An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
A gift for the amazing @dmagedgoods, featuring Salvadore as the protagonist of life (as he should be) with Sparrow tagging along as a companion.
Sphinx, I'm so happy you liked this! Sal is such a great character and I'm so glad you feel I did him justice <3 Sparrow's an unofficial official companion for him in my mind.
@transprincecaspian @amatres Everyone wants to see my failgirl failing I see!
I've talked about this occasionally on the discord but Faith Plays Dumb is set about a year and change after the events of WOTR. Evaethi Arvanxi, the daughter of Sparrow's former master and the woman Sparrow had to impersonate for years, shows up at Heaven's Edge to see Sparrow again. It features Sparrow confronting the old dynamics she was forced to exist in, confronting the pain of her past, and Daeran and Sparrow's First Big Fight.
Also Evaethi. It definitely features Evaethi supposedly trying her best!
Snippet below the cut:
"It's you!" she keeps saying. "It's you, it's you, it's you--Eva!"
I thought you were gone forever. I thought I failed you. The emotion, full and warm and only slightly thorny, presses into Sparrow's lungs and up her throat, leaving no room for words. She only presses her head against the thick wool of Evaethi's scarf and holds her tighter. Warm, real, alive, and healthy. She never could have hoped for more.
Evaethi is as uninterested in ending the embrace as Sparrow, and happily babbles into Sparrow's ear while she holds onto her. "Gods, you're still light as a feather! And what's with those feathers, huh? You're lookin' half-bird these days! Next thing you know you'll start growing wings and ripping up your fancy dress--that color is so bright! Is that the fashion in Mendev? You'd think they'd like things darker, what with how cold and dreary it is--but you're a lady now for real, aren't you, that's what [name] and [name] were saying when we came up this way, that you were lady of the house--I knew you'd manage it, Eva--"
"My wife's name is Sparrow." Daeran's voice cuts through the never-ending chatter and silences Evaethi. "I'm sure you're aware of that already, are you not? Since you lived with her for many years as she kept you from assassination attempts and having to dance with undesirable nobles at balls?"
Evaethi lets go and steps back, leaving Sparrow cold. "I'm sorry, who're you?" She doesn't sound angry, but then, she's never been the kind to get angry. Daeran, on the other hand, looks glacially furious. Sparrow steps in between them, placing a hand on Daeran's sleeve.
"Evaethi, this is my husband, Count Daeran Arendae. Daeran, this is my--this is Lady Evaethi of House Arvanxi."
"Charmed." Daeran's gaze is cold and sharp as seaglass; he does not even nod to her, a slight of station that would have left anyone of noble birth insulted, but which Evaethi does not seem to notice. He places one hand over Sparrow's on his arm, the touch almost enough to soothe the nerves jangling ever since Evaethi let her go. "And what business do you have at Heaven's Edge?"
"To...to visit?" Evaethi's expression takes on a familiar turn--that of a kicked puppy, who is unsure where the hostility came from or how it connects to her. If it continues, there will be tears, but her voice doesn't have that familiar warble when she responds just yet.
Done for Owlcatober's prompts 4: Luck and 22: Nobility. Have some very early Sparrow and Daeran interactions :)
--
Sparrow had been very lucky, all things considered. Lucky to have found an artificer who might help with the problem prickling at the base of her neck. Lucky that he was willing to meet with her, to undo a Cheliaxian tracking brand for the right price. Lucky to have survived whatever attack had given her the ever-bleeding wound on her chest, as well as the demonic attack that tore the city in two afterwards.
She's no believer in fate, but luck is chance, a die cast to fall on the six. Though it's random, the patterns in the chaos can be a comfort, even if the comfort is a lie. Sparrow is used to hoarding the moments of good luck she receives, counting them out like coins and budgeting them the same way, stretching out the hope they offer as far as it can go. The string of good events can give her the strength to push on past the bad ones--that she is trapped in a burning city under demonic siege to begin with, that the man who had offered her salvation is very likely dead.
All streaks of luck must come to an end, however, the pattern returning to random chance once more. And Sparrow finds the end of hers in a broken banquet hall, staring at the one man who might destroy the last remnants of her plans to escape with just a few simple words.
In retrospect, Sparrow should have anticipated the complication. When the liveried footman who had begged for the help of her and her companions mentioned the surname "Arendae," Sparrow had recognized it from the snatches of conversation she regularly overheard during her mandatory appearance at Mendevian court functions. Old family, old blood, royally inclined, marked in tragedy.
But the Count Arendae, known for his raucous parties and and his disregard for social norms, lived in Kenabres, and his time in Nerosyan was filled with events Sparrow rarely attended. They'd crossed paths, but briefly, and the incidents were of so little note Sparrow barely remembered them.
However, after the demons are left bleeding on the floor of a party that had been going well into the destruction of the city, the glittering aasimar who had fought instead of cowered steps forward with a cold green gaze that focuses on her immediately out of the group, and Sparrow realizes that she had miscalculated. She might have only barely remembered him, but he somehow remembered her as well, and recognizes who she is.
The count gives an elaborate bow. "Greetings, valiant stranger who has just burst into my life. I am master of this house, Count Daeran Kael 'Myriad-Mellifluous-Monikers' Arendae. No need to introduce yourself--"
I already recall the last time we met in Nerosyan, Lady Evaethi, Sparrow hears, and steps forward before the count can finish his sentence. "I am called Sparrow." The words come out a little too forceful.
The count raises a single golden brow, amused and condescending all at once. "--As I was saying, I find insignificant details such as the names of passing acquaintances a bore." He gives her a mocking smile and says nothing else about the matter, not even as the rest of her companions begin to make comments. It doesn't ease the tension ready to break Sparrow's spine; she's on the knife's edge of this conversation, and the count can turn the blade whenever he likes. He knows it, too, judging by the looks he gives her as he trades insults with Lann about his curtains.
"Now that we're finished with the niceties," the count finally says, "tell me--how did all these thrice-damned demons end up at my soiree?"
There is a pause where someone needs to answer, and doesn't. Sparrow can feel the others' gazes on her, crawling on her skin--she'll never get used to this, the way that the people she fights with cede the space to her to answer the questions, take charge. She never asked for it, did less than nothing to imply she wanted it or was qualified for the role, and yet the righteous paladin, the savvy hunter, the sharp-tongued noble, they all look to her to be their leader.
When she answers, her words are stilted and blunt. "Demons attacked the city. Kenabres is in ruins." There's a murmur of shock, not from the count but from the other party attendants. Sparrow had almost forgotten they were there.
"I wanted to ask if you were joking, but what little expression you have tells me you are not." He turns his attention to the curtains he had just been inviting Lann to blow his nose on, seeing the telltale flicking light of raging fire through the gaps in the velvet.
The conversation turns away from Sparrow, letting her step back as her companions trade verbal blows with the count--Seelah in half-amused disapproval at the count's callous lack of regard for the situation at hand, Camellia making unsubtle hints to the count's terrible childhood losses as if it were ever an appropriate thing to bring up, and Ember successfully disarming the count's barbed tongue if only for a second by her genuine distress at the thought that the count could not have a lamb as a pet.
The entire time, though, she feels the count's attention never truly leave her. Paranoia, perhaps, but he knows, he has to be asking questions about how and why, and even if he isn't questioning her identity now in front of her companions, that doesn't mean he won't. He could just be waiting for the right moment, the perfect time to strike--Sparrow's impression of him in Nerosyan had been vague, but his defining feature had been his propensity for cruelty as entertainment.
She wanted away from the count and his malice as quickly as possible, so she finally gathers the courage to step forward, addressing the room at large. "The Defender's Heart has been fortified under the Eagle Watch. It should be safe."
The other drunken nobles and poor servants at this revel take Sparrow's flat statement as the call to action it's meant to be, gathering in groups and approaching Seelah, who is more than happy to provide help and instructions on safe passages to the tavern. But the count doesn't turn his attention from Sparrow.
"I thank you dearly for the invitation," he gives another mocking bow, "but I am not quite as desperate as I may seem. In fact, I do feel like stretching my legs. I know rudimentary divine spells, I am no friend to demons, and I elevate any society that I deign to grace with my presence. I shall accompany you--only for a short time, of course. I have no desire to remain at the vanguard for a protracted period. What say you, my ephemeral but highly diverting acquaintance? After all, Lord Deskari spoiled my party. I now burn with the desire to spoil his."
Highly diverting acquaintance. He's laughing under the thick coat of false sincerity. She wants to tell him no, but she can't afford to. The city is burning to ash around them, and no matter the count's true intentions, she saw what he did to the demons in that fight. They need all the help they can get.
She gives a small, shallow nod, half-hoping the count doesn't see her acquiesce.
Of course, he does. "Capital. Good acquaintances that begin and end at just the right moment often leave the most pleasant memories, wouldn't you say?"
Sparrow ruminates on his words for a long time after, as they continue to claw their way through the demons in the Market Square and try to collect information and allies for the assault on the Gray Garrison. Did he mean to imply that their 'acquaintanceship' beginning at that moment meant he would not bring up her past? Or was it a veiled threat of some kind, the mention of memories an indication that he remembers her and will bring it up if she crosses him? She wouldn't even need to cross him, really; the count is notorious for destroying livelihoods and reputations out of boredom.
By the time the crew returns to the Defender's Heart for a much-needed rest and restocking, Sparrow decided to confront him about it. She hates the thought of it, but it needs dragged out in the open. Regardless of how it resolves, she will at least know where she stands, what to anticipate from him. She cannot continue with him as an unknown factor.
She finds the count near the sleeping quarters Irabeth insisted Sparrow still use, somehow having managed to snag one of the nicest chairs in the place. He's quiet, watching the survivors trying to create order out of the chaos of their situation: groups of injured and war-shocked civilians resting in clumps across the floor or consulting with a haggard Vissaliy and his assistant; the Eagle Watch and other soldiers discussing plans with shadowed gazes, or bartering with Gemyl for ale to drown the world out with; Irabeth grimly going over the assault plan with Anevia on the other side of the room; the Storyteller, still recovering from his burns, resting nearby; the rest of their companions, talking or preparing or simply sleeping. The count's expression is blank, and Sparrow wonders what he's thinking of, what story he is making out of the disorder.
Then his attention catches on her approach, and his eyes hood in disdain, a familiar mocking smirk spreading across his face. It's strange, the abruptness of it; Sparrow is reminded of a performer stepping out from the shadows into the spotlight of a stage.
"I must commend the crusade's choice on an outpost," he comments as Sparrow nears. "The very sight of these walls brings back such fond memories of drinks and revels."
Sparrow stops, the rehearsed opener she'd planned to drag out his intentions disappearing in an instant. "...I don't believe they had a choice," she says, wrong-footed. "It was the best available option at the time."
"So you plan on migrating all and sundry if a better symbol of shelter comes along then? A nice Iomadean cathedral would do nicely, I imagine. Though if I were a demon I would burn those down first."
Sparrow opens her mouth, then closes it. Finally, she says, "It wouldn't be up to me either way."
"Would it not? I'd taken from this endeavor that you're the banner these stalwart defenders are rallying behind, what with that angelic sword you can pull out. Where does it go, anyway, when you aren't talking down fanatical zealots from murdering supposed traitors?"
Sparrow looks away. She doesn't know--she doesn't know why she's able to wield a sword meant to burn mortals, or where it goes when it's not there other than in reach when she needs it. She doesn't know why the scar on her chest still bleeds, throbbing in pain, or what anyone in this tavern sees in her that makes them think she can appropriately lead anything. It's a yawning chasm of uncertainty she's been doing her best to ignore up until this point. She has no answers and no solutions, so there's no point in tackling it. At least, not until the immediate threat has been taken care of.
If the count expected an actual answer from her, he mercifully doesn't act like it. Resting his cheek in one long-fingered hand, he regards her with a catlike slyness, like he's silently laughing at a joke. "I shall admit, I did not quite expect to see you favor a celestially gifted weapon. Forgive me if I am incorrect in my understanding of your culture, but you prefer more...infernal sources of power, do you not?"
Sparrow lets the barb fly by painlessly; his misplaced insult is as good an opening as any. "About that. I would be grateful if you did not mention my...past...in front of others."
"But my lady, how could I deny a woman of such fine breeding as yourself the respect you deserve?" His smirk grows wider at whatever he sees on Sparrow's face. "To find the mouse of Nerosyan among these ruins was quite the surprise, and with such a different title than before--I would gently suggest changing your name, if you are open to constructive criticism. It's embarrassing to me to think that you picked such a moniker of your own free will."
Sparrow's hands find each other, fingers interlocking tightly together. "I have left that life behind me. What would you want to do the same?"
"Are you trying to bribe me?" The count barks out a delighted laugh. "This is straight out of some paltry penny novel--what are you even planning to offer? Money?" He laughs again, like that's the funniest thing in the world. "Or, what, your virtue or some other such nonsense?"
Sparrow stares until the laughter dies down, the mirth draining from the count's features. Finally, he scoffs and turns away from her silence.
"You really are the most tedious woman alive, aren't you," he mutters. "Let me be blunt: I could not care less what shade of youthful rebellion has led you to renouncing your identity and playacting a pauper. If you wish to be named after a bird, I will not stop you--go forth and chirp as you wish."
"You would swear to that?" Sparrow presses, and immediately regrets it. The emotion that flickers across the count's face is cold and snakelike, and it takes all of Sparrow's willpower not to rear back.
"I would not force some kind of oath from me, if I were you." The count's smile is poisonous. "I would feel the urge to break it out of spite. You will simply have to take my word, as-is, that whatever little mess you are wading through is not consequential enough for me to bother with during the brief acquaintanceship we must endure. Now, do you have anything of actual interest to say, or is this topic finished? I'm sure there are far more entertaining subjects to actually speak of."
At Sparrow's silence, the count continues on, though his gaze remains glass-sharp and watchful. "Perhaps you would like to hear of some of my own youthful exploits then? Those always do well among the highborn sort--not that you'd know anything about that, as I understand it."
When Sparrow finally escapes the conversation some time later, she is certain that Count Daeran Arendae is a cruel, childish, and capricious man, but that he was almost certainly honest when he told her he didn't care about her secrets--he is far too self-absorbed to give a whit about anything that doesn't directly concern him.
It seems that Sparrow's luck has held out after all.
For the fluff ask: how about confessing love when they're tired so they don't remember? For Sparrow and Dae :D
Thank you so much!!! Unfortunately I have once again ignored the spirit of these prompts so there is very little fluff if any--have some hurt/comfort instead :)
--
Daeran finds Sparrow curled up against the stone wall at the far end of the mining shaft, staring out at the abandoned crystal harvesting operation. The stones' otherworldly luminescence cast her face in a pale, sickly light, and her expression is blank and grave as she gazes out at nothing.
It is, unfortunately, an improvement. At least her posture is relaxed, limp instead of wound so tight her bones looked ready to snap. At least she doesn't flinch away when he drops to sit down next to her, though her near complete lack of reaction is troubling in its own way. She's like a puppet with her strings cut, and there is a very worrying second where Daeran wonders if something in her had broken completely when that smiling beast of a demon had snapped that collar around her neck.
But then she tilts her head in his direction, and her attention finally focuses on him. "I'm sorry you had to see that."
"I have no idea to what you are referring," he says. At her flat look, he shrugs. "I think your reaction to being manhandled into battle slavery was perfectly reasonable. Perhaps you could have smashed that demon's head a little more thoroughly when you stomped on his body--I think I caught some identifiable pieces of skull in the viscera you left behind. But other than that I had no complaints."
Sparrow doesn't laugh. "You know what I'm referring to. My behavior was inexcusable."
Daeran sends a quick mental curse Regill's way. It was the paralictor of all people who had found Sparrow when she'd retreated from the group, after she had screamed at them all not to touch her, after they saw the Cheliaxian brand on her back. He has no idea what was spoken of, but Sparrow had returned to the frantic group calmer, if brittle in her behavior, and had explained in short, blunt terms what Daeran had already pieced together with a dawning sense of horror: that she had never been Evaethi Arvanxi, lady of Cheliax, but Sparrow the slave, chained for years before the luck of Kenabres' destruction freed her.
Such a complete loss of control, for so long--and then to have that new freedom ripped away from her again, and by demons? Quite frankly, Sparrow's reaction was rather tame in Daeran's opinion. No one but Irmangaleth died, after all.
Derenge certainly would have done nothing to alleviate the shame that hung on Sparrow's face, and Daeran wonders how much of her self-flagellating thoughts are spoken in his words. He curls his lip. "It happened," he says. "There's hardly any point crying over it. And, to be blunt, this is the Abyss. I feel that each of us are owed one good breakdown. You have officially gotten yours out of the way."
Sparrow finally lets out a small huff of breath, not quite laughter but close enough for Daeran's purposes. "Each of us? Let's hope the Hand doesn't do that. I don't know where we'd be without his purification ritual."
"You misunderstand. I spoke only of mortals. An angel should be well equipped to handle being trapped in a different plane."
She slumps against the wall--it's not just the sickly pallor of the Abyssian air that's left her looking so haggard. Exhaustion carves itself under her puffy eyes and in the corners of her mouth, as if she has not slept in the twenty-seven hours it has been since she was first abducted. Slowly, she lists to the side, until her head lands on Daeran's shoulder--the weight isn't as heavy as it should be, still tentative. Daeran stays still and feels the pressure increase as she finally relaxes against him.
"I would have told you eventually," she says after a moment. "About me. And my past."
"It was hardly required of you," Daeran says. "We are all entitled to our secrets."
"Still. I wanted you to know. I was..." A yawn. "Frightened, I suppose. It seems silly now."
He does not acknowledge the small shift inside of him that occurs at her words. Certainly, he'd had a sense of smugness for most of his time in the Crusade, the joy of being in on a joke few others were aware of--he knew before anyone else that Sparrow had not been her name before Kenabres, that she'd dropped her life as a Chelish noble like a hot coal to take on this new identity. Even after others found out, it was only Daeran who had met her when she wore the stiff black dresses of the Cheliaxian court and hid in the corner of Mendevian banquets.
But it was the noble specter that had been a lie, and Sparrow the truth all along. That realization, and all that came with it--the reveal of her tracking brand, her agonized explanation of her past--disputed many things Daeran thought he knew about her. And, to his horror, he had felt a sense of betrayal. She'd looked at him, at all of them, like she expected a blow now that it was out in the open. That she anticipated them to--what? Leave her to go fend for themselves in the Abyss?
Daeran is a selfish horrible person who tramples on others' feelings when it's convenient for him. But he had thought she thought him better than that. Which is absurd, of course. As is the relief that spreads through him as Sparrow lets herself be vulnerable in her exhaustion and her sorrow, and tells him that she would have let him know her most painful secret on her own terms, with enough time.
"Get some rest," he recommends. It's hardly a needed suggestion, considering how heavy Sparrow is against him. If she isn't already asleep, it's not for her body's lack of trying. "I imagine we will have many more delightful tasks ahead of us tomorrow to gain the attention of Our Lady in Shadow." He really should drag her back to the sleeping pallets, but that would require putting her in front of the fretful attentions of their other companions.
He knows what it's like to need to lick wounds in private. And if his shoulder is a comfortable enough pillow, he can endure for at least a little while.
"Hmmm," she says. "'Kay."
He snorts. "Goodnight."
"Goodnight," she replies. Her voice is half-faded, already slipping into the realm of dreams. "Love you."
Daeran stops breathing for a moment, able to keep himself from jerking away through sheer will and the knowledge that it would be the worst possible reaction to her...declaration? But when he looks at her, she is finally peaceful in unconsciousness.
A slip of the tongue, then. But Sparrow has never been easy with affections, has spoken nothing even close to that intimacy in all their time together. If anything, she is too careful with her words, guarded to the point of affecting disinterest to those who aren't paying attention. He beats down the wild impulse to shake her awake, ask her if she meant it, as if he's some callow youth finally given attentions by some fine lady from across the dance hall.
Love you. Love you. The words circle in his mind, rattling around the sickening hollow in his chest. It's been there for over a day now, ever since Irmangaleth first put that collar on Sparrow and whisked her away. He doesn't want to think about those dark hours after, when everyone scrambled to come up with some strategy to save her and failing--he's successfully avoided thinking about any of it except what has happened right in front of him until this moment. But Sparrow's weight at his side hasn't lessened the chokehold of terror that throttles him, and her half-murmured sleep talking seems to only make him think on that period when he thought she was gone.
If it weren't for the ambitious tiefling giving them a way to take down the Battlebliss's master, Sparrow would have been gone. There is no way into the battle slaves' quarters without the key; none of them were strong enough to fight for possession of one. Iomadae's righteous Hand had disappeared with Sparrow--keeping her company and protecting her in what little ways he'd deemed appropriate, they'd learn later, but at the time seemingly abandoning them all with the goddess's champion captured. There had been a harrowing discussion of worst case scenarios, a tentative plan to escape the Abyss without Sparrow should her death be confirmed, even if it was roundly rejected on principle. No one wanted to admit that possibility that Sparrow was beyond reach.
Beyond reach. Gone, dead, worse. Trapped by demons, in a demon city, with no resources and none of her companions and her supposedly goddess-given powers useless. Trapped in, what he knows now, to be a nightmare powerful enough to nearly break her spirit. All he'd known was that he had no clear way to get her back--that he'd lost her.
Not lost. He keeps his breathing even. She made it through, as she always does, emerging victorious from the Battlebliss even if she was worse for wear. A good sleep, and she'll put on that mantle of Commander and trudge on with her head high, because he can't imagine her doing anything else. Protecting everyone around her with that quiet intensity of hers, leading them with her own inner light. Looking at him, over and over again, seeing past all of his acts and his banter to what he really wants to say, and responding to it.
Love you, she had said. The words circle in his mind as he leans back against the awful rough rock and closes his eyes. His hand drifts to her hair, not quite touching, but close enough that he can almost feel it, the weight of her presence. I love you.
He's no longer sure if the voice in his head is hers or his own.
Aaah thank you for the ask Dujour! I saw you already noticed I did already talk about this piece here but I'll share another snippet below the cut!
When she'd told the queen of her plans to run away it had been a test, will you prevent me from leaving, but it had also been a plea: make me want to stay. And her queen had passed the test but failed the entreaty, and Silaena had disappeared into the wilds, remade as Laena the Bard, and even if that freedom was a heady drought it still tasted bitter in her mouth.
It was senseless, of course. Galfrey was only the queen, her entire life dedicated to emulating her own glinting profile seen in the paintings done of her leading the charge against the demons. There was no room for the actual human hidden underneath the horrendous weight of her station, the flashes of woman Silaena had seen, impressions of weak light filtering through a thick canopy of trees.
today was basically just one long drawn out fart noise but at least i went back to my roots (daefic) and finished a scene, even if it is once again a chapter ahead of the place i need to be working on. behold: the back half of dae's shitty birthday party
--
Hours after, when the fog of drink has lessened the presence of ghosts, he sits at a table across from Sparrow and tries to maintain eye contact as they continue their interminably long drinking game. Sparrow's not doing well--she's struggling to stay upright, in fact, and should have cried surrender some five glasses of wine ago.
Daeran's own head is floating, his veins thudding with alcohol--he should have ended this three glasses or so ago, but at this point it's a matter of pride. He's going to knock Sparrow out or they'll have to carry him out, and he's not sure he cares which.
Ah, well. At least the last few hours have been entertaining. Or were entertaining, at least--the fun has grown a little thin, and certainly their audience, enraptured by the stalwart Knight-Commander letting loose, have grown bored. It's only him and her left in the main hall now, the rest having trickled outside to get some fresh air.
Gods, does he want some fresh air.
Later, he'll wonder if he imagined the conversation, conjured it out of nothing but the buzzing wine and his own strange thoughts about ghosts in the family manor that would not even come out to see him one last time. A drunken vision or truth, he is still surprised when Sparrow, listing to the side, fixes him with a glaze-eyed stare.
"You're allowed, you know. To do whatever you want with it."
"Excuse me?" Words are clumsy in his mouth, but he might not have done much better if he was sober. Sparrow's expression is open, disconcertingly so, naked in a way he'd only ever seen before in minute flashes when her emotions got the better of her. It makes him shift in his seat, uncomfortable, like he's looking at something he shouldn't, or like she is reciprocating an openness he hasn't realized he is giving himself.
"What happened here is yours," she says in the same intense, earnest voice. For someone who seems loathe to string more than five words together, the wine has made Sparrow very verbose. "It happened to you. No one else. And no one else can tell you the right way to feel about it. Throw a party, burn the house to the ground. Cry or laugh or sing or mock it. The only people who can care are the ones who this was done to--you are all that's left. The dead don't give a shit how they are mourned. So don't ever let anyone tell you that you're grieving wrong."
Something bubbles in Daeran's chest--laughter, maybe, but probably something worse. He swallows it down. As if he needs some stranger's permission to do what he likes with this house, with his things, with the memory of his mother. They don't know even a fraction of what he went through, what he endures every day.
He already knows that everyone who criticizes him are bores and upright, pompous, self-righteous sycophants toadying to the queen and Iomadae and good taste. They think they have the right to judge him, and that's their mistake. If he didn't want to be sad about what happened to him then he damn well wouldn't be, and there is nothing they can do about it except sneer; and they will sneer regardless.
He isn't some pathetic, sniveling victim boo-hooing about losing his mommy. He doesn't need pity. But it's not pity that he sees in Sparrow, it's something--something else, something he doesn't want to look at fully in the face. With some amount of shame, like he's lost a game he didn't know he was playing, his gaze slides to the wine glass in his hand, still half-full. His stomach roils. The thought of drinking another drop makes him sick.
I'm not grieving, he wants to say. I don't care what happened here. But the alcohol makes the words burn in his throat. He swallows them and the bile churning in his stomach down, lifting the glass of wine that he won't drink.
"My grandfather...or, maybe it was my great-grandmother, put this bottle in the family cellar. So why did it fail the scion of the illustrious Arendaes in his time of need?"
HI CROW THANK YOU CROW did I ever mention i love Silaena. Well I do!!
This is a companion piece for All the Faces in Her Wake, my daeran centric fic that focuses on his relationsihp with his mother. It's not in the actual fic yet (ch3) but I've posted snippets and another short piece that reveal that in my canon, Silaena was actually as rebellious, if not more so, than Daeran in her youth--she explicitly ran away from home as a young adult for a period of about four years, before returning home and taking up the mantle of Countess Arendae. This fic details her arrival home, what she does in between her homecoming and her marriage to Count Arendae, and why specifically she came back.
I love it a lot but there's a possible chance that I won't post it because it features a very headcanony headcanon about Silaena and Daeran that I'm nearly positive is refuted in game--that Silaena conceived Daeran with someone else and returned home and got quick married to an old friend to legitimize him. But I still love it because I do what I want lol
Snippet under the cut!
"I'm pregnant," she said flatly, the words silencing her father's bluster. His face turned the color of puce, and then bone-white.
"How--who--"
"I have no idea," she cut through his spluttering. She is lying, of course--the man's name had been Kael, he of the sharp tongue and foxlike smile. They had spent months together when he had come to Mendev searching for opportunities to expand his business, free-fallen into the closest thing to love Silaena had ever experienced. When the diseased air of the Worldwound became too much, he had packed his things to go back southeast and offered to take Silaena with him.
She'd refused; Mendev was blighted land riddled with cults and demons and foul air, but it was her air, and her people, and her land. Even when she ran away she had never gone far, and had come to the realization that she never would when she closed the door on their relationship. He'd left before she'd found out the gift he'd left her, and now he will never know, so she does not wonder how he'd react if he found out. What mattered was here, the present, and how she planned to take care of the growing life inside of her.
"Nevis and I have already agreed that this will be a chaste marriage; my child will be claimed as his, and since the marriage will be legal before the child draws breath it will be legal heir. You give me the title and the estate, and you can keep all the other homes and riches and make everyone miserable in Nerosyan if you like, and you never speak to me again--and I will take the responsibilities of Countess Arendae, and pass them to my son."
“kissing them as a bribe to keep them in bed” for sparrow and daeran if inspiration strikes!
Thank you so much for the prompt Taylor!! Life really got in the way of getting this one done so it took a minute for me to write it but I had SO much fun once I did start it.
----
Sparrow blinks awake in near-perfect darkness, the soft vague shapes around her only recognizable as her bedroom in Drezen through months of familiarity. Outside the stone walls, she can hear the faintest sounds of a city beginning to wake, shuddering against the pre-dawn chill, but it doesn't quite yet permeate the Citadel. It will be a while yet before sunrise.
It's only her rigid internal clock, trained to be up and moving before the sun, that drags her to consciousness. They had only returned from Wintersun last night and her body aches from long travel and the struggles they'd found there. She hadn't looked at a single problem that had accumulated in her time away, doing almost nothing except collapse into bed.
It's why she's so confused at the warmth at her back, cocooned with her under the thick blankets against the frigid air. From where the covers have slipped off her shoulders, a single, golden-skinned arm rests in front of her, draped over her hip and glowing faintly. She can just hear the gentle sounds of Daeran's breathing behind her, his breath ghosting against her ear.
Sparrow had half-thought it a dream, Daeran appearing in her quarters last night and laughing at her exhausted notice that she was not up for anything but sleep. "I know I have a reputation, but even I'm not in the mood tonight," he said, but then he hadn't left, either.
It was the first night he'd done that--slept with her, just sleep, ever since they first started their frequent liaisons.
Sparrow tries not to read too much into it. Daeran might have decided not to bother going back to his rooms on the north side of Drezen and stayed for convenience's sake; there didn't have to be any kind of emotional significance to him wanting to be in her company beyond sex. Certainly, if his presence last night had helped ease some of the heartache she carried from Wintersun, kept the nightmares of the villagers' screams at bay, then that was just a benefit for her. He hardly could have known about it when he'd tucked himself at her side.
It hurts a little that she wants it to be more than that. Daeran set his boundaries, made it clear what he expected of the relationship when they started--that this isn't one, not really, just some fun and something to distract and relax each other.
And it's a little relieving, to have it at that level--nothing too serious, nothing to get too attached to. Daeran will stay until he gets bored, because that's what he does, that's what he's told her he does, and one day he'll run off to the next shiny person that captures his interest and Sparrow will be an adult about it when that happens.
But. Sparrow knows she's never been good about separating what she wants from what she knows is the truth--that little seed of hope always blooms, frail and pathetic but still insistent. It grows in the roses that still decorate the war room, perpetually fresh and fragrant; it hides between the lines of the note that stays folded on her desk, Daeran's hand telling her to remember him when all else fades. It's in the ghostly apparition of the boy she'd seen at Heaven's Edge, who had everything ripped away from him and had been left utterly alone. Sparrow recognized that emotion, feels that same isolation in herself.
And ever since they started their not-relationship, that feeling of kinship has only grown stronger--she understands him better now, reads his moods more easily, understands his jokes and his thought processes from the late-night conversations they've taken to having, from the way he moves with her. She wants permanence, even if she wouldn't know what permanent would look like with them. Even though she knows that this is ephemeral, and she needs to listen to what he tells her and not just what she wants to hear.
His companionship has made the stress of leading an entire Crusade more bearable, and the feeling of actually being vulnerable with someone has been...nice. She shouldn't get upset that it isn't more, might not ever be more. She can temper her expectations.
Of course, she'd said the same thing when she let herself become friends with Woljif, who told her every moment he would leave, and then she was still devastated when he disappeared, still felt so relieved when he returned. But she can do better this time. She can still try.
And the first way she can do that is by not wallowing. The room has slowly grown brighter since she first opened her eyes, the beginnings of dawn peeking through the heavy curtains, and Sparrow can't justify staying in bed any longer. Daeran's breathing hasn't changed, still deep in sleep, but then she expects he won't rise until mid morning at the very earliest and wouldn't be surprised if she didn't see him awake before noon. Slowly, she slides across the bed, pulling up the covers to climb out without disturbing it too much--
The arm draped over her tightens, pulls her back under. Sparrow twists to look at Daeran's smooth, sleep-still face. A reflex? But then he grimaces, slitting his eyes open blearily. "Cold," Daeran mutters.
"I know, I'm sorry," Sparrow says. Guilt over waking him wars with something softer that sparks at seeing his mussed, open expression, free of artifice and polish. "It'll warm up quickly when I'm gone, just stay under the covers. I didn't mean to wake you."
Daeran blinks, unfortunately seeming to grow more awake with her words. "Is the fortress on fire? Or has someone died? I can't think of any other justifiable reason to be awake at this unholy hour."
That does draw a short huff of laughter from Sparrow. "I'm usually up at this time," she whispers. Really, he ought to know this by now. He's slept through plenty of mornings where Sparrow rose and left her rooms before he even flirted with consciousness. "Really, it's fine. Go back to sleep. I'll be quiet."
Daeran makes a noise of deep grievance. "It was past midnight when you finally went to sleep," he says. He pulls her closer and presses his lips against her shoulder, her neck, then the arc of her jaw. The touches leave spots of sparking heat in their wake, points of warmth that spread over her body like submerging into hot water. "After the nonsense we dealt with getting that key, you deserve more than four hours of sleep. The day can wait until it's actually day, for once."
That sounds so nice Sparrow struggles to remember the weight of all the tasks waiting for her, over a week's worth of administrative duties the excursion to Wintersun made her ignore. "I really--"
The words are cut off by a full kiss, soft and slow and then deepening. It's lazy and tired; Daeran is just as exhausted as she is. "It can wait. No one will care if you achieve some proper rest for once, and if they do you can welcome them to go hiking through these blighted lands in your stead. Stay. The bed is too warm to leave right now."
Maybe he's right. Sparrow certainly feels warm, warmer than even the heavy blankets and Daeran's body can explain. Slowly, she settles back down, facing him this time, hesitantly slotting her body against his. Daeran's arm wraps back around her body, and she closes her eyes.
Sparrow never stays in bed past sunrise. And yet, it is the easiest thing in the world to fall back asleep.
