Enchanted above, below, left, and right — your eyes wandered the field you had been warned of for your entire life. A restful place to some, a trickster to others, but your request was simple. A story you had been told about as a child, every part of the field within the trees held bits of magic. Even a simple blow of a flower could bring a soul out, ones named off to you one by one — but you wanted to see it for yourself.
Oxygen filling your lungs, your lips perked to push out the breath in a forceful motion. The dandelion’s stem between your fingers was wet from the light pour that morning. Gentle blow of your breath, the white-fluffed particles released from the bud and into the air.
Observing the remnants of the plant, the wind swept through the air and across the space where you sat. Surrounded by the flowers, the toll of your blow forged inside a stronger blow of the wind, the surrounding dandelions around you losing their white particles in tandem. The everlasting petals rotated in the air, spinning with the wind and encircling you.
Sun bright above, sparkles like glitter fluttered throughout the particles, forming a shape. Broad shoulders, a head and abdomen — a man was surging through the contemporary flowers. A face once featureless was created right before your eyes, the man’s skin bright as he blinked. Hand swiveling into the air, the last of the petals merged with him, every tissue contriving his existence. Ravn, Prince of Vitae — the man said to be most silvery even under a pitch black night.
You sat on the damp grass, a perplexed expression across your face. His lips sealed into a thin line before forming a toothless smile, his hand stretching out. The gesture small, the warmth of his skin was levitating, helping you from the ground as you stood before him.
“I’m never blowing on a dandelion again.” You spoke, stunned as all he could do was laugh.
Eyes wide, his gaze met the blue, cloudless sky. Brown irises intense in the sunlight, you were astonished by the man that had come from thin air — quite literally.
“W-What? How?”
His eyes peeled back down at you from the sky, the space above turning a somber orange as the sun lowered to set. Your eyes were wide, gaze running along the man from head to toe. Like a fairytale only told to children, his bleak face turned soft as his hand rose into the air once more.
Palm flat, his lips formed the lightest words you had ever heard. “Touch me.”
Your hand paced up to his, skin matching on skin for a second time. He felt real, blinking up at him like you were in a hallucination. His fingers broke the touch, lacing between your own in a tight, but painless grasp.
Columns of trees in all directions, the wind blew another harsh breeze. Your brows knitted, watching the dark hair on the Ravn's head move. No part of him unattached like when he was formed, your stumped face bringing another chuckle to rise from his chest. His smile grew wider, tall form bending down to make direct eye contact. Pupils aligned with yours, the top row of his teeth surged over his bottom lip, turning the skin of his mouth red. “Hello.”
“H-Hello.” Completely flustered by his presence, his hand started clapping against your own. Force little and his skin warm, your cheeks filled with heat as he stared deep into your eyes. “This was just a test.”
“I see.” he nodded, lifting his opposite hand to cup your cheeks. He smiled at the impact he gained from you, his own cheeks mirroring yours as he released you and backed away.
Eyes hellbent on your form, he twisted, flat palm swaying above the flowers at your ankles. Your eyes trailed the dandelions, watching as each and every one of them replenished from the white particles taken — the plants now capped by yellow petals. Your eyes went wide again, diverting your attention up at the sky as the color turned from orange to a deep blue, nearing purple for nightfall.
Your foot lightly kicked as you stepped out of the bed of flowers. The itch of your bare ankles from the petals made you stiffen, Ravn’s hand reaching to hold you up under your arm when you began to stumble.
“Thank you.” you replied quietly, his nod affirming your fall.
The sun's thick rays from behind the dark clouds had your eyes squinting, Ravn nothing more than a silhouette. His form stepped twice to the right, his body directly in line to block the illuminating light. A smile was quick to rise on your face, his gratefulness and consideration already growing on you.
“So, nothing in particular you were searching for?” His head turned, shadowed face giving you the moment to take him in. Era-ed clothing paired with his gleaming face, he looked more than eccentric — like the tale you were told, personified. He was depicted as knotty but sensitive, the man before you the exact illustration as he laughed down at you. He couldn’t hear your thoughts, but he knew what was on your mind. “No-” he chuckled. “I won’t be leaving in the same way I came.”
You blinked rapidly, trying to hold in the laughter that bubbled from your stomach. His cackle matched yours, shoulders lifting and dropping with every breath-holding laugh. He was gentler than gentle, persona so equipped to help others, but he stood in front of you like a friend.
“Must you go?” you asked, his right eye squinting. A wink playing on his face, his bottom lip sunk back in between his teeth, a bright flash of lightning from a far away could startling you.
Rain dripped from the sky at a quick pace, his hand rising up as the covers of nearby trees over grew into a roof. The sudden beads of water from the sky drew the air colder, his smile wide and deceit true.
“Seems like a storm.” A clap of thunder sounded above, your form leaping against him out of fear. “I guess we’re both stuck here for a little longer.”
➳ Warning: mentions of blood, being beaten up, execution, special powers
➳ A/N: This story is part of my '5 words, 5 stories' series for which I wrote 5 totally different stories with 5 different band members featuring the same 5 words "I'm sorry, I love you". If you're interested in the other stories, check out this link! Otherwise, they can totally be read on their own. Dedicated to @dat-town❤️
When you saved Gunhak’s life, you had no idea how much the act of it would impact you later on. As much as you would have liked to turn back time, you couldn’t. Not when he betrayed you to get what he wanted, and he was oh so excellent at deceiving you - you who just got to know what your power could do.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he handed you over to the other drüskelle, a new prey to be passed along, a new toy to play with, a new hunt to be taken away and eventually executed. His eyes were icy cold like always, but maybe it was your sentimental self or there was actually a hint of guilt in his pitch-black orbs. Not that it mattered…
None of it mattered when you were given away for your death sentence.
“I love you… or I thought I loved you. How could you?” You shrieked at the top of your lungs as two broad-shouldered men dragged you away, your feet lifelessly sweeping the ground as if you had been weightless. Maybe you were, you couldn’t feel anything, except fury, but that fury burned… it burned your tongue, your throat, your gut, your veins and your heart. “I never should have saved your life, you-”
“Enough, drüsje,” one of the men spitted, the word ringing in your ears. Witch. You could believe that these stern men dragging you away would deem you a witch, but to know that Gunhak had thought the same from the moment you had saved him… It stung like an open wound not being properly taken care of.
Those same eyes that you had thought were full of bitterness and hopelessness were now reflecting your own kind of torment, but you could not pity him, not even when he wanted to explain that it was because it was his last chance at being a drüskelle, a witchhunter to put it nicely. If you had known who he was, you would have never even gone close to him, but that part of you (the Grisha part of you)... it always awakened when you saw suffering. You couldn’t just sit by idly, you had to do something about it. If they were suffering physically, you could try to heal their wounds and bones and scars, but even just the sight of a pair of lifeless eyes made your heart churn. You had always had this caring part within you, but not until you had actually saved someone’s life just with the power in your hands, had you realised just how special you were.
Special… It now seemed ironic just how positively shocked you had been when you had realised that you had managed to heal Gunhak whom you had found around the Ravkan border. He had been badly beaten up, burgundy scars painting his rough skin, his left eyelid had been swollen, and he had looked like he had been starving for some time. You had found him unconscious, and when you had seen blood oozing out from his side, you had tried to stop it, to clean it up, to make it go away, and it had worked… but not with any assistance, merely by your hands.
That had been the first time you had discovered you had been a Grisha; before that, you had always thought that you had managed to heal others due to external sources: the bandages, the ointment and herbs, not due to the power in you. You had seen the same kind of surprise crossing Gunhak’s icy cold orbs that you had suspected in your own eyes when he had realised just what you were.
You had thought of that moment as a vulnerable one, one like being bare in front of someone else, and you had falsely assumed that you could confide in him because he hadn’t told anyone around you about what he had seen. You had put your trust in him, helped him heal and helped him put himself together, you had even gone as far as trying to get him a job because he had acted like a Grisha who had managed to escape from the drüskelle.
How ironic it was now that he turned out to be one of those he was supposedly running away from… You should have known that he had been lying when he hadn’t wanted to show you his power. You had let him get away with it because you had also wanted to hide your powers, and he had been physically weak. But to think of all those times you had fed him soup, you had stood by his bedside (your bedside) to tend to his wounds, you had watched over him as he had been sleeping…
You felt sick to the stomach, so sick…
“I’m sorry,” Gunhak mouthed - maybe he spoke up, you couldn’t hear him from the distance - as you were dragged further and further away from him.
How could he be sorry and stand still like a statue? You had never understood how Fjerdans were so damn loyal to their country and their sick ethics because they not only collected Grisha like some sick prizes to be won, but they also executed them for what they were. The saddest part of it was that it was just who he was: he was a drüskelle and you were a Grisha. You should have hated each other from the start, and yet… you wondered if he had ever felt anything towards you other than disgust… Love, what a joke. Having special powers, what a joke. Your ability to heal had once seemed like a gift, but now it turned into a curse. A deadly one.
Now, it was your fate to die in the hands of Fjerdans. You had walked into a drüskelle’s trap, and you knew you couldn’t escape. Despite your special powers, healing someone could not do anything about the fact that you were about to be killed.
Maybe it was true that love and hate were two sides of the same coin, you thought to yourself, a scoff leaving your mouth… As the situation changed completely, as the coin flipped, your love for Gunhak turned into hate, and soon, you found yourself blindfolded, taken away from your home, from your country, from everything that ever mattered, and you couldn’t help but wonder…
Was Gunhak still just standing still, mumbling sorrys?
A/N: I hope you enjoyed this rather angsty fic! As always, you can let me know what you thought through asks/DMs/reblogs.
Also, I just want to say I haven't read all the Grishaverse books (I'm currently reading Rule of Wolves), so there might be some inaccuracies and obviously some plot holes since this is a short fic, but I hope I could do the Grishaverse some justice. *-*
If you want to read more stories of mine, let it be for ONEUS or for other bands, consider signing up for my taglist here.
