That arum fic was so good fucc i cry. I’m a lil predictable here, but may I request a reversal of the situation where Damien thinks Arum is dead (and maybe he finds out because people are championing him as being the one who slayed the monster)
I’m basing this strongly on one particular line in Moonlit Hermit:
ARUM: And what, Amaryllis? What? Let you go back to your hive and tell all the humans what the monster is up to? Where to find him, how to kill him, how many pieces to cut him into?
Interesting choice of words, that.
(Character death under the cut)
No one has to know, Rilla said.
There’s a war on, Arum agreed. It’s better for everyone if this… all of this… stays between us.
And that made sense when they suggested it. It made sense when Damien would sneak away to visit the Swamp of Titan’s Bloom, sometimes with Rilla, sometimes without, and sneak back to the barracks before he was needed for duty.
It even made sense last night, when he was dreaming of their next meeting.
But now…
Now nothing makes sense. Things that were once welcome and familiar are repulsive to his very soul. Praise and accolade strikes him with a venom that the most vile insults never carried. There’s talk of a feast in his honor; he tastes ash and bile at the very thought.
He doesn’t doesn’t deserve praise, nor does he want it.
He wants to drape himself in funerary white and smear his face with ash. He wants to throw himself on a grave and weep until his tears fill the ocean.
He wants to mourn, Saints damn it all, and he can’t.
He can’t.
Sir Angelo strikes him on the back– it should be a punishment, but he knows too well it’s meant to be bracing. “Cheer up, Sir Damien, this is a celebration. The beast is slain! It won’t be troubling the Second Citadel anymore.”
“No,” Damien rasps. He stutters around the next syllable. The thought of calling Arum it feels like poison on his tongue. “He’s… gone.”
He’s gone.
Maybe if he fell off a ledge, or into a swift stream, then there might be some hope. Maybe he could go out and look for him, find him, nurse him back to health.
But there’s no hope. Only a body.
“Really, Damien,” Angelo says. “What’s gotten into you?”
“It’s… It’s Rilla.” He swallows. “She isn’t well. I can’t celebrate while she suffers.”
Finally there’s an ounce of sympathy on Angelo’s features. “Why, you should have told me. Do you need help? Should we bring her to another herbalist?”
“No,” Damien says quickly. If Rilla sees Angelo now– if he mentions the bittersweet victory to her– there’s no telling what she’d do. “I don’t think that will help.”
“I understand,” Angelo says, ignorant of the sting in Damien’s soul. No, he doesn’t. “Go, take care of her. I’ll make your excuses to the Queen.”
“Thank you, my friend.”
Sir Angelo smiles. “Shall I take your trophy with me? I’ll see to it that it’s stuffed and in your room before you return.”
Red creeps into the edges of Damien’s vision, and for a moment all he can hear is his own racing heartbeat.
Tranquility. Saint Damien, I’m begging you, please, your tranquility.
“No,” he says, swallowing bile. “I think Rilla needs to see him herself.”
He wishes with all his soul that he didn’t have to be the one to do this, but there’s no one else who can.
Still he puts it off as long as he can, securely tying his horse off to the post by the front door and carefully lowering its load to the ground– to a soft, cool, shaded spot. There’s no point in being gentle anymore, but he can’t bear to do any less.
Finally he raises his voice. “Rilla.”
“Inside.” Rilla’s reply is muffled through the door, but she sounds otherwise distracted. “Come on in, I’m just finishing up an experiment right now.”
Damien makes a small, high sound, his eyes drawn back to the bundle at his feet. He can’t just leave. He can’t. He can’t.
“My love–” His voice cracks. He can’t he can’t he can’t.
“Damien?” Now there’s concern in her tone, and careful footsteps from inside. “Damien, are you hurt? Did something–”
She reaches the door, and she falls silent.
There’s blood– far too much blood, oceans of it, staining his face and his clothes and his hands and his cloak, still wrapped tight around a body. It’s his own cloak, not Sir Angelo’s, and so it isn’t nearly long enough to be a proper shroud. It falls short of covering those long, scaled, clawed legs.
Rilla lets out a sharp, ragged breath. “What happened?”
“I’m sorry,” Damien whispers. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Damien, what happened?”
“Angelo and I were called to deal with a duke in the north. Arum wasn’t even supposed to be there– we ran into each other by mistake, and I pretended to go chasing after him to get him away from Angelo–”
And Arum swept him up into his arms when they were out of sight.
Be safe, Honeysuckle, he said.
Did he have any idea? Did he know that the kiss they shared would be their last? “He was– he was still nearby,” Damien said, trying to stop his hyperventilating long enough to get the words out. “And when the duke ambushed us with his soldiers– I was too fixated on the ones who were after Angelo, I didn’t see the soldiers coming up behind me. But Arum must have heard them. And he came running, and I tried– Saints help me, I tried– but Rilla– Rilla, there were so many of them, and I couldn’t– I couldn’t–”
Rilla’s arms wrap around him as the words dissolve into incoherent, ugly sobbing. For the first time in hours– for the first time since he saw Arum fall under enemy swords– the tears fall unrestrained. “I’m sorry,” he pleads. “Rilla, I’m so sorry.”
Rilla can feel the grief dragging at her feet like the receding water before a tidal wave. Pretty soon it's going to come crashing down on her all at once, intense and overwhelming. Right now, though, she still has her footing, and she needs to make use of that as long as she can.
Arrangements have to be made. Damien needs to be calmed down, at least as much as he can be right now.
"Thank you for bringing him here," she says, stroking his hair.
"I couldn’t leave him out there,” he croaks between sobs.
“No,” she says. “No, you did the right thing.” She leans against him, her head bowed against his. “We should bring him to the Keep. It’s where he belongs. And… and it should know what happened to him.”
"Saints, the Keep." He shudders. "It-- what would it even--" He can't finish the sentence. Honestly, Rilla is relieved he can get out this much.
"If we leave now, we can make it there before nightfall," she says. "Do you think you can get away?" She tries to keep her voice calm and soothing, hopeful that Damien can't pick out the notes of desperation. This needs to be done, she's sure of it, but the thought of making that journey alone-- of having no one with her except Arum's mutilated corpse-- she doesn't know if she can do that.
"No. No, I'll come with you," Damien says. "I'll find a way. I must. I only need to speak to the Queen." Maybe he did catch the discomfort in her tone, because he glances down at the bloody shroud at their feet. She can see the calculations in his eyes as he puzzles out how to put Arum back onto the horse, as he tries to build up the courage to do it.
"Leave him with me," Rilla says. "It's the safest place for him right now."
Damien looks up at her, tears still streaming from his eyes. "I-- I'll return soon. I swear it."
Rilla watches him ride off and then returns to her experiments, never allowing her eyes to stray to the body still laying before her door. The tidal wave is still looming overhead, growing with every passing moment. She needs to keep busy, to keep moving, to keep focused on everything and anything that isn't him. Because if she stops, even for a second, it's going to break her.
Distantly Damien is aware of fanfare and expectation, but at the moment he feels numb. The words around him feel too loud and too blurry, their meaning lost in a cacophony of syllable and sound.
Saint Damien, grant me your tranquility. Saint Damien--
"--ien?" He recognizes his name half a moment after the Queen says it. "Sir Damien?"
"Forgive me, your majesty," he says, bowing his head low. "I am... distracted."
"So I see." Queen Mira leans forward in her chair. "Sir Angelo told me something was wrong with your fiance."
He takes a deep breath. "Yes, my Queen. She puts on a brave face, but her kidnapping left... scars on her, beyond what can be plainly seen. She has been unwell. I hope-- I hope that seeing her kidnapper dead and his lair empty will ease her mind." He isn't sure what tastes more bitter on his tongue-- the idea of lying to his Queen, or the idea of speaking so coldly of Arum. He feels ill, but he swallows the bile. "I ask for your permission to escort her there myself, so that she can begin to heal."
The Queen's expression softens. "Of course, Sir Damien. Anything you need." She gestures to one of her attendants. "Would a month of leave be enough time?"
It wouldn't take him more than a few hours to reach the swamp and return, but he never bothered telling her that. Yet another lie to his Queen. But if he can spend a month away from this place, away from congratulations for the death of one he loves...
"Thank you, my Queen. I think a month will be enough."
The moment they set foot in the swamp of Titan's Bloom, a portal opens before them to welcome them back. On the other side, the Keep is singing joyfully, still working on the latest of countless outlandish projects.
And that cheer hits Rilla like a punch in the gut.
It doesn't know. It felt the three of them enter its domain, but it's too busy with whatever it's doing to bother looking closely at them.
It doesn't know. If it senses Arum at all...
A part of her wants to run from this, to hide so she won't have to face it, but she chokes that part down and covers it with a mask of somber professionalism. She's had to do this before. Even the best physician can't save all her patients, and she's had to come to terms with that a dozen times over. But this is different. This is Arum.
The Keep deserves to know.
She takes a deep breath and nods at Damien, and then she takes hold of the front of the bier and steps through the portal.
She can pinpoint the exact moment the Keep really starts paying attention: three and a half notes after Arum's body crosses the portal's threshold, the Keep's voices falter and go quiet.
When it sings, it's a soft, sad sound. Vines emerge from the walls and pull the shroud away from the bier, trailing over Arum's wounds as if it doesn't quit believe they're there.
More tendrils emerge and lift Arum from his transport, cradling him as tenderly as a mother with her child.
No. Not like a mother.
That's just what it is.
"I... I need to.-- to check on his experiments," she says, and she turns away. If she watches any longer she's going to break down.
There was a time when Damien couldn't even fathom the idea of monsters holding a funeral. Now here he is, at the Keep's top landing, holding Rilla as the monster he loves is put to rest by the ones who loved him.
Arum would have approved of it: it's elegant, refined, without the crowd of unwanted people. Only the Keep, Rilla, and himself are here to send him off. Arum is laid out on a pallet of soft green, his arms crossed over his chest, his injuries hidden under a violet shift. Below them, the swamp's canopy stretches as far as the eye can see in every direction, an endless sea of green under the darkening sky. As the last sunlight fades, the stars emerge, glittering overhead.
Damien wishes there was something more he could do, but he can’t. He feels powerless and empty, and it’s killing him. He sobs into Rilla’s shoulder, and she squeezes him tight– her voice is steady, but he feels tears on his neck.
He isn’t sure which of them is giving comfort and which is taking it.
He wishes he knew the right words to say-- a poem, a prayer, a eulogy-- but he cannot speak his heart.
The moon rises, and they keep vigil in silence. The whole swamp seems to join them. No bird rustles in the trees, no animal cries out in the night, no cricket chirps for a mate.
And then the Keep begins to sing.
It's a sweet, low, beautiful song, the Keep's voices woven together in a tapestry of sound. He listens, mesmerized, and his eyes fall to Arum's body.
His breath catches-- or, rather, he catches a breath. Surely it must be his imagination-- surely just wishful thinking-- but he swears by all the Saints that he sees Arum's chest rise, then fall.
It isn't possible. He knows it isn't possible.
And yet the Keep continues its song.
And then the moon reaches its highest point in the night sky, and its light is reflected in a pair of violet eyes.
Damien grips Rilla tighter, but he doesn't dare speak, lest he interrupt the spell. He doesn't understand the magic that's unfolding before him, certainly not enough to predict what he can safely do. He'll stand quiet and still for a week-- a year-- a lifetime-- if it will bring Arum back to them.
And then Arum sits up, groggy and stiff, as though he's merely waking from an overly-long nap.
And he looks at his arms, still crossed with the closing wounds of battle. At the moon, bright and piercing overhead. At his mourners, breathless and shaking with tears in their eyes.
And he cocks his head to one side. "Amaryllis. Honeysuckle. You didn't really think you'd be rid of me that easily."
