement fell heavy in the courtyard, cutting cleanly through the afternoon air.
You did not look up immediately, your fingers still tracing the curve of your bowstring as though the matter required more contemplation than it truly did. Around you, the familiar presence of your sworn brothers shifted uneasily, some exchanging glances, others already bracing for the argument that was certain to follow.
When you finally raised your head, your gaze was calm, almost thoughtful.
“And if I go regardless?” you asked lightly.
A sharp exhale answered you.
“Then we will be compelled to put you under house arrest before you do so,” Hui Fen said, though the threat lacked conviction. It never held, not with you.
You tilted your head, the faintest hint of a smile touching your lips. “You may try, gege.”
That earned a few strained chuckles from the ones who knew the story behind every failed house arrest, though concern lingered beneath them like a shadow that refused to lift.
“The reports are not ordinary,” Yufei added, more carefully this time. “If it truly is a spirit beast—”
“Then all the more reason to deal with it quickly,” you interrupted, rising in one smooth motion. The sunlight caught along the edge of your figure, illuminating the white mink fur draped across your shoulders.
“The people here are under our protection while we remain,” you continued, your tone steady, your gaze unwavering. “If we turn away from something so simple, then what meaning does that protection hold?”
“It is not simple,” someone muttered.
“Then I will make it so.”
There it was.
That quiet, immovable certainty.
They knew it well.
And they knew, just as well, that once it surfaced, no force short of your father himself could bend it.
At last, the strictest one of them and your father's favourite, Zi Xuan shook his head in disagreement and commanded. “We have some official matters to deal with. You’ll be staying in your courtyard under watch, and that’s final.”
You did not answer.
Which, in itself, was answer enough.
----
By the time your absence was discovered, you were already far beyond the city’s outer roads.
The beast had last been seen beyond the western groves, where Linhe’s cultivated fields thinned into wild woodland that climbed gradually toward the border of Xuanyu City. You knew the paths well enough to outpace a pair of slow-witted guards, and the moment the trees swallowed you, the world changed. The noise of the city faded, replaced by the rustle of branches, the soft slap of your steed’s hooves over damp earth, and the occasional sharp call of birds disturbed from the canopy.
Your mare moved with practiced ease beneath you, hooves striking the ground in a rhythm that echoed your own heartbeat. You slowed, listening intently and noting every minute shift around you.
There — a flicker of movement between the trees.
Without hesitation, you drew an arrow, nocking it with practiced ease. Your posture lowered, breath steadying as the world narrowed to a single point and you shot the arrow. The beast moved before the arrow could impale it and you lowered your bow, tightening the reins.
The hunt had just begun.
----
Behind you, far enough to remain unseen yet close enough to track, a group of subordinates urged their horses forward.
“Your Grace, you’re not permitted to hunt the beast!” Your maid, Meilin, shouted, trying to catch up to you.
“She’s faster than before,” one soldier sighed.
“She’s always been fast,” another corrected. “The General will have our heads if anything happens to Her Grace. Spread out. Don’t lose sight.”
----
The forest thickened as you rode deeper, the canopy above weaving shadows that danced across your path. The enormous white tiger moved with unsettling grace, its form slipping between trees like a ghost of the mountains themselves. Its azure eyes were bright with frantic, animal malice. It crashed through bramble and fern with no concern for the broken stalks behind it, and you leaned forward in the saddle, your pulse kicking hard with the thrill of the hunt as you pursued the spirit beast without hesitation.
You drew another arrow, not yet firing, and urged your steed closer. The beast checked once, saw you still hot on its trail, and bolted deeper into the trees. A smile touched your mouth despite yourself. It had chosen the wrong day to terrorize common folk and the wrong woman to outrun.
Your mare leapt over a fallen log, then another. Branches whipped past your sleeves. Somewhere behind you, your people were calling out your name, split between panic and the hard, disciplined duty to keep up.
The beast veered east, then south, and you followed without hesitation.
Then, quietly, almost without your noticing, the edge of the forest changed.
The banners of Linhe no longer hung from watch posts. The guard stones marking the border became unfamiliar. The trees grew taller, the paths narrower, and the road beneath the leaves began to slope with a strange, deliberate downward turn. You passed a carved wooden marker half-rotted by weather and only then understood, with a small frown of surprise, that you had rode beyond your own city’s reach.
You had crossed into Xuanyu territory.
You might have turned then, had the beast not tried attacking you before darting away again with dangerous speed. Irritation sharpened your focus as you dodged the attacks by countering them with your own. Whatever the border, the beast was still a beast, and beasts that stole from the people did not get to hide behind city lines. You set your jaw and rode on.
A little farther ahead, a few carts lay beside the forest road, perhaps to rest, perhaps to let the drivers’ oxen munch on grass. On the cart, there were stacked bundles of hay covered with coarse cloth, a lantern hung from one cart’s side, and a few farmers sitting in the shade of the wheels. You caught sight of them only for a second before your attention snapped back to your prey, but the moment was enough.
The creature crashed straight past the carts, and one of the men shouted in surprise, jumping out with a pole. The tiger roared at them, swerving past. The lantern, jolted by the chaos, swung violently against the cart’s wooden frame. Oil spilled and the farmers ran for their life. In an instant, dry hay and cloth caught flames with a hungry crackle, and orange fire leapt bright as a wound.
You did not see it happen properly.
You were too busy chasing the beast, too busy angling for the clean shot, too intent on pinning it before it vanished again into the bushes. A little later, a faint heat touched the back of your neck. The fire had begun licking up trees behind you, but the forest was full of movement and shadow, and you mistook the first signs for nothing more than a field worker’s hearth somewhere far away.
----
Far behind, your pursuers slowed when flames began to envelop the path in front of them.
A soldier started, horrified, “Disaster! The forest is on fire and Her Grace fea—”
“There’s no time to react,” Meilin inhaled sharply, alarmed as she scanned the spreading flames. “We need to split. Half of you return and get more of our people to control this before it reaches the cities. The rest with me— we take other paths and try to catch up to Her Grace.”
No one argued.
----
By the time the forest thickened into near stillness, the tiger had begun to falter.
Perhaps it was wounded by one of your arrows.
Perhaps it had grown tired of running.
Whatever the reason, it slipped into a cluster of dense brush ahead, its pale form vanishing just enough to invite pursuit.
You dismounted quietly.
Your mare snorted softly but remained where you left it, trained well enough to understand silence.
Step by step, you advanced.
You narrowed your eyes, bracing your stance. Your fingers settled against the string. The world thinned to the line of your sight, the sliver of white beneath verdant, the angle of the wind, the small gap between the leaves.
Your fingers tightened.
The arrow poised.
And then—
A presence, sudden and undeniable, cutting through your focus.
Your eyes flicked sideways before you could stop them.
Your grip faltered when your gaze met two pools of riveting vermilion.
The wind shifted again, sharper this time, as though disturbed by something far larger than a passing breeze.
The arrow betrayed you, flying a fraction off.
It struck ground and leaves instead of flesh. The spirit beast gave a chuff and burst from the bushes, vanishing with a crashing spray of branches and mud as though the forest itself had opened to swallow it.
The perfect shot, gone in a blink, and for one stunned moment you could only stare after the retreating movement, your fingers still tight around the bow.
Disbelief settled first, slow and heavy, followed swiftly by irritation that flared hotter with each passing breath.
Then you lowered your bow and turned.
A figure stood not far from you, half-shadowed by the trees. He was cut from the darkness itself, his robes drinking the sunlight until he moved, revealing patterns that shimmered like wet scales hidden beneath skin. His silver hair was a pale river spilling down his back, stark against the gloom, framing a face of such terrifying symmetry it looked less like flesh and more like marble carved by a practiced hand.
His posture was unhurried, almost careless, as though he had simply wandered into a hunt and found it mildly interesting. Yet there was nothing careless in the shape of him. His gaze was on you, though not in the way most men looked at women. It was more exact than that, more appraising, as if he were studying the edge of a blade to determine how it would cut.
You knew without a fault he was someone important. Perhaps a noble, perhaps a warrior, perhaps something else entirely. But the look in his eyes told you that he knew exactly how to seem harmless while being anything but.
Your eyes narrowed.
“Listen, wanderer,” you said, your voice edged with unmistakable displeasure, “Why did you step into the path of my hunt? You disturbed my concentration in doing so.”
His expression did not change.
“If your focus can be broken so easily,” he replied, his tone even, almost idle, “then the fault lies not with the interrupter, but with the one who wields the bow. Should you wish to assign blame… you may begin there.”
Your brows rose, outraged.
The audacity of it.
Your lips curled in a frown, your irritation sharpening into something far less patient. “Are you aware that the beast you allowed to escape had created havoc? It crossed into our lands and took what was not its own, bringing suffering to the people. I intended to end it.”
“Intended,” he echoed softly, as though the word itself held some quiet amusement. His gaze flicked briefly in the direction the beast had fled, then returned to you. “And yet it still lives.”
“That is because you—”
“Because it was meant to,” he interrupted, not unkindly, but without room for argument. “The forest does not belong to you, nor does the life within it. Hunger drives the beast, just as duty drives you. You would kill it for one reason, it would survive for another. That is all.”
Your grip tightened around the bow.
“I will not tolerate insolence from a stranger,” you said, each word measured, deliberate. “You speak as though suffering is something to be observed rather than confronted. If it continues, I will end it. That is not a matter for debate.”
“Is it not?” he asked as his gaze slid past you toward the path the tiger had taken, then back again to you with something faintly curious, as though you had become a point of interest rather than an inconvenience. “And if what you face is not so easily ended? If the consequence extends beyond what you can see?”
You lifted your chin, pride settling into place like armor. “Then I will face it. Whatever it may be. I do not dread consequences, whether they come from earth, from men… or from heaven itself. I fear absolutely nothing.”
A faint smile touched his lips as he stepped closer.
“Nothing?” he repeated quietly.
You lifted your chin higher, every line of you rigid with offended pride, eyebrows raised as you affirmed, “Nothing.”
His gaze shifted — past your shoulder, beyond you, toward something you had not yet noticed.
You noted his attention elsewhere and cockily followed his gaze and turned on your heels to face what he was looking at.
For a second, you did not understand what you were seeing. You felt a distortion in the air. Then the scent of bitter smoke reached you and your breath caught as your eyes adjusted to the sight.
Fire.
Not a small tongue of flame, not a harmless edge licking at leaves, but a wall of smoke and sudden, violent light pushing through the forest with terrifying speed. It had started from the hay carts and climbed up the trees and found the undergrowth dry as old paper. Sparks rode the wind, branches exploded in crackling bursts. The smoke rolled low and dark, already thickening around the trunks.
Your body went cold as you faced your greatest fear come to life.
You could feel the man’s appraising gaze pricking your neck, could almost imagine the mock tracing the curve of his lips.
The world narrowed. Your mind, traitorous and fierce, produced a memory you had buried so deep you thought it might have rotted there: your mother’s death. The house fire, the helplessness, the sick red glow, the way the world had split into screaming, crying and a grief too large for a child to carry. Your fingers loosened before you could stop them and your bow slipped.
The man was no longer where he had stood.
You had no time to wonder where he had gone.
The blaze snapped closer with appalling speed.
A branch overhead caught and burst, showering sparks down around you. You stumbled backward in pain, coughed once, then again, the smoke clawing into your lungs with harsh fingers.
Panic surged, sharp and sudden, cutting through the paralysis that held you in place. Instinct took over where thought failed, your body moving before your mind could catch up as you ran, the path ahead blurring beneath the rising smoke.
Your mare reared and whinnied somewhere behind you, half-lost in smoke and screaming heat. The forest had become a furnace. You fought your way through the underbrush, the sound of flames close enough to seem almost beside your ear. The air had gone so hot that your skin prickled, and you could feel the edge of faintness creeping in from the corners of your vision.
You tried shouting for help, calling out multiple times to whoever came to your mind, “Father! Gege! Anyone, help!”
But it was all in vain as every sound was swallowed by the roar of the fire.
Your vision blurred. Your knees threatened to fold. You dragged in one ragged breath and coughed so hard it bent you nearly double.
You stumbled.
The ground rushed up—
And never met you.
An arm caught your waist instead, firm and unyielding, pulling you back from the edge of collapse and upwards with an effortless strength that left no room for resistance. Your breath broke on a gasp, eyes blinking away unshed tears.
“Careless,” a voice murmured near your ear, quieter now, yet no less composed.
The steed beneath you was not yours. It was bigger, stronger, black as lacquer and terrifyingly calm in the midst of the blaze, as if it had been trained to ignore chaos. Before you could even recover enough to form a single word, the man who had stepped into your path was there behind you, reins in hand, one arm steadying you as he drove the horse forward through a narrow gap between flaming branches.
The heat fell away in fragments as the stallion galloped, the roar of fire fading behind you until it became nothing more than a distant echo.
Perhaps you had inhaled too much smoke because your vision began to blur around the edges as your consciousness slipped away from your stubborn grasp.
The last thing you felt was rain droplets cascading over your skin — unexpected.
----
You were laid to rest in one of the estate’s guest chambers. Maids fussed around you, examining your form for any injury and wiping any grime clean off your skin. Some plucked your few jewels off your form and set it aside, changing you out of your riding robes and into finer silk.
Voices murmured in the adjacent hall as two young figures stood in discussion.
“…She was not dressed like an ordinary noble.”
“Nor did she look like one.”
“Then who—?”
They both paused as Qin Che stepped into the hall.
“You need not speculate so much,” he said.
Xue Ming and Xue Ying exchanged a look, and neither said anything, simply following their master’s gaze to where it rested the white cloak you had worn over your riding clothes. Above it, your hairpin rested in a lacquered tray, a lotus-shaped jewel of clear value, the stone too pure and the workmanship too precise to belong to marketplaces, hidden minute details that sang of its northern Liang origins.
Liang was an enemy state and to sell or wear anything of it was a capital crime.
“There is only one woman who could adorn such a jewel without fear.”
Qin Che twisted his jade ring as he commented further, “This was brought across borders, as spoils of war a few years ago, by a victorious general who does not belong to any royal lineage — and yet holds troops to rival those who do.”
Understanding dawned on the brothers, slow and sudden.
“The only prince without a royal surname,” he continued, voice calm as deep water, “the revered general granted a title for military merit and the tiger tally that he carries.”
“The only one who fits such a description…” Xue Ming began, eyes widening slightly.
Qin Che finished it for them.
“Prince Wei Zhixin,” he said, gaze flickering to the closed doors of the chambers. “And the woman inside is none other than the apple of his eye, his only heir, Princess Shanyi.”
Before anyone could speak again, the door to the outer courtyard opened in a rush of footsteps, and a servant hurried in with the kind of urgency that meant bad news had arrived before its owner.
She bowed deeply near the threshold and said, “Master, a maid has arrived at the gates with a group of soldiers. She says she serves Prince Zhixin and will not leave until she sees the young lady. Her face is stern, and the men with her look ready to draw blood.”
Qin Che only smiled, faint and unreadable, as though the unfolding situation had merely confirmed something he already knew.
“Let them in,” he said.
Then, after a pause—
“With full hospitality.”
Somewhere beyond the walls, unseen by all within, a messenger pigeon cut through the darkening sky, carrying with it a sealed command that would bind this meeting to something far greater than coincidence.
And though you did not yet know it—
The moment you crossed into Xuanyu’s domain, you had already stepped into a fate that would not let you leave unchanged.
IM BACK YAYAYAYAYAY for the bazillionth time lmfao 😭
THANKYOU FOR BLESSING MY ASKS WITH A TRUCKFUL OF CUTIE PATOOTIES ( ≧ᗜ≦) Sending my love and kisses for all of them mwahhh stay healthy stay lucky ᕙ( •̀ ᗜ •́ )ᕗ
₊⊹Synopsis: All it takes is one act of cruelty to unravel everything you’ve been forced to be. When you, the daughter of a political leader, land in Akso Hospital after an assault attempt triggers your congenital heart disease, Dr. Zayne is assigned to your case. As you begin to reclaim your sense of self, your life, and your voice, you find Zayne becoming more than just your doctor.
₊⊹Pairing: Zayne x politician's daughter! Reader
₊⊹Content: Mentioned attempted assault, mentioned self harm, reader has heart issues, hurt/comfort, mild angst, medical terms used in a few scenes, I hope that's all, if not lmk.
₊⊹Word Count: 5.4k
₊⊹Notes: Been a long while since I've worked on this again so here it is. I'm currently aiming for total 8 or 10 chapters for this. I hope that this doesn't feel too bleak because I promise you reader's character has not fully shown in the initial stages, there's still room for development. This series is more inclined medically, and although I've done my research, I could still make mistakes. So if you find some practical things messed up, do call me out. Lmk if you want to be added to the tag list of this series. Hope y'all enjoy reading ♥
The next morning arrived softly, almost deceptively so, with pale sunlight filtering through Akso Hospital’s glass corridors and laying a muted sheen over the polished floors. The building itself seemed to breathe in disciplined silence, every surface clean, every sound measured, every movement carrying the polished urgency of a place that never truly slept.
Zayne had been awake long before the sun rose.
By the time his first cup of coffee was sent to his desk, he had already reviewed your charts twice over. Your vitals had remained stable through the night, the ECG tracing consistent, the arrhythmia resolved for now. Yet the clinical steadiness on paper did little to ease the unease that had settled somewhere deeper — something that had nothing to do with cardiac function.
He was aware of what awaited.
The requests had begun early that morning — forensic specialists, psychiatric evaluators, senior consultants, each one briefed and prepared. They had approached him with professional urgency, asking for updates, for clearance, for access. It was routine in cases like this, necessary even, but the memory of last night lingered too vividly for him to reduce you to procedure alone.
He knew what had to be done.
But he also knew you had not been given the space to choose anything yet.
With that thought, he closed the file on his tablet and made his way toward your suite.
Tessa was stationed nearby, carrying a neat tray and a stack of fresh linens. When she noticed him, she straightened at once. “Dr. Zayne.”
He gave a small nod. “How has she been?”
“Quiet,” Tessa said in a lower voice, glancing toward the door as though even speaking too loudly might disturb the hush inside. “She hasn’t called for anyone. She slept for a while, then woke briefly, but she’s been mostly resting.”
Zayne’s gaze lingered on the door handle for a beat longer than necessary. “All right. Let me know if anything changes.”
He stepped inside.
The harshness of last night had softened into something quieter, almost fragile. The room was dim, the curtains still drawn from the night before, leaving the light softened and almost bluish at the edges. The steady rhythm of the monitor broke the stillness in low, regular beeps, a sound so constant it had become part of the room itself.
And you—
You were asleep.
Your hair was a disordered spill across the pillow, tangled at the crown and swept over one shoulder in uneven strands. A thin line of drool marked the side of your face, careless and unguarded, the sort of detail that would have made someone younger laugh if the situation had not been so painfully fragile. Your hands were tucked close to your chest, fingers half-curled, the pose of someone asleep but still prepared to defend yourself. Even in rest, your body had not forgotten fear.
Something in Zayne’s expression softened before he could stop it.
He had seen many patients sleep in hospitals, some peaceful, some drugged, some feverish and twitching beneath the weight of their own symptoms. But this was different. There was an exhausted kind of innocence in the way you lay there, as if your body had finally surrendered because it had run out of ways to stay alert. He stood at the doorway for several long seconds, simply watching you breathe, the rise and fall of your chest faint but steady beneath the hospital gown.
A quiet thought passed through him, unspoken and fleeting.
Resilient.
He exhaled slowly, as if reminding himself where he stood, and stepped further into the room.
Crossing toward the windows, he reached for the curtains and drew them back in one smooth motion.Sunlight spilled in at once, pooling across the floor and over the edge of the bed in warm gold. The room brightened all at once, and you stirred almost immediately, your face tightening in mild distress as the light touched your eyelids. A small, groggy noise escaped you, and you lifted one hand to shield your face, your fingers splaying across your forehead as though the brightness itself had offended you.
Zayne paused, watching the movement with a quiet, almost imperceptible curve at the corner of his lips.
Then the expression faded, replaced by the careful alertness that never really left him. He looked around the suite with a surgeon’s instinct for order, taking in everything with one measured sweep. Anything sharp, breakable, or potentially harmful should not remain where it could be reached easily.
Without making a sound, he began clearing the room.
A glass paperweight on the side table disappeared into a drawer, then a fountain pen, even the small razors on the sink — each was quietly removed, assessed, and stored away. When he stepped into the bathroom, his movements were just as thorough. Anything that could be used with intent, even unintentionally, was taken away. He removed the items one by one, storing them in a drawer outside and locking it once he was finished.
Only after that did he turn back.
You were stirring more fully now, blinking through sleep, one hand still half-raised to your face before slowly lowering. Zayne stepped a few feet away from the bed, deliberately keeping his distance so as not to startle you. He had noticed yesterday how sharply you reacted to sudden movement, and he had no intention of undoing the fragile progress, if there was any to speak of, by being careless.
“Good morning, miss,” he said gently.
You blinked up at him, then sat a little straighter, the motion slow and uncertain. There was a trace of embarrassment on your face at once, perhaps from being seen in such a state, perhaps from the knowledge that you had been sleeping so deeply you had not heard him enter.
“Good morning,” you murmured, your voice still rough with sleep.
Zayne’s gaze dropped briefly to the monitor before he approached the bedside. He checked the IV line first, then the pulse reading, the blood pressure cuff, the oxygen saturation, and the fine print of the night chart. His movements were calm and practiced, each adjustment made with the same precision he used in surgery, only gentler here, less commanding.
You smoothed your gown with both hands, then dragged your fingers through your hair in an attempt to tame it. He noticed, of course, but did not comment. He merely adjusted his glasses and took out his tablet.
Once he was done, he took a seat beside your bed, tablet resting lightly in his hand.
The quiet between you lasted only a beat before he spoke.
“It’s been a day,” he began, his tone careful, each word chosen with intent. “There are a few procedures that need to be considered now.”
Your fingers stilled.
“A SAFE examination,” he continued, watching you closely, “will help document injuries and collect evidence.”
The shift in you was immediate. Your shoulders tensed, your gaze dropping, your breath catching just enough for him to notice.
At once, Zayne realized the words had landed too heavily, and he moved to soften them before the silence could turn into panic.
“You have the absolute right to decide whether you want to report this to law enforcement,” he said, his voice quieter now, more deliberate. “If you need time, that is also an option. The exam can be done anonymously, and the evidence can be preserved while you think it through. There is no need to decide under pressure.”
Your hands found a loose thread at the hem of your gown, picking at it absently as your thoughts drifted elsewhere.
Your father’s voice echoed in memory — sharp, commanding, threaded with frustration as he spoke into his phone. Words about reputation, about opponents waiting for weakness, about damage control. Even now, you could almost feel the weight of that expectation pressing down on you, suffocating in its familiarity.
If you reported this… the consequences would not be yours alone.
You stayed quiet for a long time.
Zayne watched you in silence, giving you the space to breathe. He could see the conflict settling over your face in layers, subtle but unmistakable.
You had not yet spoken of your father, but the fear sat in the room with you anyway.
Maybe it was in the way your shoulders tightened. Maybe it was in the way your jaw hardened briefly as though bracing for a blow that had not yet come. Or maybe Zayne simply knew enough about human behavior to recognize the shape of dread when it was trying not to show itself. The name attached to your file carried influence, that much was obvious. Powerful people had a way of making even the safest choices feel dangerous.
When he spoke again, his voice cut gently through the spiral of your thoughts.
“As I said, there is no urgency to decide everything now,” he reminded. “You can take your time.”
You swallowed, the movement small but visible.
Then you nodded once. “I’ll do it.”
There was no dramatic flourish to the words, no visible relief in your posture afterward, only a kind of exhausted submission to necessity. Still, Zayne’s expression eased by the barest degree, and he allowed himself a small reassuring smile, more encouraging than bright.
“Good. After that, there will also be a psychiatric evaluation,” he said. “It is routine, and it is there to help, not to interrogate you.”
He stood then, adjusting his glasses, the conversation shifting naturally toward closure.
“I’ll have the nurse assist you with getting ready,” he said. “And your meal will be brought in shortly. I’ll see you downstairs in fifteen minutes.”
You nodded again, quieter this time. “Okay.”
Zayne gave a brief inclination of his head in return, then turned toward the door. He had barely taken two steps before you slipped from the bed in your own small, hesitant way, and he heard the rustle of the blanket behind him as Tessa entered a moment later, her movements careful as she began preparing you for what lay ahead.
----
By the time you came downstairs, the hospital had shifted into its busiest rhythm, the kind that made every corridor feel busier than it really was. Stretchers moved past in quiet bursts, phones rang behind glass partitions, and nurses crossed paths with charts pressed to their chests. Zayne was standing near one of the consultation rooms, speaking with a SANE nurse in a low, efficient tone when he saw you appear at the far end of the hallway, accompanied by Tessa.
You looked smaller than he remembered from the morning, not in size, but in the way your body seemed to hesitate before each step. Your gown was held carefully in place at one shoulder, as though even the fabric itself had become a thing to manage, and your gaze kept moving, lifting and dropping in quick, uncertain sweeps of the corridor. Not quite panic. Not quite calm either. Something in between, brittle and watchful.
The SANE nurse noticed you at once. Her posture changed immediately, her expression warming as she stepped forward with the sort of practiced gentleness that only came from experience.
“You must be the patient,” she said softly, offering a smile that was meant to be reassuring rather than intrusive. “I’m Nurse Alina. I’ll be helping with the exam today. We’ll go slowly, all right?”
You gave a small nod, polite, careful, but Zayne noted the way your shoulders remained slightly tense, the way your gaze flickered from the nurse to the hallway and back again, as if searching for an exit that did not exist. Still, you were responding. That alone, given the previous day, was something.
The nurse did not press. Instead, she turned slightly and gestured toward the examination room. “I’m just going to go in and make sure everything is ready for you.”
She disappeared through the door ahead of you, leaving the hallway quieter in her wake.
Zayne watched you stand there for a moment longer than was probably comfortable, your weight shifting from one foot to the other and back again. He stepped closer, careful not to crowd you.
“This is purely a matter of your own consent,” he said, his voice even and low enough that it would not carry beyond the two of you. “Every procedure will be explained before it is done. If at any point you do not wish to continue, you can stop or decline. There is no obligation to continue beyond what you are willing to endure.”
You lifted your gaze to him then, just briefly, and nodded again, slower this time, as if the words were being absorbed piece by piece.
Before anything more could be said, the Alina’s voice called softly from inside. “We’re ready.”
You drew in a breath that felt shallow even to yourself, then stepped forward. At the doorway, you paused, your fingers brushing lightly against the frame as though anchoring yourself. For a fleeting moment, your eyes found Zayne’s again, and that brief exchange said more than either of you would have been able to voice. He gave you a small, steady nod, the kind meant to say ‘go ahead, I am still here’, before you followed the nurse inside.
Zayne stayed outside.
Tessa hovered nearby for a few seconds, glancing between him and the closed door before speaking in a tentative voice. “Dr. Zayne, you can return if you have any pressing matters. I’ll be sure to take care of her properly.”
He shook his head at once, the motion firm but not abrupt. “No. I’m free.”
It wasn’t entirely true. There were always other patients, other responsibilities waiting to be addressed, charts to review, consultations to attend. But he remained where he was, his gaze occasionally shifting to the clock on the wall, marking the slow passage of time.
Eventually, the door opened.
Nurse Alina stepped out first, followed by two assistants carrying sealed containers and labeled packets, each item handled with the careful precision of evidence that could not be replaced. Her expression was composed, but there was a small crease between her brows that told him enough before she even spoke.
“Dr. Zayne,” she began quietly, stepping closer so her words wouldn’t carry unnecessarily, “we were able to collect partial evidence. However…” she hesitated for a moment, choosing her words with care, “some of the DNA has been compromised. It appears it was washed away prior to the examination.”
Zayne’s expression did not shift, but his gaze lowered briefly, a silent acknowledgment of what that meant.
“We’ll rely on the clothing that was collected earlier,” she continued. “That should make up for some of the loss.”
“Understood,” he said. “Take what you need.”
Alina gave a small, respectful incline of her head and moved away with the other staff, the evidence secured in their hands.
A moment later, you came out.
You were still fixing your gown at one shoulder, your movements smaller now, as though the exam had drained whatever spare strength you had been carrying into it. Zayne noticed the difference immediately. There was no overt distress on your face, no visible breakdown, but your expression looked dimmer somehow, touched with a sadness that had settled deeper than before.
Tessa was still waiting nearby, but Zayne dismissed her with a quiet look.
“You can return to your station,” he said. “I’ll handle things from here.”
She nodded and left without argument.
When Zayne turned back to you, he kept his voice measured. “You’ll be going for the psychiatric evaluation now.”
You gave a wordless nod and fell into step beside him.
You nodded, your response wordless, and fell into step behind him.
He did not hurry you. That would have helped no one. Instead, he matched his pace to yours, allowing the corridor to open around the two of you as you moved past the quiet blur of hospital life. Zayne could sense, even before you spoke, that there was something sitting heavily on your mind, something you had been turning over since the exam ended.
You kept your eyes forward for several more steps before finally speaking, your voice controlled in the way of someone determined not to sound shaken.
“Did…” You paused, the word catching slightly at the edge of your breath. “Did what I did yesterday make things hard for you? I’m sorry.”
Zayne’s shoulders loosened at once, relief arriving before anything else. Not because the question was easy, but because you had spoken it at all, because you were still reaching outward rather than folding entirely inward.
“Some partial evidence was recovered,” he responded without delay. “The rest should still be collected from your clothing. So no, it was not a matter of too much concern.”
He let the words settle before continuing, his tone steady and certain in the way he hoped yours might lean into.
“The important thing is that the examination was done, and the evidence has been secured. What matters now is your next step, not what was lost.”
You did not answer immediately, but your shoulders eased by a degree so small it would have been invisible to anyone who had not been watching closely. Zayne took that as its own kind of response and allowed the silence to remain between you as the hallway ahead led them toward the psychiatric wing, where the next part of the day was waiting.
The psychiatric wing of Akso Hospital was quieter than the rest of the building, the air carrying a different kind of stillness — less urgent, more watchful. The lights were softer here, the walls lined with neutral tones meant to calm rather than intimidate, yet the moment you stepped inside, your body refused to register any of it as safe.
The color drained from your face in a single breath. Your shoulders stiffened, your fingers tightened around the edge of your gown, and a fine sheen of sweat gathered almost instantly along your brow. Your gaze fixed on the psychiatrist standing in the consultation room beyond the glass panel, and for a second Zayne could not read what had struck you so sharply.
The psychiatrist was already turning toward you with a polite, expectant expression. But you did not see him as he was.
You saw the resemblance. Not exact but close enough to make your blood run cold.
A mole on his chin.
Your fingers curled into the fabric of your gown as your vision tunneled for a moment, the edges of the room blurring while your mind tried to reconcile what it was seeing. You knew — logically, clearly — that this man was not the same person. His features were different, his posture composed, his gaze warm rather than predatory. And yet your body did not care for logic. It reacted first, faster than thought, dragging you back into a memory you had not yet escaped.
The body did strange things when fear had once been taught to it. It took fragments, not facts, and made monsters out of ordinary features.
Zayne followed your line of sight, then looked back at you, taking in the faint sheen of sweat forming at your temples, the shallow rise and fall of your chest. He turned slightly toward the man and introduced him before the tension could deepen further.
“This is Dr. Vincent,” Zayne said calmly, his voice smooth and professional. “He’ll be conducting your psychiatric evaluation.”
Dr. Vincent dipped his head in greeting, a faint smile curving his lips. “Miss. It’s a pleasure to meet you, though I wish circumstances were better.”
But his words seemed to slide past you, unheard. They hovered somewhere at the edge of your awareness, drowned out by the sound of your own heartbeat picking up again, that familiar, suffocating rhythm pressing against your ribs. You swallowed, your throat dry, your gaze still fixed too long on that single detail you could not unsee.
You stared at the psychiatrist as though every instinct in your body was shouting at you to step back, to leave, to vanish.
Without thinking, Zayne stepped half a pace in front of you.
It was a small movement, but deliberate, partially blocking your direct line of sight. Quietly, his hand came to rest against the middle of your back, light and brief, a steadying point more than a touch. He could feel the startled tension in you at once, the way your breath caught at the contact, but he kept his palm there just long enough to remind you that you were not alone in the room.
“Focus on me,” he said softly, his voice lowered just for you. “You’re safe. Nothing here will harm you.”
You looked up at him then, and the expression on your face was so raw that it briefly disrupted the usual order of his thoughts. Your eyes were glassy with unshed tears, not yet spilling over, but close enough that your lashes clung together. There was fear there, yes, but also embarrassment, and something else layered under it, something that looked like pleading.
For a moment, Zayne had an irrational urge to abandon the entire evaluation, escort you back to your room, and shut the door on everything that disrupted your peace and threw your heart in a whirlwind.
The thought startled him so much that he almost frowned at himself.
He had never once considered disregarding a medical procedure this way, not even for the most delicate cases.And yet, standing here, watching you struggle to hold yourself together, the idea had come uninvited.
He withdrew his hand, careful not to make the moment feel abrupt, and gave you a little space to collect yourself. Dr. Vincent said nothing, though Zayne caught the slightest lift of his brows, as if he too had noticed the shift and was waiting to understand it.
After a few seconds, you steadied enough to speak.
“I…” Your voice was very small. “I can do it.”
There was no certainty in the words, but there was intention, and that mattered.
Zayne drew in a quiet breath, steadying himself as much as he was steadying you. “Take your time.”
You moved forward on your own then, though slowly, and took the seat across from Dr. Vincent. Zayne remained standing a moment longer before entering after you. Dr. Vincent offered him a brief sideways glance, curious but not yet intrusive.
“I’ll explain later,” Zayne said before the other man could ask.
The psychiatrist gave a tiny shrug that suggested he had already expected as much, then turned back to you with a gentler smile.
He began with the simplest questions first, his tone measured and calm, as if trying to give the room a stable rhythm to follow.
“Can you tell me your name?”
You answered softly.
“Your age?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Family?”
Your gaze lowered a little. “Just my father and me. My mom died after I was born.”
The answer was quiet, flat with old grief, and though the sentence was simple, it struck the room harder than a longer confession might have. Dr. Vincent’s face softened at once, but he did not linger there.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Thank you for telling me.”
He tapped a few notes into his tablet and then folded his hands lightly over it. “This evaluation is to help us understand what you’re experiencing and what support you may need. My team is always around if you feel overwhelmed at any point, or if you want to stop.”
You nodded, but your gaze drifted to the window beside the desk, where a grey patch of sky glowed behind the glass.
Out of the corner of your eye, Zayne saw his own reflection in the pane, upright and still, and almost immediately he noticed your attention flicking toward him as well, as though you were checking whether he was really staying. He had already turned once toward the door, out of intention more than thought, when your voice stopped him.
“Can he be here?”
Zayne glanced back over his shoulder, surprise flickering across his face. Dr. Vincent straightened slightly, clearing his throat.
“Dr. Zayne is part of your surgical care team,” he said. “This is a psychiatric evaluation, so it is usually conducted—”
“I’ll only answer if he stays.”
This time, your voice carried more weight. Not loud, but resolute.
Zayne was already moving back into the room before Dr. Vincent could think of a response.
“It’s all right,” Zayne said, taking the seat at an adjacent corner, a little distance away from you, not close enough to intrude, but present enough to anchor the room. “I can stay. Please continue.”
The psychiatrist looked between the two of you one more time before deciding not to ask whatever had clearly become obvious to him. He lowered his gaze to the tablet again and began typing.
“All right, then. How are you feeling right now, physically and emotionally?”
You took a little longer to answer this one. Zayne watched the way your fingers interlaced and then separated, over and over, as though your hands could not decide whether to hold on or let go. At last you said, “Physically… I don’t feel the same pain as yesterday. It’s manageable. Emotionally…” Your voice thinned. “Compromised.”
He noted that down, then asked, “Can you tell me what happened before you were brought here?”
Your fingers dug into the soft flesh of your palm, not enough to hurt visibly, but enough for Zayne to see the strain. You looked down and away, then began in a halting voice, as if choosing each word carefully before letting it leave your mouth.
“I was returning home and a man grabbed me, forced me into a car…” You stopped, swallowing. “There was an emergency button on my watch. I managed to trigger the emergency button on my watch… and my guards intervened before…”
Dr. Vincent could see the slight narrowing of your brows. The psychiatrist was listening not only to the words, but to what your body was doing while saying them. You were sitting upright, yes, but every muscle in you looked prepared to flee.
He gave you a moment, then continued gently. “Do you feel afraid right now? Or more disturbed?”
You stared at the window as if something in the glass might answer for you.
“I think…” You paused again. “I don’t feel like myself. My mind is a blank slate most of the time. Thoughts come in for a moment, then disappear again. Like I can’t hold onto anything long enough to feel it properly.”
You hesitated, then added quietly, “Like a deer that escaped a hunter… but still feels like it’s being chased.”
The words were quiet, but Zayne felt them land with a weight that made his chest tighten. He kept his face still, though inside, something in him turned cold with anger on your behalf. It was the kind of anger he disliked most because it had nowhere useful to go. Anger at the man who had done this. Anger at whatever had built such fear into you long before this incident. Anger at the helplessness in your voice as you described it.
Dr. Vincent’s pen paused for a fraction of a second but his tone stayed gentle. “Yesterday it was reported that you attempted to harm yourself. Is that correct?”
The shame that crossed your face was immediate and painful to witness. “Yes.”
“Why?”
Your lips parted, then pressed together. Your gaze slid to the window again, and this time your hands moved toward your own forearm, not touching hard enough to injure, but hovering over the skin as if memory itself had become itchy.
“I thought…” Your voice faltered, then steadied with difficulty. “I thought if I could just shed the feeling on my skin, it would hurt less than keeping it.”
“So you felt disgusted?” Vincent prompted.
You did not answer verbally.
Zayne heard the unspoken part of the sentence all the same: disgusted, dirty, wrong, trapped inside your own body. He had treated enough patients to know that some wounds aimed inward long before anyone else had a chance to touch them. He said nothing, but his jaw had gone tense enough that the muscle there shifted once.
The questions continued after that, one after another: sleep, appetite, nightmares, panic. Whether sounds startled you or whether you had been having trouble being alone. And even whether your thoughts ever moved toward hurting yourself again. To each, you answered with honesty that was sometimes slow and sometimes reluctant, but always present. It became gradually obvious that what had happened recently was not isolated, not wholly born of one violent event. There was history in you, layered and old, even if nobody in the room had said so aloud.
Dr. Vincent noticed it too.
“Do you often feel like this?” he asked at one point. “As though you’re waiting for something bad to happen?”
“Sometimes.”
“Before the assault?”
A pause. Then, softer, “Yes.”
The room seemed to still after that. Even Zayne held his breath for a beat, not because he was startled, but because your voice had carried something so raw and practiced at once. As though you had long since learned how to make pain sound ordinary.
Then the psychiatrist asked, “Does having Dr. Zayne present make you feel safer?”
You did not look at him directly, but you nodded.
“Why?”
For the first time, the silence that followed was not defensive. It was almost shy.
“He is…” You swallowed, voice almost inaudible. “He is like a friend.”
Zayne felt something unhelpfully warm and unexpectedly human tug at the edge of his expression. He managed, with effort, to keep it from becoming anything visible. A ridiculous thought surfaced, uninvited, that perhaps he ought to be embarrassed by how relieved he felt at such a simple answer. But there it was all the same, quietly settling in his chest.
Dr. Vincent turned his gaze briefly to Zayne, then back to you. “And what about me? You seemed quite startled when you first came in.”
You fidgeted with a strand of your hair, twisting it once around your finger before letting it fall again. “You looked a little like him… the man who assaulted me,” you admitted, and the apology in your tone came almost immediately. “It’s nothing personal.”
For a second, Dr. Vincent blinked in obvious surprise. Then he gave a short, awkward laugh that softened the tension rather than thickening it. “Ah. I see. No offense taken.”
The evaluation moved toward its end after that. Dr. Vincent asked a few final questions, then closed his tablet and set it down beside him.
“You’ve done well,” he said. “That will be enough for now.”
You stood, your movements slower than before, and stepped out into the corridor.
Zayne followed, but Vincent stopped him briefly, lowering his voice.
“She’s showing signs of an acute trauma response,” he said. “It’s being concealed fairly well on the surface, but the instability is there. Her reactions are sharper than her presentation suggests, and there are signs this isn’t entirely new. There may be an older mental history at work here.”
Zayne listened without interruption, each word sinking into place.
“In some ways, her behavior is regressing, more childlike,” Dr. Vincent continued, gesturing toward you at the end of the corridor, where you stood with your arms wrapped around your abdomen as if holding yourself together by force, feet rocking lightly. “The childlike behaviour, the heightened startle, the avoidance, the self-directed harm yesterday, none of that points only to this incident, it suggests prior emotional strain. I would recommend extending the observation period. We cannot risk her being left alone with this level of vulnerability.”
Zayne nodded once, committing every word to memory. “Understood.”
He did not need to be told twice. The conclusion was not a surprise, only a confirmation of something he had already begun to suspect. You were not merely frightened because of one assault. Something in you had already been cracked before it happened, and this event had struck the fracture open.
He thanked Dr. Vincent, who gave him a brief, acknowledging smile before moving off down the corridor.
When Zayne turned back toward you, your arms had loosened slightly from around your middle. He didn’t miss the way your alertness ceased and you properly met his gaze instead of looking around.
He was about to speak when Greyson came hurrying toward them from the far end of the hall, breathing a little harder than usual, his expression tight.
“Dr. Zayne,” he informed, slowing as he reached them, “Miss’ father — Statesman Arthur — he’s here. He wants to see her this instant.”
ACT II: UNCANNY VALLEY | Interdimensional Epiphany
Chapter 11
Chapter 10 | Chapter 12 | ao3
₊⊹Synopsis: Your whirlwind fortnight is over, and you expect life to slip back into its usual rhythm. But Rafayel — the man you thought you could read like a well-worn book — begins revealing pages you never knew existed. Love spirals into madness and dimensions crash in this new phase of Interdimensional Epiphany.
₊⊹Pairing: self aware! Rafayel x Reader
₊⊹Content: Subject to change as we progress further into the story. The series has major character deaths, subdued manipulation, heavy angst with a happy(?) ending, slight yandere themes, fluff, did I mention angst? For this chapter: None.
₊⊹Word count: 4.8k
₊⊹Notes: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THIS SERIES 🥳🥳🥳 I can't believe it's already been a year since IE started lol but I'm glad all of us made it to here. I left this series hanging for sometime but fear not, Rafayel's coming in the next chapter so that's compensation and apology. Also ladies, don't ever consider Ace like men...they're just pure trash. Anyway, hopefully, you enjoy the read and stay tuned for the series. Lmk if you wish to be added to the tag list for this. ♥
The café television had been murmuring in the background when the anchor’s voice suddenly sharpened, cutting cleanly through the low clatter of cups, the hiss of the espresso machine, and the soft murmur of morning conversation. You had been staring vaguely at the condensation beading along the window, your thoughts still half-anchored to the uneasy night you had dragged yourself through, when the words on the screen finally tugged your attention back.
“—a young man in his twenties was found dead in his apartment early this morning,” the news anchor said, her expression arranged into the careful neutrality of someone who had spent years speaking of tragedy into living rooms.
A pause followed, brief but deliberate, as footage shifted to a blurred image of an apartment building cordoned off with police tape, officers moving in and out like shadows cast against concrete.
“The body was discovered after neighbors reported a strong foul odor coming from the residence. Authorities responded to the scene and recovered the remains shortly after. According to preliminary reports, the victim’s lungs were clogged with water, though he also suffered severe third-degree burns. At this time, police are contacting relatives and associates of the deceased, and the case is being treated as suspicious. We will continue to follow this developing story and bring you updates as they become available.”
For a moment, the words seemed to hang in the air above the café tables like something poisonous and unreal. Around you, nobody reacted much beyond a faint glance toward the television before returning to their own breakfasts, their own lives, their own small complaints. The world kept moving in that infuriatingly ordinary way it always did, even when a death had just been spoken aloud with a polished voice and a perfect smile.
You were still staring at the screen when the seat opposite you shifted.
Ace dropped into the chair across from you with the comfortable ease of someone who had decided, with great confidence, that your mood would eventually catch up to his. He leaned back slightly, one arm settling along the table edge, and looked at you with the same open warmth he had carried since the moment he had insisted on this lunch.
You blinked, dragged forcibly out of the strange, heavy daze the news had left behind, and let your gaze settle on him instead. His expression brightened the instant he noticed you focusing.
“There she is,” he said, a small grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. “I was starting to think you had changed your mind about all this.”
You gave him a look that was more tired than amused, then reached for the glass of water beside your plate and took a slow sip. You had not exactly been in the mood to come out with him today. In truth, a part of you had wanted nothing more than to stay home, to sit in your room and pretend the walls could hold up the pieces of your mind until they stopped shaking.
Last night had clung to you like smoke.
Even now, though you hadn’t said it out loud, the memory of it sat somewhere in your chest with a dull, stubborn ache. But you had promised him earlier, when the subject had first come up and he had asked with that easy, almost boyish certainty of his, that you would let him choose a time to take you out for lunch. He had been dead set on today, and after enough back-and-forth to count as gentle harassment, you had eventually relented.
You had come, not because you were especially eager, but because you had run out of ways to say no without sounding like a hermit or a coward.
Ace leaned forward, resting his elbows lightly on the table. “You look like you’re a thousand miles away,” he said, studying your face with mild concern. “Bad morning?”
Your mouth twitched as if it wanted to form a joke, but it didn’t quite make it there. “Something like that.”
Ace probed again, resting his elbows on the table. “So,” he said, a hint of curiosity threading through his voice, “are you going to tell me what’s got you looking like you fought a war last night, or am I supposed to guess?”
“Nothing like that,” you replied, the words smooth, practiced. “Just… didn’t sleep well.”
Ace studied you for a moment longer, as if weighing whether to press further, before he followed your glance back toward the television. “That sounded nasty,” he said after a beat, his tone quieter now. “Burned and drowned at the same time. That’s… awful.”
You let out a small, humorless breath and, before you could fully catch yourself, the words slipped past your lips in a murmur so quiet they almost seemed to belong to someone else. “He deserved it.”
The moment the sentence left your mouth, something delicate and uncanny flickered at your throat. The pearl resting against your collarbone gave off a brief, almost sentient pulse of ultramarine that vanished the moment you noticed it. Your fingers rose on instinct, brushing the pendant lightly, and a strange unease stirred in your stomach, not quite fear and not quite recognition.
Ace blinked at you, his brows drawing together in mild confusion before he let out a short, awkward laugh that sounded more uncertain than amused. “What?” he asked, as if he had heard you incorrectly and was trying to decide whether to tease you about it or pretend he had not.
You froze for half a beat, surprised by your own words just as much as he seemed to be. Then, with a small shake of your head, you forced the moment back into place and gave him a tight, fleeting smile. “Ignore me,” you said, the words coming out a little too quickly. “Just mindless rambling. Let’s talk about lunch instead.”
You lowered your hand from the pearl and reached for the menu again, deliberately turning your attention away from the strange chill still lingering at your throat. “So,” you added, lighter this time, as though the previous sentence had never happened, “what are you actually ordering? Focus on that, and on whatever conversation we were supposed to be having before my brain decided to embarrass me.”
The first half of the lunch unfolded with a kind of fragile ease, the sort that looked convincing from a distance but began to fray the moment you tried to lean into it too much. The food arrived steaming and well-presented, the table gradually filling with plates that smelled warm and inviting, and for a little while, you let yourself sink into the rhythm of it.
You had ordered a grilled vegetable sandwich with a side of herbed fries, something light, something you could manage without thinking too much, while Ace had gone for a loaded chicken pasta and a glass of cola that fizzed loudly when it was set down. He glanced at your plate when it arrived, then at you, a small smirk curling at the corner of his mouth.
“Of course,” he said, leaning back slightly, as if he had just confirmed a private theory. “You’re exactly the type to order this.”
You looked up at him, brow faintly furrowed. “What type is that supposed to be?”
He shrugged, already spearing a forkful of pasta. “You know. Safe choices, predictable, a bit healthy-ish.” He chuckled, as if it were harmless, then added, “Knew it the moment I saw you pick up the menu.”
You stared at him for a second, then blinked, uncertain whether he had meant it as teasing or simply as a passing insult dressed up as charm. You let it slide anyway, because the waiter was still standing there. You took a bite, focusing on the taste instead, on the crispness of the bread, the warmth of the filling, trying to ground yourself in something tangible.
For a while, it worked.
You asked him about work, about what he had been doing since college, and he answered readily enough, animated when he spoke about his own progress, his plans, the things he wanted to achieve. You listened, nodding, offering small responses where they felt natural. When the conversation drifted toward college memories, you found yourself relaxing a little, a soft laugh escaping when he brought up an old incident involving a disastrous duo presentation.
“God, you remember that?” you said, shaking your head. “We were so underprepared.”
“We?” Ace raised a brow, clearly amused. “You were the one struggling through the numbers like they were written in another language. I still don’t know how you passed that semester, let alone landed a corporate job.” He laughed, taking another bite, as if it were nothing more than a harmless jab.
The words hit a little sharper than they should have.
You smiled faintly, but it didn’t quite reach your eyes. “I managed.”
“Barely,” he added, still grinning, unaware — or perhaps unconcerned — about the way the remark settled.
You let it pass again, though the warmth you had begun to feel earlier dimmed just a fraction. There was a pattern forming, subtle but persistent, like a thread you couldn’t quite ignore once you noticed it. You tried to steer the conversation elsewhere, asking about his family, about Rene, hoping it would soften the tone.
It didn’t.
Ace snorted lightly at the mention of his sister, twirling his fork lazily. “She’s the same as always. Still running around with her camera, chasing ‘perfect shots’ that don’t pay bills.” He rolled his eyes. “I keep telling her to get a real job, but she’s too busy with that and her games. Those otome things, you know? It’s ridiculous.”
Something in your chest tightened at that, sharper this time.
“She enjoys it,” you said, more firmly than before. “Photography isn’t easy, and neither is building something out of it. Not everything has to be immediate success to be valid.”
He waved a hand dismissively, the gesture careless, almost indulgent. “Yeah, yeah, passion and all that. But at some point, you’ve got to grow up, right?”
Your fingers stilled around your fork.
For a fleeting second, unbidden and unwelcome, a comparison slipped into your mind. Rafayel’s voice, teasing yet attentive, the way he noticed details without reducing them, the way he spoke about things — about people — with a kind of underlying respect that never quite crossed into condescension. He would have listened. He would have asked questions. He would have found something fascinating in it, not something to belittle.
The thought was immediate and cruel in its own way, because it brought him into the middle of an afternoon he was not part of, and yet there he was again, like a shadow cast over everything you touched.
Rene, who had once made you a handwoven keychain during college because she admired your mindfulness was now reduced to a joke over lunch. And the way he said it, with that lazy half-smirk, made something unpleasant ripple through you. Not anger yet, exactly, but the beginning of it, the first itch of discontent under the skin.
And yet…
Ace reached across the table then, his fingers brushing against yours before curling around your hand. The contact was sudden, uninvited, and you stiffened before you could stop yourself. There were still faint traces of sauce on his fingers, something greasy that clung unpleasantly to your skin, and the sensation made your stomach turn just a little.
He didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m glad you came,” he said, squeezing your hand lightly. “I’ve been meaning to do this for a while.”
You pulled your hand back gently, masking the motion by reaching for your glass. “You said this was just lunch,” you reminded him, your tone careful.
He smiled, unabashed. “Lunch can be a date.”
“That’s not what you said before.”
“Well,” he shrugged, unbothered, “I thought I’d upgrade it.”
The word sat wrong with you, though you couldn’t quite explain why.
You took a sip of your drink instead, letting the cold fizz distract you, trying to push down the growing discomfort that had begun to coil quietly beneath your ribs. It wasn’t one thing — it was everything, small and cumulative, stacking in a way that made it harder to ignore.
You told yourself to focus on the good parts. He had shown up. He had made an effort. He was trying, in his own way.
But every time you tried to settle into that thought, another comparison slipped in, uninvited and persistent.
Rafayel would have asked before holding your hand.
Rafayel would have noticed the hesitation in your voice.
Rafayel would have remembered what he had promised and honored it.
You exhaled slowly, setting your glass down with a soft clink, trying to steady yourself.
It was unfair, you told yourself. Unfair and absurd. You were comparing a real, flawed human being to someone who existed only behind a screen, someone whose responses were shaped to be attentive, to be engaging, to be… ideal.
Of course he seemed better.
That was the point.
You pressed your lips together, forcing your thoughts back into place, trying to be present again.
For a few minutes, the conversation returned to safer ground, drifting through harmless topics, work anecdotes, small observations. It almost worked again, that illusion of ease settling lightly over the table.
Until Ace leaned back in his chair, glancing past you toward a table near the window.
You followed his gaze without thinking.
A young woman sat there alone, her phone propped carefully against a glass, adjusting the angle of her plate before snapping a photo. She smiled softly to herself, shifting slightly to capture the light better, then took another picture, clearly absorbed in the small ritual.
Ace scoffed.
“Look at that,” he said, nodding in her direction. “People don’t even enjoy things properly anymore. They spend half their time documenting it. Why not just eat and move on?”
Your jaw tightened before you could stop it. Something in your chest snapped neatly into place, and for once you did not have to think too hard before answering. “Because maybe she wants to remember it,” you said, your voice low but steady. “Because maybe she likes how the moment looks. Because maybe it is her life and she gets to decide how to live it.”
He shrugged again, dismissive. “No, it’s just vanity. What’s the point of showing everyone what you’re eating?”
“The point,” you replied, feeling something sharper edge into your tone, “is that it’s her life. She can do whatever she wants with it. Maybe it makes her happy. Why does that bother you?”
“It doesn’t bother me,” he said, though his expression suggested otherwise. “I just think it’s shallow.”
“And I think you’re being unfair.”
He made a scoffing sound and leaned back in his seat, already losing patience. “You are getting weirdly worked up over a stranger with a phone.”
“She is not a stranger with a phone,” you said, heat beginning to rise behind your eyes. “She is a person of her own, and you are being unnecessarily judgmental about her life.”
He waved his hand dismissively again, the same careless motion as before, but this time it came too close, too abrupt—
—and the glass of cola tipped.
For a split second, everything slowed. The dark liquid spilled over the rim, cascading across the table and directly across the front of your dress, soaking into the fabric with a cold, sticky rush. You sucked in a sharp breath, jerking back as the liquid spread, clinging to your skin in an uncomfortable, invasive way.
“Shit—” Ace started, reaching forward, but your attention wasn’t on his apology.
It was on the way his eyes flickered downward, lingering just a second too long on where the fabric had darkened and clung to your form.
Something inside you snapped.
You heard your own voice come out clipped and venomous, unlike anything you had intended. “You disgust me.”
The words landed with a finality that seemed to surprise both of you.
You pushed your chair back without waiting for a response and stood, the legs scraping faintly against the floor. Without another word, you turned and walked toward the restroom, your pulse loud in your ears, your hands trembling just enough to make you clench them into fists.
The bathroom was quieter, the hum of the café muted behind closed doors. You stood in front of the mirror, grabbing a handful of tissues and pressing them against the stained fabric, dabbing at the sticky patches with quick, irritated movements.
“Unbelievable,” you muttered under your breath, your reflection staring back at you with flushed cheeks and eyes that burned with more than just frustration. “Arrogant, dismissive, pervert—”
You huffed, dragging the tissue across the fabric again. “Rafayel would never—”
The words cut off abruptly.
You froze, your hand stilling mid-motion as the realization settled in, heavy and undeniable.
Rafayel would never do this.
Because Rafayel wasn’t real.
The thought hit harder than anything Ace had said.
Rafayel was a man in a game, a man in a phone, a man who lived where your touch could never reach him, and yet he occupied your thoughts so thoroughly that your standards were now bending themselves around his shape.
You stared at yourself in the mirror, breathing unevenly, the weight of it pressing down on you all at once. You were comparing a real man — flawed, careless, human — to someone who existed only in coded responses and curated interactions, someone who could never disappoint you because he was never truly there. He could not become the kind of person you were craving because he had never been bound by the same messy, awkward physics as everyone else.
“God,” you whispered, dragging a hand over your face. “This is pathetic.”
You let out a shaky breath and turned on the tap, splashing cold water onto your face, the droplets running down your skin in thin, uneven trails. The sensation grounded you just enough to push back the rising ache in your chest. You gripped the edge of the basin and stared at yourself.
“He’s not real,” you whispered under your breath, as if saying it aloud would make it easier to accept. “He can’t be.”
He could distract you, comfort you, make you forget for a while. He could pull you out of moments like this, wrap your thoughts in something softer, something easier to bear.
But he couldn’t stand here.
He couldn’t fix this.
He couldn’t be what you were beginning to want him to be.
You straightened slowly, wiping your face with a paper towel, your expression settling into something quieter, more resigned. When you stepped out of the bathroom, the café felt louder again, harsher somehow, the earlier illusion of warmth completely gone.
Ace had half-turned in his seat, looking irritated now, and when he saw you walking toward him, his brows lifted as if he expected an apology or an explanation. You did neither. You took out your wallet, paid your share of the bill in crisp, efficient motions, and slid the receipt into place without meeting his eyes for too long.
“Hey — wait,” he called, hurrying after you as you stepped out of the café and into the bright afternoon light. “What just happened?”
You stopped, turning to face him, your expression flat, drained of the earlier emotion, replaced by something far more final.
“I thought this was lunch,” you said, your voice steady despite the exhaustion threading through it. “To catch up. Not… whatever you decided it was.”
His mouth parted, his face shifting through confusion and something like affront. “It was just a date.”
“Not to me.”
He blinked, and for once his confidence stuttered. “You did come out with me.”
“Yes. Because you said lunch.”
“You knew what I meant.”
“No,” you said, now looking directly at him, and the calm in your voice was somehow sharper than if you had shouted. “I trusted what you said. I did not agree with what you decided to turn it into.”
He frowned, confused. “I thought—”
“And if you thought we were compatible,” you cut in, your tone firm now, “then you assumed too much.”
For a moment, he just stared at you, as if trying to find the right response, the right angle to fix something he didn’t fully understand.
You slipped your bag onto your shoulder before he could think of another argument, and when you walked toward the streets, he called after you once more, his voice louder this time. But you were too tired to give him another piece of yourself, too tired to explain what should have been obvious, and too tired to keep tolerating an afternoon that had been turning sour from the first sip.
You turned, raising your hand to hail a taxi, and when one pulled up, you slid inside without looking back.
As the car merged into the road, you rested your head briefly against the window and watched the café recede behind you in a blur of glass and sunlight. Ace had not been the comfort you had hoped for, nor even the distraction you had agreed to. He had only made the absence sharper, because every flaw he had worn so openly only drove home how carefully Rafayel had learned to occupy your thoughts.
And that was the cruelest part.
Not that the lunch had gone badly, not that the cola had spilled, not even that you had walked out. It was the fact that, somewhere between his careless laughter and the moment you had stood in that bathroom with your own reflection, you had understood just how far gone you already were.
Your heart had not merely begun to drift toward Rafayel.
It had been sinking for a while.
The great chamber beneath the temple domes was half-lit by bioluminescent runes that crawled along the pillars like living veins, their glow pulsing faintly through the water as though the very stone still remembered an older kind of prayer. Before Rafayel stood before a semicircle of towering statues carved from ancient stone, their forms eroded yet imposing, each one bearing the likeness of a deity long forgotten by the world above.
The Tall Sea God towered nearest the dais, all severe angles and a crown of barnacled ridges, beside him rested the Bearded Sea God, broad-shouldered and weathered, his stone expression deepened by age, farther back loomed the Long-Browed Sea God and the Shell-Crowned Sea God and so many more, their forms half-veiled in drifting currents that made them seem almost alive.
Their presence weighed heavily on the water itself, as though even the ocean bowed to their authority. Their eyes — hollow, carved deep into their faces — glowed faintly now, awakened by his summons.
They were not silent.
Rafayel stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his face unreadable as the argument unfolded.
“You seek too much,” the Tall Sea God intoned, his voice rolling from the statue’s throat with the low resonance of distant thunder. “What you ask is not a favor. It is a fracture.”
“A fracture of what has already been broken?” Rafayel countered, his tone cool, his posture elegant enough to look almost patient. “You speak as though I came to you for charity.”
The Bearded Sea God’s expression shifted only slightly, but even that small movement seemed to carry centuries of disapproval. “You came asking for what belongs to all seas. Power such as that cannot be gathered and worn like ornament. It will press through you. It will harm what remains of you.”
Rafayel tilted his head, a faint curl at the corner of his mouth suggesting neither amusement nor deference. “Then I’ll endure it.”
Another voice — softer but in disagreement — cut through, belonging to the Veiled Sea Goddess, her stone drapery frozen mid-flow. “Power of this magnitude does not come without consequence, child of the tides.”
Their voices overlapped then, rising into discord, arguing amongst themselves as though Rafayel were no more than an afterthought in a debate centuries old. Words like 'imbalance’, ‘rupture’, and ‘irreversible’ echoed faintly through the water, each carrying a weight that would have crushed any ordinary being into submission.
But Rafayel did not move.
He stood there, still as a blade before the strike, his expression unreadable, his gaze fixed upon them with a patience that was not passive, but restrained. His fingers idly turned something between them — a pearl, luminous even in the dim depths, its surface catching what little light existed and bending it into hues that did not belong to any natural spectrum.
When the voices finally stilled, their verdict came, heavy and final.
“No.”
The word reverberated like a gavel struck against the bones of the ocean.
Silence followed.
For a moment, nothing happened.
And then—
“You might want to rethink that.”
Rafayel’s voice was quiet, almost conversational, yet it carried something beneath it, something sharp enough to split stone before he moved.
The first surge of power hit like a violent crack through still ice, electric currents hissing outward from his body in luminous blue arcs that leapt from the floor to the pillars and raced across the statues’ surfaces. The chamber shuddered. Fine fractures split through the Tall Sea God’s jaw, a thin line of brilliance splitting the ancient stone from temple crown to collar. The Bearded Sea God’s shoulder cracked next, the sound sharp even beneath the sea, like a giant shell being split by force rather than time.
The gods did not yield immediately.
The water thickened, currents pushing back against the force, the very pressure of the deep rising as though to suppress him, to contain what he dared unleash. The Veiled Sea Goddess’s glow intensified, her voice cutting through the chaos.
“You would raise your hand against your own ancestors?”
Rafayel tilted his head slightly, watching as another surge of energy coiled around his fingers, brighter now, more vicious.
“If they stand in my way,” he said, almost mildly, “then yes.”
The next strike was merciless.
The current exploded outward, far stronger than before, the force of it enough to send fractures racing across multiple statues at once. Stone groaned under the pressure, ancient carvings crumbling as pieces broke off and sank into the dark below. The ocean itself seemed to recoil, the balance of it disturbed in a way that felt… wrong.
For the first time, there was hesitation.
Not from Rafayel.
From them.
The Shell-Crowned Sea God spoke then, no longer angry but grave. “Rafayel, stop. This will not only harm you. What you ask risks all seas that answer to our blood.”
He laughed once, softly, with no humor in it at all. “Then let them be at risk.”
That answer made the chamber go still in a way the sea itself seemed to fear.
The Tall Sea God’s face, though carved, appeared almost pained now. “You would gamble with the tides that cradle every realm?”
Rafayel finally lowered his hands, though the residual current still crackled faintly along his fingers. “I already have.”
For a few seconds, no one spoke. Water stirred through the vaulted room in measured waves, brushing the statues’ bases, lifting long strands of his hair away from his shoulders, carrying the cold, metallic taste of power through the space like a warning.
The gods consulted one another in their old, grinding way, voices overlapping in deep, ancient cadences that had once judged kings and opened floodgates. Rafayel waited, impassive, as though this were merely an inconvenience rather than an argument with dead legends.
At last, the Bearded Sea God gave a long, reluctant sigh that moved the water around him. “You are as stubborn as your line has always been.”
“And you are as slow as ever,” Rafayel replied.
“We will grant it.”
The currents faltered, the violent charge in the water dissipating slowly, though not completely, as though reluctant to leave him.
The statues dimmed, their glow softening into something resigned.
“But heed this,” the Veiled Sea Goddess spoke, her voice quieter now, yet heavier than before. “The decision you pursue does not end with you. It will ripple across every sea, every tide, every world touched by water. There will be consequences you cannot predict.”
Rafayel’s eyes did not leave hers. “I know.”
The Tall Sea God’s voice dropped into something almost weary. “Do you truly?”
“Yes.” The word came cold and clean, without hesitation. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”
He turned then, the fabric of his form shifting with the currents as he began to ascend, leaving the fractured remnants of divinity behind without another glance. There was no triumph in his face, only a severe, narrowing determination that made him seem older than the temple itself.
“I’ll return soon,” he added, almost as an afterthought. “To collect what you promised.”
And then he was gone.
The ocean settled slowly in his absence, though not entirely, the disturbance lingering like an unspoken omen. The statues stood in silence for a long while until, at last, the quietest one of them murmured — contemplative, almost… uneasy.
“To seek out to intertwine dimensions like that…”
A pause.
“…just how much maddening power will he be truly wielding?”
This is very embarrasing for me as it is delightful because the anniversary of this blog was actually yesterday on April 1 ಥ﹏ಥ I'm going to be truthful and I'll come clean... I forgot (ᵕ—ᴗ—) I've been catching up on sleep and shows these days and I remembered the date for a while before my fish brain forgot it again ദ്ദി ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ ) I guess I really made a fool of myself...
I admit I'm not the brightest of people or not the best of the best on this app but I'm truly honored to have 1293 people here on my blog with me. I love y'all to bits and pieces, thank you for giving a side quest of mine a meaning.
There's been times where I'm too mentally depleted to write, times where I've considered leaving the fandom and not playing the game anymore, but then I remember the dopamine rush I get from being here among you all and the way I can feel a bit better about myself when I read through the love you leave for me.
I feel terrible that now it must look like to some of you that I take this for granted. I'm really sorry that I've never been able to put my encouragement and love into proper words for you. It's not excusable but I hope it's forgivable.
Thank you so much for being with me till upto now and I hope we're able to continue together with more lovely stories connecting us from across the world.
