Kpp'Ar looked around curiously, then blinked at him in a perfect show of innocent confusion. "What is what?"
"You know what I mean. That, on your hands."
They both turned their attention to the extremities in question. As usual, Kpp'Ar's hands rested loosely on the handle of his ostentatious cane. Significantly less usual was the glossy, near-black plum color of his short fingernails.
"Oh, that." Kpp'Ar raised one hand to examine his fingertips, first close to his face, then at arms' length. "Your daughter's handiwork. She insisted the color would be 'so pretty,' and I certainly wasn't going to attempt debating the point with her. Would you?"
Viren chose to interpret the question as rhetorical. The polish was indeed a color he recalled seeing Lissa wear a time or two, and applied in a wobbly, haphazard manner that suggested an abundance of enthusiasm compensating for a distinct lack of expertise. It seemed Claudia, in her typical fashion, had picked up a new hobby and was eager to practice on anyone and everyone she could convince to allow it. Unfortunately, she could be very persuasive.
"Are you going to meet with the Council like that?" he asked, already dreading the answer.
"I don't see why not. After all, she was right: it is pretty."
"It's ridiculous. You're high mage, for heavens' sake."
"For now." A thin, knowing smile crossed Kpp'Ar's lips. "I'm sure Claudia will be thrilled to paint your nails in whatever color you like, once the title passes to you."
"I doubt I'll get much choice in the matter." Viren sighed, half in exasperation and half in defeat. "At least she has some time to master the art, first."
ANYWAY, this was a long time coming but it's my take on tumblr user @raayllum's absolutely devastating "what if Lissa was pregnant when she left" scenario from a while(tm) back
—
The knock comes when they're in the middle of doing the dishes. Mom, up to her elbows in sudsy water, sighs and looks at Jase. "Go see who that is, sweetie. I'll finish up."
Jase tosses aside his drying towel and heads for the door. They don't get a lot of visitors this far up in the mountains, but occasionally a hunter new to the area or a trader passing through will get turned around and need directions back toward town. It's not surprising that, when he pulls open the door with a freezing blast of winter air, he doesn't recognize the man on the doorstep.
What's surprising is that the man isn't a hunter, or a trader, or even Del Barian at all. He looks like he could be—his startled face is pink with cold beneath his fair hair and beard—but behind the fall of his heavy cloak, Jase gets a glimpse of foreign armor and a crest he has only ever seen before on maps. One of his hands is draped over the hilt of the sword at his hip, and the other raised as if he wasn't sure whether to knock again.
They stare at each other in uncomfortable silence. "Can I help you?" Jase prompts warily.
"Uh, I think I took a wrong turn," the stranger stammers. "I'm looking for—"
The sound of shattering crockery cuts him off. Mom stands in the kitchen doorway, towel hanging limp from her shaking hands. The remains of the serving bowl she was drying are spread across the stone floor.
She and the stranger stare at each other. Her face is pale as the snow outside.
"Hi," the stranger says, voice strained. "Mom."
"Mom?" Jase repeats, looking from one to the other. There must be some kind of mistake. "What's going on?"
"Jasper," Mom says, her eyes not leaving the man at the door. "Go to your room."
"But—"
"Go!" she snaps, loud and sharp.
Startled into motion, Jase is already halfway up the stairs by the time he thinks to protest further. He stomps the rest of the way, righteous indignation flaring to overtake his worry. Mom almost never yells, and the way she looked at the stranger... who does this man think he is, marching in and upsetting her like that?
More importantly, who does Mom think he is?
There's only one way to find out. Jase continues his heavy steps down the hall and yanks his door open, but slams it shut without going inside. Instead, he creeps lightly back to the landing, staying close to the wall so the floor doesn't creak.
For a moment, it seems like he won't hear anything at all. Then the stranger's voice floats up from the kitchen below.
"So," he says, with the tone of someone trying to fill an awkward silence. "He's... what, twelve-ish?"
"Your brother is fourteen."
Mom sounds kind of weird—cautious, like she's delivering bad news to someone already in a nasty mood—but Jase barely even notices. Their little family has only ever been the two of them. He can barely wrap his mind around the thought that there could be anyone other than him and Mom. For this man, with his broad shoulders and Katolian armor, to be his brother? Mom may as well have said he was related to a dragon.
Judging by the long pause, the stranger is having a similar problem. "Did Dad know?" he finally asks.
"No," Mom replies. "Even I didn't know for sure, at the time."
"When you left."
"Yes."
The silence stretches long enough for the words to stop bouncing incomprehensibly around Jase's mind and settle into recognizable order. Mom hasn't always lived in Del Bar, so obviously she has to have left somewhere behind. This is the first time Jase has considered that she could also have left someone. He doesn't like the stranger's accusatory tone, but he still risks going down the first couple stairs, hoping to hear more.
"Never mind, I can't do this." There's a sound of a chair scraping across the stone floor. "I thought I could, but I can't."
"Soren, please—"
"I told myself for years that he must have done something awful to you—something so bad that you couldn't bear to even look at Claudia and me anymore. She never understood how that was possible, but I did." Jase scrambles back up the stairs and out of sight as the stranger's heavy footsteps move toward the door. "But this whole time... you've had no problem looking at his other child every single day, and you still never came back for us."
Mom's steps follow him. "What was I supposed to do, Soren?" she demands. "What exactly is it you think I should have done? Even if you didn't choose to stay with your father—he was high mage, with power and resources beyond anything I could dream of fighting. I couldn't—"
"How hard did you try?" the stranger cuts her off again, voice rising. "You never even wrote to us."
"I would have groveled at his feet for just a moment with you and Claudia!" Mom's practically shouting, the words shaky with emotion. "But if he'd gotten even the slightest hint about Jase... he took two of our children away from me, and I couldn't let him find out there was a third to take. I had no choice!"
Mom always said Jase's dad died before he was born. Jase stopped asking about him when he got old enough to see how much it hurt her. He was a complicated man, she once told him. But he would have loved you very much.
"Yeah," the stranger says, quiet and bitter with disappointment. "I've heard that one a lot."
The door doesn't slam, just opens and shuts with quiet finality.
Jase stands frozen, his back pressed to the wall. His heart is pounding, and he can't seem to breathe right—there's a sudden tightness in his chest that makes his eyes water, like he's been kicked in the stomach. He forces himself to move, clattering down the stairs in a haphazard slide and only barely remembering to hop over the scattered shards of broken dish at the bottom.
Mom sits at the kitchen table, face buried in her hands. Her shoulders shake with unrestrained sobs of agonized despair. Jase has never seen her cry before—not even once, in his whole life.
He bolts for the door, pausing only to yank on his boots before stumbling out into the snow with no coat or hat. He looks around wildly, squinting against the glare until he spots the dark shape of the stranger untethering his horse.
"Hey!" Jase yells, because he can't think of anything better. "Hey, you!"
The stranger doesn't turn around. He swings into the saddle without a word. Jase sucks in a deep breath, squeezing his hands into tight fists, and tries again: "Soren!"
His brother twists in the saddle to look back at him with red-rimmed eyes even bluer than Jase's own. For a moment Jase thinks he's going to just ride off without another word. Then he pulls off one thick glove, reaching for something beneath his cloak.
"Here," he says hoarsely, holding out a creased piece of paper. Jase scrambles forward to grab it. "Tell her she can stop worrying. He's dead."
The paper is older than it looks, carefully folded and re-folded over many years. Jase opens it slowly, mindful of how his hands are starting to shake as the cold sinks in. Four faces smile at him from the brittle, yellowed surface—a family portrait.
He recognizes Mom right away, though her face is smooth and carefree in a way he has never seen before. She holds a little girl in her arms, and a grinning boy stands in front of them with his hands planted proudly on his hips—Soren and his sister, Claudia. Their sister.
Next to Mom is a man with a neat beard and Jase's wide, dark eyebrows. One hand rests affectionately on Soren's shoulder, but his smile is more reserved, his gaze distant.
Jase swallows. His eyes burn, and he can't explain why. At least he can blame his uneven breaths on the shuddering cold. He folds the paper up and wordlessly offers it back.
Soren shakes his head, tugging his glove back on. "Keep it. I don't need it anymore."
A particularly nasty cold works its way through the castle, the first winter after they move in. Even Sarai gets the sniffles, though fortunately no more than that. Being sick and six months' pregnant would be truly miserable.
Callum stays healthy, thanks to diligent hand-washing and restriction from the areas of the castle where germs are most freely spread, but he grows moody and standoffish. He was already struggling to adjust, obviously feeling like an out-of-place guest in the castle and seeing Harrow as more like a distant uncle than a stepfather. Sarai knows he needs time—the only way encourage growing into a home and family is to allow the space to do so, and then step back. She just hates seeing her son unhappy.
Then Claudia, the one playmate he's truly grown close with, gets sick enough to spend a week in bed, and he starts acting out in ways he never has before. Not even when Damian was dying.
Harrow spends most of that week with Viren, who is understandably beside himself over his daughter's condition, mild though it is. Once she's undeniably on the mend and Harrow's able to escape, Sarai shares her own frustration and worries about her son. Always thoughtful, he suggests that they go to the lodge—there's a blanket of fresh snow on the ground, and a change of scene and activities will do Callum good.
It's a fantastic idea, one Sarai is embarrassed she didn't think of herself. Of course, she's not exactly used to having an entire lodge to retreat to for relaxation.
The first few days go better than she could ever hope—he and Harrow sled, build snowmen and snow banthers, and have snowball fights more epic than any Border skirmish. Sarai joins them sometimes, though she feels a little too pregnant for some of the more vigorous activities and is content to watch from inside, sipping hot cider. Callum runs to her pink-cheeked and laughing when they come back inside, happier every day than he has been in weeks. In the evenings, he falls asleep on the couch, nestled between them as Harrow reads aloud in his deep, soothing voice.
Then the castle cold catches up with Harrow.
Sarai suddenly finds herself caught between overseeing regular deliveries of hot soup and honeyed tea to her husband and near-constant tantrums from her son. Everything becomes a battle—getting up in the morning, what food he'll eat for any meal and when, putting on warm clothes before going outside, baths, bedtime. After a particularly bad fit over wanting to go ice skating—it's not cold enough for Sarai to trust the pond's ice without it being checked—she gathers him up into her lap for a talk.
"What's wrong, sweetie?" she says, rocking them both gently back and forth while he snuggles in her arms. "I can tell you're having a lot of big feelings—are you sad or mad that Harrow can't play anymore? Do you miss the castle?"
He shakes his head against her chest, but says nothing.
"Did something happen that scared you? Have you had bad dreams?"
Callum hesitates, then buries his face in her shirt, clinging to her. "I'm sorry, Mom," he says through fresh tears. "It's all my fault, I'm so sorry—"
She shushes him soothingly, stroking his hair. "I'm right here. It's okay to be overwhelmed. You haven't done anything wrong."
He takes a hiccuping breath. "But I did! I—I wished that King Harrow would die, so we could go home. I just wanted everything to be like it was before, with Dad. Now he's—I don't want him to die!"
He's crying hysterically again, and Sarai holds him tight. All the pieces suddenly come together—this year's cold takes root in the chest, leading to a wet, hacking cough. Harrow's coughing fits, while already subsiding, had been loud and frequent for the first few days. Loud enough to be heard from nearly anywhere in the lodge.
She and Damian had kept the worst of his condition from Callum, but not everything could be hidden, especially if Damian was to have any kind of life in his remaining time. So Callum saw when he coughed convulsively until he strained to breathe, air barely wheezing in and out of his lungs. Even if that wasn't the case, he'd heard his father's labored, rattling breaths at the end.
"Oh, sweetie," she says. "He's not going to die, I promise. He'll be just fine in a few days."
Callum shakes his head wildly, clinging to her. "I'm sorry," he sobs again.
"It's okay," Sarai soothes him, rubbing slow circles into his back. "It's okay, Callum. Sometimes, when we're angry or scared, we think or say things we don't really mean. There have been a lot of big changes, and that can feel scary and unfair. I wish we could have done things differently."
She swallows around the lump forming in her throat. "Your dad—I was angry and scared for a long time, when we found out how sick he was. I was angry that he wouldn't get to see you grow up, and I was scared of what life would be like without him. I had a lot of mean thoughts about people who I knew loved me, and were only trying to help. I didn't let those thoughts take root, and I know you won't, either—you'll breathe, and let them out."
She inhales deeply through her nose and exhales slowly through her mouth, repeating until Callum was breathing with her. His crying slows as he relaxes.
"Harrow can't ever replace your dad, but whatever he becomes to you, I know he loves you very much." She hugs him close, smiling when he hugs her back. "How about this? We can toast some cheese sandwiches and bring some soup up to him for lunch, like a picnic. He'll be happy to see you."
Callum nods, rubbing his nose with his sleeve. Sarai pokes it lightly. "Then, if the Crownguard say the ice is safe, we can go skating."
"Maybe, instead of skating," Callum says tentatively, as he hops down from her lap, "we could play a game from the game room this afternoon."
So Harrow can play, too. All of us together. She smiles, levering herself up from the couch. "That's a wonderful idea, sweetie. Go pick one out, and I'll start the sandwiches."
She's still smiling as he scampers off excitedly, and she heads for the kitchen. Lunch and games with all three of them, together—it looks like they just might be becoming a family.
As she rides away, she feels as if she'll weep forever—tears she can't stop flowing down her cheeks, ceaseless and steady—but when she crosses into Del Bar, her face and eyes are dry. Her parents welcome her back into their home. Her siblings and their children turning out to comfort her. Lissa smiles and thanks them, lets them embrace her.
None of them say, I told you so. Not outright, at least. She can tell some of them are thinking it.
Doesn't seem all that broken up about it, does she? Not a single tear.
Shush—let the poor girl be. Not all pains can be wept over right away.
But when her mother falls ill, she doesn't cry like her sisters do. When they bury her—when her father, always mountain-strong, is reduced to gravel in his children's arms—she has no tears to shed.
Nor does she weep for her brother's son—young and bright and brimming with promise—dead the instant his horse throws him, his neck snapped cleanly. He'd planned to marry his sweetheart, in a year or two. There's a funeral instead, the other boy's anguished tears a river of grief.
Lissa still does not cry. No matter the sorrow, her eyes sit in her head like stones, hard and heavy. Dry as bone, even as her throat closes and her chest burns like her heart is on fire.
There are no tears from her even for her second sister's husband, a sailor whose ship never returns from its last journey through the spring storms. Her sister holds her own shattered pieces together for the sake of their small children, and the family rallies to support her with food and chores and company. They cry with her, late into the night—all of them, except for Lissa.
Cold as the heart of Hinterpeak, that one.
You're surprised? She married a mage, she was cursed from the start.
Then she abandoned her children in the snake's den, when she'd had her fill of him and his poison.
I suppose it takes a monster to love a monster.
What could she tell them—that Viren had meant no ill? That she'd been the collateral damage of a miracle, a negligible cost for saving a child from death? That her children were better served by staying with a father who loved them so fiercely than by their broken mother dragging them away?
That when he'd stumbled in half-mad, his face scarred beyond recognition, ranting and raving his demands that she weep to save their son, she had refused? That she'd feared what he might take from her, as if anything she possessed could be worth more than Soren's life?
That when his hand twisted in her hair and the cold glass pressed against her cheek, she cried not for Soren, but for the man she'd loved and the monster he'd become?
That, most of all, she had cried for herself?
She stays quiet, and does not cry.
Her father finally passes, never recovered from her mother's loss, and her brother approaches on behalf of the family. We love you, Lissy, you know that—but we think it would be best if you didn't come to the funeral.
Lissa's heart burns, her throat clenched tight against any protest, and she nods. She leaves that night, vanishing into the mountains. No one comes looking for her.
She settles outside a remote village, in a tiny hut halfway up the mountain, more a hunter's seasonal shelter than a house. She busies herself with survival—tends a garden, hunts and forages. Down in the village, she trades the pelts of what she can trap, and sometimes plays the decrepit, barely-tuned piano in the tavern for coins.
That's where she hears of the great march on Xadia. King Viren of Katolis, leading the united Pentarchy to end the threat of dragons for good.
Lissa returns to the tavern every day after that, desperate for more news—it's barely a week later when she hears he's dead, his army broken by an alliance between the elves of Xadia and those loyal to King Harrow's son. There is no mention of her children in any of the garbled rumors.
It's almost a relief, that she doesn't cry for Viren.
But Soren would be old enough to have joined the Crownguard, just as he'd always wanted. With two kings dead in such quick succession—first King Harrow, and then, somehow, his own father—could she even dare hope he still lives? And Claudia, so fascinated by magic, even when it tore their family apart—had she succumbed to all its dangers? Would Viren have let her walk a different path, if she chose?
She imagines going back, demanding to know what happened to her son and daughter—if Viren remained in a place sufficiently prominent to somehow become king, someone has to know. She imagines seeing them again, being able to run to them and take them in her arms. She imagines crying, then—a decade of stolen tears released in a flood of joy and relief.
Then she imagines their revulsion at the mother who left them, should she be unable to shed a single tear of grief or regret.
Lissa stops going to the tavern. Her heart burns as if its falling to ash.
Look, you can't tell me that Terry would just give up the thread of finding Lissa, even after the fact. Especially after the fact.
—
Dear Claudia,
This isn't a letter I ever expected to write, though it's one I know I should have written a long time ago.
I really didn't expect that an elf would show up at my door to tell me that it's time to finally write it. I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't want to hear him out, but... he brought a portrait of you, and it didn't seem right to take it without letting him say his piece. I'm glad I listened.
The portrait is just a little thing, a sketch captured by someone with a quick hand and an excellent eye, but I feel like I could happily look at it for the rest of my life. You're sitting under a tree, in one of the castle courtyards. I'd know those benches anywhere. There's a book open in your lap, but in that moment, you're not reading it. You're twirling your hair around a finger with this look in your eyes, and this little smile that's so familiar... Viren used to smile exactly like that, and it always meant he was about to say something unimaginably brilliant, or at least wickedly funny. I can only wonder what amazing things you might have been thinking.
How many more of those smiles did I miss, while you grew from my little girl into a stranger? I could never claim to be the mother of the beautiful young woman in this portrait. I gave up that privilege, a long time ago. What more can be said?
Your friend tells me that he loved you, but still did you a terrible cruelty. He wants to make up for it, however he can. I have to wonder whether there's any apology either of us could make that you'd find to be worth hearing.
Even if there isn't, even if you've already stopped reading—I want you to have what little explanation I can give. I only wish I had more to offer you than this: leaving you and Soren was the hardest thing I have ever done, and also the biggest mistake I have ever made.
By that point, my heart had already been shattered. I no longer felt any joy or love, only a great, raw emptiness beneath my wounds, haunted by rage and despair. I would look at you and your brother, and wonder if I'd ever be able to love you the way you deserved. The way your father loved you—completely and without hesitation, a fierce and uncompromising devotion that made me doubt whether I'd ever been capable of love, at all.
I became convinced that I'd never recover. Better for you and Soren to have no mother at all, than the broken shadow of one. If you were to split your love between only yourselves and your father, the three of you would be able to love each other all the more.
So I left, and Claudia... I was so, so wrong. About all of it, everything.
Even the most broken heart can heal, if you let it. Love is never diminished when freely given, even spread across everyone in the world. Your father's love was not better or stronger than mine could be, only more terrifying.
I should have turned around the day, the hour, the moment I realized my mistake. I should have come home to you. Instead, I continued making that same mistake, every day since. It wasn't even a mistake, not after the first time—it became a choice, and I chose it over and over again. At first, I was too proud to turn back and face Viren. Then I was too ashamed to turn back and face your brother. Finally, for so many of these long years, I have been too afraid to turn back and face you.
Your friend says things have changed, in the years since whoever drew this portrait put pencil to paper. He says you've gone down a dark path, perhaps even darker than the one your father took. You've made choices that hurt yourself and others. You've been betrayed by people who once cared about you, and you've betrayed them, in turn. You've grasped a terrible power, all in the name of love.
I don't know if Viren ever told you what happened between us, and why. For now, all I will say is that neither of us was blameless. I can't deny that his magic played a role, or that I once called him a monster, but Claudia, please... believe me in this, if nothing else: I will never love you less for being your father's daughter. How could I ever judge you for becoming like him, when I was the one who entrusted you to his care? How could I ever rebuke you for loving him, when I loved him more than anything in this world, other than you and Soren? I couldn't. I can't. Just like I can't ask for your forgiveness.
What I can do is seal this letter and give it to your friend. I hope he can somehow deliver it to you, and that it will bring him some peace. Please don't treat him too harshly for it.
I walked away from both you and Soren, but... your friend tells me it's never too late to take a different path. I can't go back and undo my choices, but if there's any chance that we might somehow, in some form, go forward? I want to take it. Even if it hurts me more than the pain of all these years, combined.
So I'm going back to Katolis. I'll face your brother, if he'll give me that chance. And I'll stay there, where you can find me, just in case you ever think you could maybe let me face you, too.
I want so badly just to see you, Claudia—whether you're the little girl I left behind, or the beautiful, brilliant stranger in the portrait, or someone else, entirely. I want to know whether you paint your nails the way you used to ask me to do for you, and if purple is still your favorite color. I want to find out whether you ever learned to play my piano. I want to hear every silly nickname you and your brother ever called each other. I want to hold you, to laugh with you and cry with you, if you'll let me. Even if I'll never have your love again, I want more than anything for you to know that you have mine.
This is a hope I never expected to have. Whoever you are now, and whatever you think we can be—I'll be waiting for you. No matter what happens, I'll be waiting.
For @dragonprincedrabbles generator prompt: Soren + Terry, "Vague." Ostensibly.
—
"It was around here," Terry said, looking carefully at Soren. "Somewhere. I think."
Early morning sunlight crept slowly into the Valley of Graves, where King Ezran inspected progress on the monumental wall relief that would honor the three archdragons who'd given their lives to stop Aaravos, for however small a handful of years. Four, if you counted Avizandum—he may not have technically been alive, at the time, but Soren knew Zubeia would have wanted him included.
"It's hard to tell, without the dragon bones. They were a pretty prominent landmark, at the time." Terry put his hands on his hips, turning away to survey the area with a critical eye. "Kind of weird to see the place without them, actually."
Queen Janai had declined King Ezran's offer to repatriate Sol Regem's remains, so the skeleton had been disassembled and carted away under guard to Queen Aanya in Duren. She and King Ezran were constantly exchanging letters about ongoing projects with names like "Ruby Fire" and "Solar Flare." The Crownguard's first and only concern was the safety of the ruling monarch, so Soren didn't give it any more thought than that.
It wasn't like he had any standing to do more than silently worry, anyway. Opeli and Corvus were always fretting over things like the King's state of mind, which plans he might later regret—even his relationship with his brother, still fractured months later, with no sign of future repair.
Callum might not have been on the wrong side like Claudia, but Soren could see the glimmer of her furious pride, in him. Her fierce, unquestioning love. Her obsession. All the things that, when it came time for her to choose, had made her choose wrong. Over and over and over again.
"I might still be able to find it, in the ground," Terry added, looking back at him. "It depends on how many other skeletons are down there."
"Okay, I'm gonna need some context on this one, Super Salad," Soren replied, pulling one arm across his chest to stretch out his shoulder. "Find what?"
"The spot where we—where Claudia and I buried your dad."
Soren froze mid-stretch. He'd looked for Viren's body in the ruins of the castle, because of course he had. Why wouldn't he? His father had died more than once, already—it was only sensible to want confirmation that he was well and truly gone, this time.
They'd pulled bodies from the rubble for days, and Viren's hadn't been among them. Neither had they found the staff, until it reappeared in Claudia's hands at the Moon Nexus.
"She told me Katolians usually burn your dead, but we didn't have the time or materials to prepare the body for that," Terry continued, sheepish. "So I helped her dig the hole, and she built a little cairn to mark it. The stones probably got scattered during all the fighting, later on."
Soren had lost his father more times and in more ways than he could count—nearly as many as he'd lost Claudia. He would have thought it'd stop hurting, by now. A grave for those losses shouldn't mean anything at all.
Terry looked out over the Valley again. "I just thought you might want to know. Maybe put up a better marker."
Soren grimaced—he'd held the shoulder stretch well past the twenty seconds his stretching routine demanded, throwing everything off. He squinted up through the sunlight at the rough forms taking shape on the memorial wall. King Ezran was engaged in an animated discussion with the lead architect, who appeared to be having some kind of dispute with the Sunfire elf mages over the engineering of the monument's eventual ever-burning flame.
"Yeah, well," he said, switching arms to stretch his other shoulder. He didn't look at Terry. "I didn't."
a/n: me? co-opt a philosophically significant rayllum moment for my favorite sad wet cat man? surely not, how dare you
—
The waves of heat that staggered him as he walked the balcony are nothing, once he begins the spell. He can feel the fire in his chest, how it boils his blood and chars his flesh. It eats the air from his lungs as he fights for the breath to speak the incantation, his own heart burning in an agony of desperation so others' will not.
He can barely stay upright. He might not be strong enough.
He has to be strong enough. He thinks of Lissa, of Soren, of Claudia—how he wishes he could see her, just one more time. Tell her, like he told her brother—
The flames around him spit their hungry sparks up into the smoke-dark sky, little clusters of false, fading stars against the choking blackness. They multiply, his own blurring vision doubling and tripling them, again and again until he's shrouded by a vast, sprawling cosmos as silent as it is beautiful. As beautiful as it is silent.
Time slows. Some part of him is still fighting to form the spell—he can distantly feel his lips moving, the tears that slide down his face—but the stars command his gaze. Each one stares back at him, a thousand eyes piercing his soul. Looking inside and through him. Demanding that he see, as they do.
He doesn't want to look. He has never wanted to look, not since—
It doesn't matter, anymore. He looks. He sees.
And he finally, finally understands.
It's the thing he'd always sought and yet always refused to see. What he'd been unable to accept, even as his every move had howled with grief and rage and desperation for it. It's the purpose he was meant for, before the sucking, starving darkness inside him swallowed it down and clamored for more.
His wife. His children. His king. His kingdom. His race. His world.
All of it. The truth. His truth.
The dragon's fire burns around him, but for a moment he burns brighter—he's full of light, his heart no longer crumbling to ash but blazing like a star that pulses with life and love. The hollow darkness cowers before it, shrinking and fading until not even a shadow remains.
He can feel that he's dying, but there's no pain—only the deep, wonderful ache of love and longing. The regret that he didn't understand earlier. The grateful awe at understanding, now.
His knees hit the stone. There are tears on his face, again. None of it matters.
His truth still glimmers within him, a tiny star to guide his way. He speaks its name, words he'd said before, but never allowed himself to believe. It falls with him.
The foundations of the world crumble, but he looks up, unseeing, to the empty sky.
After what turned out to be both more and less work than anticipated, In With a Cry is now updated for s6/s7 canon consistency. /triumphant tooting
I'll be gradually doing the same with OTSOT, but I do plan to get at least one new chapter out before I get in too deep on revisions. (If only because this took way longer than I expected.)
Patch notes:
Lissa now has 20/20 vision.
Kpp'Ar is now recently retired, rather than sitting high mage.
Reduced the strained state of Viren and Lissa's marriage from "in shambles" to "everyone's just really stressed out."
At the same time, introduced some much more... Viren-y decision-making behavior by Viren.
Rolled back Harrow and Sarai's relationship to unmarried and her pregnancy to unannounced. Reduced the preexisting familiarity between Callum and Claudia accordingly.
Reluctantly updated the description of Soren's stuffed dragon toy to match the one seen in the series. (In my heart it's still more like this.)
Updated the piece of jewelry Lissa leaves at Viren's pyre to be the hair ornament she wears in series appearances.
The big one: removed all references to the "Kpp'Ar was searching for a unicorn horn to help Soren" theory, in favor of the events centered around the Staff of Ziard shown in the series. This was done with a heavy heart, because that was a much-beloved theory for me. I truly thought we had figured it all out, at the time. The ramifications of this change will be significant in OTSOT, because it also absolutely obliterates any tentatively positive initial relationship between Kpp'Ar and Lissa. (I say that with glee.)
And, of course, the usual tweaking and buffing that comes with any kind of rereading/editing pass.
