Dahlia is uncomfortable under his forced gaze. She kept catching it before looking away somewhere else in the room. The mage took his offer on the chair. She placed her hand on the back of it and used it as support to flop herself onto it.
“Thanks.” She breathed and slid the cup closer to her by pulling the napkin that it was under. Dahlia took a long sip to try and wash out the artificial taste of potion from her mouth.
“Ah…” She stuttered a little as she sunk back into the chair. Dahlia felt like she should be polite somehow but she wasn’t sure what words to will up. Everything felt wrong or rude of her to say.
“I’m so…” She started then stopped herself. It would be selfish of her to talk about her own feelings and opinions, wouldn’t it? She crossed her arms and shook her head. She still had the envelope in her one hand. Dahlia held it out across the table and tapped the edge of it against the hard surface.
“I don’t want to talk about anything…” She finally said. “..Right now.” Dahlia added awkwardly. The mage stood up herself and picked up the glass of water in her free hand.
“I feel like I know you so much better now.” Dahlia held out the letter toward him to take. “And I’d like to know more about you but from… you. At your own pace.” The mage struggled to maintain eye contact.
Once he took the letter she pushed the kitchen chair in and began to head toward the stairs to her room. Dahlia walked pretty quickly, clearly eager to get to her room to rest. She got halfway up the stairs before she came to a stop. Her golden eyes flashed to him.
“I’ll understand your answer either way.” She waved weakly and went up to her room as fast as she could.
Once the mage made it to her room she collapsed on her bed and passed out almost immediately. The weight of potion pushed down on her body and forced her into a deep comfortable sleep.
Yves sat still for a while after Dahlia climbed the stairs - with ease, he duly noted, something he struggled with even now - it seems as though the antidote had worked thoroughly. Tiredly, he stared at the envelope with his name scrawled across the back with a deft hand. It felt like hours before he moved to open it.
Grabbing a drink and settling down on the front porch, he finally breaks the dramatic wax seal and opens the letter contained. Yves had known a handful of professional calligraphers in his life and had grown used to seeing his own name written out in lavish cursive, but that was as far as he’d get with the letter. The whole thing was looped and curled and written in a small hand to fit the whole contents on one page. He could only sus out that it was some sort of contract based on his own name followed by a signature line at the bottom.
Unable to fathom what kind of document Dahlia could possibly want him to sign, after everything they’d been through, Yves was at a loss.
Namir did eventually scrunch back into view, licking his chops. He seemed calmer now that no one was sobbing on the ground. “Dahlia’s fine, in bed.”Yves grunts as the cat climbs the stoop. “Can you read this to me?” He holds out the letter and envelope, still in his hand.
Valus looked down at his empty cup of wine and headed back over to the table to pour himself more. If the others weren’t quick about it, he was going to finish it all up. After a few big sips and a long satisfying sigh, he leaned on the wall next to it with his arms crossed. He was going to watch the booze like a hawk.
“I see. Honestly though same. These parts are pretty peaceful and I figured slaying spiders couldn’t be too bad for my wallet. Sucks that nobody wants anyone dead though. And also I couldn’t tell how long I was trapped in there. A few hours at most but not longer than that.”
He watched as dahlia struggled to open up her top with one hand and tilted his head. Was it difficult to open up her shirt because her other arm was injured?Without thinking about it too hard, he stepped towards her and leaned down. He unbuttoned her shirt down three buttons as if it were a perfectly normal thing to do and then stepped back.
“Your arm must hurt a lot huh? You can’t open your own shirt even if you’re all sweaty.”
Valus suddenly flinches when his elbow is touched and Yves is closer to him. It was sort of obvious that being close to Dahlia’s exposed chest didn’t phase him at all but a small nudge from Yves made him flushed like a madman. He pulls his arm away and swallows hard.
“Uhhhhhhhhhhh….sure I guess. I just hope there’s enough to split between the three of us.”
Dahlia nodded in agreement standing next to Yves. She seemed to hardly be paying attention though. She had half slitted eyes like a lazy looking cat and just kept nodding. It wasn’t until Yves asked Valus to join them that she looked up from her buttons and she visibly straightened up. A fire lit in her chest threatening to bubble out into a rude insult or protest. She was about to speak then Valus reached out toward her and undid the buttons of her shirt.
“Oh.” Dahlia took a little step back and dropped her arm when Valus reached out to her. He spoke as he undid the buttons. She looked a little awkward but had a silly grin on her face. “Sure.” There was a peak in her voice like she was about to say more but she stopped herself. She held her breath and didn’t relax until he stepped back.
“There should be. Besides you want revenge right?”
The cool air felt nice against her chest and neck. It seemed almost unfair the other two had been able to go shirtless. She knew Yves wouldn’t protest to it but she didn’t know Valus’s feelings or her own. She tended to be a private person. She used to bathe with Namir when he was a cat and stopped when he became human. Her bath times were always separate from the boys.
“Well, to celebrate…” she grabbed the bottle Valus has been so diligently guarding and poured the rest into her cup. It wasn’t a lot. “Let’s play a get to know you game. Like truth or dare. Yves you ask first.” It seemed stupid since Dahlia and Yves knew each other really well but that’s when the dare aspect would come in for fun.
Yves watches Valus interact with Dahlia, hiding his smirk behind a sip of alcohol.
He’d been trying to be modest when he put his shirt back on, because he’d felt a real pull towards them both but knew Dahlia well enough to not act on any kind of physical impulse. He couldn’t get a solid read on Valus yet, but to assume would be rude of him.
His eyebrows quirk up in barely contained amusement as they circle around each other. It seems as though there’s more to their relationship then they’d admitted too, though it was possible they were both accidentally flirting with each other?
He couldn’t tell but it was equal part adorable and funny.
Draping his body over one of the chairs at the small table with a quirk of his eyebrow he turns his gaze towards Valus. “Alright, ser assassin, truth or dare?”
Valus boldly chooses dare.
Yves looks him up and down scrutinizingly for a moment, interest suddenly peaked in something. “I dare you to take off your mask.”
When Yves placed his hand on her head she looked down at the ground under her. She pressed against his hand a little leaning forward so that her hair bunched up under his fingers.
“This?” She asked genuinely and stared at the bottle. She set the letter down on the ground and pulled the cork out of it. She threw it aside without much effort and swirled the liquid gingerly.
She thought about Namir when she saw the potion and it grounded her a little. She began to grasp and remember her own memories as her own and Yves as his.
“Right.” Her voice was more confident. She held the bottle to her lips to take a sip and paused. For one second she paused and looked at Yves like she was unsure. Then she tipped her head back and drank it.
She set the empty bottle down beside her and pressed a hand to her head. Suddenly her body felt cold. It felt like cool water had been shot through her veins but with it the pain in her head faded. She still felt dizzy and numb but the chaos in her mind was suddenly muted.
Her eyes were still empty as she focused on the sounds around her. She stared at the ground but her mind was so obviously else where. She could hear the creaking of the house, Yves breathing, and even the ruffle of trees outside from the open window. After a few minutes she lifted her gaze up to Yves. She looked like shit, like she had been up for days.
“Sorry.” She whispered and put her hand on top of Yves’s still on her shoulder. She gripped it tight once before she pushed it off. She then pressed her hand through her hair and took a deep breath. Dahlia stared over his shoulder and after a moment her eyes filled with tears. Her blurry gaze then refocused on Yves.
“I’m sorry.” She repeated louder. She crossed her arms around herself over her stomach. Now she felt sick for a whole new reason.
With her exhausted mind cleared she could pick up on Yves’s uncomfortable concern. She didn’t mean to cause scene. Her eyes kept wandering as she thought and processed things she had seen. A lot of the minor details blurred into the background but the major points stayed.
Yves sighs in relief when she drinks the potion, a loud, harsh exhale he didn’t realize he was holding. It hellish seeing the empathy in her eyes, watching it fade to a sad sympathy is a bittersweet experience.
He can’t yet say if being uncomfortably exposed is worse than being horribly misunderstood, but it's too late to take it back, so he focuses on trying to look at her face instead of literally anywhere else.
“Yeah, me too.” He half shrugs, “It’s a real kick in the teeth, huh?” He grimaces and gestures to the kitchen chair, she’s not exactly swaying on her feet but the exhaustion is visibly creeping in.
Keeping an eye on her, he stops fidgeting to grab her a glass of water while they collect themselves. He sets the cup in front of her and doesn’t sit back down. Shifting his weight anxiously from foot to foot he finally makes sheepish eye contact with her. “S-so...what do you want to talk about?”
Dahlia’s body shook a little as she let out another sob and she pressed herself closer. Her mind was racing with words she wanted to say but she couldn’t get them out so she settled for silence. Namir watched on, too afraid to say anything. His ears were down against his head and after a few more minutes of silence, he jumped down from the table with a little “mrrt” and headed outside to give them a moment. He was sort of thankful he wasn’t part of….. all of that. He thought he wanted to see the little box but now? Mmm.. not so much.
After a while, she pulled away from him and her legs crumbled. She knelt down on the ground with her legs under her. Her hair was tossed and messy. It fell over her shoulders and framed her face. She looked exhausted and the normal sparky glow in her eyes was gone. She placed both of her hands on his leg.
“I can’t believe…they did that to you.” She sounded out of breath. “And you came back here for…” Dahlia looked almost angry. She pressed her forehead against his leg and was quiet again for another few minutes while she processed everything for herself.
“You know I thought…” She whispered. “Maybe… maybe…” She lifted her head up but kept her eyes down as she ruffled her hair. With a shaky hand, she reached into her left pocket and pulled out a neat little letter. She fiddled with it nervously. Yves could see his name printed on it clearly.
With her free hand, she reached around on top of the table for the potion. Dahlia managed to grab it and she held both the letter and the potion in each of her hands. Her head was pounding and everything hurt. It hurt in the same way that magic hurt when it was used too much. Her blood felt like it was on fire and her mind was spinning.
“I understand now.” She looked at him with pain in her eyes but she still made no move to drink the potion to make it stop. All of Dahlia’s focus was on Yves. It was like she kept getting distracted. “Why you couldn’t… talk.”
Yves is caught somewhere between sweet, sweet validation and panicked unease. It’s equally embarrassing and vindicating to have Dahlia understand everything, but the vulnerability of it all is so uncomfortable after years of refusing to dissect what actually happened to him.
“Well...yeah, but,” he seems a bit frustrated trying to think of what to say, “I’m not very good with words, to begin with, you know, I can do colours and shapes and I guess feelings too but I’ve never been good with words.” He mumbles and rests a hand on Dahlia’s head. “And I guess compared to Felix I was never good at dealing with trauma head-on, but…”
He’s caught between a rock and a hard place, trying to downplay it all in an effort to comfort her but fully aware that what she’d just seen feels very real to her now.
“Listen, Dahlia.” He gently kicks his chair back and kneels down beside her with both hands on her shoulders. “It’s over okay? It’s over and I’m...alright, I’m dealing with it.” He grasps her hand over the potion and pushes it towards her, “and you’re dealing with your own problems.”
“And I value your opinion, and I want to...talk...a bit…” he ignores the letter in her hand for the time being, “but you have to take this first.”
The feeling of Ilya at first is alarming to Dahlia. For the first few beats of the memory box, she felt like someone had placed both their hands around her head so that her vision was blocked from the sides. A third hand wrapped around her neck forcing her breath to become slow and focused. She was uneasy in the entangled memories she laid in. They felt like vines with thorns that had begun to pierce her skin. They pulled at her emotions and at first, she fought them. She had her own memories of Felix that sparked up in the back of her mind that argued with what she was hearing. An apprentice? Since when?
When her vision blurred and faded to the beach she felt light-headed. Pins and needles picked at the edge of her vision but when Ilya’s hand touched hers they were gone. And that was it. Dahlia Elkhorn was no longer real.
“Hey don’t stand up...” Yves is filled with concern, though truthfully he’d been expecting some kind of hysterical reaction. “It’s okay-” he cuts himself off when she starts talking. For a second he’s scared she might topple over but she comes forewards for a hug.
“Hey,” he mutters, in a bit of shock- he hadn’t wanted anything to touch him coming out of her memories - he’d felt so overstimulated that his own skin felt too tight, it’s jarring to see her pursue the opposite. Slowly his arms come up to hold her back.
“I don’t-” he's genuinely at a loss for words, “It’s fine.” He squeaks.
“Yves was just getting a spiders web stuck on me off…We weren’t doing anything.”
He rubbed his non-injured shoulder out of embarrassment and immediately shot up when he smelled wine. He waves away Yves’s hand, insisting to get up himself. Nothing would be more perfect right now than a buzz. As Dahlia formally introduced the two, grabbed a cup and over filled it with wine. He casually leans up against a wall and takes a few large gulps, enough to where some of it spills from his lips and drips down his chin. He wipes it away with his hand and licks it off.
“I see. Traveling companions…how did you guys meet?”
He crosses his arms across his chest and sips his wine quickly. “Oh I mean. To be completely honest I’m a hired assassin.”
He freezes up a little bit when the other winks at him and feels his face get hot again. Was Yves…flirting with him? Why the hell…was he so flustered? Normally if someone winked at him he’d want to puke…or punch them at the very least. Why was he not repulsed completely by this stranger? And even surprisingly him and Dahlia really haven’t squabbled since they left the cave….
Was he actually becoming friendly?
There’s no way. To the thought of it, he downs the rest of his cup of wine.
“I guess now that you mention it, it is kind of throbbing. And also really hot. Are you guys still hot? And how come you were in that dungeon anyways?”
When Yves nudged her, Dahlia leaned against him with her arms crossed supporting herself against his arm. She took a sip from her cup while he spoke.
The mage hadn’t given too much thought to her and Valus not fighting as much as they used to. She assumed that they had matured since they had last met and that was the reason they were being so pleasant.
Dahlia kept her eyes on Valus while he poured himself a cup and held it to his lips. She was completely memorized when he licked the wine from his hand.
LMASDO9AFD
“What? Right!” She said obviously startled by the questions that were vaguely directed at her. The mage had been lost in thought.
“Yes umm… me neither.” Dahlia stood up straight so Yves wasn’t supporting her weight anymore. She gripped the edge of the dresser with one hand to steady herself. “I’m not surprised. A fever seems pretty standard for a poisonous bite.” She rattled off general knowledge she knew from her readings. Dahlia tugged at the ribbon around her neck until it slipped off and put it next to the food on the dresser.
“It is awfully uncomfortable though…” Dahlia shrugged a little. She raised her free hand and fiddled with the top button of her shirt trying to unbutton it to get more air.
“We went in looking for the loot at the bottom of the cave. There are a few things in there that we want. What about you Valus? You weren’t caught up in there for too long I hope.”
She dropped her attention from Valus to focus on the top button of her shirt but still struggled with undoing it cause my drawing tablet is unplugged and I don’t have time to update the talksprite before I leave LMAO she only was using one hand.
Yves hums in agreement with Dahlia’s statement, fidgeting uncomfortably with the knowledge that they’re dealing with some sort of mystery toxin but neither of the other two seemed too panicked about it. Dahlia was right though, there was definitely an uncomfortable itch under his skin, thrumming through his limbs and chest.
“We’re flat broke, so we’re trying out hands at treasure hunting.” Yves agrees. “But honestly the way that big spider threw us around...maybe it would have been a better idea to bring Namir along…” he ruffles his brow as Dahlia fidgets with her buttons. He leans a bit closer to Valus. “He’s off on his own little hunt right now, but if you joined us” - he taps Valus on the elbow - “I bet the three of us could clear out the nest, maybe split the earnings? If we all almost ended up spider chow, I bet good money there are tons of mummies to loot besides whatever was hidden in there.”
He looks amicably between his two companions. They’d seemed pretty at ends when they first stumbled upon Valus, but for as much disdain as Dahlia had introduced him with, she and Valus seemed to be getting along just fine for folks who’d supposedly left on bad terms. “Whadda you say?”
Yves takes his time placing his objects into the simple stained box. A harmonica reed, a petrified flower, a small quill with the ink still staining the tip, a long blade of grass that could carry a whistle, a rock, a shell, a small coin, and a few other odds and ends. He tries to work quickly, so as not to dwell, but gently enough to tuck the small objects away where they won’t be rattled around too much. He wants nothing more than this to be over, and the debt to be paid.
Finally, he dives into his life to try and cut out the parts that Dahlia didn’t ask for, anything that doesn't directly provide context for his house and the way he is, he tries to remove.
In the end, he does an okay job, they aren't as cleanly cut as Dahlias, he watches the reel back, trying to force cold indifference. It’s hard, but not nearly as hard as it was the first time. He does trust Dahlia, he supposes, but not enough to give more than asked, not yet, so he slaps the lid closed with a sigh and places the box on the table before her, nervous energy bouncing his leg.
With barely contained eagerness, Dahlia nods and opens the box.
Her vision blacks out, all she has are her other senses and it’s strange not being able to fall back on her mage’s vision. She feels his life thrumming in her veins.
Yves has always made the best of life, she can feel it in his ribs, knows that he’ll always be okay, as long as he has Felix.
It immediately feels like a dream.
-----
Dahlia wakes up on the stairs of the back porch, it's a late spring evening and shes reclined down the steps in an awkward but mostly comfortable daze watching the dust pick up and settle in the warm breeze. Even laying down, Yves body feels too long and wide on her consciousness. She can feel the high of fatigue holding down his limbs and the sun lulling him to sleep. Soft footfalls thump slowly in the house and then out onto the porch. Ilya drops down next to Yves, slightly higher up on the steps and takes his head into her lap to play with his hair and rubs a hand down his bare chest.
“Hey, babe.”
“How are you feeling?” Ilya asks, looking out at the pollen swirling in the road. “Your fevers gone.”
“Mmhmm.” Yves lets her eyes flutter shut and grasps for Ilyas hand on his chest, the additional warmth of his wife lulling him further into a doze. “I’ll be back to work soon…”
“Let me know when you’re ready to finish the eel,” she traces the black and green lines across his shoulder.
He makes another content noise. “How’s Felix been?”
“Hmm. Felix is doing well in the city. He’s taken on an apprentice it seems, has high hopes for her. He’s glad to hear we’ve settled in and keeps threatening to visit.” She grins and plants a kiss at his damp temple. “We should clean up your old room for guests-”
Her voice cuts off as Yves falls into a soft sleep.
-----
They wake on the beach in the late afternoon, Dahlia is overcome with a moment of Deja Vu, but Yves seems content with the routine. Ilya rouses beside them, much less burnt and they sleepily gather their belongings and make the familiar journey up the bluff-side to watch the sunset.
They can see just the top of the farmhouse roof behind them. In the distance, the outlying docks of the town a mile away can be made out against the blue water, and facing directly into the ocean is the sun, seconds from setting. A small strip of exposed sandbar is the only obstruction breaking up the endless expanse in this direction, and the water surrounding the sliver of sand is aglow with glowing green algae and ocher and purple bioluminescent animals.
Ilya’s hand worms into theirs and Dahlia points out at the dim glow as the bright flashes of golden sun begin to cut across the water in a swath of dancing light. The few clouds above turn purple, pink, then red as the sun dips halfway below the horizon line. The purples and greens seem to intensify in its wake, and all along the darkening coast, the last flecks of orange light give way to purples and greens and intense sparkling gold all the way out to sea.
All Dahlia can see is Ilya’s face as she watches the lights replace each other, her dark skin catching each colour of the sea. She turns to make eye contact and all Dahlia can see are her green-grey eyes flecked with nearly imperceptible spots of gold, like sunbeams in a storm. Ilya cups her face and taps their foreheads together.
“I love you.” She kisses Dahlia in the violet burn of the false sky with all of its glowing specks. Aside from a few grey clouds far off in the distance, the night sky and ocean seem to become one vast void of lights with no horizon to separate them.
Dahlia tries to think of something romantic to say to that but her eyes flutter shut and she focuses on the points of contact between them, on the heat of Ilya’s fingers running across her cheek and neck, still warm from the sun. She’s so happy she could cry.
“I love you too, smudge.” Dahlia grins as the kiss breaks and nuzzles into the crook of Ilyas neck, taking in the smell of sand and sun, of ink and paper. It smells like home.
They sit there forever as the lights sparkle and fade….
“I just think it’s dangerous what you’re doing.” Dahlia spits a little too harshly. She’s sitting up on the counter between the sink and the icebox while Ilya works furiously over the kitchen table. Paper and ink are spread everywhere in a map of words and glyphs, coded beyond anyone's comprehension. Ilya stops suddenly and looks up to her slowly, placing the quill down gently.
“Yves, baby,” Ilya stands and walks over to Dahlia, forcing eye contact. “I understand, But you’ve known for a long time that this is a huge part of me. Helping these people is a calling - especially-”
“-Because we’re in a position too, I know, I know, but still-” Dahlia interrupts the familiar...discussion, a swirl of bitter embarrassment wells up in her gut. “I just…there’s talk of a witch hunt in town this week. It’s got me on edge is all...I’m sorry smudge.”
“You are forgiven,” Ilya grins and runs her nimble stained fingers through Dahlia’s hair and cups her face. “I would never put either of us in danger, neither will Felix. I need you to trust me, and trust that I know what I’m doing.” She plants a kiss on her forehead and steps away back to her papers.
“I do.” Dahlia lies with a small smile. The guilt is thumping in time with her heartbeat, outmatched only by the dread building up in her chest, pooling hot and sickly just beneath her war wound - now scarred over. “I do.”
Outside the fall wind howls through the trees and splatters wet leaves against the shutters.
Dahlia knows in her soul, with unheard of clarity that she’ll always be okay, as long as she has Ilya.
------
Dahlia isn’t present for most of the winter. They don’t get snow as far south as they are but the freezing rains and grey skies take the warmth away. It's far too cold to swim and even the green grove at the beach is devoid of colour. Ilya is patient with her, used to the routine after three odd years of being together.
They work as a team maintaining the animals, even though there’s less to do on the farm it still takes much of the late morning before Ilya returns to her limited invoices and Dahlia can return to the comfort of the warm bedroom. She nestles into the covers and sleeps until she's woken by Ilya retiring to bed. This pattern continues for the whole season, broken only by the occasional illness, mostly on her part. But as the weeks proceed Ilya gets to bed later and later.
“Is everything alright?” Dahlia asks on one of her better days when her fever has gone down. “You seem so stressed, I’m sorry I haven't been he-” the apology is cut off by an abrupt kiss. Ilya holds her fast and close, a little tighter than necessary. She buries her head in the crook of Dahlia's neck in the centre of her chest and clings for a very long time.
“Hey, Ilya what’s wrong?” Guilt and fear swell up in her gut, she had been barely cohesive the past few months, and the idea that Ilya needed help while she was off living life underwater was wretched.
She clings a bit tighter, her voice muffled in Dahlia's chest. “...You know that I love you right? I love you and I would never do anything to hurt you?” She's shaking as she threads her hands under Dahlia's shirt for warmth, for proof of life. Dahlia is overcome with a deep sadness compounded by her recent emotional instability, a sob overcomes her and like a switch is flipped they are both sinking to the floor in a weepy embrace.
“Of course I know, and I love you too, of course I know.” Dahlia assures her as best as she can, “please Ilya, I love you so much but you’re kind of scaring me right now.” She holds Ilya out by her shoulders so they can look at each other. She looks exhausted, worn thin.
“Nothing’s wrong, baby, I’m just tired is all.” She seems to avoid eye contact but a smile comes to her lips trying to reassure. “I think we both need this winter to end.” Dahlia doesn’t know how to interpret this encounter and is really in no condition to, post-illness. At a loss, she also smiles and hugs her wife close.
“Yeah.” They sit there for a while longer before the frigid air gets to be too much, “common, let's go to bed, Smudge.” As Ilya proceeds, upstairs Dahlia takes a minute to lock up the house and close the curtains for the night. She glances at the documents on the table with little interest but can make nothing of the correspondence between Ilya and her customers. She slides away to lock the back porch, with one last look outside to make sure the barn door is closed.
Out on the lawn is a spot of red on the pale frosty grass. She steps outside to investigate in the as the sun dips below the trees. The shadows of the orchard reach out like long fingers towards the house. A line of ocher feathers connects the spattering of red to the treeline behind the fence. Beyond the thick oaks surrounding the property, something moves in the brush.
This isn’t the first time they’ve lost a chicken to wild animals, but the trail of gold feels so much like a bad omen that she can't help but shudder in the cold wind.
Dahlia inhales deeply, the sharp air cuts into her weakened lungs like glass. She diligently gathers water from the creek and washes most of the blood into the ground, then flicks the feathers off into the forest before turning in for the night. She double checks the locks on the door and doesn't tell Ilya about the chicken, she’s under enough stress already…
----
Spring rain comes, and with it a high the Dahlia still hadn’t gotten used too. She’s over-productive in many ways and a tad destructive in others but Ilya seems grateful to have her husband back in full health though she seems older despite high spirits.
“Let's plan a trip.” She suggests over lunch after the chores are done.
“Oh yeah? Business or pleasure?” Dahlia looks away from the treeline, interested.
“Hmm…” Ilya leans over to rest her head on Dahlia’s shoulder, looking up into her dark eyes. “Most definitely pleasure.” She smiles and Dahlia couldn’t say no if she’d wanted too. “I think we should see the far west… just for a couple of weeks? Sebastien can watch the farm can’t he?”
“Why the sudden wanderlust, babe?”
Ilya inhales deeply, a weariness settling in her features, “I think we just need...a change of scenery is all…” they’d talked before, about going the way of Irene and Louann, shuttering the house and retiring to travel the countryside in their old age. Dahlia didn’t think would happen so soon, couldn’t fathom a nicer place to be, but something about this last winter had added years to Ilya’s face.
“If we butter him up first.” She kisses her wife on the head, noticing a grey hair here and there. “I think Sebas would be happy to get out of that dirt shack for a bit.”
“Oh yes, I think so too.” Ilya agrees matter of factly, but Dahlia can hear the relief in her voice as they begin planning their trip...
----
Two months before they leave something goes horribly wrong.
Dahlia wakes up alone for the first time in years. It's early spring, frost still threatens the grove, but the rains have started. It seems like a dream at first, she dresses like normal, an uncomfortable itch in the back of her throat. With sleep still clouding her vision, she makes it down the stairs to the first landing before she notices something is wrong. There’s mud tracked all over the stairs, looking up, she can see prints in the hallway as well. Not panicking she hurries downstairs.
“Smudge, is everything alright?” She yells as she descends, mind scrambling to come up with an explanation for the mess, perhaps they’d forgotten to take off their boots before tracking mud into the house last night? The papers on the tables are missing. “Ilya!”
Outside in the fresh spring mud are streaks of red and a trail of golden feathers.
The next few months are like one long nightmare, Dahlia can feel the life draining from her body every day.
She starts out fine. Terribly worried and angrier than she’s ever been in her life, but not panicked. Not for the first few hours.
It’s easy to piece together what happened. The boot tracks throughout the house, the missing cypher, the dead fowl. She begins the search on the grounds of the farm, fanning out from the house to circle the grove, then the property, then the beach. It's long after dark when she returns home shaking and wired and itching for violence. It’s not even a thought to grab at the bottles of wine on her way into the kitchen and spend the rest of the night awake, alternating between restless sleep and paranoid bargaining.
The rest of the week is a blur. She spends a great deal of time switching between overwhelming panic, unparalleled rage, and unwavering determination to find Ilya. She writes in a shaky hand to Felix and Sebastien, her words are basic and sharp and spelt wrong and barely legible, even to herself. Its nothing like Ilya’s deft grace and control. Dahlias used to not having the vocabulary to get her emotions across but the fact that she’s writing at all - she hopes - conveys the urgency that her words can’t.
She goes to town first, gives them the news, asks for help looking, for information, for sightings, for any kind of lead. Everyone offers their sympathies but remain ignorant of her whereabouts and no one seems to meet Dahlia's panic. She has no new information and her sense of urgency only increases. Aside from the occasional comments about how she hasn’t quite been the same since ‘the accident’ Dahlia can’t find any trace outside of the farm that Ilya had ever existed at all.
Ilya is still in the house. Dahlia can see her sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, in the folds of the bedspread in the early morning, or in wafts of fresh ink that still circulate around the bannister. Like if she runs back upstairs, Ilya might be there, sitting at her desk by the window, crunching numbers and doodling in the margins of her notebook. She's not there though, not in any way that matters.
She tries to gather the remaining papers in Ilya’s study and the rest of the house. Whoever took her and her code didn’t seem to know it was there. It occurs to Dahlia that she likely can’t trust anyone, given the illegal nature of Ilya’s hobbies.
She trusts Felix with her life but stops herself from sending him the papers for fear that the information they hold will make him disappear into the night. She hides them instead when she’s sure no one is looking.
----
It’s been almost two weeks since Ilya’s been abducted and no one in town will mention her name. She hears people whispering behind their hands about how tragic it is that she’d been seduced by a witch and how tragic it is that she’s probably cursed, but mostly no one says anything at all and that feels worse. She knows she’s being watched, can see shapes in her peripheral but they always move before she can look at them.
Many of the memories are jumbled here, some of them could be dreams, many of them feel like hallucinations. There is one moment that stands out among the rest. Dahlia is sitting on the floor of her bedroom, unable to move. It feels like she's been through a meat grinder and one eye is swollen shut. She can feel a hot dripping down her face and neck. Above her stands a figure so still, it could be a shadow.
The figure snarls through an old gnarled scar across its nose. “Stop making trouble.” It warns as Dahlia’s vision fades out, then in again. It’s morning now, aside from her black eye there is no evidence that anyone else was in the house last night.
The dead animals keep piling up-it feels like one every day, one morning she wakes up to find the roof of the bard smouldering, the spring downpour likely smothered it in the night. She’s too stupid to stop asking questions, or care, or whatever.
They sneak into the house while she’s away or at night. They move things, take things, stand over her while she sleeps, weird shit like that. Sometimes she wakes up with bruises or cuts or really bad headaches, stuff that doesn’t just happen. Sebastien would probably say its stress, some kind of fucked up grieving process, but Dahlia knows better, she doesn’t give away where Ilya’s work is hidden.
Finally, they get sick of playing games and one night while she’s drunk off her ass because she can’t sleep anymore and her goddamn wife is missing, they break in and drag her out back behind the barn. They dig a hole and bury Dahlia in the mud. It’s not a whole six feet, but she sobers up pretty quick underground.
Dahlia hyperventilates for a long time. She watches her body struggle through someplace just above her, lodged in the fresh packed dirt above. The rain seeps down into the heavy soil and turns her grave into slick mud and the distant thunder rumbles the earth. She doesn’t know how to get out, doesn’t know how close the surface is or even if she’s digging in the right direction. An unknowable amount of time passes but she can hear morning birds chirping through the roaring in her ears. Finally she breaks the surface, freezing and wet and delirious.
The morning mist collects and swirls at her feet. Her thin, quick breaths steam in the cool air as she vomits mud. Something is moving upstairs in the window of Ilya’s study. Trembling, she sloughs her mud-caked clothes off into a pile on the porch. She moves in slow motion through the house and stops at the bottom of the stairs. Shadows coalesce around an eerie red light striking the landing wall. Outside the sun is rising, there are no birds left to greet it.
It feels like it takes all morning to climb the stairs, she jumps and freezes at every noise. At the top, each step feels like walking through mud as she approaches the open study. Small tendrils of smoke curl upwards from burned spots in the floorboard. Nothing is on fire but the room smells of ash and ink. Her books are scattered around and torn up, her chair is knocked over and her utensils spilt. The smoke drifts from gouged lettering on the floor, and Dahlia has bad eyes but the words reach across the floor in terrible black letters.
S T O P
L O O K I N G
She can’t even clean it up, Dahlia just stomps out the wisps of smoke and shutters the window. She locks the door and hides the key away. It's impossible to be upstairs without seeing something out of the corner of her eye.
Thieve. Abductors. Undertakers. Ilya.
She stops going upstairs all-together, can’t even get near the bannister without dozens of eyes on her, peering out of the woodwork. Time bleeds together, she can’t sleep for the paranoia, for the bedsheets dragging her back underground, for Ilya watching her from the between the rails upstairs. she jumps at every sound regardless of the source. Her brain feels sick.
She keeps drinking and gets it into her head that maybe - well maybe if they had buried her, that they might have buried Ilya somewhere on the property. That maybe she was still alive underground this whole time, waiting for someone to find her. Dahlia begins to dig holes in the yard because if they wouldn’t let her ask questions the least they could do was let her burn out trying to turn over the orchard looking for some kind of closure.
She knows it’s irrational but she feels hopeless and possessed, looking over the property they had built a life on and only seeing a ten-acre grave.
She digs during the day, at night she listens for intruders, a part of her knows they will leave her alone now, knows that they’ve done all they need to do to keep her from asking questions, but the damage is done. In every shadow is a thief, every creaking floorboard warns him not to cause trouble.
----
Before Ilya became a cartographer she was raised on the bow. She’d been a decent shot but had ultimately preferred to explore over hunt, so she came to him with a lovely heirloom of a crossbow to be used as a party trick to win bets or scare off coyotes. Dahlia’s hands shake as she loads the bow, as she’d seen Ilya do a million times. She levels it at the door and waits through the night.
Sometimes when she’d drift off she would have dreams where it had all been a nightmare. Ilya would be next to her and she would just stay in bed and watch her sleep, watch her chest move when she breathed and the sun would cross the bedroom and then Ilya would wake with a mumble and Dahlia could think for just a minute that everything was alright.
They felt like a curse in her waking hours.
----
Days later Felix finds her, he’d been across the country working and dropped everything as soon as he’d gotten the letter, it still took weeks of travel to arrive. Dahlia has been beside herself for nearly a month and she almost puts a hole in her brother with her wife’s crossbow. She’s a terrible shot, but it gives Felix enough time to yank the bow from her hands and embrace her. She panics at first, then realizes who it is. She cries for the first time in years.
Eventually, Sebastian arrives at Felix’s call. The two pack up everything up while she mopes around and jumps at shadows. They try to get her to sober up too, but it doesn't take.
She never sees the crossbow again.
It takes weeks to clean the mess, weeks to get Dahlia back into her right mind, Sebastien grounds her immensely with old stories while Felix makes arrangements. They are moving her off the farm, to the city with Felix. Dahlia watches numbly as they pack up everything into neat little boxes and scrape the dried mud from the floor. They leave the study alone.
-----
For the next few months, she lives with Felix in the city, recovering mostly, getting back into a normal sleep schedule. The noise helps, being around other people helps, Felix helps when he’s not at work. Slowly, she comes to accept that Ilya is gone, in order to live with that Dahlia also comes to accept that Ilya is dead, and takes the time to mourn properly.
Most of her time alone was something of a blur. She tries to explain to Felix what happened but so much of it was spent in the throes of a drunken paranoia that she isn’t really sure what was real and what was just a bad dream. Felix doesn’t force her to make the distinction even though that leaves a lot of gaps in the story.
In the end, Felix believes that there is some foul play at hand, but has no leads to pursue. Many words are explained, Dahlia has never yelled at her brother in genuine anger before but she's been so frustrated and scared and angry and drunk for weeks now and no one knows how to help. Felix takes it all with grace and pity on his face. He holds her close and she apologises.
They have a proper funeral at some point. Dahlia can’t remember it but she’s sure it was nice.
-----
Months pass and she slowly moves closer to herself. She doesn’t quite fit back into her body but the perspective is nearly the same, she thinks. Drinking helps somewhat.
Felix is very proud of her for finding her body again, though he doesn’t quite word it like that. He says things like “I am glad we are eating breakfast together,” or “It looks like you got some sun today!” In his cheery, relieved voice. Dahlia feels like a child, or a spooked animal being pitied, but something about Felix’s gentle way of handling her is comforting.
He wants her to stay as long as she needs too but Dahlia’s skin begins to crawl with wanderlust. She’s grateful for everything Felix has done for her but she feels like the world is stagnant now, with an absence of colour or sound. She bids Felix goodbye with solemn determination. Her brother is nervous and reluctant to let her go, but all the same optimistic that travel could be a good thing.
She knows that she’ll be okay, she always has Felix, after all.
----
She stops by the farmhouse before truly leaving, needs to say goodbye to it now that she’s said goodbye to Ilya. She goes in the middle of the day, alone. It stands solitary and warm in the summer sun, she can hear the creek babbling through the orchard and smell citrus on the breeze. Dahlia takes in the view, closes her eyes and inhales the smells of the property. She can still hear the wind-chime on the porch, made from small rocks and shells, there is laughter in the wind.
The holes she’d spent days digging up are still present, like scars on the property, though they have filled in somewhat from the rain and are grown over with grass now. In a few years, she knows, it will be like they were never there at all.
It feels like she’s just come home from the market as she slips in the backdoor easily, for just a moment, Ilya is sitting at the kitchen table, pouring over her work. She looks up with a smile on her face, they’re going on a trip soon.
Dahlia shudders and moves through the space, careful not to touch anything. It feels wrong how barren the rooms are, never in her years of living here has the place felt so empty, not even when the old birds had moved out. She avoids the stairs entirely to find some of Ilya’s papers in the spare room. Waves of melancholy wash over her, looking at their life together packed up in neat little boxes and stored away, it all feels so wrong. She pulls a bundle of paper from a box, gently leafing through the parchment. It smells like home.
Dahlia spreads the papers over the kitchen table. She finds a vial of ink and a half dozen quills to place delicately between the pages of almanacs, half made maps, and first pass translations of various texts. She steps back with a nod, it isn’t quite the same as Ilyas organized chaos, but looking back at the kitchen as she locks the door, it feels like she’s still home, it feels less like bidding adieu and more like she’s just... going on a trip.
----
The memory fades out and back in, she doesn’t experience first hand but knows that she spends the next few years wandering from city to city, revisiting old friends and customers from before the farm and the injury and the conscription. It’s easy to fall back into what she used to be, even if it doesn’t feel real. She stays out of the way of the law as best she can, avoids all talk of mages and witch hunts and crowns guards for fear of having to do it all over again. To repeat the last year of her life, she knows, will probably kill her.
She comes back into herself in a familiar apartment, a terrible melancholy interrupts her, a longing for this place that was her home inside a body that feels too tall, too wide, too different from hers. There is a resounding whiplash that stuns her as she sees her body, her real body leaning over her with a potion, pouring it into her leg wound that feels both numb and like white-hot pain at the same time.
She’s talking in a playful tone, telling him - telling Yves that she doesn’t need payment for the priceless potion in her hand.
“Just take me to that summer festival we talked about last night. Win me something nice, buy me snacks, whatever you can manage.”
Dahlia can tell Yves can’t remember what ‘last night’ means, but he doesn’t miss a beat in agreeing, Dahlia can feel in his gut that Yves will probably do whatever she asks of him (within reason) for the potion. But that's truly all she’d wanted at the time, and the world seems brighter for it, at least from his perspective.
The memory starts to fade there as if Yves had let it run too long on accident and hadn’t wanted her to see this far in. She fades out of his memory one last time and comes back into her real body, back in the kitchen. It feels like the breath has been knocked out of her for a long moment. Yves slaps the box shut the second she pulls away. He looks absolutely perplexed - on his end the whole thing took less than a minute, not the months that Dahlia had experienced.
“Is it really supposed to be that fast?” Yves mumbles to Namir, who is nearly in Dahlia's lap in worry, he paws her potion closer to her hands. “It feels so much longer from the other side.”
“Hey fireball, you doing alright?” He leans back a bit to give her some breathing room, remembering how claustrophobic he’d been coming out of her memory box.
He flinches as he feels Yves curl his arms around him towards his back. The sensation of it felt kind of nice, especially with Yves’s warmth underneath him. Their faces were so close too…his lips were right there. Kissing him might feel nice….what the hell? W-why would he want to kiss him??? His hand involuntarily came up to cup Yves’s cheek but then quickly pulled away. When he realizes Yves’s hands were behind his back just because of the threads he starts to crack up a little bit. He brings one of his hands up to his mouth to cover it while he laughs.
“This is really ridiculous, huh?”
However the rogue freezes as the other pats his shoulder. He chuckles a bit and rolls off to the other side of him on the bed, grinning a little bit at the thought.
“Don’t make me punch you now.”
Dahlia hesitantly cracked open the door and stuck only her head in. This was sort of perfect since now she could casually walk in and have no attention on her and her own mistake.
“Yeah? You sure you guys done? I can go find my own fun tonight if you need me to.” Dahlia was half serious, maybe a little desperate to return back to her lover at the bar but she pushed the door open holding the paper bag and walked in. Dahlia wasn’t the type to do go mess around with strangers on a whim (in fact she had hardly done anything of the sort since Yves and her started their travels) but she didn’t question her twisted thinking. Adventuring certainly wasn’t glorious and didn’t allow for such fun. Certainly, it was normal to feel a tug every now and again to flirt around the way she used to when she was apart of a thief guild and didn’t have a lot going on. Now they were supposed to be serious and had a goal. She stood up on one leg and closed the door behind her with her foot.
She walked past Valus and placed the bag on top of the dresser. She began to lay out the food (its… strew) and bowls. Then she reached into the bag trying not to shift any of the many loud clattering glasses inside and pulled out a bottle of wine. She placed it next to the other things.
She poured herself a cup of wine and leaned back against the dresser blocking the paper bag with her body. She had one arm wrapped around herself and under her other arm holding the cup to her mouth.
“So with all the chaos, I wasn’t able to formally introduce you guys.” She sipped her cup and muttered something snappy about the two of them already getting to know each other.
“Yves this is Valus. We worked together at a restaurant a few years ago due to… ehhh…” She trailed off and motioned the cup around in a circle lazily. Her voice was a little slurred already after spending awhile at the bar. Drunken playfulness reflected in her eyes. “Complications?” The mage was uninterested in going into the whole story. She glanced at Valus’s expensive as fuck visor.
“Valus this is Yves. We’ve been traveling together for a while now.” Dahlia decided to leave it at that since Valus truly didn’t know the whole story. She was thankful Namir wasn’t here… last time Valus saw him he was a cat. That’d be a lot of explaining to do.
She dropped her arm she had crossed around her and tapped her fingers on the cabinet top. She was feeling so incredibly strained for a certain type of affection that she knew she couldn’t have from either of the two in the room. Dahlia’s eyes kept darting between them, nervously trying not to focus on one of them too long. She decided to blame the silly situation she had walked in on and her crush of the bartender for her flustered feelings bubbling up in her stomach. Dahlia cleared her throat while she crossed her legs so one foot was over the other. She dropped her gaze and focused on picking at a splinter on the table top. Surely those feelings would go away with time and not get worse
“Aw yeah,” Yves sits up excitedly when he smells the food and drink, he offers Valus a hand up and fishes a clean shirt out of his bag as they sit to eat.
He quirks an eyebrow at Dahlia’s brief description of ‘complications’ but doesn’t say anything about it.
“We’ve only been fighting things for a little while now, though.” He chimes in, nudging Dahlia’s elbow with his own, “I have a little bit of training but nothing quite like...what did you say you did? Fight people mostly?” he shakes his head, “Nah I'd get my ass kicked against a real swordsman.” He winks at Valus.
“How're you guys feeling by the way?” He says after a good sip of wine. “I’ve never been bitten by a giant spider before but this feels kind of....intense…”
Then why would they head into a dungeon if he was inexperienced? Surely Dahlia wasn’t stupid enough to do something like that. He’s probably just rusty then and his occupation surely had to be something different. At the mention of mercenary, Valus smirks and lets out a laugh.
“Sure I guess I’m that in some form of the word. I don’t really kill others when there’s not money involved. Plus you did save my ass.”
Valus nearly flinches as the other reaches out to him. With his reflexes he would’ve tried to smack his hand away but held it closely at his side. He looks down to see what’s near his neck but before he can he’s already suddenly tugged towards Yves.
“Woah…”
He falls forward and catches himself on either side of Yves, hovering over him with his knee between his legs. The heat rising over him suddenly bursts into flame. He stares down at Yves in shock for a few moments, swallowing heavily in his throat. Woah. Woaaah.
“Um….Uhhhh…”
His blushes brighter than a tomato up to the tips of his ears. Half of him wants to move closer and the other half wants to dive bomb away from him. What he wouldn’t give to smash his heads between those huge tits. Before he can even make a choice though Dahlia opens the door looking guilty af.
He quickly panics and tries to use his arms to pull off of Yves and put a lot of distance between them. However because of the sticky spider thread he doesn’t make it very far and rebounds back even harder, now laying directly on top of him.
“I swear to god what the fuck is happening.”
When Dahlia opened the door she shook her head a little so that the ribbon from around her eyes fell around her neck. She was greeted with a very interesting scene.
“…Ahh…”
Dahlia slammed the door closed with such force it shook the room a little. She pressed her back against the door and covered her face with one hand. On the other side, the two could hear muffled noise from Dahlia.
After a few moments, it went to silence. It drew on for just a little too long and then erupted into hollers and shrieking laughter. The mage slammed her little boots on the ground a few times and then she sunk to the floor with her knees up laughing up a storm. The glass bottles clattered as her whole body shook with giggles. She slammed her free hand down in a fist as she tried to catch her breath swearing between gasps of laughter.
She leaned back against the door with her head up and a forearm covering her eyes.
Yves is grinning wildly, a million bad pick-up lines and witty retorts flying through his head as Dahlia slams the door, it’s clear he finds this just as funny as she does, but he refrains from laughing because Valus looks absolutely flustered. Yves own eyes are a little blown out and a contented hum rumbles in his throat.
He carefully wraps his hands around Valus back to pick at the thread that’s stuck them together, it comes free easily when handled gently. He pulls his hand back, threads now balled up in a small pellet that he throws off in the corner, and resists the urge to keep touching the man.
Instead, he tries to reassure Valus with a gentle pat on the shoulder, “listen I know we just meet and all but if you keep this up, I might fall in love with you.” Yves means it to be a joke but in all honesty, he rather enjoyed this new position, and the idea of Dahlia walking in on them was rather exciting too. He stays down on the bed and allows Valus to move himself and the laughter to subside before calling to Dahlia to come in, mirth in his voice.
“I see. That’s pretty risky of you….but in a way its sweet I guess.”
Valus peered closer and inspected the raised scars underneath the ink. He just about to ask but then paused. He wouldn’t really enjoy it if a total stranger started asking questions about his own scars so he figured he shouldn’t pry.
Just as he was about to finish wrapping up Yves’s bandage, he feels the strangers sweaty brow dig into his abdomen. His breathy groans of pain sent a shiver though his spine, his temperature quickly rising to double.
He quickly grabs both of Yves’s shoulders and pulls him off of him.
“Woah, are you okay Yves? D-don’t talk so close to me like that.”
This guy was almost too friendly. It was so weird. He quickly finishes up bandaging Yves so that he can get away from him. He takes a few steps back of personal space just in case he wants to lean on him again. Breathing and talking so close to his lower half like that especially now was making him really flustered.
“And not really. I tend to fight a lot of people.”
After stopping at the bathroom to change Dahlia made her way downstairs to the front bar area and grabbed the dinner that was prepped for them. Tragically the meal was wrong so she had to wait a hot second for a new one. While she waited, she spent a while talking to the bartender about their alcohol section.
She was oddly drawn to the man’s voice that seemed like velvet. He kept selling her drinks and she definitely kept buying them and drinking them. The mage had leaned against the counter with her weight forward so she could lean in and hear his voice. She stood up on her tippy toes fiddling with a napkin under her drink with a playful smile. Dahlia had no idea what he looked like but it didn’t matter to her.
Something about the bar made her feel like she was back at her guild. She felt wild and playful. The thief guild used to rent out bars and they’d spend the night fucking around in it. Currently, she was throwing casual conversation at people and hunting for someone interesting. She was itching to nuzzle up next to.
She passed a nearby dice game and thought of when her and Yves had first met. Wild to think that met on one of the nights that the two of them had both been prowling around.
It wasn’t until the cook had yelled her name 5 different times did she get away from the bartender and climb back up the stairs. She bounced up to the top with the same energy as a kid in a candy store. After she had left the warm hustle and bustle of the bar downstairs she realized all the alcohol she had been suckered into buying. Dahlia had been so easily charmed into the harsh purchase
“Oh no…” Dahlia stared down at all the bottles she had bought. They hadn’t even collected their bounty yet and funds were low. How the hell was she going to explain this to Yves. She couldn’t go in there with all of this.
The mage swore under her breath. Dahlia stood outside of the door and stared into the paper bag trying to come up with an excuse before walking in. She really had a huge crush on the bartender and let it get the better of her. She couldn’t say that outright though.
“Oh sorry man, just a little light headed I guess.” Yves rubs his eyes with his fingers to clear the dizziness. “Still not used to regular combat.” He half shrugs.
“Are you some kind of mercenary or something? You’re the first swordsman we’ve met who didn’t try to immediately kill or harass us, so that’s pretty cool.” Yves smiles gratefully at Vauls, trying not to let his eyes wander too far down the bare muscular expanse of his chest and stomach. He notices something glistening near his neckline besides the sweat.
“Hey hold still there's something in your hair.” Yves leans in casually, easily closing the gap between them with his far reach. He grabs at a thick piece of spider silk near Valus shoulder, it’s off yellow colour stands out next to the swordsman's soft pink hair.
“God what a pain in the ass, we’re going to have to pay for a good bath after this stupid bounty is over, this shit gets everywhere.” He grumbles and gives the thread a tug, meaning for it to come free from Valus’s arm but instead the silk’s infamous strength holds true and Yves ends up pulling him forwards with a startled yelp. Yves falls backwards onto the bed and Valus nearly on top of him, they are still connected by the sticky spider string, mere inches apart.
A few seconds pass before Yves fully processes what’s happened and he lets out a shaky breath. “Wow, I’m sorry I promise this never happens.” he tries to laugh off the situation and not focus on the other man's heat draping over him, but just then Dahlia opens the room door in a bit of a hurry, likely after hearing him yell in surprise.
Once Yves fully removed his shirt he couldn’t help but stare at all his tattoos. He had a wide variety with so many colors….what the fuck was all of that shit supposed to be? He missed what Yves said because he was staring so hard at all the wild imagery. His eyes wandered towards his chest, making him swallow heavily. Valus looked up quickly to pretend he was checking Yves out and tilted his head.
“Shit yourself? Oh…OH the spider yeah. I mean there’s bigger ones than that though. Probably.”
He closes his fist as Yves leans closer to wrap the bandages over his arm. Oddly enough he smelt really….nice? Which they shouldn’t they were both covered in sweat but it was enough to the point it made him flinch a little and want to put distance between him and Yves. Once he was finished wrapping it, he took a closer look at Yves’s wound. The poison had spread pretty fast, it was a pretty gross scab.
“What’s with….all your tats dude?”
Valus attempted conversation as he turned towards the bed and grabbed the washcloth Dahlia had put out. He ever so gently rubbed over the wound to get off the excess gunk off. He reached for the bandages and began wrapping tightly around his shoulder. This was sort of odd though even for himself. Why was he being…talkative and friendly? To a total stranger? As if he actually gave a fuck about another human being?
“Hold your arm up.”
Without a word, Dahlia dropped down on the bed with a small bounce and her legs straight out. She leaned forward crossing her legs under her and started to pick through the little box again for another cloth.
She peeled her sleeve up and winced a little but other than that stayed quiet. The mage was focused on cleaning and bandaging her own wound but was listening in on the conversation between Yves and Valus.
Once her arm was bandaged she began to repackage her supplies and organize it back into the box like a bird tending to a nest. The mage narrowed her eyes staring hard at one tool for a moment before hesitantly putting it into a smaller compartment in the box.
Namir was so well organized and would get upset if Dahlia or Yves messed with any of his things. He loved his new human hands and liked to use them to make things as pretty and clean as possible. It heavily contrasted the way Dahlia just threw her shit around and she often times would forget where things went.
Once that was done, she crawled off the bed quietly and opened one of the dresser drawers. She pulled out a change of clothes and slipped out of the room with a little wave toward whoever didn’t have their back to her (Let’s say Yves)
Yves gives Dahlia a thumbs up as she politely scuttles out of the room. His shoulder feels kind of stiff so he props it up on the backboard for Valus to look at.
“Oh, I had a...ah… a friend who was really into ink, I wasn't using the space so I let her practice on me.” He laughs lightly, “its not exactly my aesthetic but I quite like them.” As close as they are, Valus can see raised networks of scars underneath the ink. “They’re nicer than what I had at least.” Yves winces as the swordsman cleans his wound, without meaning too, he tucks his head down to rest on Valus’s uninjured side and lets out a breathy groan down Valus’ chest at the additional pressure.
“You fight a lot of giant spiders?” He whispers, a slight tremble in his voice as the bandage makes contact. He glances down and can see one of the larger scars near Valus’ elbow, it looks like it could have taken his arm off.
Valus follows the other two back to their hotel room and leans against a wall instead of sitting on a bed because he feels it’s rude to sit on others beds without asking. Germs and all that shit. He sees Yves remove his shirt to inspect his wound and feels that that’s a smart move. He slides his jacket off onto the floor and unclasps his shirt. He lets out a low hiss as the fabric rubs against his wounds. After Yves denies treatment, Valus hesitantly steps forward and stands in front of Dahlia’s bed. He lets out a sigh.
“I guess I’ll go first.”
As much as he didn’t want help from her, that spider sure did take a chunk out of them and it was better to be safe than sorry. It wasn’t like he had anything to heal him up at the moment. As soon as Yves brought it up, Valus realized he was sweating more than usual.
“We did just run a good deal. It could be that, right”
However, none of them were particularly out of shape either so it had to be from the adrenaline from fighting. He lets out a contented sigh as a light breeze enters the room and cools him somewhat.
Dahlia had tossed off her gloves on the bed and finished laying out the rest of the supplies she’d need. The heavy warm layers she was wearing was definitely making her sweat so without much thought she threw off her scarf, cloak, and armor on the bed as well when she heard the others complaining about the temperature. She faced Valus and Yves behind her and paused.
Dahlia made a long drawn huff as she stared out at her two shirtless friends. Well one was a friend. The other was… Complicated. Regardless of that they were, both were here waiting. Waiting for her. To do something. Anything. Just don’t look down. She couldn’t let her eyes wander. Her eyes hurt from trying to stay focused so hard on their faces even though everything in her wanted to scan each body one at a time and really take it in this entire situation.
It’s not like she had never done it before too. Of course when they had their backs turned she had given a little peek. Hell she lived with Yves and she saw him shirtless all the time. But for whatever reason right now there was an added tension. Maybe it was cause the room was so small and there was a lot of people in it.
Her head jerked around to focus on Valus when he confronted her.
“Right.” Dahlia said and grabbed the wet cloth from her bed. She stood up on her tippy toes and tried to reach up toward Valus’s shoulder. It was a little awkward and she had to crane her neck back.
“C-can you…” She stopped and instead looked down at the bed. She crawled onto it and stood up. Now she had height on Valus so she was able to look down at him and his bite wound.
“There.” She said getting mud on her bed from her shoes. The mage began to clean the wound. Dahlia looked like she was focusing really hard on what she was doing. Refusing eye contact with anyone. Her head was spinning and her long sleeved dress was making her uncomfortably warm. She wanted to get this over with so she could change into something more breezy.
Yves watches with mild interest as Dahlia cleans Valus’s wound. The man’s shoulders are draped in scars, some are incredibly long and must have been deep. He kicks off his boots as he notices Dahlia wincing, her own wound is blossoming over her sleeves in a slowly spreading stain.
“Hey fireball I can take care of him, why don’t you take care of yourself?” As nice as it was to have Dahlia help bandage them up, she had definitely taken the hardest hit. “Besides we have more blood than you.” He moves next to Valus to help bandage the man so that she can begin the painful process of pulling her sleeves from her wound.
“Hey thanks for the save back there by the way,” Yves addresses the pink haired man, “almost shit myself when that thing fell on me,” he laughs as they take turns winding strips of bandages on each other. “Didn’t know they got that big.”
Valus inches towards his sword and picks it up, using it to help him back onto his feet. He widens his eyes and snapped his neck towards the direction of the spider. In all of his life he hadn’t seen too much magic performed especially like this since mages were outlawed. He was about to head towards her when suddenly her companion uses his bare hands to finish the job. From the goofy look on his face, he must not kill things that often. Valus can’t help but chuckle and outstretches his wrists for Yves to cut them free.
“I sure did.”
However his expression quickly changes as he hears the skittering of an unknown amount of legs. He sheaths his longsword onto his back and makes a break for it with the others, dashing quickly ahead of them.
Dahlia presses her back up against the wall and froze for a moment as the spider collapsed on the ground. She pressed her hand to her arm that had been bitten and felt the pain shock through her system. The mage stumbled forward and fell behind her group of friends as they made a run for the exit.
She picked up her pace until she was ahead of Valus and Yves. Her sensitive hearing could hear the distant scuttle of the spiders growing closer and closer even louder then the other two could. It was terrifying.
With her arm that was not bit, she dug into her pocket and pulled out her bandana again. She wrapped it over her eyes and it wasn’t until the three of them were outside of the cave did she finally slow down.
With matching bite marks the three of them headed back to Yves and Dahlia’s room that they had purchased at a nearby inn. The mage pushed open the door and went to her bed that had her bag on it. She dug through it and found her medical kit as well as a few potions to cure poison. Dahlia wasn’t sure if it was poisoned but figured it was better to be safe then sorry. She hadn’t identified the spiders in the cave. That’s what today’s trip was for but it went bad.
“Who’s first?” She asked opening the little box and laying out a bandage and a washcloth. Since the trip started, Namir had done a lot of the healing and first aid. But with him out of town Dahlia felt responsible.
Yves slumps on his bed and is midway through pulling his shirt off with a wince as the fabric peels at his scabbing shoulder. “You two first, I think, ” He waves the kit off nonchalantly and peers at his own bite wound. Despite being bitten first, Valus and Dahlia both seem a bit worse off, perhaps due to size? Either way, he’d done less swaying than them on the way up the stairs.
“Does it feel kind of hot in here?” He leans back over the pillows to crack the window above the headboard. The fall air is crisp and refreshing in the stuffy room.
As the spider bites into Valus’s shoulder he lets out a blood curdling scream.
“AGHHH! Dammit!”
Before he can react, his arms are bound together with the sticky web. Sweat drips off of his brow and mixes with the blood rushing down his arm. The rogue lets out a grunt and huffs out quick breaths, trying to ignore the pain in his shoulder. However Valus wasn’t one to cherish his own life so dearly. He grips his longsword with both webbed hands and intended to swing forward however the balance of weight with his injured arm proved to be too much. Valus barrel rolls twice back away from the spider with the weight of his longsword and casts it aside mid air.
He grits his teeth as he lands on his belly with a loud thump and winces in pain. He raises his head and raises himself onto his knees, crawling towards his sword.
“Fuck…hah..ah…..fuck….fuck….it doesn’t…hurt…”
Dahlia backs up away from the spider until her back is up against the wall and side steps as far away as possible. She had to stay away from it’s massive snapping fangs after seeing what sort of damage it dealt to Valus who was swearing up a storm and crawling around on the ground.
She held her right hand out and pulled in the magic from the air. She took a deep breath and with a large weeping arc hurled a fireball at the spider (dealing 5 damage)
Hopefully, that would be enough to get it away from the boys and direct it’s attention over to her so they could recover and get themselves free from the web.
The spider bounds forwards with a snarl at Dahlia, quickly closing the gap with a spray of string, the globules splatter over her shins and lower thighs and it lunges forward to bite at her still outstretched arm. The bite lands on her arm just before the elbow and pumps venom into her but the beast seems to collapse mid-bite and slumps to a heap at her tangled feet.
Yves in a panic punches at the spider as it leaps over him, his hand plunges into the wound on its soft underbelly and its momentum pulls the gash open on his arm. Its guts expelled, the last action it has is to pull its dripping fangs from Dahlia's arm in a shuddering death cry. This fight is over, but there is still loud skittering in the cavern.
“Did you see that?” Yves yanks his sword free and quickly cuts Valus and then Dahlia free from their webs, they’re all bleeding now as they retreat back down to the grotto entrance, tailed by a swarm of something.
“Are you sure it wasn’t your insufferable bitching right before you cut me out?!”
Valus yells at Dahlia as he lurches forward and swings his longsword at the spiders neck. He uses the momentum of his swing to put some distance between the spider and Yves, sending it flying towards the cave wall. Stalactites fall from the ceiling, shaking the cavern and crashing into the ground. Valus lands in front of Yves who was just bitten and takes a defensive stance, grunting. His sword ended up hitting its bulbous disgusting body creating a seeping gash. The spiders blood ends up spilling and splattering all over the cave walls. (7 damage via longsword)
“Fucking die you shitty bug!”
“Positive,” Dahlia hissed back at the pink-haired BITCH. She shifted uncomfortably in the gooey web and rolled her shoulders back before she focused her magic into her hands so that they lit up with fire. The web melts away easily and drops off of her hands and onto the ground at her feet.
She knelt down quickly and grabbed hold onto the long strand of web stuck to her feet and watched it burn up as well. The mage lifted her shoe up and gave it a shake to get the last of the string off.
She glanced toward Yves to catch his alarmed expression and then looked to Valus who’s taken a stance in front of him protectively. His kind and protective actions contradicted his harsh words.
The mage then faced the spider and braced herself for its next move.
The spider splats against the wall but quickly rights itself. It lurches forward slightly, not having to move from its spot to sink its massive fangs into Valus, pumping its poison into his arm as well before squirting its hot white string all over him, binding the swordsman's arms to each other.
Behind Valus, Yves struggles to free his sword trapped under the detached limb and a puddle of silk, immensely relieved not to be smelling the spider's abdomen anymore. In frustration, he grasps for something to throw and ends up casting his utility knife towards the beast but it glances off the hard carapace of its thorax.
“Ah well, can’t win them all…” Yves grumbles as he stands and tries to pull his sword free with some success.
“You don’t have to force yourself to sound so happy to see me.” Valus scowled and began wriggling as Dahlia freed his other arm. He whipped his head to the side to glared at Yves who was being so weirdly? Friendly??
“Not at all bro, i’m just peachy. It’s my fucking kink to get captured and wonder when I’m going to be devoured.”
Valus grunts and lurches forward, some of his hair being pulled out in the process. He lets out a screech and grits his teeth, his head reeling back as he holds onto his scalp.
“Jesus fucking Christ I- h…h-holy shit-”
After opening his eyes from flinching, he catches more than a glimpse of a familiar black shape closing in on them. “Its here…oh fuck.”
He reaches towards the sheath at his back and pulls out a black long sword. In two swift cuts he frees his legs from the cocoon and hops out.
“If you don’t want to be spider food, I suggest you act quickly.”
As the spider descends, Valus swiftly leaps forward and swings his long sword with two hands. He lands a direct hit and slices into its mandible. (Valus deals 9 damage via longsword)
“Don’t listen to him Yves.” Dahlia frowned as she watched Valus try and force himself out of the spider web. She winced when he screamed and raised her hands up to her head to cover her ears. She had forgotten how obnoxious he was. Dahlia opened her mouth to start bitching at him to shut the fuck up but before she could a few small rocks crumbled from the ceiling and clattered on the ground behind her. She spun around and faced the spider perched on the ceiling.
She lowered the ribbon down from around her eyes so she could see it. The mage shoved the ribbon into her pocket for now.
“Shit…” The mage spun her head toward Valus full of rage. While he cut himself out. “You idiot! You’re so fucking loud all the time! This is entirely your fault!”
She reached into her other pocket and pulled out a small bag. Dahlia stuffed her hand inside and pulled out a fistful of colored sand. Taking a step back she threw it up at the spider. The colored dust popped and exploded like fireworks right in front of the 8 glowing orbs blinding them.
In a fit of rage and pain, the large spider drops from its spot on the ceiling, curling in midair to land on Yves, while spinning it shoots a thick line of steaming goo at Dahlia. Despite its blindness, the threads of webbing up entangling their feet and hands give it a good idea of where they are. The silk lands hot and flaccid like loose strands of shaggy dough on her head and shoulders, entangling her arms in the grotesquely warm thread.
“Oh fuck-” is all Yves has time to say before the spider drops down onto him, easily shrouding him with its ten-foot body, and bites down hard on his off hand just as he swings his sword up. The blade cleaves a leg clean off (for 7 damage with a short sword). The mandibles clamp down on Yves shoulder and pump hot venom into his body.
Its blind eyes are unfocused but it seems to turn towards where Valus is and roars with a clip of its bleeding mandibles, preparing for another bite...
Being left in a cocoon for over a few hours now, Valus was worried. It was pitch black inside and the sticky threads prevented him from drawing a weapon. It was useless…the only way for escape might be the moment he would be devoured. Although faintly in the distance he heard murmuring echoing off the cave walls. It seemed like…a man and a woman if he was hearing it right. However it was so muffled he couldn’t really make out the words. As soon as the voices stop he hears the distinctive slice of a sword. Then not too much later a sharp tug of his hair.
“HEY! WHO THE FUCK-!”
Valus snaps his head out of the silk and begins to struggle, the loosening threads enough to get one arm free. He grabs the mans wrist and holds it still.
“Dont you think you should ask permission before cutting someone’s hair?!”
He turns his head and notices the girl behind him. Oh. Oh no. Oh fuck.
“W-…..D-dahlia? What the hell are you doing here?”
As soon as she heard the yelling and swearing she knew exactly who she was confronted with. What an absolute nightmare that has been forced upon them. It was probably too late go back now huh? Out of everyone in the world to see… it had to be Valus.
“Should have cut him in half, Yves…” She muttered just loud enough for the two others to hear before the mage took a step closer to stand next to Yves.
“Saving your stupid ass, apparently.” Dahlia reached forward and roughly yanked Valus’s hand from Yves’s wrist. She threw Valus’s wrist to the side and stepped in front of Yves.
The mage grabbed the two sides of the web that was already ripped open and tore the rest so that Valus could get both arms out and his chest out. It looked like some of Valus’s hair got caught up in the sticky thread so if he tried to lean forward too far it would pull his hair.
“Yves.” Dahlia turned so she had her back to her cocooned friend. She sighed heavily. “This is Valus.” Her tone was tired as she lazily raised a hand up and toward him.
“Hey, man hows it hanging?” Yves waves over Dahlias head at the still partially entrapped Valus, unable to recognize the man's features in the dim light. “Rough night?” He flicks the sword to the side quickly to try and fling the threads off but they stick fast to the smooth metal.
Above them, a loud skittering noise like a bushel of wheat being dragged across a dirt road snaps them to attention. Looking up, a dark shape crawls across the stone above them. In the gentle light of Dahlia's glow, eight tiny discs of light reflect back down on them. The discs shutter as the monster clacks its heavy mandibles together and prepares to drop down on them
Towards the center of the cavern, more shuffling can be heard...
Drinking The Pain Away @yveschanceux - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
