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31 Pages of P L O T End Me Sit Down and Buckle Up We're Cutting Puppet Strings

Repercussions

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Tairais

Tairais

@Amuulzhaan a year ago

(( Sorry Char, I was asked to give Richard a happy ending. ))

Aside from his inner mantra of “f*ck gods, f*ck Fate, and f*ck the Fae”, Charricthran believed in two things:

Firstly: Peace followed in the wake of change, until such the time as a need for change arose again.

Secondly: Change was a chaotic thing, and it was beautiful.

This was a chaotic, ugly sort of change. There would be no peace to calm rough waters.

His two truths had become two lies in the blink of two eyes. He could feel his face contort into the facsimile of a smile, somewhere outside the crunch of feet breaking through ice, of blood crunching through snow crunching through flesh into bone.

He and Wer’Vemud were catalysts for change- he rebuilt what was destroyed, and it tore town what needed destroying. And thus, such was their price: Tearing themselves from the claws of a griffin, only to fall into the gods-forsaken wilderness of… probably Russia.

The absolute a*se end of Russia.

He really hated snow. The only good thing it had ever brought him was Richard, and, well.

Well.

He ran as far and as fast as he could, shards of ice and snow carving rivers of red-black-cold down his skin that smeared underfoot. The sight spurred him on as surely as a whip might, his heart racing and stumbling in time with his frantic footsteps. Pain- actual pain, no longer the haunting ghosts of living memories- pulses of pain shouted the syncopated beats to his heart’s already asymmetric rhythm.

Charricthran was well and truly terrified.

He was afraid.

He was never so human as when he was afraid.

It seemed that was to be his downfall.

Trees snatched and clawed at him with frozen fingertips and the traitorous wind, once his joyful friend, roared with frostbitten laughter as he fell into a bank of snow. It slowed him perhaps a handful of moments, but they were moments he didn’t have.

As if to emphasize this point, there was the distinct snap-crack-roar of trees losing their limbs to jaws of ice. He wasn’t near enough to discern the source of the sound, but he knew enough to know that he absolutely didn’t want to be that close in the first place.

He didn’t dare think beyond impulse behind closed doors as he ran. There was no point in getting Lewis’ hopes up, no reason to worry Richard further, and anyone else that might have heard him was long since gone away, some way.

He was alone and afraid. Again.

Fear made him forget: How to be something Other, something Between; that he didn’t really have a body anymore; the limits of the body he didn’t really have-- he forgot it all. With a wry smile that threatened to crack his drying, frost-kissed skin, he noted that the hunter had become the hunted. Predator had become prey.

This was no way to hunt, after all.

Only to flee.

(had he ever really been the hunter?)

~*~*~

“Ta, kid, thanks for the drink. Sit down- there’s somethin’ I gotta tell ya.”

“You are not usually this serious, Charricthran. Dare I ask who dear to us has-”

“Everyone’s Jake an’ jolly, kid. Ain’t meanin’ ta be a killjoy, but it’s still somethin’ serious: I gotta squirrel ya away for a... well. Dunno how long, really. Could be a day, prob’ly gonna be a sight longer.”

“Might I enquire as to the reason?”

“Well, y’see-”

“Why is the sigil, as I believe you called it, over your heart glowing? Are you quite well?”

“Don’ worry ‘bout it- an’ lemme finish one answer ‘fore ya have me hoppin’ on the next! Long story short, other shite’s gone down an’ you’re likely collateral. Trust me on this- I don’ want you anywhere near these fellas. They’re proper nasty buggers.”

“I find little reason not to trust you. Past experience would indicate that you prefer being dead over having to be serious.”

“Ah, right. Fair ‘nough kid. Ain’t wrong.”

“Indeed. Allow me a few moments to tend to my workshop and to gather a bag, and then I shall go where you lead.”

It’d been then that Charricthran felt the first stirrings of fear in a heart half dead.

Poor Richard trusted him far too much by half, considering.

~*~*~

That memory had been locked away into the deepest part of his mind, past so many twists and turns and under so much crystal and glass that even he would be hard-pressed to retrieve it when the time came and this storm had started to pass.

Ice cut into his foot like a knife into bread and butter, leaving smears of black-and-scarlet oil in the snow. Everything glittered in the dying light. His shoulders still radiated dull agony from the stars trapped under his skin.

If he could just make it out of the snow, he’d pull it off. The impossible accomplished, the end close enough to kiss. He could see a break in the trees where the snow dared not fall for fear of retaliation, and he allowed himself a small spark of desperate hope.

You can do this. The tilt of a head, a spark of hope crushed under folded wings.

His breath cut desperate clouds into the air as he hunched his shoulders and kept running.The sound of his thudding, racing heart became a metronome for his footsteps, keeping endless time for a finite space.

Crunch two three four, crunch two three four, crunch two three four, crunch two three four.

The distance narrowed and the sound of branches falling, roaring, stopped.

Five yards (crunch two three four).

Four yards (crunch two three four).

Three yards, nine feet, and a flicker of hope in his chest (crunch crunch two three four).

Two yards, six feet, and a handful of footsteps with an outstretched arm because if he could just reach far enough, he’d be free he’d be free (crunch two three four).

He’d be free! Richard would be safe, he could go back to the Society and explain everything- someone’d have a plan, someone smarter than he had better have a plan.

One yard, three feet and--

(Crunch cru)

--And everything froze with the hand that grabbed him by the nape of his neck.

The wind ceased its incessant roaring, the snow stopped its hateful falling, and his heart plummeted into the ice below him.

Ice slid down his skin from that accursed hand with the taste of iron in his throat. It skated towards his heart, the sigil above it glowing in thudding futility as it tried to keep unwanted magic from sinking its teeth into its prey.

Frost smiled in his neck and he shuddered, bit back a whine in his throat- he’d been so close, so close, go away go away please.

Spears of snow reached for his eyes with hungry fingers. He couldn’t have closed his eyes against the imminent damage if he’d tried to.

Frostbitten laughter slithered into his ear, and his whole world narrowed to snow and sound.

You have been naughty, Nald’su Welun. What’s to be done about that?

fingersoficefingersoffrostnohiseyeshiseyes-

squelch.

~*~*~

Charricthran didn’t wake up so much as everything else shattered, reality buckling under the weight of something much stronger than he. Fingers of red stole into his vision under closed eyes, pressing and bleeding something that snapped and crackled like the wrong sort of lightning- nothing like once-Torke’s-now-his-magic. Something malevolent and hungry, this.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually fallen unconscious.

(Hands at his throat, his blood on someone else’s knife, smiling cruelty-)

Scratch that. He could, but he didn’t want to.

Red. Blood and binding, sharp pains in his chest. Wards cracked and snapped like sparks against his skin. Days passed into minutes passed into years under the blanket of darkness, and crashed down like glass with the crack of a hand against his cheek.

Pain bloomed in bright colors as his eyes opened. He shoved both it and his panic into a smile that looked like knives and could cut through steel and bone with grace.

The only sound he heard was the dull roar of his heartbeat, distantly internal and racing away. He noticed a handful of things beside that, though, and the familiar pattern of observe-categorize-analyze was enough to ground him under the heavy weight of a dozen gazes hidden under hooded robes.

Observation: Metal around his wrists and ankles, tucked behind some sort of chair. Metal or stone of some sort- decidedly not wooden.

Category: Obstacle

Analysis: Probably breakable- the wards that snapped at his skin didn’t particularly Sing loudly.

Observation: Hooded figures that didn’t show their eyes.

Category: Obstacle; ‘baddies’.

Analysis: The fact that his captors felt like hiding their faces and forms under those black-cloth abominations meant they were likely either trying to intimidate him or hide from him.

Those were the only two such observations he could make, but that was an observation in itself: he couldn’t see past ten feet or so; the room faded into light-eating darkness beyond that. His hooded captors stood halfway between the false-night and himself, silent and imposing.

He wasn’t sure which one of them had slapped him, and they didn’t so much as breathe to distinguish themselves.

The Fae, then. No longer the ruined Summer Court, decidedly not the Night Court (unless he’d somehow missed a betrayal, and with all but one True Name from that Court firmly in his grasp, he rather doubted that).

It wasn’t likely to be the Spring or Autumn Courts- they didn’t much deal with politics if they could help it. The Day Court had a tentative alliance with him that was based on the respect and admiration at how thoroughly he’d wiggled his way into the Night Court, and the Twilight and Sunrise Courts had no wind of his machinations. Which left him with...

The memory of what came before slammed into him like a warhammer.

(And here he’d thought he’d never get to reacquaint himself with that particular sensation. He decided he wished he hadn’t.)

The Winter Court.

He stifled a curse at his spectacularly stupid mistake: if he’d managed to take over the Night Court with minimal notice, then it made sense for his snowkissed nemesis to have snagged the few puppets he needed.

He was both unobservant and unbelievably stupid.

He (his eyes hurt) was both in pain and not, already slipping from his mind (his head hurt).

He was both smiling and snarling. Danger curled through the air like the smoke of vice, and the promise of destruction wrote itself into shadows that showed claw and acidic tooth alike.

Two of the figures exchanged a barely-there glance and spoke in a language he didn’t know. It sounded like lake ice shattering softly against the night, like the drip and melt of ancient, slow glaciers.

He sliced through their conversation, snarking charm as his blade.

“If it’s all the same t’ya, fellas, I’m gonna blow this joint.”

Perhaps if he’d noticed their conspicuous lack of reaction, Charricthran might’ve stopped to consider it. As it was, he was too preoccupied with reaching just so, despite the fact his hands were tied behind his back.

Whitehotbrightlightgodsf*ckingfire-

Pain erupted behind his eyes and shorted out everything, reducing his world to lightning and a shrill ringing. His throat bled and scraped itself raw with suppressed screaming, trapped behind the snarl-smile he figured was probably going to be seared on his face for the next while, now.

Eventually, color rushed back with the soft-sharp sound of frozen laughter, shattering the former silence like ice crystals.

The briefest flickers of light caught his attention and pulled his eyes upward just in time for him to notice the immense ward carved into the ceiling before it vanished again. He recognized it at once, had already seen it in a less tangible form.

Red. Blood and binding.

Color left as quickly as it’d arrived, bleeding out of everything like the not-quite-blood in his not-quite-face.

Of course.

“Aheheh. ‘Course ya had to go an’ make this bleedin’ interestin’.”

He smiled regardless, looking as smarmy as ever. The Fae ceased their laughter and resumed their watchful silence, wary hunger seeping from their hidden eyes. The one directly in front of him seemed decidedly less perturbed at his ominous statement, assured and arrogant, in a way.

The last thought Charricthran had before the snap-crack of a metal rod across his jaw sent him spiraling into darkness and memory was simple, all things considered:

I am so bleedin’ f*ckin’ f*cked.

There was light, and he fell into bright noise and painful memories.

~*~*~

For the longest time, he had furiously believed that Torke could be saved. Bright, shining, hopelessly naive Torke, who wanted nothing more than to return home to his skyscraping apartment, his plants, and his city, free of the fears and demons that had plagued him.

It had taken both of them entirely too long to realize that some of those demons had followed him into this world, and by then it was too late. They’d searched worlds to find each other again, only to see poor, sweet Benediktas lying bleeding on the floor of the cathedral.

But then, his blood had been what was needed to break the seal. The blood of an innocent, shed by another hand. Not that any of them had noticed that, in the chaos that followed, and not that he’d remembered that they’d met before until much, MUCH, later, but-

(Wrong thoughts to think of. C’mon, back the right way. We shoulda laid this memory under his tree with the rest of ‘em.)

In the end, it was Torke’s desire to go home that sealed his fate. He and Terkirin knew each other, and though their past hadn’t been… great, it had been a past to remember.

They had been in love once before. Of course, something changed when the two of them Fell through, that’s what always happened. The Between demanded a price-- it was…

(Hungry. ‘S the only word for it.)

It was.

He remembered both of them as they had been. He, who was (And is) molded by the Between, whose very existence was tied to that inexplicable place. Torke, bright and shining and chaos unleashed, vibrantly living life in a quiet, ever-present, ever-moving sort of way. The man had had no need for the power of the cockroach kings with calamity and glorious entropy moving through him.

And Terkirin... Well. From what Torke had said of him, he was the best parts of summer, wrapped neatly in kind eyes and warm smiles. A grounding rod for the storms constantly coursing through his heart, a bedrock that grew from the magma spewing from his lips and the earth splitting at his touch.

Had it really only been him that had been able to see how quickly Torke started to lose himself?

Was it really only him that remembered what had happened to Richard?

(Considerin’ the only other people that knew about it are dead, an’ you can’t tell anyone else. Yeah. ‘S just you, kid.)

“Torke, ye cannae tell me you’re not at least a little worried? You didn’t even notice he’d kept ya at his place for four days straight! Did he even feed ya? You’re lookin’ more sickly than when you left.”

“Can it, Kothar. You’re only jealous it’s him I’m spending time with and not you.”

“Jealousy has nothin’ to do with this and you know it, Torke. Lookatcha. You’re shakin’ like a leaf.”

“It’s the middle of winter, and we’re standing in the middle of a park.”

(It was the tail end o’ summer. How far had you fallen, that you couldn’t realize that without him beside you?)

“... Kid, you have half glass an’ stone for skin. You told me you can’t even feel cold half the damn time.”

“The ma-”

“Stop makin’ excuses. I’m trying ta help ya- he’s not a permanent solution to your problems, an’ ya know it. If you would just let me-”

“Kothar, the last time I ‘just let you’, you got me kidnapped and tortured for your mistakes, used me as a scapegoat, and only just got me out of your mess before I nearly died. Forgive me if I’m reluctant, you feathered f*ckwit.”

“I told ya, that was Terkirin. You of all people should know this, considerin’ how much his magic’s all over ya.”

“And you of all “people” should know just how far you’re willing to distort the truth for you own needs.”

He’d swallowed the barb with the bitter taste of regret. It was true, after all. But that didn’t mean he didn’t care- he was only as flawed as everyone else, right?

“Torke, please. I’m beggin’ you, jus’ give me a handful of days-”

“Terkirin says I don’t have a handful of days. The hurricane’s set to blow through any hour now, and I- .. I can barely hold myself together.”

“Darlin’, please. I’ve kept ya anchored this far, don’t leave me offshore just yet. Please.”

“Let go of me, Kothar. I’ve made my choice. For once, it’s going to be you that has to suffer alone, rather than me.”

“What-”

“Good evening, gentlemen.”

“Right. O’ course. I’ll just… go then, shall I?” (Gods d*mn it all, that hurts. Even now.)

“That would be best, Charricthran-Kothar.”

“Don’t call me that, kid.”

“Then don’t call me ‘kid’.”

“Right then, child. ‘Fore I go, I just want you to know that I’m gonna do whatever it takes to rip him from your manipulative little fingers, an’ once he’s safe, I’m gonna tear you an’ all your beloved plants apart, set them on fire, then dance on the f*ckin’-”

“Kothar. Enough. You’ve lost. Let it go.”

He’d run out of time.

Richard had started to run out of time too, except his puppet strings weren’t nearly so obvious. The machinations of a creature bred from subtlety, rather than assurity and power. He didn’t even have a name for this time- nothing to bind him, nothing to break him with. Only something to run from.

He was far more than aware that this… thing that held Richard was much worse. True gods need never prove their power- they simply Know.

And he Knew.

‘F*ck gods, f*ck the Fae, and f*ck Fate.’ As good a life motto as any. It’d been updated over his long life, but it held true regardless.

He missed Torke. His academic laments, his enthusiasm, the way only one eye closed when he made a face of irritation. He’d never met anyone that could and would wink with disgust until he’d met Torke.

He missed the warmth of his hands, the wry stars in his smile, and the tugging in both their hearts at the sight of the other.

Best of friends, worst of enemies, closest of lovers.

None of those, now.

…

He missed Torke.

(Still do, sometimes: he’s dead, after all. Least I’ve closure, now. Not that this’s doin’ much to help heal the old wounds an’ all.)

He missed Keldra and-

(Not now, we’re runnin’ outta time. No amount of hidden knowledge is gonna change that until we get the heck outta dodge. Focus on escapin’, would ya?”)

They’d buried those last few memories under Torke’s tree in The Other during one of the quieter days of their captivity, a snarling, tangled mess finally put to rest in quiet remembrance.

They’d both known that wasn’t the full story, but it was the only part of the story that had mattered, in the end.

~*~*~

Charricthran couldn’t remember what was past or present at this point, and he couldn’t really care (he cared too much)(that was a lie, he was terrified- where was the tick of his clock, the ticking call of home, home, home? It was broken- had been broken for too long already, where was Time going? She was leaving him behind- no, he’d been left behind no no no!).

He’d tried chatting with the guards on and off to buy some wiggle-room: some of them would flash him irritated looks or glares as if they couldn’t believe his audacity (or something equally trite), and some of them held back their responses by dancing on the slim threads of their control.

It was the latter that he had better luck with. While he affected boredom, he knew full well that a great span of time had already passed, despite the fact he felt as if it’d only been minutes since his capture (where is-was-is-going-to-be the truth? How long, how long to sing this Song? Notes into the Void- he had to keep them close). As long-lived and eternal as he was? Without constant input to keep him grounded, to keep him safe and secured and Anchored?-

He wouldn’t last much longer in this constant state of no-noise-no-sensation-no-anything (he was already falling, going to fall, fallen, gone). His mind was (had spiraled) spiraling away from his body, desperately trying to free itself from the solidity he so craved right now. That constant cycle of forgetting and then realization sent sickly hot panic crawling up his stomach into his throat every time he dared think.

It felt akin vomiting and re-swallowing acid.

It was both a blessing and a curse he didn’t have anything in his stomach save for the sensation of razors poking and slicing into it at intervals.

Afraidafraidafraidafraid

He was afraid. Terribly so. Fear bled from the spaces between his teeth, and he could almost imagine something slithering between them to splatter on the floor (or was that Wer’Vemud taking a turn at being him so that he could stitch himself back together?).

Several long days gave him the opportunity to realize that what he had imagined was real.

Perhaps the thing on the floor was blood, perhaps it was tears- whatever it was, it curled and it hissed and he kept smiling, kept snarling. It kept the smart ones away, and lured the bold ever closer.

There was nothing there was no one he was alone and Charricthran was terribly, terribly afraid.

There was the drip of blood across the stone floor.

drip. This one was twitchy, eager for a fight. Probably not Winter Court- too energetic. Autumn, perhaps. There were always a few to eschew their peers. He wouldn’t take too many trials.

drip. A handful of too-long stares and too-knowing smiles. Act as if you know everything, as if you have an ace up your sleeve (you don’t you don’t you do you don’t you’re going to die here).

drip. Snicker as they walk closer, as their incessant prowling takes a turn towards him. It’s not quite human, you’re not quite human and they Know this, don’t Know how to deal with it.

drip Let that snicker turn to laughter. The wiser edge away, the foolish mutter angrily. There is only one such fool, and it’s them, prowling, snarling.

drip Trial and error, waiting for that first success.

All it took was Charricthran staring that poor b*stard in the face and laughing. What did he have to lose except everything? He was already dead, he was never getting out of here, why was he prolonging this game?

Success came in the form of hurled insults and claws raking down flesh and bone and blood and shadow- none of it quite real, mostly just ooze. He was solid against his will, and so there was no real substance.

There was, however, real pain.

It stung something glorious. Nevermind the fact that part of what fell onto the floor was the contents of his stomach- he could feel, he was alive. He existed, there, in that single, timeless moment.

His expression must have shown a distinct lack of pain (not that he didn’t feel anything, he was diverting sensation like a lightning rod), because the same poor fool kept tearing, lashing, snarling, unhindered by his the shouts of his cohorts.

Charricthran soaked up every agonizing breath of it, drawing each blow close around him like a set of anchors and chains. Pain could bind him as surely as any ward, but it could only be used to bind him to himself.

He would hold, for now.

There was a silence between brightened blows that stretched far too long after far too much.

It was this, combined with the faint whistle of metal singing through the air, that incited him to reach and twist, his form flickering for a single moment of unbearable torment that sparked and smoked in the air.

They’d tried to hit him with a crowbar. While he was solid.

Lovely.

Despite feeling as if he’d been run over by a team of Clydesdales (everything sparked toowhitetobrighttoohot and he wanted to curl up and weep), Charricthran managed to pull a smile onto his face. He could taste his blood on the sharp spots of his teeth: tar and decaying leaves fell into the taste of everything.

“I don’ think killin’ me is exactly productive, see? Sorry ta disappoint’cha. By all means, you’re welcome ta try, jus’ do it sportsmanlike if y’would. ‘M nothin’ butta man’a taste, after all.”

The hooded figures did naught but stare. He couldn’t tell which one of them had left their marks on him (they weren’t the right ones he didn’t ask for this he never did).

He purposefully avoided thinking on why that bothered him so much.

His voice was slurring.

So was his vision.

Did he even have eyes anymore? Where was his face?

Did he have a Name for the face?

Did it have a Name?

What was its Name? What was his Name? There had been one at some point- where did it go-

Thric. Enough.

Wer’vemud’s claws dug into his psyche and tugged, dragged, snarled. Even as it waged its own war against the clumsy fingers in their mind, it did its best to shield the both of them. Wings of glass, wings of feather, wings of lightning and light- all enfolded around the most sacred places in their mind, and several decoy spots beside.

There’d be time to fall apart later, once they could ensure those with Titles were safe. Charricthran didn’t dare think of anyone’s names; He knew just how easy it’d be for his captors to tear them from his mind right now.

As if they hadn’t torn enough from them already.

’Well. Least they’ve not done anythin’ more than beat me. That’d jus’ make things right unpleasant..

He giggled. Then he laughed. Then he cackled.

(handsclawsclawingathisthroatlaughtingsmilelikeknivesnonono)

Only after his throat was raw and bleeding did his laughter turn to hysterics.

Only after his tears had burned tracks into his face did he start to sob.

To hell with appearances- he was going to survive

The edges of his vision flickered with white noise and sand, spilled from an hourglass. He sucked in a sharp breath and watched as time slipped by on clock hands that melted and warped as he tried to keep himself from shuddering apart.

He knew it was passing. Time was passing far too fast or far too slow all at once. It was all Charricthran could do to watch it paint smears of color that bled into eternity.

Creatures like them were not meant to be warded into confinement for long. How long had it been? Years? Decades? A century? Was there anyone worth living for still alive?

They couldn’t have outlived them all again, right? They would’ve at least been given a chance to say goodbye?

(They hadn’t before. They hadn’t ever gotten that chance before. Why would they now?)

They were still laughing, still heaving sobs, when the next blow to their head sent him skittering into too-bright light.

~*~

“Nald’su! Nald’su! Look what Midnight and Rin-dask taught me! Watch!”

(Don’ make us relive this, we’re beggin’ ya. Please?)

[that they didn’t care. that they had a mission, and there was no sympathy. cruelty, though, they had in spades and buckets.]

“Impressive! Did you enchant that broom all by yourself, then?”

“Yup! Riniel-dask taught me how to make the red-stone soup for the flying! I did not know she was gifted in caseincaniss! Midnight-dask helped me make the actual broom- she is much good at making things! And finally I known what hawthorn saplings look like; it ended up that we has-had some in the clearing after all.”

“How about that! Fancy teaching me how to fly one of those things when it’s not so bright out?”

“You are being silly, yes? You can already fly! As a bat, and as a raven! And smoke!”

“But I like it when you teach me things! You get all bright-eyed and chipper- It’s nice to see you happy and enthusiastic for a change.”

(She was always somewhere distant. Who could blame her? After everythin’ that’d already happened ta her, an’ everythin’ that would? She jus’ wanted ta be a kid. We just wanted to be a kid.

We were a family made o’ wishes, and making the best’a what we couldnae have.

We were all so tired.

We never did get the chance, either of us. Any of us.)

“Yes, but you teach me far more than I teach you.”

“Not true! You teach me how to handle mischievous little kiddos like yourself. A valuable lesson, or so I’m told.”

“All right! But if I am teaching you to fly with one more way, you are teaching to me how to use my sword ‘proper-like’.”

“That sounds more than fair to me, kid. Let’s go somewhere with fewer trees.

~*~

The blood on the floor was no longer his.

It shimmered like quicksilver and moonlight, and bled crystals in the darkness. It tasted like ash, ice, and rancid meat in his mouth.

He could see some of what lay under their robes now. They were undoubtedly Fae of the Winter Court, all white hair and skin pale enough that the veins underneath seemed as rivers carving their way through glass.

They were also undoubtedly panicked. Furious, but largely panicked.

They shouldn’t have picked that part of their memory.

Wer’Vemud uncoiled itself and stretched into the grin threatening to escape the sides of his face.

Ui coi tairais?

Their vision blurred and warped as the Song within them raised to the cacophony of nails against a chalkboard, of metal shrieking against itself. Sparks fell from the ceiling where shadows threw themselves against the wards. They watched as the wards wobbled and threatened to buckle under the pressure.

This wouldn’t solve anything, by any means. They both knew that. It would, however, give them a chance to call for help in the future (or the past. they didn’t know which way time was going, gone, would go). It’d be threading help through the eye of a needle with shell shocked hands in the middle of an earthquake, but it was all they could get.

‘Course. These fireworks ain’t for show!

Two grins became one grin. Two eyes became five-and-two, on their face and hands. Feathers fell from them in rivulets, smoking and snarling with glee as they ate through the magic in the floor.

Wer’Vemud. The Other. Nald’su Welun. Son of a Bright moon.

Perhaps together they might call themselves Ilthyeo.

For now, they were Equal, though it was the only silver lining to be found in the whole situation. Two kinds of light, two kinds of darkness, a twin set of blades. They could no longer survive separately alone- the same need to survive that had separated and divided them before was what ultimately drew them hand in hand once more.

It was their only silver lining, but it was a glorious one.

Charricthran trusted Wer’Vemud to do what was necessary. It was much better than he was at casting magic without words and without notice. It would get a message out- it was just a matter of when the thing would be received.

If it was ever at all.

They could only hope with dread that sank into every fang and claw.

Shrill ringing filled their eyes and ears, and they slipped sideways into memory once more to avoid the worse of the pain.

Perhaps that’d please Irsluna enough to stave off her wrath.

~*~*~

The streets were quiet. Eerily so, as if Florence herself knew just what sort of creatures walked her heart at night.

Three of these such creatures met in the shadow of a quaint little chapel, its red door striking violent contrast to the rainy night: A man with neatly-combed ashen hair with an equally ashen complexion, whose colored eyes danced between crimson and maroon and laughed silently the whole while; a shorter man with unruly chocolate curls of hair, lean and lithe with blue eyes that pierced their surroundings, extracting secrets from the air with bloody fingers: something that was very obviously not quite a man, but looked the part nonetheless; And then, of course, himself, all feathers, skin-as-clothes, sharp grins and the smell of decaying leaves.

Three hunters exchanging secrets by cloudy moonlight, three hunters entering an alliance that would not see fruition until this threat they all heard whispering crawled its way back into being.

Three predators knowing their actions would have to harm each other for the sake of averting a worse crisis that could tear apart their way of being.

Three hunters making arrangements by cloudy moonlight, three hunters entering an agreement, with strangers making up the other party.

Three hunters saving their own little corner of their own little worlds.

“I trust you’ll contact us when the time is right?”

“Naturally.”

“You’re entirely certain about this?”

“Let us not forget that we were the ones to reach out to him, mylimasis. Were I not certain of this, I’m certain we would have come to know regret by now.”

“Ain’t like I’m gonna eat your soul, kid. Not my soul to eat.” He couldn’t have helped the significant glance to that pair of red-maroon eyes if he had tried.

“Right, I’m not even going to ask what that means.”

“Until next time, Mr…?”

“I’m called Charricthran, not-so-gentle-not-so-men! Until the next life, an’ good huntin’ to ya.”

“We will see you in the next, then.”

~*~*~

They’d figured him out pretty quickly after that stunt. With wariness brought awareness, and these buggers were smart enough to realize just why he goaded them.

He couldn’t hear them speak, now. They didn’t bother with their hoods anymore, now. They’d done something abysmal with the wards, now. If he so much as breathed too deep (because he needed to breath now, he forgot how not to, gods he was terrified-), energy would shred his skin to pieces and leave nothing but shadow in his wake.

The dysphoric shock was worse than any physical pain, though that wasn’t any joke either: forget being run over by horses, he’d been fed through a woodchipper, set on fire, then had the ashes ground into paste. There wasn’t a single inch of him that wasn’t bleeding, bruised, or broken, and yet the pain was somewhere distant, somewhere outside of him.

It wasn’t enough to ground him. He was floating. Faces lay in the corners, enshrouded in his blood. They were hallucinations, but he couldn’t help but talk to them, apologize, babble and criticize.

It was very likely he was going mad. He couldn’t really care too much.

He pitied the poor Fae that was on the receiving end of that particular vampirism, and wondered what they might’ve done. Same as him, probably- you don’t overturn someone’s chessboard in this world, that’s just unsportsmanlike!

The thought made him laugh, even as laughter turned to burbling, wet shrieks.

He’d forgotten what it was like to choke on blood.

The slip into memory was a relief, after that.

~*~*~

<“I can help ya out kid. ‘Least stick with me past the ashes and burials.”>

<<“Who are you to call me a ‘kid’? I’m easily older than you by several years.”>>

<“And what are you to speak of my native tongues when that Home is eight ways dead?”>

<<“What?”>>

<“Wha’?”>

“W-would the t-two of you kindly st-st-stop s-speaking n-nonsense and h-h-help m-me b-bury him?”

“... Sure thing, kiddo.”

….

….

“Char?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“I miss him.”

“Me too, kiddo. Me too.”

Tears on feathers and glass, uncertain, unknown, but fiercely feeling.

He’d relearned what it was like to drown in blood that day for the thousandth time. He’d never wanted to again.

He never did tend to get what he wanted, though.

~*~*~

They awoke to a world suspended on dust and light and knew that they were to die.

And still, they hoped.

Years ago, the thought would have been peaceful, even welcome- a week before they were taken, a month before they were taken- no. That wasn’t quite true, now was it?

If they had been taken the day before they saw Lewis in color, before conversations on the rooftops, before they opened a shop with Richard, before they met Hela and Helen and Catt and Nyx and Flint? Perhaps.

Too much had happened since that first day in an ash-filled forest. So much would have been easier had they never stopped to hear the scratch of metal fingers and flesh fingers burying a brother that didn’t belong to them.

So much would have been worse.

Of course it would be that when the time came to die, they could no longer crave death. How could they now? They had long since given up, resigned themselves to a self destruction born of loneliness and drifting, and a handful of bright souls had changed that.

D*mn them all. Save them all.

What more could they do? There were those with Titles who needed them. Had this been the way to end all tales neatly, they wouldn’t have minded so much, save for the hearts they left behind.

…

They would have minded regardless. There was still so much unseen. So much yet done.

They wept, and they laughed.

Death and love. The two things that could never and would never discriminate, only take.

And take.

They were never going to see any of those good-bright souls. The only kind of bright they could stand, those souls. Those friends of theirs- dead? Dying, buried?

They had been here years reliving memory after memory, enduring torment after torment. How long, how long, how long?

For all they knew, the only kind of bright they loved and cherished was now gone.

They would never see them again.

Not Richard, found in the reflection of glass in a place Between, found again in the snow as he too, buried family after family.

Not Catt, whose kind heartedness, sometimes-naivety, and fierce protectiveness reminded them of their danthe-kornari enough to warrant a certain kind of bittersweet familiar familiarity.

Neither Hela nor Helen, each a gem of their own right, each heartbreaking and heartwarming in turn. Each a friend he’d come to know, each someone he would trust and call a friend in their own right. They had wanted to see the two of them whole, safe, and happy.

Not any of those they had only just met, only just started to know: Elias, Callum, Nyx, Flint, Ezekiel.

Not those from other worlds that they’d come to know: Kilanrund, Lahviok, Isda, Lavender, Edais, Marcus, Sarah, Illiana, scattered among so many others.

Not Lewis, who lay entirely in a category of his own making, now, who they could hardly summarize in so many words, in so many Titles, in so many Secrets given, truths spoken, thoughts shared. The actions spoke to shout with the words, loud enough to speak the intention.

They were never going to see them again.

They hoped that each one of them were happy.

They wept for Richard, who would eternally wait in hiding, slipping ever closer to the one place they had promised he would never need to walk.

They wept for Catt, who they couldn’t help- not then, and never again.

They wept for Hela and Helen, who they would never trade words with, who they would never see grow and change again.

They wept for all those they left behind, broken and jagged, with hope that burned too bright, with promises that would now never be fulfilled.

They wept for Lewis, who they had stranded in Germany, on top of so many other kindnesses given to them, repaid in misery.

They were never going to see them again.

As if to taunt them, figures clawed their way from the mire, taking on flesh, taking on color in the darkness, taking on personality in the light.

None of them spoke, but they stood, they watched, and they breathed.

The whole of the Society stood before them, the jury to their finished trial, the jury to their execution.

’Have you your final words?’

They had far too many.

First to stride forth from that faceless, shapeless mass of people was Richard. Not Richard as he was now- that poor kid was hardly himself anymore. No, Richard as a child, before losing Benediktas, his last tie to hope for the future. He wasn’t the picture of a healthy childhood by any means- his cheeks were too hollow, his hair too matted- but his eyes held brightness and cheerfulness, and in his hands he held a frog he had named Linus, once upon a time.

They’d forgotten about Linus.

They smiled, and the smile broke on tired words.

“Forgive me, kid. I couldn’t quite save ya like I promised. I can only hope ya die before they get t’ya. I know how ya feared losin’ yourself. Thanks for everythin’, yeah? Can only hope I was half as healin’ ta you as ya were ta me.”

Richard smiled sadly and nodded. Out from the sea of people strode Benediktas, with curling hair and bright blue eyes. Richard shifted Linus to one hand took Benediktas’ small, chubby fingers in the other.

Benediktas waved as they turned back to the sea. They felt as if they should say more, but even in their own mind, Richard understood the press of things left unsaid. He knew their gratitude, their grief, their hope, and their acceptance that hope wouldn’t be enough.

Tears fell and hissed against the floor.

There was nothing more they could say.

Catt slipped free next, in her own quiet way of walking, watching. She had her Hatt gripped in her hands and looked as cheerfully nervous as they’d ever seen her.

They chuckled and shook their head, leaving it bowed. They could feel their head melting and dripping down their face.

“Didn’t get ta talk t’ya as much as I’d’ve liked, kiddo. Wish my own danthe-kornari could’ve metcha- they would’ve liked you. Plenty to talk about: time an’ tea an’ tryin’ your best, what books ya like ta read. You were both so similar an’ so entirely different. I regret tha’ we’re not gonna get a chance to know each other proper-like.”

They felt more than they saw Catt reaching out as if to comfort.

“Don’ burn yourself, kiddo. I’ll be fine. Jus’... take care o’ yourself. I dunno if this lot’s gonna try ta find Richard in the Society now tha’ my wards are gonna crumple, but I trust ya ta keep safe. I hope ya will, anyhow- maybe ‘s a bit dumb ta hope ya ain’t the same sort o’ self-sacrificin’ they were. You’re too kind for tha’.”

They chuckled once more, and bit back a sob.

“‘M sorry I wasn’t there for you, too.”

Catt’s somber footsteps clicked like fingernails against piano keys, then faded into the too-noisy silence of their thoughts.

Helen and Hela emerged next, and he cracked a wry smile, though they couldn’t summon the energy to look higher than their shoes. Their shadows, though, they knew.

“Ooch. I don’ even know where ta begin with you two… ya each are a treasure in your own right, and you’re each more like the other half o’ ya than ya realize. I wish I could stick ‘round long enough ta help ya grow. Lewis’ll do his best, I’m sure, but I know ya each told me things you’ve not gotten ‘round ta tellin’ him yet. I appreciate the trust.”

They sighed, and managed to meet each of their gazes for a handful of seconds. They didn’t know the two of them well enough to make an accurate reaction, so they indulged themselves with a bit of concern to each of them.

“Hela, I knew you better’n Helen. Trust me when I say tha’ everythin’s gonna work out. You’re a clever sort, an’ the fact that you’re willin’ ta learn an’ grow makes you a sight better’n a fair few people I know.”

“Helen… all I can say ‘s that I know what it’s like ta change yourself in order ta deal with unpleasantness. Try to find balance as ya are first, yeah? You’re a gem, an’ I’d hate ta see ya ground ta dust.”

The two of them left, and they felt their failure weighing down like an iron collar.

“‘M sorry I couldn’t do more for ya. Can only hope what I did’s enough.”

They waited a handful of moments, watching the roiling sea of shadows and smiles at the edges of their vision. They spoke to each soul they had met somewhere other than this Earth- to Kilanrund, they spoke tales of great battles they wish they could have shared. To Lahviok and Isda, they spoke of planting gardens and wading out to sea with a thunder of dragons. To Lavender, Edais, and Marcus, they wished the best and hoped they were all happy together, and that their children would grow up strong and proud of who they are.

They sat in silence with Sarah and Illiana, who knew as well as they the sort of silence that choked and festered. They hoped the two of them found the future they sought, and the revenge and catharsis they had so desperately needed.

They spoke next to the Lodgers, with a wry smile and a devil-may-care attitude.

“Right, so. Don’ go lettin’ random folks inta the buildin’ anytime soon. Soon as I’m gone, the wards I had ‘round Richard are gonna buckle somethin’ fierce, an’ they’re gonna know he was there. Stay safe, don’ trust anyone, an’ never give your name ta anyone who asks. You lot are entirely too friendly, atimes.”

Their faces stared back, formless, accusing, disappointed. Their smile buckled once more and shattered against their heart.

“Yeah. I failed all o’ you too.”

Silence fell once more as an all-too familiar presence stepped not from the masses before them, but from the darkness behind them. They shouldn’t have expected anything different, really. Made plenty of sense their mind held him separate.

“I don’ even know what ta say an’ how ta say it t’ya, Weirmrith.”

(their voice burbled and their thoughts became a collection of shrieks and wails only they could hear the truth of. it was the final piece to fall, their Voices)

His presence loomed behind him, bright, warm, and hopeful. Three adjectives scattered amidst so many others, each never quite capturing a whole truth. Words were only part of the equation, after all. There was Emotion, there was Intent, and there were memories and sensations tied to boot.

In the end, Lewis walked around the chair they had been bound in for the past year, and they looked him in the eye and spoke all the apologies they would never get to share.

”Mobi re thric lexri persvek tikil xanalre batobot geou majak sia tiamo-kornari ekess asta ivah. Wux majaka ve vi krehl ekess qe Ilthyeo, ekess qe tiamo, vur si claxon coi tagoa si tira ti tuor ekess jirank wux lae si tira persvek Glasgow.”

“Si tepohada’tuor ekess qe xihuuliup di wux. Itmen vur tiamo persvek shio wer idoli si tepohada ti coanwor ihk vin tiselaiw.

“Si mi bivai si geou ti waph ekess visp wux coi ini toma. Si mi bivai si geou ti waph ekess winid wer xuut si xurwka ini baclax. Si mi bivai wux geou qe zulf mrith sia jilinth vur ti wer tlues. Si mi bivai si tiliw ti letoclo wux lae wux tira ve.

Si mi bivai si tira zhaan zyak qeelak vur itmen ekess wux. Tepohada si ti coanwor zyak gliiwr di l'gra, si janik tepoha itheika ihk vi desta tairais.

“Si mi bivai ihk shio nomenoi youwei, shar si mi ti bivai batobat si i-.. Kiwieg lae si tir ihk wux. Sva gekip nomeno tairais si shilta gewj ihk sio, vur si geou ti hawg wux.

“Onelka ve. Shio si shilta tor ui batobot wux onelka, vur jinthil ve.”

They closed their eyes and tilted their head to the ceiling in time to hear memory walk away.

Wer’Vemud shifted quietly, and they sighed.

“I know. You tried. Nothing got through, but we tried. Least we’re alone together, hm?”

They closed their eyes, and they gave in to the comfort of darkness.

Wer’Vemud curled around them in as comforting an embrace as it could manage. It was what they needed, here, standing over the abyss.

They closed their eyes, and they Fell.

~*~*~

They remembered fire in the hair of a small spark. The small spark leaping and dancing a blaze that burned the misery of her past away.

They remembered storms in curly black hair, thunderclouds and lightning in ebony skin.

They remembered families changing members constantly, some staying an eternity or two.

They remembered having steady love and warmth after losing everything, even mortality. Even themselves.

They remembered losing it all.

They remembered Falling.

They Fell. It was inevitable, really.

They should have never gone back.

They should have never been born.

They Fell.

They had failed those two the most. They had given up, finally, after all those years.

It didn’t feel as good as they’d hoped.

And then they didn’t feel at all.

~*~*~

… ?

tears. shadows. movement. raw.

something wrong. slipping sliding gone gone gone.

someone there? one. a few. walking through, something wrong. shouldn’t be. supposed to be.

solid.

an anchor, grab it!

can’t. red circles. different words- what?

out. one word.

outoutoutoutoutoutout

can’t leave.

can’t leave.

can’t leave.

can’t leave.

…

try again? can’t leave.

… try agai- can’t leave. can’tleavecan’tleave

They remember panic. who-They? They. not they.

no color. almost right, all wrong.

…

…

alone.

?.. ?

…

grief. ?

?

pain. and grief, yes.

red, bright and sharp and no. They hurt.

white, soft-sharp and welcome and no. They were tired.

not weeks. months. Years. decades? years.

they were leaving- not They, They

…

don’t leave us.

…

…

…

please?

…

no sound.

alone. a sob, if They could remember.

They couldn’t.

…

fear made them forget.

too late.

too late.

~*~*~

It was easy to tell when the creature had finally given in. The room fell silent, no longer softly screaming, no longer harshly filling the air with not-quite-music loud enough to filter through the wards.

In the end, they had only managed to truly trap it because of the borrowed Name and the sigil on its chest. They’d been told how to bind it from there.

‘Blood and red, the largest Circles you can make.

Teach it a lesson: it will not interfere. I will rise to my rightful place. I will reclaim my heart.’

So was she commanded.

Irsluna glanced up from where she was compiling her notes; lesson or not, it was a fascinating creature, one worthy of study despite the fact she, Keres, and a handful of others were the only to survive its onslaught.

Perhaps because they were the only survivors. An interesting thought. She did so like interesting.

No matter.

She barked out the order to evacuate after the shadows trapped in the floor of the wards began to shift and die down. Her orders were to bind it once weakened, and then set the whole tiny world alight with the brightest flames she could manage.

Given that she was, in and of herself effectively a star, she thought she could manage just fine.

A gesture when the room was devoid of all flesh-and-bone-bodies save hers, and the red wards glowed with a sickening white light that would have blinded any normal creature.

Flame rippled outwards, tongues of it unfurling like the petals of a white rose. She snarled more than she smiled as the creature visibly recoiled from it.

Worry not, pet. It will be over before you well know.

She spun on her heel and left, tome tucked under her arm.

At last, they could proceed.

And perhaps, finally, she could see her daughter whole and well.

(She knew better than to hope.)

~*~*~

flame. burnstoohotwhitebrightno.

warmth. would that it were kind.

dying.

dying.

anchors in the shadows, tiny shadows.

cracks in stone floor.

hidden.

They hid.

smoke-in-letters. Titles. They-not-They were gone. They-not-They were fading.

dying.

their hidden chance.

letters-in-smoke, disremembered tongues. a place.

should-be-choking. smothered. green eyes.

trust.

help.

who else? who else?

single memory.

~*~*~

"Think fast, Weirmrith. Can't pretend not to hear the warnin' bells forever."

it would go nowhere, they had failed. whispers to the Void.

~*~*~

bright darkness.

nothing but apologies.

nothing.

nothing.

g

o

n

e

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Jekyll1886 • a year ago

In the outside world, time had passed. Not the years that Charricthran had endured, no. Time instead ticked by at a perfectly regular pace, free of the whims of the fae and their magics.

Two and a half weeks.

That was the time it had taken Lewis to make everything in readiness. He had pulled in favors from Harry he'd have to repay--and how!--in order to crisscross the world at instantaneous speed to gather all he'd needed.

But a friend was in need. It was well worth it. It was always worth the trying.

He reached out, attempting for the first time since the debacle in the Black Forest to step into his own shadow and out of Charricthran's.

With any luck, the fae wouldn't know what hit them.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago • edited

There was a sensation not unlike a rubber band snapping against skin as shadow called to shadow.

Lewis didn't step out of Charricthran's shadow, but he stepped somewhere nearby.

Before him stood a clearing in the center of a snow-kissed wood. Ice and frost crackled in the air, falling from the heavy tree limbs encircling it.

In the clearing was the remnants of a hut of sorts. The air hissed all around it, the ground lay bone-dry and burnt, and the snow had evaporated away to leave nothing but dead-dry grass in a perfect circle around it.

The remnants of the hut still burned with flames as white as the snow still falling from the sky. The snap-crackle of sparks met the sizzling of melting snow, loud in the quiet of the woods.

There was no sound save for that. No birdsong, no wind, no voices.

No sound save for that, and a low, almost imperceptible hum. The gentle gleam of light where there should be none, gone in half of a quarter second. To all the world, it could be the gleam of this unnatural light against unnatural snow.

Charricthran was nowhere to be seen.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago • edited

He was, however, somewhere to be sensed. Despite the magic meant to occlude him, his energy--frayed but still extant--was right in the center of the onetime hut.

Weir stepped between two still-smoldering half-walls and into the circle proper, weapon drawn and readied.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

Past that impromptu threshold, the world warped and widened, pressing against the boundaries of truth and reality alike.

A grand hall stretched before Lewis, white flames chasing across marble and cedar and tapestries the red of blood. There were footprints in the ash that fell from the ceiling like the snow outside, archways and sconces lining the walls.

The sconces held the same flames raking hungry claws against the expanse. The hallway echoed with the snapping crackle of a dying building.

Though there were no rooms to the sides visible, there was a set of heavy, engraved stone doors. The doors hung off their hinges like wings pulled from an insect, deject, broken, and liable to fall off at any moment.

There was a terrible sound not unlike metal buckling and shrieking, echoing, ricocheting off the walls in its race towards being heard.

Charricthran's energy could be felt past those looming doors, where darkness was swallowed by the same tongues of flame that so sickly carved through shadow.

That low hum buzzed in these walls, almost snarling. It guarded something with hungry eyes and dripping maw.

It was not a pleasant hum, to say the least.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago • edited

Momentarily distracted by the change in scenery, Lewis nevertheless came to focus on the peculiar set of doors, through which he knew he'd find his friend.

He wrenched one open with his left hand, the gun in his right, and sprinted through!

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

The room was wreathed in flames long since dying.

The charred skeletons of the furniture that had once populated the room lay scattered and broken against the floor. Jagged pieces of what might have been chairs and desks stuck up like blackened fangs, curling like paint away from the center of the room.

The humming was loudest here, a hundred discordant cellos snarling in the empty space. Every so often, that same metallic screech could be heard, reaching from the center of the room.

There were circles on the ceiling and floor of the room that might have been painted by blood, had they not shimmered and sparked walls into the air. There were runes, too- sharp lines and curls for the most part. These shimmered within those walls, faintly glowing and pulsing as a heartbeat might.

Charricthran's energy came from within, but still there was no sight of him, nor anyone else.

(not they or They outside, who? familiar whispering, safe.

tired. hurting. hope.)

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago • edited

"Charricthran?" called Lewis. He was there; he had to be--even if Weir couldn't see him.

Lewis turned his attention to the magic Char's captors had left behind them like a poisoned parting gift. The glimmering walls with their glowing runes taunted him by their mere existence, underscoring his powerlessness to prevent Char's capture and his tardiness in finding him only now. What had his friend been through, in his absence?

Weir tested the arcane wall with his free hand. The shimmering surface didn't shock him, didn't break...but it did wobble.

Well. He'd be damned if some underhanded fae magic was going to keep him from Charricthran.

He dug his fingers into the wall, curling them into makeshift claws as he pressed his hand against it, focusing his will.

Five points to focus his energy. Five pinpricks against the warp and weft of the fae's mighty magics.

Sod. You. ALL.

And, with that, he was through, the wall before him torn asunder.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

shatter- like glass like metal like bone.

shattering, shattered, whispering.

a voice, they were disremembering time. before, after, now?

familiar shadow, familiar voice. safety hope trust.

reach with fingers and claws, run run go- safety hope trust.

~*~

Plumes of shadow and smoke darted like minnows across the floor, wrapping around Lewis' legs before they fell into his shadow. Charricthran's energy shook those few brief seconds it was exposed to the light of the dying flames.

Relief fell from him in waves.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

"I'm glad to see you, too," said Lewis with a gentle smile as he looked to his shadow. "Hold fast--we're going to leave this horrid place. Get under my waistcoat if you need to--no errant light there," he suggested.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

warmth. darkness. notcoldnotbright.

safe

~*~

The same shadows darted from the floor to Lewis' coat, again wobbling in the half second the light looked upon them.

Charricthran curled up in the shadows of the waistcoat, taking comfort in the warmth and darkness alike. Though light, there was a definite weight to him, unlike the handful of other times he had been formless around Lewis.

In only a moment's time, he was still again. Relief turned to gratitude, turned to weariness.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

Before he left the circle, just for good measure, Lewis reached into the sporan at his waist and flung a handful of fine, iron filaments into the center.

The energy sustaining the wards was freed with such force as they broke fully that it ejected Lewis and Char from the area.

Now outside the onetime hut, Weir rose from the ground, collected his weapon, and pulled out Harry's communicator.

"Jaunt!"

They re-materialized in Charricthran's attic room at the Society.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

Charricthran's... not-quite-body rang with the force of the wards breaking. The sensation was such that even after they had jaunted, the collection of shadow stayed very still for a handful of minutes.

There was a soft rush of wind, and the collection of candles floating and resting on shelves were extinguished in the blink of an eye.

Only when the room was in complete darkness did the shadows pull themselves from Lewis' waistcoat and fall to the floor, resembling a slightly shifting puddle.

Said puddle seemed to draw the darkness in the air around it like a whirlwind, climbing upward in height and substance until it was vaguely humanoid, if completely featureless.

It shivered at the edges, threatening to fall again. Its arms wrapped around its stomach in a familiar gesture, and its head tilted as if it were trying to smile.

He fell back into himself afterward, the expression of motion too much for what meager amount of thought and focus he had.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

"Don't strain yourself. Just...rest, for now," counseled Lewis. "Let me know if there's anything I can do further."

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

The shadows moved to a rather battered leather chair and slipped underneath a veritable nest of blankets.

stay. please?

(echos of the past changed. present, opposite. pleading softly, sharply.)

(they didn't want to be alone)

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

"Certainly," returned Lewis.

He laid his weapon aside and found a seat, settling down in the quiet dark.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

Hours slipped into silence, the passing of day forgotten by the still darkness interrupted only by the sound of Lewis breathing.

With each minute that passed, Charricthran gradually grew to take on his usual form, though it was without any color save for those dark shades of bruises that usually only tinted his hair, and the reds of his eyes.

His eyes stared fixed in the distance for some time after that, and as his form grew more lifelike, so too did the faded quality of his energy- or rather, his energy stayed the same sort of frayed it had been, there was now simply more of it.

It hummed like a fly throwing itself against glass in hopes of escape, all but audible in the silent room.

Charricthran sighed, and the sigh turned to a wet, ugly sob, quickly choked back and shuddered in the shoulders.

He was still afraid. His skin buzzed and hissed with the aftershocks of foreign magic that had been wreathed around it for the longest years of his life.

Everything burned white against his eyelids and shed sparks under his skin and in his heart.

He bit down on his fist and shuddered again, the pain something familiar, at least.

The shadows of his skin and bones swirled as thunderclouds might, on the brink of breaking rain.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

Weir'd remained quiet, not wishing to disturb Charricthran's fragile semblance of peace. But at the stifled sob, he spoke.

"Cry if you want," Lewis encouraged. "You're safe now. You're safe to. By the look of things, you've been through Hell."

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

Even with the reassurance, Charricthran tried to muffle the next few shudders with varying degrees of success. The sounds trickled to a halt, and he fell silent for a handful of moments.

Then, he spoke. His voice was hardly a pleasant thing- it scraped on the way out of his throat and caught on letters like the legs of a chair across a cobblestone floor.

"T-thought. Thought 's gonna die. Hell is a w.. w.. a chair in a c-cold... stone room, burnin' b-b-bright. Bit-t t-tame"

Charricthran giggled something like desperation, and found himself coughing, choking into sobbing, shuddering. He drew his blankets around himself and laughed the sound of a thousand panicked crows, coughed and whined and shuddered back and forth across a chasm of grief.

Throughout it all, his movements were as minute as flinches, his arms and legs tucked against his chest.

(wouldn't do to give them a wider surface area, now would it?)

His tears only fell back into his cheeks, filled his eyes and fell to his face.

He drew in great gasping breaths for lungs that didn't quite exist.

He wondered how long it'd take the reflex to go away this time.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

Lewis recognized Charricthran's gallows humor and smiled, though the expression was bittersweet and tinged with empathy. This was what they had in common--living through Hell and, well...living. Even Char's present laughter, avian as it was, wasn't dissimilar in tone--in its underlying emotion--to the mad, sad, desperate cackle that had once come from Weir's own throat.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly as he approached and knelt before Charricthran. "Sorry I couldn't do anything in the Schwarzwald. Sorry I didn't get to you sooner."

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

It took him several minutes to calm his hysteric mess of laughter and tears long enough to fix Lewis with a wobbly grin. He inched forward and stretched out a hand to let it rest on Lewis' shoulder, shaking and twitching in and out of any recognizable form though it was.

"Weirmrith Viofdioenel," (and oh, how his heart sang to be able to speak that Title without stumbling, without fear of losing it) "Y-you did... all that could b-b-be. Even c-c... coming years p-past, you did sooner'n.. thought."

Charricthran paused to gather his scattering thoughts, head drooping for a handful of moments. It almost clipped through his chest before he could lift it again with a bittersweet look of his own.

"Y-years p-past never, still sooner'n. An' they could...couldnae tear me an' Wer'Vemud apart, c-cos' o' you. We.. survived. T-t.. toget- together. Hurt less, cos' o' you."

Another hysteric giggle burbled in his throat and sneaked past his teeth.

"Still hurts, hurts less. Vinxa. S-sorry... strandin' y-ya."

The edges of his form flickered as if trying to escape back into the room. Charricthran fell quiet after that, but his eyes brimmed with words he felt needed saying, overlapping each other and blurring meaning into meaning.

Lewis needed to know that he didn't need to apologize. Of that much, he was certain.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

Years? Weir wondered.

Ah, he realized with a cold, sinking feeling. The fae--time doesn't pass as it...

Damn.

Yet a smile spread as Char told him of Wer'Vemud being inseparable. Of the hurt lessened. Of having made a difference.

Then his friend apologized for stranding him.

"Not your fault," Lewis assured with a shake of his head. "I came of my own free will--besides, it could hardly be helped."

In his mind's eye, he saw Char in the claws of the griffin, sailing up and away, away...carrying Nald'su Welun to...the very worst possible place.

And, God...years, you were there. Years, they did things to you.

He realized he ought to let Char know how much time had passed in the mundane world.

"By the by," he added, "it's been, ah...about seventeen days, from my end of things."

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

Charricthran jerked back as if struck, blinking owlishly several times in succession.

Seventeen days. Not long enough for the wards to buckle- he hadn't actually died, but he couldn't maintain them- Richard would still be alive, none of it had gone to waste, but...

Reality and memory collided with the sharp shatter of glass, carving, clearing, scarring. The low humming-buzzing in his skin climbed to a high-pitched whine, prompting him to clamp his hands over his ears. He knew that that wouldn't do anything, but it didn't stop him.

It wasn't right, but he knew it to be right- the Fae were devious b*stards like that, Irsluna would've known to buy herself more time.

His thoughts shuddered into fuzz-and-noise, bright and scraping against his eyes and throat.

A handful of minutes later, when he could see properly, Charricthran went back to folding his arms against his chest like another set of wings, chuckling hoarsely.

"'S a bit shorter'n thought. Better for your end o' the.. world, though. Fixable 's way. Y-y-you didn't hurt 's long... e-either"

He coughed and swallowed... something bitter, like blood and brine.

Color started bleeding into his skin properly, and he draped the blankets around him like a cloak: he had to remember broken skin and flesh in order to remember how to mend it.

He did his best to leave his face free of that new evidence of healing: it would likely be in a horrendous state, and he had no desire to upset Lewis further.

His limbs felt as if they were made of fire, and he keened in the back of his throat, needles pushing past skin.

He talked to distract himself- anything to avoid the press of spark-sharp metal and white light.

"'M sorry.. 'bout... lots o' thh-things. Forgive me?"

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

"Already done," answered Weir.

"Are you having trouble with your head and neck?" he asked, concerned Charricthran might not be healing properly--the energies there seemed constricted rather than free-flowing.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

Charricthran's heart was warmed by Lewis' honest response, though the next question caused him to duck his head in something approaching embarrassment.

"Don' wanna... stitch it together-like yet. 'S not pretty- none o' me, really; don'... wanna upset. 'S not your f-f-fa... fault."

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

"I shan't be upset," returned Lewis with an easy shrug. "I'm no stranger to the operating theatre, you know.

"Not to mention it's rather dark in here," he added, the smile evident in his voice.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

"Right, proper doctor you are. Silly to forget."

Charricthran laughed softly, though both it and his words shook with something akin to nervousness.

Over the next several minutes, color flowed into his face. Olive skin was only just barely visible in a handful of places where sets of claws overlapped and left gaps. For the most part, his face was either red and swollen, or painted in shades of sickly yellow, green, and blue.

Oddly enough, in pockets along his cheekbones and jaw, there were small collections of obsidian-like scales.

He set about fixing those first, the fire in his limbs something almost pleasant compared to the buzzing pain in his teeth and eyes and- well, his face. All of it, really.

He pressed his hands oh-so-gently over his eyes, both of which were nearly swollen shut. Pain bled light into everything, and he used that inner light to cast shadow, mending in the darkness.

Skin and muscle knit over bone that wasn't quite there, only suggested to be as such. It would be fine for now- it wasn't as if he needed to pretend to be human, here.

Distantly, he was aware of pain bubbling back into whining in his throat, gurgling where he had to fix the lacerations to his neck.

His hands shook over those.

Hands, claws, clawing at his throat, laughing, the sound of breaking crystal and falling ice.

He knew all too well who'd put them there.

Charricthran stopped with his hands around his neck. He had to. He wasn't sure why- there were still things to fix, and yet...

and yet.

and yet.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

Lewis couldn't help but notice how Charricthran hesitated when he got to the throat. Weir couldn't see him very well, of course, but emotion and energy painted a clear enough picture.

"What's wrong?" asked Lewis.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago • edited

Charricthran went very quiet and very still. For several moments, he said nothing at all in response.

Then: "Why... do they always... Here. Why?"

He couldn't even remember the moment when those wounds had happened. This, more than anything, was the reason for his distress.

His voice was anguished, and more than a little heartbroken. It wavered, broke on another whine, and crashed into a hiccuping fit of weeping bitten back by his teeth.

He snarled a grin and barked out laughter, and it skipped and stuttered just as it had before.

"'S stupid, l-l-like me. Could... could've avoided... this. Tr-tried."

He still couldn't move: many hands besides his choked and clawed and stopped him. They were no longer his to move, these hands of his.

And then teeth joined the current of memory, pressing, biting tearing.

And then he shuddered and the smile-snarl fell from his face.

And then he was drawn under the tide of grief and muted agony that made the core of his awareness, of his rebirth.

And still, he couldn't help but be almost viciously glad Lewis was here, and that he wasn't alone, alonealonealone again and again and again.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

"'Tis the most obviously vulnerable part of a man, I suppose," Lewis conjectured, his words matter-of-fact but his tone gentle. Even animals know to go for the throat.

"But no one will do that here," he reassured. "'Tis only you and I, in a dark and quiet attic.

"Be here, with me, now."

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

Charricthran hummed softly in response, unable to respond or to formulate his impressions of thought into words.

The corners of his lips twitched in an attempt to smile again as his voice croaked free.

"Where else w-would I go? N-no... ch-charmin' company, 'sides."

He heaved a jagged sigh, then made an odd sort of rumbling chuckle. He shook his head and finally, finally moved his hands away from his throat.

He hunched his shoulders against low-burning pain gnawing in hollow bones, scraping against his ribs, biting against his skin.

After a while, being in pain simply became... tiring noise. Everything buzzed and hummed, spinning the edges of his sight.

He slumped further back into the chair and blankets, closing his eyes with a muffled groan.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

Charricthran's words drew a soft laugh from Lewis, though Weir was cognizant of the very real pain beneath them.

His instinct was to try to comfort Char, but he didn't know if touch would be welcomed or abhorrent.

"Is there any way to help you heal?" he asked.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

"Ain't.. t-time s'posed ta heal all wounds?"

Charricthran coughed a chuckle to clear his throat and try for levity at the same time.

"Gettin' warm'd help- still feel c-c-cold... really don' l-l-like bein' cold, an'... blankets don' do much when 's nothin' already. Can't.. not fire, though, clearly."

(really, what he wanted was to be held. anything to wipe the sensation of claws and cruelty off his skin. he wanted to curl up into a ball and weep, to be small and quiet and not have to think, not have to worry beyond the four walls of his room.

he wanted to be without fear of falling, without fear of breaking. he trusted lewis completely, and that made all the difference between welcomed and abhorred.)

Hesitantly, always hesitant to ask for what typically came with strings all too prone to becoming nooses. His voice went quieter, half-mumbled down to the blankets and the chair as he ducked his head.

"Wouldnae say no t-ta a hug or three. You're right warm, 's whatcha are. Must... be all th' actual blood."

He was, perhaps, babbling a bit, though with pain droning in waves, it was rather hard to focus on not.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

Gingerly, so as not to startle Charricthran, Lewis sat down beside him on the loveseat, turned toward him, and opened his arms. This way, Char could have contact as long as he wished, but lean back if it became too much.

"Lean in as you like."

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

Charricthran paused, then half-shifted, half fell into the Lewis' arms as he severely miscalculated how much... substance his form had. It by no means weighed the same as a human being, but it was heavier than those small shades that he'd been not a day ago.

Chuckling sheepishly, he shook his head and righted himself so that the two of them would be more comfortable.

It took but a handful of moments for Charricthran to start warming up, visibly relaxing as he did so. He was silent, but gratitude was written in the way he tucked his head to his chest once more.

Some few distant voices snarled at him for giving in to comfort rather than weathering the pain. It was rather hard to care about them as he half-felt he should as the shrieking buzzing of cicadas trickled into the low hum of a swarm of bumblebees or dragonflies.

He did try to verbally thank Lewis after those few moments, but his tongue was as weary as the rest of him. He offered a low hum instead, half a smile darting like lightning over half-swirling skin.

He'd used most of his energy to fix his face and neck as rapidly as he had. The rest of him would take..

he didn't know. the buzzing grew louder, then fell once more.

It would be all right. If it wasn't, he'd make it.

He wished, not for the first time, that he could sleep as mortal men might.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

Lewis draped his arms over Charricthran in a gesture of comfort, a relaxed sigh escaping Weir when Char finally settled into it.

Unthinkingly, Lewis gently stroked Charricthran's back with his thumb.

They stayed that way for some time.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

Charricthran had tensed for all of half a heartbeat when Lewis'd begun to stroke his back: that was all the time he needed to register friend as opposed to foe- or rather, a gentle touch as opposed to a biting knife.

A sigh of his own had huffed out of his nostrils, and he'd leaned further into the touch.

He lost track of time passing after that, slipping into a state of simple awareness: of the warmth of Lewis at his back, of the simple comfort of a gentle touch, of the rhythm of breath and heartbeat he gradually became aware he was mimicking.

His eyes drooped half-shut, the closest he would ever get to falling asleep. His lingering agony became a distant thought, the aching hollowness of his not-quite bones replaced by warmth, the sparks biting the underside his skin chased into stillness.

Had it not been so hard-won, not on the tails of grief and dying-died-dead, Charricthran would almost call it bliss.

As it was, it was quiet almost-peace, and it was enough. He did not waver.

Still more silence slipped by until it was broken by quiet words, rumbled more than felt and almost teary around the edges.

"I... I've n-not been more glad o' any..one'n you. In that m-m-moment. In th-these. I don'... think I deserve you 'r this, but... vinxa. True-like."

Tears did roll down his face then, but he'd no more energy or will to sob, merely enough to tilt his head and close his eyes so that they didn't fall and burn Lewis.

He was healing, but it felt perilously close to dying.

he was so tired.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago • edited

"'Deserve' has no place in anything," spoke Lewis quietly, a truth it had taken him ages to learn. "I do this of my own free will. And would again."

He stroked Charricthran's head ever so gently, as his mother had when he'd fallen ill as a lad.

"In this life," he said at a whisper, eyes misty at the corners, "we must be each others' reasons to go on. So, thank you. For the purpose you bring."

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago • edited

"My.. own kinda likewise t'ya, danthe-kornari... wouldnae.. be.. half so me.. without."

Just as Lewis remembered his mother, Charricthran heard the strains of a lullaby sung by a voice dead several ages, and was moved to thought.

These glimpses of his home were the most heartfelt gifts he could offer anyone. That nebulous concept that had shaped him, molded him so completely in that infinitesimally small portion of his life, was a treasure shared with fewer people than he had fingers.

Time passed as it would, and he thoroughly ignored it as he rebuilt the energy to speak clearly- to sing clearly, however low and half-tuneless his voice was.

When he felt certain that his voice would not crack under the weight of his emotion, Charricthran sang. The words were soft, mumbling, and only just in tune, but they were sung nonetheless, low and rolling.

"Vdri, kwi wux sia throdenilti danthe,

Halkvri wer welun ui persvek wer haruhe,

Vur yth tepoha thric throdenilt ekess tir

Shar thesek wer itmen welun vinultir

Vi z'ar vur japachi thurkear."

The words hummed with the pleasant anticipation of the beauty of sunset, of the sensation of being watched over and cared for under the light of a bright moon, and of finally resting, finally breathing.

As the last word slipped that small distance back into silence, Charricthran brushed his new closest to sleep since he'd been home, his breathing deep, calm, and even.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago • edited

Weir smiled at Charricthran's words, heart particularly gladdened by the knowledge he'd helped his friend be true to himself.

As his friend sang, Lewis listened to the lullaby, savored its resonance, its cadence...its calm.

With relief, he witnessed Char relax into a like state.

Weir stayed with him, wishing not to disturb it.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

Charricthran stayed in that state for some indeterminate time, making a conscious effort to let go of the constant tick, tick, tick of the internal clock that begged he know every second of his life.

For nigh on twenty thousand years, he had never let it fall silent intentionally; It had kept him sane, it had kept him focused and driven enough to stay himself when all else fell apart.

For nigh on twenty thousand years, it had ticked and he had counted. And now? He was tired, he was hurting, and he was. He simply was.

With no small amount of quiet, internal debate, he made the choice to stop his worry for a time: Worry about Richard, about the Fae, about trying to find his way home again- he let all that fall into the mire of distant thought with the agony simmering somewhere distant as flesh knitted flesh.

That room was a soft-dark place of his own, and he was alone but for the one person he could trust above all others.

Here, he would not fall to pieces for lack of focus. Here, he had no need to worry about the unknown, for there were only simple truths.

Here, he had no need to worry about past or future: those things that haunted his steps existed out of time, away from this rare, dark quiet.

It was the only instance he knew of where he had nothing to fear. Where he could simply be.

His heart Sang with intangible, foreign emotion; The realization felt as if it should be accompanied by some clear, ringing sound, echoing in a soft-bright way across the whole world, heard by all hidden things.

The truth was something simpler, but infinitely more profound.

His breathing slowed further, drawn out over several heartbeats.

The clocked stopped ticking.

And Charricthran slipped into the dark waters of slumber.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

Lewis let him sleep as long as he needed to, quietly coming to check on him every so often over the course of the ensuing days.

Finally, near the end of the fourth day, Char seemed to be sleeping a little more lightly.

Weir stuck around, on the off-chance he might wake.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago • edited

Charricthran came to consciousness slowly, as if floating face down in those same waters he had slipped so peacefully under. Even after he'd drawn the first deep breath of life beginning again, he kept his eyes shut and drifted, distant to his own mind. The only pain to linger was the vague sense of his whole body bruising- but then, he could remember he had always woken like that, as if his slumber was something he had to fight for.

Regardless, he was understandably reluctant to cast off this blanket of peace: who knew how soon it'd occur again, if ever?

The thought left him somewhat disquieted, but he allowed that to drift away as well. Instead, he built a pavilion in his mind to hold a recreation of the chair and the same sense of utter serenity that had washed over him.

In the foundation were the conversations that had come before slumber, and in the pillars sang gentle lullaby and the soothing susurration of touch that had accompanied it.

As he turned his mind from memory to the present, he became distinctly aware of the fact that he was decidedly not a morning person, actual time be d*mned.

He could feel the presence of someone else in the room with him, and assumed it was Lewis- any Whispers he might have heard were still yet distant.

"Bloody buggerin' f*ck waking up. Sleepin's all well an' good, but this blows."

He had aimed to make his voice some combination of amused and grumpy, but his tongue was still thick with sleep, and it sounded more like some hoarse whine- the thing of a petulant child.

He offered a slow, small smile and cracked his eyes open after that, eyes little more than red slits.

Regardless of waking up, his physical wounds had healed, and his heart was light for the time being. Reality would come crashing in when it would, and he would meet it.

Eventually.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

"True, but it beats the long dirt-nap, so I'm told," quipped Lewis.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago • edited

Charricthran chuckled and blinked owlishly, smile inching wider as he tried to rub the sleep from his eyes.

"Why'd you sleep in dirt though? 'S not terribly comfortable, yeah? Who was sleepin' all earth-like ta tell ya that?"

His thoughts were sluggish things.

As the room was still dark, he took the time to focus on rebuilding his usual attire before he had to do anything so immense as standing. It was strange, to once again have a body after so long without. As best he could tell, he'd spent a year clinging to life in dark corners after.. everything else.

(tongues of flame, reachingbitingsnarling chewing and spittingout, hungryfingers and teethandtongue)

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

Weir blinked.

Had Char actually not gotten the joke?

It occurred to Lewis this was the first time he'd ever interacted with a freshly-woken Charricthran. Weir thought to offer him tea, but decided against it when he considered how difficult it could be for Char to keep liquids down.

Aaannnd now he's reliving something, the realization snapped to mind. Keep him present! Keep him present.

"Charricthran," he broke in, "you've been asleep for four days."

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

Charricthran jerked from where he was staring and burning into firelight only to fall back into a mire full of tangled thoughts. For several moments he stared at Lewis with nothing more than blank incomprehension, a slight frown furrowing his brow.

He both nodded and spoke slowly, trying to pull his thoughts together even as words mumbled and fell from his mouth.

"Right. Could be why..'s.. everythin's all fuzzy."

He yawned much as a cat might and froze with a comically surprised expression as the true meaning of Lewis' words caught up with him.

"Huh," he said with a faint giggle, "Ain't... done tha' 'n... a bit."

Understatement of the millennium, really.

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

"How long had it been since you slept last?" Weir wondered.

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

Charricthran hummed and tilted his head up to think, the motion carrying him backwards to slump at an odd angle until he could prop himself up on the arm of the loveseat.

After a while, he shrugged.

"Clock's not tick-tickin', dunno 'xactly. Least.. twenty, thirty thous'nd? Longer'n after I Fell, least."

He paused, and his lip twitched with a faint snarl of distaste.

"Don' like wakin'. Fallin 'sleep's nice. Sleepin' 's nice. Not wakin'."

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Jekyll1886  Tairais • a year ago

Lewis blinked twice.

"That...is a very long time to go between naps."

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Tairais  Jekyll1886 • a year ago

Charricthran giggled and squinted at Lewis again.

"Yup. An' now you're all owl-like too. 'S funny."

He stretched his arms in front of him and slowly breathed in. Slowly, he brought his arms around in a circle to stretch his back, exhaling with a soft, drawn out groan.

When that was said and done, he promptly got to his feet and took a step forward that resulted in falling forward.

Right. Momentum was a thing.

Distantly, he became aware of the probable collision of his face with the ground. He wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to do with that information, but at least he was aware of it.

This resulted in him doing a rather fine impression of a wooden board with a slightly dopey smile on its face. Simultaneously, in that distant spot of awareness, he realized it was probably not a very charming sort of behavior.

He wasn't entirely sure what to do with that information either.

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