#bg3shweek25

[illushika]

Night Orchid

[redroomroaving]

Shadowheart x He Who Was

“Would you give me peace?” he asked in response, leaning in just a little closer, “would you let me go unpunished, moonseeker?” Would she? She’d chosen to give peace before. She’d chosen punishment before. Suddenly, in this moment, looking at his face and realising just how helpless he felt, she didn’t want to make any more choices. She’d made enough.

From Communion of Shadows

[redroomroaving]

For Shadowheart Week Day 6 - AU, Light and Dark, a bit of Shadowheart and He Who Was from my victorian AU The Red Harp.

Snippet under the cut.

“Me and the church have a complicated relationship;” she replied, enough of a truth to sate his question before she shut him down, “and it is not a topic I have much interest in revisiting, before you ask.”

The little curve of his lips grew.

“Hmm, the past is a stalking beast,” he said, turning away from her again, “it waits for its moment.”

Not if you don't remember it at all, Shadowheart thought.

“Yours too, I imagine,” she said, “‘He Who Was’.”

They turned another corner, down a narrowing alleyway, leading away from the clean and gleaming streets to the far rougher, far less attractive ones just a stones throw behind them.

A common story in London, you were never more than a few turns away from riches to destitution, after all.

“‘Shadowheart’,” Evas countered, chewing over her name a little, tasting it, “a fitting nome de teatre, for someone who shrouds herself so effectively.”

At least he'd noticed that.

“So, Shadowheart, what beast is stalking you?” He asked as they drew closer to one house in particular. A run down two story house that perhaps had once been much nicer. Broken windows, covered by a few planks of wood to stave the cold.

She didn't know this street.

She wanted to ask him about this; but he was stopped by the doorway, facing her and watching her, unblinking. Awaiting her response to his question.

What words perhaps, to capture that which walks behind me?

“She's powerful, and unkind,” Shadowheart said, as this much she knew to be true, “and yours?”

He held her gaze a moment, something else entirely crossing behind his dark eyes she could not place.

“She's powerful,” he replied, “and unkind.”

[redroomroaving]

For Shadowheart week, day 1 - Firsts and beginnings

I've wanted to draw their first kiss from my fic Communion of Shadows for a long, long time.

Snippet under the cut.

“You…” he was looking at her with something else entirely, a little like awe, “you endured this? She did this to you?”

Now witnessed - it was just a story, and nothing more; another tale of woe for the Raven Queen’s horde.

His dark obsidian eyes searched hers, sparkling with fresh tears, and catching the low lamplight - like stars in an endless night.

His breath was fast, almost panicked.

Whatever it was that he was battling with as he looked at her with that strange expression, his impulse won.

He leant in, brushing his lips against hers in a fleeting unpracticed kiss.

His lips faltered against hers, parting - an exhale of surprise escaping them as he pulled back.

He hovered - unsure - and in his eyes she saw something she hadn’t seen before.

He looked unmoored, no cold mask to hide behind, no teasing smirk. He didn’t know what he was doing.

Neither did she.