Thankfully as she finally managed to return to that of bedroll and guiding assistance from rodent fae; he wasn’t actually about to just separate away from her either. The whole reality that Calia had been whisked off when she slumbered –and how the distraction of haunting faces, memories and lashing psychic whips successfully distracted him to have her absconded with; was more than enough for him to sit near. Within arms reach as to alleviate either of their new concerns. Though he was less pulled into the means of slumber because his mind was plenty occupied with the terrifying facts of both the material world and that of his own thoughts!
Settling to just scowling at the defiant faelings that came close enough as though he were some challenge they set on another. Seeing who could get the closet before he flicked one of them into oblivion. Certainly having a few times that he was about to replicate the Crown Prince’s statement about launching the local pests into the stratosphere!
His task was to keep the fire stoked. Eyes ever watching their surroundings and idly listening to see if the old sleepers would return to their former placements or not. Silently hoping they just milled about to keep anything else from deciding to test their luck this evening. There was no telling what sort of attitude he’d have after all this and his fury had already been quite a violent tempest. No one needed to discover if there was a second layer beneath even that! At least if they were smart, they wouldn’t tempt it.
There was certainly more of a relief when the break of dawn starting to crest through the misty forest. The chill of the northern breach breathing through the lands and the sounds of natural wildlife calling into the brightening world.
He would eventually slip away, grabbing one of the larger fae creatures to shove under Calia’s grip just so he could at least find some water and use a bucket from the hollow to bring back a clean source of it! After splashing around in it to wash away the sticky ichor from the battle and torture. Apologizing to the land, to Gaia herself for being a dripping toxin for letting such foul stuff blight into the water. Hopefully it diluted itself enough that it eventually broke down and didn’t get anyone sick.
But he couldn’t linger too long. Returning to admittedly offer the stag the bucket of water firstly without a thought or question. Not about to be insulting to someone who was quite literally a myth, a legend and a herald of their grand linage! It didn’t seem to be a smart choice to make, regardless if he was a demonic beast or not!
A wolf with curled goat’s horns had made quite the shocked snarfle upon being grabbed so unceremoniously by the demon and shoved into the steel-tight grip of a sleeping princess. Truly, it thought it was about to be a demon breakfast for a few brief seconds, and even several minutes after it took a while for it’s scruff to stop standing on end and for it to reluctantly lull itself back to slumber, with thankfully a much gentler bedmate.
Calia herself was too far gone and not likely to wake any time soon, though one could bet had there not been something solid and warm within her reach she would’ve been up in a second, ready to start flinging icy daggers or worse.
As Archimedes went about his attempt at trying to find some means of getting his back on straight and trying to right the messes of the prior evening, he was not alone in his efforts. Bright-eyed and bushy tailed, those that were brave and unafraid became his furry little shadows. Watching curiously to see what such a dangerous being might possibly be getting up to, until with a delighted bit of excited surprised they had their answer.
Heal the forest.
Spritely and quick, the critters of the redwoods bounded and bounce and flapped their way around the forest floor. Seeking out spots of ichor, of blood. Scorches and the dead. When elders always said the forest healed itself, this may very well have been what they meant about fae unseen. Calling up gentle mists of water to wash away blood. Charming the green to grow back to it’s proud summery lushness. Practically fairy-tale in it’s sweet charm if one ignored the horrors that had happened the night prior that created such a disaster in the first place.
They continued with this precious work even when he had to relent and return to the camp, bringing the Elder Fae that bucket of fresh water.
He, the magnificent white stag, with his fur a starlight white and long ancient antlers, lift his head and stared down this demon and the humor in his gaze was almost palpable. An ancient thing such as he was well equipped to care for himself. During those few short hours of the night the majority of his wounds had at least healed over to bare pale skin. Oh, the scars were there and would be for all time, but unlike the youngling fae girl, long-lived age had given him ability that she had not yet grown into.
Pride had him drawing up to his hooves feet, standing in his massive stature a a great deal taller than even this impressively heighted demon. Respect, though, was what had him bowing his head to accept this offer of peace and take a few drinks of the fresh spring water. Giving his head and whole body a good shake to help chase the sleep away, before he then stepped forward – invasively, intimate forward of leaning muzzled nose mere inches from the demon’s face.
Ask what you wish, Shadow of Umbra, before she wakes. For you will not get another chance for a good long while.
It would’ve been incredibly rude to start flinging horned rats and cottonball chipmunks into the trees just because he wasn’t particularly thrilled about being followed by a gathering of woodland oddities. Arc knew better. He really did.
Even if part of him very much wanted to reach down, grab the nearest bright-eyed pest, and hurl it like a skipping stone into the distance.
Especially when said creatures had taken to cleaning up. Tidying the battlefield like a scene change in a fae play, scrubbing away the rot, the residue, the stink of blood that didn’t belong to demon or fae but something far worse—a hybrid of malice and memory given form.
One could appreciate that sort of gesture. Really. He wanted to be able to appreciate it, even from a scholarly lens. But his brain wasn’t biting. Refusing to even really take hold because it was too busy running through other things.
All that was left in him was the drive to see that the creature Fawna had bound—used—was shown a sliver of respect. That much he could do. He couldn’t shake the old elven instincts, no matter how far from the cradle of his blood he’d fallen. That world no longer saw him as kin. And frankly, he couldn’t blame it. He wouldn’t claim himself, either. Still, the rituals within him stuck.
And so, bucket in hand, Arc approached the elder fae.
Even standing still, the stag towered above him. Ethereal alabaster fur stained no longer stained with the taint. Horns like sun-wrought sculptures curved heavenward, ready to pluck the sun from the sky and carry it through the lands. Baffled to just how Fawna had gotten an elder fae at all —what deserving torture might have satisfied the hole she’d carved into this night—but in the end? He hadn’t had it in him. He just wanted Fawna gone. Wanted the realm to know he wasn’t a pet and Calia wasn’t a pawn.
He had set the bucket down steadily for the grand beast to drink, not expecting thanks or recognition. Actually he would much rather never heard any sort of words associated with either sensation. Since it was ill placed and belonged nowhere to a demon. Already planning to retreat once it was done.
So when the elder fae stepped forward, Arc instinctively shifted a step back—shoulders tight, chin tilted, gaze warily amused. Not about to start inviting a new showdown between demon and light fae!
Of course it was going to speak.
He didn’t mask the sigh. Nor the slight roll of his eyes as the question fell between them.
“Well lucky that I don’t have any wish to ask anythin’,” Arc replied, voice casual, posture slack with affected indifference. “Ain’t my concert, ain’t my musicians.” He raised his hands in a wide, placating gesture, the picture of false innocence. “The lass is the one who’ll want yer insight. I’m just the background noise in this fairytale.”
There was a flicker behind his eyes—too quick, too buried to linger.
“I was just bein’ respectful to a piece of dead heritage that no longer belongs to me.” The statement hung there, unchallenged. Brutally honest, delivered with the kind of breezy detachment that only comes from a place of carefully arranged self-loathing.
He bent his arms back behind his neck, fingers lacing loosely, posture exaggeratedly relaxed.
“We can both just appreciate the rarity of me not bein’ a greedy bastard of a demon,” he said, voice wry, mouth curling into a grin too wide to be kind. “Didn’t try to bottle up yer life essence and turn it into a bath oil for a special occasion. That’s progress, yeah?” He gave a breathy laugh as a means to just settling into the familiarity of his practiced pluck. “Let’s not look any deeper than that, Thalanir.” The name landed softer than the rest of his words, too reflexive to be masked.
Old and entirely elven. Constructed from the earth in a way. A name pulled from the bones of stories—one reserved for creatures of myth, of purity, of ancient weight. He hadn’t said it for show. It had slipped through the cracks in his façade.
And yet his grin held. His tone stayed light. Because gods forbid anyone see what was actually going on behind his ribs.
The way the great white stag tilted his head as Archimedes spoke. Like some ancient old man not quite understanding the words and thinking if he flicked his ears a few times, they might come in less garbled. In the end, her merely snorted out of velvet nostrils, shaking hose antlers back and forth and stomping a hoof into the dirt with this soft, unheard bit of laughter.
You think the fairytale only belongs to her? It is never one alone, young blood.
There was a sense of humor in this elder fae, for even as Archimedes postured and tried to look oh so unaffected and casual, the white stag too mirrored such movements. Preening his massive great wings to stretch and display.
Easily catching those small details – a demon who wasn’t quite entirely demon, was he? More than what he seemed, perhaps in ways even he did not know just yet.
A scholar mage given a gift of asking all that he wishes to know from one ancient such as myself turns out to have no questions at all? That is questionable in itself. If that is what you wish, however…
There was a slightly bow from the beast, almost even mocking in the way it was ever so slightly mischievous. Old troublemaking fae to it’s very core, even for the elegance and grace that moonlit body displayed. Taking a few solid steps forward with head bent slow, apparently meaning to accept the demon at his word and to go wake the girl as suggested!
“She’s fae,” Arc said, voice clipped, casual in the way only someone deliberately dodging a deeper conversation could manage. “It ought to belong to her entirely—considerin’ the lass hasn’t even had the chance to learn half of what that means.”
Whatever the stag was trying to get at, Arc wasn’t biting.
He wasn’t about to start deciphering riddles or chasing cosmic metaphors through the branches of some fae-drenched destiny. That was a game for people who belonged here. Who still had a place among the stars and song and whispered roots.
He gave a loose shrug, his body language all careless angles and weary deflection—even as the great beast shifted in that slow, languid way, each movement like some ancient story unfolding in silence.
And the stag laughed—if it could be called that. A deep, breathy sound that almost vibrated through the air, as though Arc had just said something funny.
He didn’t find the same humour in it. “I’m no scholar,” Arc muttered with a hollow chuckle of his own, tone dry as dust. “And from what I do know, when someone offers you the chance to ask somethin’ like that, the wisest thing is not to.” He bent down to collect the bucket again, fingers brushing the rim like it might bite him. Straightened. Didn’t meet the stag’s gaze as he continued: “S’just added benefit I don’t give a single shit enough to even try thinkin’ about it.”
And maybe that was true.
Or maybe it was just easier to lie when the truth wouldn’t do a damn thing for anyone.
He turned, following the elder fae with a quiet, observational detachment. The kind of quiet that said this isn’t my stage. That he was only here to sweep up after the final act.
As the creature made its way toward the still-sleeping Calia, Arc arched a brow—one hand absently tipping the bucket just so, as if testing its balance. “Don’t be insulted if she punches yah,” he said flatly, with a flick of his fingers. “Yer wakin’ her up. That comes with risks.” And was he going to stop Thalanir? Absolutely not.
He meant what he said earlier—this wasn’t his concert, and he wasn’t trying to elbow his way into a solo.
He’d played enough notes last night. Some too loud. Some in the wrong key. Enough to ruin the tune entirely. His hands were already too deep in things they shouldn’t have touched. He’d dragged ghosts to the surface. Unleashed monsters. Called upon powers he no longer even recognized in himself. And brought so many lives to absolutely ruin. So no—he wasn’t about to take another bite of that. Personally? He had all the guilt and self-hatred he could eat right now. No need to go back for seconds.
Sounds like a man who is afraid to hear answers. We shall see if the umbra you shadow shares those same sentiments.
That was an ominous statement if there ever was one. And the great beast gave no further chances of taking it back to ask questions after all. Doing simply as he wished to approach the sleeping girl, get velvet muzzle up close and personal to snuffle right there at her cheek.
Archimedes wasn’t wrong. Calia did in fact wake up swinging.
The white stag was quick as a whip, jerking massive head back fast enough to avoid getting clocked in his furry snoot. The poor wolf that had been unceremoniously snatched to replace Arc’s form, not as lucky! For when she missed her punch and went tumbling, she landed right on the snoozing fae who got it’s second rude awakening of the morning.
Calia’s half-awake what the absolute fuck barely audible compared to that equally as cursing fae wolf, who was snarling and growling and huffing all sorts of sounds that likely would’ve made even a sailor’s ears burn. The entire scene seeming to delight this fae elder into a quiet chortling laugh and a stamping of hoof to the dirt.
That wolf snapped at the lot of them before darting back off into the woods.
Good morning, lost daughter.
“Ugh… no,” she grunted in return, flopping back onto the bedroll and dragging her cloak over her head. Deciding she was not ready for this – for a multitude of reasons that included the fact that it was practically the crack of dawn and who the hell could think so early in the morning, as well as the fact that seeing the elder fae with his missing fur and scarred skin immediately brought back a bunch of things that Calia did not want to think of right now.
Fucking Fawna. Goddamned fucking Fawna.
A fae, at last, that was not as young as she.
Archimedes was over there looking like she’d offered to cook squirrels for breakfast again.
This sudden aching memory of her mother mentioning that a white stag should always be heeded.
A white stag that was going to make that ominous past advice come true, whether Calia was ready or not. As he reached down to snatch her by the pant leg and dragged her carelessly across the moss until she squawked another cursing protest and scrambled to her feet.
There is a long journey for you, child of the mountains. Ask what you must know now and I shall give what I can. Or go blind as your shadow has chosen, that is a choice too.
What. Calia cast Archimedes a quick up and down look before those verdant eyes darted back towards the ethereal stag. She was NOT ready for this! She could barely even think and there were so many questions!
“What is a highblood?” she asked first and foremost.
Amusement practically radiated from the elder fae.
Mortals would call that nobility. Noble born, noble blood. High Fae.
“…that- then what the fuck-“
I could not tell you who or how, only what is in front of my eyes. You are not halfling, you are not fae-touched. You are descended of High Fae and the blood has chosen you. Thus you will live a life that is fae until the day you grow weary of this world and choose to leave it. Or are killed. Whichever comes first.
Well, that was a weighted answered that Calia surely had not been prepared to hear and she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear anything else. For all the questions now that were rolling around in her head all felt a bit ominous, didn’t they. He said he could not tell her the who or how… so she scrambled for something else.
“Can a faerie tree give prophecy? One told me that four would come after me, and that faun twat was the second. Who are the others and what do they want?”
Oh, this must’ve been a good question, as the white stag straightened up in a way that seemed quite impressed. Though, it did not mean he had the answers she wanted, for it took him a long moment of consideration. Tilting his heavy antlers to one side and then the next, leaning in close before he bunted velvet muzzle over her heart.
I have no roots to know what a tree knows, only what I have experienced. A heart is strength. A faerie’s heart is power. You walk a line of umbra with the one bonded to you. Demons and dark fae find such things irresistible.
Calia pulled a face, both displeased and grim all at once. So it was true then, she was just a walking beacon that wanted to take advantage of the void in her chest. Claim a heart, steal a heart, it didn’t much matter in the end. Calia was nothing more than the means to someone else’s ambitions of power.
Exhausting. This world was exhausting.
“I don’t think I need to know anything else,” she murmured. Not in the slightest bit satisfied, yet what else was there to even bother with. Did it even matter in the end?
Had he not known—intimately—that fae were notorious for their need to sound both omniscient and vaguely threatening at all times, Arc might’ve found the stag’s subtle goad annoying.
Instead, he just shrugged.
He’d had eons of practice mastering the art of not caring. At least not in any way that showed. A performance honed down to instinct: chin up, shoulders loose, grin in place. “What’s another shade?” he said, laughing in a singsong lilt, like it was all a grand joke and he was the fool too amused to be offended. “The more, the merrier. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with a little company in the haunted halls.”
Even as he said it, he was looking into the bucket. A little too long. Like the swirling reflection might offer some better version of himself. Or at least one less everything.
He moved then, sauntering off to water the nearest tree like he was some newly appointed world-weary gardener and the elder fae’s judgment had made him reflect on his spiritual connection with bark.
That was when the beast made his move. Toward Calia.
Arc didn’t follow. Didn’t interfere.
But gods, if he had placed a bet—he’d be rich.
Because of course she woke up swinging. Palm scrunched. Instinct flaring. Eyes barely open and still ready to clobber the first poor soul bold enough to disturb her hard-won unconsciousness.
The elder fae, thankfully, was faster than he looked. A dip of the head, a twitch of elegant hooves—and he narrowly avoided earning a swollen nose for his troubles. The same couldn’t be said for the poor sod standing in Arc’s place. One of the horned wolf creatures who’d dared sidle too close, likely trying to look helpful, maybe even important.
Flattened. Absolutely pancaked.
Arc winced. Even he felt a little bad for that one.
But not bad enough to step in.
Instead, he took the opportunity to meander further—slow, hands in his pockets, expression a portrait of pointed neutrality. He wasn’t eavesdropping. He wasn’t hovering.
He certainly wasn’t standing around like a nosy nelly with his proverbial ear pressed to the figurative door while ancient forest spirits and half-conscious highbloods exchanged some world-shifting wisdom.
Nope. He was off to get more water.
That was his job now.
Arc McAssisting. The water boy of cosmic fallout.
Let the rest of them talk it out like little girls at a slumber party.
He had trees to hydrate. And dignity to pretend he hadn’t already lost somewhere back in the ruin.
Arc had wandered himself off and honestly, Calia could not blame him. Faeries and all of the bullshit they provided was a Calia problem, not something he even remotely needed to deal with. Especially when he’d already went above and beyond the night prior. This time not getting snatched and tortured because of his own troubling chaos, instead dragged into hers by means of ambitious dark fae.
Calia didn’t want to feel guilty about it – the actions of others were not hers to hold. …and yet? There was now this repeating problem of others getting hurt because of what could be stolen from her. All of Caeldalmor, now Archimedes just by nature of being stuck with her. What was going to happen when she started connecting with the mountain clans and trying to rebuild something for her kingdom?
Two more had been warned about, but that didn’t mean it would only be the two.
There was no need for more questions with the white stag, though she did quietly speak with him a little longer. Asked him where was his fae wood – everywhere, anywhere was the answer. She brought up the tree she helped resprout from the ashes and the young jackals there that had no elder to guide them. Nothing too important or struck close to those feelings of dread about her future, what she was, or where she was going.
If fate had it’s claws into her, she didn’t need to know. Truly, it was likely better that she didn’t. Let her choices be her own, let them be real and honest.
Tearful or heartfelt goodbyes weren’t needed here, for what was there to be tearful for? An ancient life had been spared, a wicked one destroyed. The white stag with his strangely knowing gaze bid her a soft farewell, that sounded much more like a promise that they’d meet again than it did an actual goodbye. Which had a sense of comfort in it’s own way.
Calia was not ready to connect with the realm of the fae. Not yet. Things were too new, and her experience with Fawna too fresh. For now she knew what she needed to know and was content with that.
Other than making sure he passed by the demon to preen and stretch his wings to make sure his exit was properly admired by one who used to hold great reverence for ancient beings, the white stag left without ceremony. Most of the wee fae creatures too began to vanish back to where they belonged, one by one, wandering off until there was nothing more than a few spying, gossiping birds up in the trees.
Leaving just Calia with an empty camp and this stupid wish that Arc wasn’t out of her line of sight – or rather, wishing that it wasn’t fear that made him being out of her sight a problem in the first place! Fucking Fawna!
Forcing a huff out of her as she did the work of gathering up their things to stash away in her own freshly constructed arcanum hollow. They had a long way to travel still and could speak as they walked. As long as they got away from here just as quickly as her feet could carry her.
By the nine hells they really were dramatic! Watching this magnificent beast both look absolutely like he was trying so hard and being so effortlessly nonchalant with his pointed departure; Arc could only roll his eyes again. Telling himself that this was exactly the reason why as a demon he hadn’t attacked the beast. Because there was clearly theatrical drama in its veins and he didn’t need that in his own body. Sounding perfectly reasonable instead of anything else.
It also told him to migrate back to Calia. Finding her dismantling the camp that had become a nightmare zone. Once more with his hands behind his head in that languid stroll. Waiting at least a moment before magically tearing down anything he had assembled the same way.
But he did pull out a bit of fruit that had been gathered at some point to offer to her when he figured she was good and ready to abandon this place like yesterday’s garbage. “There’s a creek not too far off if yah need to dunk yer head for a drink.” Rotating the fruit in claws with a silent here, get your strength going. “It’s kinda crisp. Grand for frolickin’ in if yer darin’ enough.” Brows softly tensed, momentarily paused on his breath. Searching for a reply on tongue till well, he just went with the most direct effort. “Are yah okay? Yer arms and stuff, yah know. From being all heroic and effortlessly majestic.”
She hated that it was such an instant relief to see him – or at least hated the reasons for it today. Fear was not something she settled well with, she didn’t like the taste of it or how it make her skin crawl. Being without magic had struck a few chords for certain, and that twist of horror at the idea that she’d broken a strong willed demon down into nothing but an obedient puppet.
But when he asked if she were okay and Calia held up her palms and took a good look at her arms, that fear that roared it’s ugly head simply from a single memory? It was something truly terrifying. She’d felt it down in her soul to see that stag tethered to the tree, the iron melting away his own flesh and muscle. Then to feel it for herself in the ways it burned and blistered. Left more than just marks in her skin, it had seeped into her blood and stung her very self.
Calia had always felt untouchable before. Invincible. Now she knew it was as simple as snatching her away while she slept and slapping her within enchanted pure iron chains. Fawna had, with a short brief hour, shattered any sense of peace Calia could have.
“It’s healing,” she answered the obvious first, wriggling her fingers before holding out her hand to accept the offered fruit. Between the healing potion and being able to pull on their bond, all open wounds were well and gone, leaving only deep marks of red behind. The only thing unaffected was that blasted black mark left behind by that shithole Derrick’s demon blade.
Then with a soft grimace she realized she was still just in that camisole undershirt as her other had been given to the captured white stag.
“I need a bath. Alcohol. Time.” she muttered wryly before going quiet. Then it was the soft shake of her head. No, she wasn’t okay. She just couldn’t say so out loud and this was the best she could do, right now.
“What did she do to you,” she did manage to ask. “Are you okay?”
He followed her visually to that of where the injuries had been. Far better than they had been originally of course, but he couldn’t even begin to think about how it all felt. And how truly merciful she had been by acting quickly to try and spare that of the stag. He didn’t want to lay on too many fluffy well deserved compliments because he could only imagine she was in no mood to hear it, but he did feel proud of her. Hoping at least that was noticeable from him. “There’s still another healin’ potion in the hollow and I can make more. So if yah need it, just tell me to get it. Ain’t no use hoardin’ it away when yah could use it.”
With her taking the fruit and him returning to that casual saunter, he was looking her over. As if he was suddenly more aware of the wounds she had suffered through and considering the demon mark that she bore as well.
It was the grimace she made that pulled his attention to be far more attentive. Shrugging off the coat he had wore to shuffled it to her shoulders. Promptly looking away in a bored indifference so she didn’t attempt to tell him otherwise. Ready to play absolute dumb about the whole thing. Settling to reply, “Well, we’ve got all of that in spades. So take all of it as yah need, love.” He wasn’t about to rush her in any sort of way and he could only barely imagine what was going on in her head. Certainly not about to bring up the soundless statement that she wasn’t doing too hot. Accepting it as it was with no pomp or show.
Rather, he grinned fluidly. Squinting in just the right way that was properly arrogant. “Oh just was a right pest yah know. More dark fae, just danglin’ shit in front of me and me actin’ like a bull seein’ red.” Arc tapped his single horn, “Would have been far more impressive had I two horns. Could have bent down and scraped my feet on the ground. Snorted and huffed, alas just wasn’t in the cards.” Slithering hand down to press into his chest with a world weary sigh, violets fell to her. “I’m all grand, Lia. Just mad I wasn’t quick enough to help yah out sooner. But what can yah do.”
Was he okay? Not at all.
But none of that was necessary to say to her when she had so much going on already! Nor was he entitled to it. That was the part that stood out. Suddenly more than aptly aware that he really wasn’t worth any sort of consideration for it all. The guilt was his and his alone. To fester inside him anew.
He gave her a easy grin, and tilted a thumb some. “This way to the cold pool, love.”
This man was so obviously full of shit.
He had to know that she could see through all of his posturing, tilted smiles, and complete and utter bullshit. That even without their bond, Calia knew just a little too much about him now and that there was no going backwards to pretend that she didn’t.
However she did not call him out – oh, the look was there. The way green eyes gave that up and down flicker of examining him. That bordering on haughty expression she’d have when she knew something but wasn’t saying it.
The stupid man was lucky she did know him better now, for it was that same reason Calia knew that she couldn’t press him. Trying to force it all out of him would just make him more obstinate, frustrated. It helped too that she understood part of what he was feeling… that helplessness of knowing the other had been in trouble. Feeling useless, guilty. None of it had been his fault and perhaps not even preventable, but she could bet he was taking it on as his burden to bear.
Because that was exactly how Calia felt too.
If Arc needed to take care of her right now, do all of this unnecessary extra fussing to feel better, damn it all, Calia was going to let him do it. To a point at least. If he started getting ridiculous, this avoiding discussing what really happened with Fawna would be over and he’d have to speak to her about it whether he was ready or not.
So with a long sigh she fell into step with him to find this cold stream. With one hand she took a bite of the sweet summer fruit, and the other? That one reached out to give his wrist a gentle squeeze, thumb brushing over the back of his hand. Enough to gesture that she was there and she’d listen if he did want to talk to her.
“What?” Arc’s brow arched as he caught the way she was staring at him—slow, deliberate, eyes trailing him from head to toe like she was appraising a questionable painting in a dusty gallery. He tilted his head with exaggerated curiosity, giving her a full view of his confusion.
He wasn’t doing anything. Just walking. Existing. Being his typical, newly well-behaved self.
Still, he didn’t let it go unnoticed. Not when she was clearly doing that eyeball thing—sizing him up like a horse before auction. He gave an overdone sigh and patted his hands down his chest in mock inspection, as though maybe there was something hanging off him he’d missed. Finding nothing, he settled into a pose of dramatic resignation.
He focused on the task at hand, guiding her down the winding path where the water babbled somewhere out of sight. The air had cooled a little, heavy with the scent of moss and old rain, and Arc made himself busy being the dedicated and unflappable so she could take the time she needed for herself. Because him pretending, felt like it was helping somewhere.
Because what didn’t help was the way she reached for him. Not even forcefully. Just a soft, unassuming gesture—a squeeze of his arm, her thumb brushing over his skin like it belonged there. The pressure was gentle. Real. Grounding.
And it twisted something sharp and aching deep in his gut. His first instinct was to laugh it off, to flinch away with some dramatic line about her embarrassing him. That was the rule—deflect, redirect, pretend. It was how he’d survived being who he was in the past and wholly new saturated disappointment to hold onto now!
Because the truth? The truth was that touch—that kindness—was more than he knew how to carry. More than he deserved.
But he didn’t recoil. Didn’t pull away.
Instead, he made a sound. A low, smug hum that rumbled from his throat with a half-purr at the end of it, sharp and insufferably self-satisfied. A perfect performance. It sold well. And if she could see through it—if she could see the tension in his shoulders or the distant glaze that ghosted his expression when he thought she wasn’t looking—well, she didn’t say.
Arc couldn’t fathom anyone seeing past the armour. He’d worn it so long it wasn’t a mask anymore—it was just skin.
What she couldn’t see was the slow churn behind his eyes. The way his thoughts kept returning to the puppets Fawna conjured, those haunted faces scorched into memory. The weight of his own arrogance that had led them to their end, that had ripped open a wound that would not close.
That was the truth he couldn’t afford to say aloud. This was his fault. All of it. And whatever he felt—whatever broke loose inside him when she looked at him like that—wasn’t hers to carry.
The creek came into view just ahead—clear water winding through sun-dappled stone. The sound of it was calming, almost enough to distract from the static at the back of his skull..
He stepped forward and gave a grand sweep of his hands, voice bright with exaggerated pride. “Behold!” he announced, grinning with all his teeth. “Not bad for someone who ain’t a woodsman.” His brows waggled for dramatic effect, his voice tipping just enough into mock arrogance to invite a smile—or at the very least, a groan.
Because that was who Arc Silverstone was. Charming. Incorrigible. Useful when needed. And if he was bleeding on the inside, well. That wasn’t anyone else’s problem. It just meant Fawna had done well to leave a infected scar behind in her wake! Surely the bitch was delighted in wherever the hell it was that dark fae went when they were dead.
There had to be some sort of irony here, that Fawna managed to do such a successful number on them that they’d both reverted back to those behavioral masks they used to keep the world at bay. Archimedes doing his damndest to be the chattery, incorrigible jester of pure exaggerated nonsense. Taking nothing as serious, pretending he didn’t have a care in the world. And Calia…? Silent, quiet, pensive. Unable to find the words to speak with even though there were a million thoughts in her head.
Even though in that moment she wanted to be his friend and to tell him things were going to be okay. Ease whatever it was that still blend through his pantomimed motions to reveal he wasn’t as okay as he was pretending.
Only… how could you tell a man it’d be alright when you didn’t really believe it yourself.
With a quick sweep of her fingers she plucked his coat off her shoulders and returned it to him by draping it over that extended arm. No words still, but Calia didn’t bother to hide that look of I know what you’re doing, even if she wasn’t saying it with words. Instead leaning on touch to speak where she couldn’t by means of squeezing his hand before wandering off to the creekside.
Calia was not one who was shy about bare skin, not that she intended to get butt-ass naked out here in the woods when there was potentially too many spying curious eyes having a grand old time watching the pair of them. She did tug off her boots, her belt her trousers but left it at that. The thin camisole undershirt that had surly seen better days now and simple underwear. The hairpins he’d given her came out next, tucked carefully with her clothing and then she was off stepping into the stream.
Icy cold was damn right, not that she minded. Calia waded to the deepest part, where it barely even reached her knees before she made a fluid elegant descent into a cross-legged seat right there in the water. A heavy sigh that came with a sense of sensory relief followed, then she tilted backwards until the rest of her body was submerged. Leaving only a hand hold her half eaten pair of fruit sticking up from the water while she bubbled and brooding underneath the chill flow.
If only one could drown their own selves in a stream, that’d solve a lot of problems!
Alas, she was not so keen on even trying. For now there was someone she was worried about, and if she died, she was a little worried about what might befall him afterwards. Best to live, even if it was so utterly exhausting.
Instinctively, his hand closed around the coat she’d returned to him. The gesture had been quiet, almost dismissive, but it lodged something in his chest. A flicker of gratitude. A pinch of guilt. Something worse. He didn’t bother trying to name it. Never mind how he was trying really hard not to flinch and pull away when she was squeezing his hand with her own. That was going to be difficult to fight, to stay still while everything inside him was recoiling because it was screaming about the injustice of being even considered as anything more than a utter monster.
He might’ve been a walking catastrophe of soon to be sleepless nights and gnawing remorse, but he wasn’t so far gone he couldn’t clock the difference in her. Calia hadn’t been saying much lately. Not in the way that mattered. She wasn’t the kind to be voiceless—but when words dried up like that, it meant something was bleeding under the surface.
He noticed.
And like a creature expertly skilled in denial, he seized the opening to shove his own festering pit of problems right back into the cellar of his mind. Hammered the door shut and turned the latch twice. Best to leave it there. Hopefully forever.
Whatever expression she threw his way—if he looked at her at all—he didn’t acknowledge it.
Instead, he gave her that bright, fang-flashing grin. The one that never quite reached his eyes anymore. Toddling along with the same loose-limbed confidence he always wore when pretending things were fine. He didn’t get too close—he respected boundaries, even if modesty had never exactly been one of his pressing concerns. He wasn’t about to ogle her bathing in the creek like some woodland peeper.
But he stayed near enough. Close enough she could see him, if she wanted to. Far enough to grant space. Arc found a rock, settled in with a soft exhale, and simply… waited.
The mountain-fed water didn’t look gentle, but she slipped into it anyway. Certainly braver than she knew. Arc watched with a faint tightness in his throat—how her body moved like it remembered strength even while worn thin. He made no comment. Just waited.
And kept waiting.
Until, eventually, when she returned, dripping and silent, he was already reaching into the hollow. He didn’t make a show of it, didn’t act like he’d been watching the clock. Just casually drew out a blanket, unfurling it and holding it out without fanfare.
“Soooo?” His tone lifted—light, casual, easy as ever. But it wasn’t flippant. Not really.
Arc could ignore his own haunted mess of a psyche. He had years of experience. But hers? No. He wasn’t about to let her marinate alone in that tangle of grief and revelation. Not if he could help it. “Do you wanna talk about what happened?” he asked, voice gentler now—like the words had tiptoed their way out instead of being dragged. “That’s a lotta shit to have discovered.”
His ears flicked as he leaned forward, resting elbows on knees. His posture looked relaxed, but his eyes were sharp. Focused.
“Did yah get back yer ring, by the way?” Because sometimes, the smallest question—the question—was the one that made it easier to talk. Easier to breathe. And Arc, for all his deflections and jokes and buried guilt, wasn’t going to let her carry that weight alone. He knew enough how to still be reachable and available for her at least.
Calia spent a stupidly long amount of time just laying in that icy cold stream, finding it therapeutic in some ways, numbing in others. There was no surprise that natural elements gave her a sense of ease and comfort. This was water that flowed right down from the ice capped mountains to trickle through the lands of Edelguard, so it was familiar and magical all by itself even without the literal magic. She finished off the piece of fruit he’d give her and let the seeds be washed away to feed something else. She stayed submerged there with just enough of her peeking out to breath until the cold had soaked into her bones and her skin finally no longer felt like it was crawling with yesterday’s problems.
Once her fingers had turned the way of prunes she’d finally climbed out, yet instead of getting herself properly dressed she tucked her things away into her own hollow. Having this inexplicable need to be only Calia – wind and sun on her skin.
Something fae, no doubt.
Not sure if she was willing to analyze it just yet, and that debate was still going on in her head when she returned sopping wet to Archimedes and found that he seemed to be eyeballing her just as much as she was being watchful about him.
How funny it was that now it was with concern instead of the distrust of before!
He asked if she wanted to talk about it and Calia almost laughed. Not answering right away, because she was certain she would and it’d come off as mocking instead of the fact that they were so similar it was hilarious. Accepting the offered blanket, but first taking the time to pull on that magic to draw all the ice cold water away from her hair and body, to flick away and glittering mist with the morning light.
Only then did she wrap the blanket around herself, stepping up to take a perch next to him on these rock’s he’d decided was his roost.
She didn’t want to talk about it. And she did. Talking about any of it felt like this burden she was placing on his shoulders, while at the same time if she didn’t speak, would he ever be willing to share his own? Calia hated that she was even so aware of all this in the first place. Bless the ignorant stupid people of the world, for life was so much less complicated for them, wasn’t it? To bumble around dumb as a rock and just existing without ever having to think deeper than what was on the surface.
…she couldn’t just sit here mute, he was going to explode. Or do something ridiculous.
“I asked for it back immediately, even told her I might stop you from tearing he apart if she just gave it back and left. She’d enchanted it, though. She was very good at making you forget things.” As she spoke she’d taken off the ring to hand over by dropping it into his palm so he could examine, just in case there was any lingering effects. Fawna might be dead, but it damned if the consequences of her weren’t still affecting them.
“…the first time I met her, that was her trick. I was scared and frustrated, and she made that all go away with this gentle sweetness and a sense of being home safe. Not easily, mind you, there was always something that’d remind me that I didn’t belong there and she’d do her best to whisk it away before her enchantment broke.”
There was a soft, thoughtful shrug of her shoulders while her stare moved out to watch the bubbling stream.
“The ring’s enchantment was much stronger since it is so important to me and it might’ve held had she not tried to use the white stag. Maybe she thought the connection would make what she told me sound more real? Except, she didn’t know me. Not who I really am, anyway. You can’t just present malice to me and think I’m going to allow it. Not a demon in chains, not a fae. I’d have burned her bubble to the ground with me in it.”
Calia leaned gently bumping her elbow to his arm, finally glancing back with an expression that wasn’t exactly her best in terms of bright hope and good cheer, but it was sincere.
“But I didn’t, because I knew you were out there. I just had to make whatever she’d done to you, that you knew to come get me. And you did.”
When she came to sit beside him, Arc shuffled over slightly—enough to give her space, but not so much that she’d think he was retreating. Just enough that they weren’t two territorial seagulls fighting over a single rock.
He’d asked his questions, voice casual, easy, slipping into his usual brand of nonstop chatter. The kind that had earned him more than his fair share of shut up’s over the years—but never once had it stopped him. It wasn’t just a habit. It was survival. Noise kept the silence at bay, filled up the dangerous space where grief and guilt liked to fester. It was, in this moment, less about being heard and more about being present. A steady current for Calia to latch onto, or ignore, or yell at if she needed.
Scratching idly under his chin when she finally replied, pointing out—unsurprisingly—that getting her ring back had been the very first thing on her mind. That earned her a grin. Sharp, bright, and swollen with pride. “Ah, she didn’t seem to have too much wit about her,” he said, eyes twinkling with dry amusement. “I’d wager she was more afraid yah were guna rocket her to the moon, so she had to act in a dirty manner.”
When she plopped the ring into his palm, he quieted. Just for a moment. Turning it gently between his fingers, he studied the delicate carving of the white stag. Letting his thumb graze the engraving while Calia spoke without interruption. Simply listening with a void of wisecracks or ill timed interjections.
Just that low, thoughtful hum as she explained what Fawna had done—that it hadn’t just been poison or trickery. She’d used memory magic. Real, cruel neuromancy, twisting Calia’s mind like paper until she couldn’t tell what was hers and what wasn’t. First with words, then with the ring. Tying it to her finger so tightly that the spell didn’t even need to fight to get inside.
But Fawna’s flaw? She hadn’t known Calia. Not truly. Not the wild, unbroken soul of her. And Arc knew that kind of heart couldn’t be tamed—only respected.
He ran his thumb once more across the silver before offering it back, a silent gesture confirming he felt no lingering trace of magic. No curse. No hooks. Just a ring now. All hers again, rightfully back where it belonged.
Arms folded across his chest, his voice low but sharp as ever. “Well, she probably assumed yah were just some naïve little girl. Thought the wool would sit pretty on yer eyes and yah’d never question a thin’. Can’t say she didn’t make a lot of fatal errors in assumin’ she could hogtie you. But hey—stupid is as stupid does.” He could see it—in her posture, in her face. Calia was still fighting through the thick of it, even if she was trying to keep pace. Trying to nudge him with her elbow like she hadn’t just been pulled from a storm. He felt the effort in it. Knew the hurricane inside her had no calm eye yet.
He leaned into it slightly. Not enough to press, just enough to show he was there. “Yah beckoned, I came,” he said simply. “Didn’t matter what was waitin’. I wasn’t about to leave yah to her. I just feel shitty that I didn’t notice in time, honestly. Kinda fucked that one up.”
Then, with a grin that held just a touch too much glee: “Granted, if I’d shown up and yah’d already strung her intestines like holiday tinsel, I wouldn’t have complained either. Might’ve laughed. Loudly. Because people really do keep underestimatin’ yah, and it’s funny as hell every single time.”
His gaze drifted, just briefly, to the smooth rocks near the creek.
“Yah saved an elder fae, Lia. That’s not a small thin’, that’s monumental. Yah threw yourself between that bastard’s cruelty and someone that old, someone that mattered. Yah didn’t hesitate.” There was pride in his tone now. Earnest and without veneer. It softened his face, made his words more steady. “Yah should be proud of yerself. For a lot of thin’s. That—” he gestured toward the ring, “—figurin’ out where she hid the spell, what she was actually doin’? That takes insight. Brains. And more than a little bit of spine.”
His grin twisted sly again, flashing teeth like a devil who knew something no one else did. “Yah’ll be makin’ a name for yerself now—in the right circles, and hopefully the wrong ones too. If yah get enough of ’em pissed off, maybe they’ll start avoidin’ yah entirely. And wouldn’t that be a bloody delight.”
And still, beneath all of it—beneath the charm and wit and flattery—was something unspoken.
A pride that couldn’t be faked.
A relief he wouldn’t say aloud.
And a quiet grief that she’d had to face any of it at all.
Arc was just a little bit too much sunshine sparkle, and so damned good at it that she had to wonder if it was just herself that was having difficulties in bouncing back. It wouldn’t be impossible, she still felt exhausted in every sense of the word. Using her fae magic took the price from her body now instead of the way it was mean to work. She’d been enchanted. And poisoned with iron. Had the past erased, the present twisted, and secrets revealed. She was tired and needed a hell of a lot more than just a few hours of sleep.
Maybe it was simply strange because he kept complimenting her like she did something grand. It felt superfluous – at first. How he tended to make things flowery, dramatic and beautiful simply by his nature of being naturally charming and good with words. She almost even could’ve brushed it off, except he was just a little bit too genuine there under all of that flattery. A little bit too real.
Calia wished she could return the favor! Draw up some clever bit of dazzling magic, say something stunning so he’d understand that pure, simple trust she had that he would actually show up when she needed him to.
There’s been no thought in her actions to protect the stag, she simply did it. That was all instinct and action, she was no brave little hero nor did she feel it was something to be proud about. That was simply the right thing to do.
Calling for Archimedes? That’d been a conscious choice. No hesitation, just Trust.
Calia slid the ring back on her finger, the slightest of frown still on her features as she really didn’t know how to say any of that in a way that’d sound sincere. Not like she was only trying to boost up his mood, or preen his ego. Where words failed her, at least she had action. Curling her arm up under his to rest at the crook of his elbow and leaning enough to rest her head against his shoulder.
This was trust too. A safe space.
“I guess now we know you’re not just stuck with any old boring normal faerie. You’ve got yourself a princess of the mountains and some noble fae. I bet that’s gonna come bite us in the ass later.”
While he could talk the ears off a corpse, the reality was that Arc chose to be noise. To be that irritating, nattering bird that never shut up—until someone threw a towel over his head or knocked him flat. He wasn’t just flapping his gums for the fun of it. He was playing the part he knew best: the distraction. The noise. The buffer between silence and spiraling thoughts. Something constant, familiar, safe, even if annoying as hell.
It was his one exceptional talent—being that familiar pest, dependable in how obnoxiously present he could be. And so, when she didn’t speak, he didn’t push. He didn’t read too deeply into it. Just kept the rhythm going, lips moving, voice soft and full of wry inflection until—
She leaned into him. The shift was small. Warm. Trusting. And it made his skin crawl.
Not because of her.
Because of him.
Like a hundred screaming voices erupted inside his skull all at once. Faces—familiar, wrong, dead—twisting into the dark corners of his mind. Every illusion the dark fae had conjured still lingered there, etched in mental glass, ready to cut again. Words spoken by ghosts of people he’d loved—hated—spat back at him with venom. Condemnation, disappointment, disgust. So loud he thought his eardrums would rupture if he moved.
His hands were bloody. His history worse.
Too many lives traded for what? Nothing.
Too much guilt layered into flesh and sinew and soul.
Touch, kindness, closeness—they had no business being near him.
And yet she was.
It took everything in him not to flinch. Not to peel off his own skin like a cursed cloak and bolt into the night. Every instinct screamed at him to do so, to spare her from catching whatever rot lived in him. But he didn’t move. He didn’t shudder. He swallowed the bile, curled it down into his gut where all the other rot lived, and let himself hum instead. Calm… loose… easy.
She made a comment then—something about him being stuck with her now. He latched onto it like a lifeline.
“I mean, I don’t think yah bein’ a princess or a noble fae means much in the grand scheme. We were probably gettin’ our arses bit no matter what, honestly.” He wiggled his shoulder slightly, making a half-hearted effort to jostle her—just a touch of play, like this was fine.
“I don’t recommend takin’ the blame for that mess. I get it—it’s temptin’—but none of its yer fault. Big-boobed fae and delusional warlocks tend to pick the brightest to ruin. You’re not weak, Lia. Yer a target because you shine. Because they know they can’t control that if they had approached yah normally. So they use underhanded tactics but that doesn’t mean yer the one that did it.”
He let the next words trail with a smile that didn’t match the heaviness in his chest. “Yah might be a victim by the books, but yah? Yer the kind of victim that makes ’em regret tryin’ in the first place.”
A breath escaped him in something between a laugh and a sigh. A deflection. “Maybe I’ll take up writin’ while we travel. Record it all. The Grand Adventures of Calia the Warrioress—with bold letters and illustrations and all. I’ll make sure every fae and mortal child grows up knowin’ yer name. Yah’ll be a legend, lass.”
He grinned wide and cheeky, flicking his fingers like he could already see the book in lights.
“Sounds fun, don’t it?” And gods help him—he meant it. Because if she was going to be remembered, it deserved to be for that. Not for the pain. Not for the traps laid by bitter creatures with brittle hearts. He’d make sure of it. Even if he never earned a place in that story. “I’d just have to come up with a really good pen name.”
Shine? Burn maybe. Like a shooting star crashing to earth. Like a volcano erupting into molten lava. Nothing about Calia had ever been akin to something light and bright. Yet here he was trying to paint her with all the glamor and sparkle of some creature of the light. And if was incredibly confusing because Calia couldn’t tell if that’s how he actually saw her or if it was something he needed her to be.
…and if he needed her to be some shining hero, he was going to be oh so devastated. For Calia had never wanted to be anyone’s hero. She didn’t want to be a legend, or even have people remember her name. All she had ever really wanted was to just live her life as herself and for everyone to just leave her the hell alone.
Maybe it didn’t used to be a wish of being entirely alone, but these days it was sounding better and better.
That was the bad night talking, though, she had to remember that.
“…and what if it’s not brightness they’re chasing, Archimedes?” she asked, point blank. Because she could take a lot, but Calia couldn’t let him keep giving her all sorts of compliments and accolades, some beautiful shining purpose that wasn’t hers. “What if I’m simply one pissed off moment away from making sure no one ever bothers me again, and they’re just hoping they get to be the one to set off that catastrophe?”
And that jesting jostling he did, she nudged back, as she was done with his deflecting or at least in this case.
“You think you’re the monster here because you’re the demon? Hmn? You got there by accident, because you loved people too much. But me? I have nothing to lose and one day I might just run out of fucks to give. One day I’m going to wake up and decide I’m tired of this world and I need it to be quiet. Honestly, the only reason I haven’t already is because this pesky demon keeps telling me what to do.”
That was maybe a little darker of her inner thoughts than she really wanted to reveal, but it was truth, wasn’t it. That little voice in her had always been there, rearing it’s head at the worst possible moments. Feeding on despair and frustration, rage and anger. Granted, it’d been quiet for a long while now, but Calia knew it was still there. Biding it’s time. Gods knew, it’d probably be whispering at her right now had Arc not been there.
…of course if Arc had not been there, she’d have already died, most likely.
He shrugged, light and breezy as ever. “Moths don’t chase darkness.” It was said simply, casually—but not without intent. Because even if Calia didn’t feel like she shone, the evidence was stacked around them. People didn’t chain and curse and twist those without worth. They didn’t orchestrate entire schemes for those who weren’t wanted—who didn’t matter. If she hadn’t been bright in a way others couldn’t handle, she wouldn’t be here.
But he didn’t say all that. He didn’t lecture. Didn’t push. Just nodded when she admitted she was balancing on the edge of a knife.
Weren’t they all?
And then she nudged him.
Not playfully. Not in jest.
There was no softness to it—just enough force to be sharp, a silent punctuation to the jab in her words. A deliberate little shove meant to sting, to hit where it hurt with all the subtle cruelty of someone who wanted to wound. Maybe not to break him—but to remind him he could be broken.
He raised a brow in reply, more out of reflex than curiosity. There’d been a flicker of hope—some expectation that she might say something sharp, yes, but wise. Something with weight, with merit. Something worth chewing on in that way she had when she surprised him with her insight.
But no.
Instead she tossed her words like knives. That he was annoying. That he was a know-it-all. Bossy. Overbearing.
Petty jabs on the surface—but he’d been alive long enough to know when someone was aiming to draw blood. And draw they did. Her comment slipped neatly through a seam in his carefully stitched mask, slotting into place like it had always belonged there.
And so—another tick on the wall. Another notch in the ledger.
One more person he’d managed to irritate. To disappoint. To alienate with the very parts of himself he couldn’t seem to scrub clean. Just another name for the list—names that never stopped echoing.
Fawna’s parade of puppets hadn’t needed invention. She’d only animated the truth he already believed: That everyone eventually turned from him. That no matter how hard he fought, no matter what loyalty he showed or magic he bled—it always ended the same.
With disgust.
With distance.
With his name spoken in past tense, followed by a quiet sigh or a snarl.
And now Calia was one more imagined spectre waiting to take her place in that grim mental menagerie. Another pair of eyes—cold, disappointed—ready to rise in the dark and join the chorus of every person who had ever told him, in words or silence:
You’re the problem.
You’re too much.
You always have been.
You never should have been born at all.
And still, Arc didn’t flinch. Didn’t show it. His grin came easily, bright, carved like theatre into his face. Because that’s what you do when you’ve been taught your whole life that your pain is an inconvenience— You put on a show.
Instead, Arc laughed. Airy, aimless, like the comment hadn’t found purchase at all. He shifted, standing with a purposeful shuffle so she could have the rock to herself. “Right. Well…” he chirped, flashing her that too-bright smile as he pointed at her like she’d won something, “…well.”
A glance around the clearing, hands now planted firmly on his hips like he was about to start choreographing the world into place. “Alright then. Do whatever yah want. Yah’ve got my abilities to make it silent anyway—no echoes, no backtalk. Whatever yah need.” After all, he’d personally already devastated Edelguard, might as well let her have a crack at it with his own power. Add more to that reputation and glowering shadow that was already following him for whomever else wanted to use it as a whip to unseen scars.
He drew a finger across his lips in a zipping motion, then mimed locking them shut and tossing the key.
A flourish. A bow and a retreat. Every bit of it dramatics and show. Because humour was safer than truth, and playing the fool was a hell of a lot easier than sitting with the rotting weight in his chest. Hell he had a literal century and some under his belt with familiarity.
What did she say!
Calia could almost feel it, that second he just… disengaged. Pulled back. Built a wall and slammed a door in her face. With no understanding if it was the bond to leech little feelings through, or if it were that body language of his – and oh she knew for certain when he got up from their perch of the rock to put physical distance between them.
She was trying to tell him that he wasn’t the monster here, she was. And if that was the reason to jerk himself away from her as quickly as possible, what the fuck was she supposed to read into that. And she was trying, trying so hard not to fall into that bad habit of just assuming everything was her fault and that he hated her.
Something had happened with him and Fawna, she needed to repeat that in her head a dozen times. Whatever Fawna did – that he was so adamant about refusing to talk about and trying to keep up pretending he was fine – it had been terrible enough to shake him right down the core.
Calia never should’ve opened her damn mouth. Nothing about her had ever been soft and comforting, and she’d made it worse by saying all of the wrong things. Now he wasn’t even telling her anymore when she’d over stepped and blundered into something offensive? He was holding all in to use as a weapon. On himself? Towards her? Might as well be the same thing, really.
So she wasn’t going to tell him he’d managed to trample right onto those vulnerable shadowy parts of herself she was trying to share.
“Yeah, okay,” she acquiesced as she always did when she didn’t quite know what to say. Calia wasn’t going to go backwards, to start the angry hissing and shouting again. So a quiet agreement it had to be. Sliding off the rock herself she took that blanket to fold up neatly in her hands, to draw open her own little magic hollow again. There’d been plenty enough of mountain water, morning sun, and feeling exposed to the world. She tugged herself on some fresh clean clothes, her boots, and twisted her hair up with the silver pins.
And when she tried to place that mask of quiet stoicism back on, she found that it didn’t quite fit anymore. There was too much of her revealed now and her thoughts were bleeding through. Even when she tilted her head that it was time to move on and she took the stalking lead.
Calia hoped something did come creeping out of the woods today, she was going to blast someone to the gods be damned moon.
There was a pleasant enough nod as she just gave her own agreement. They said what they needed too. Learnt what was required and now personally all he had to do was just modify his existence to be present but not present like a smokebomb. Filling the air with archaic mist that choked and suffocated. That was going to be a task certainly as well, he was pretty good at the former, less so at the latter. He’d figure it out.
At least he had experience navigating things well enough on his own.
What he could do however, was what he had been doing lately. Flitting down to the jeweled beetle shape to shortly fly after her when she made that motion that it was time to get a move on once more. Making a over exaggerated loop-de-loop in following. Buzzing higher and sporadically all over the place to emulate that all was fine, even humming a bit to really sell it home.
Someone that shined, her ass.
How could she want so much to reach for someone and punch them in the face all at the same time. What kind of psychopath wanted to violently punch care into someone else? Gentle care and softness? Not Calia! She wanted to snatch him out of the air, pin him to the ground and slap the bullshit out of him until he finally told her what the fuck was wrong with him so she could fix it!
And even if she couldn’t fix it, at least it would be out in the open so she would know. Calia could tread carefully and not say the wrong things. Not that it ever really mattered when she was constantly doing so.
Could she bring a dark fae back to life, simply to kill her all over again? For a good long while that’s what Calia seriously considered. Having to put her focus and energy into something, as the very act of trying to keep her tumultuous emotions in check was making her feel sick to the stomach. Calia was made to be a tempest – a force of chaos and destruction – not somebody’s friend. Necromancy would take so much living energy to do, however. Which meant Calia had to deviate into considering trying to kick down the doors to the realm of the dead to find a soul and somehow torture Fawna that way.
She spent several silent hours doing that. Imagining all the ways to get her hands on a dead dark fae’s soul so she could make her writhe for breaking the oh so fragile understanding she’d finally reached with Archimedes. Hours she could’ve spent asking him stupid questions about magic, or talking about the white stag. Hours the voice that lived inside her got to spend laughing, as it was exactly these reasons it whispered those sweet blissful ideas of taking that one simple step over into a dark void of quiet nothing.
Tempting. But no. Calia had gotten through these sorts of moments with Arc before, they could do so again. She just needed to… Well, she didn’t know. Her wish in Tir Elas had been for hope, so here it was. Calia hoping.
She could not force him to open up and talk to her, but she could exist in his space. Stay instead of running away, be open instead of shutting down. It was quite possibly the hardest thing she had ever done.
It was surprising how far a woman could walk when she was pissed off and lost in her own thoughts. Calia didn’t stop for snacks or her usual hunting, to wrapped up in imaging ways to murder dark fae to even have an appetite. Dusk had come and gone and she was still walking, because fuck setting up a camp and attempting to sleep! Because fuck that, she was never going to sleep again!
Buzzing above her shoulder in looping arcs and playful spirals, Arc kept the pattern light—ornate even. The kind of movement that spoke of casual ease, all grace and no burden. Occasionally, his beetle wings caught the last bleed of dusk light and cast brief flickers of magic-glamour into the air. Flashy, unnecessary, but charming in the way only he could be.
He was showboating. Putting on a performance with every lazy turn.
What he would never let on—was that he hadn’t even looked at her coat pocket today. The same little lined hollow where, every day since she’d first offered, he’d curled up and rested. That pocket had become something like a haven. A safety space tucked in cotton and her scent. A strange, irrational comfort that he had allowed himself without thinking too hard about it.
But not today. Today, that sanctuary might as well have been a pyre. He wouldn’t tuck himself in. Wouldn’t rest. Wouldn’t risk what sleep would drag him into. Nor was he about to put unnecessary weight on her shoulders when it was clear from her former words that she was well over her limit. All it took was a feather to tip the scales and well, he was hardly a feather!
Because it wasn’t fire or hell or fangs that haunted him when he slipped into dreams. It wasn’t even Fawna’s magic, not really.
It was them.
The faces.
Starling’s bemused eyes. Atticus’ disappointment. Lyra’s scathing upset. His old classmates, his guild, the villagers, the innocents, the friends. Puppeted smiles and rotting lips twisted in warped mimicry—but their truths had been real. Their judgment had been true.
They didn’t hate him because they were cursed.
They hated him because they were right to.
He had sacrificed people—people—for nothing. Gambled with hearts and promises like they were meaningless parchment. He had smiled through it. Lied to himself in velvet tones and clever words. Painted on grins while his fingers, elegant and practiced, carved ruin into the world and justified it with desperation and pride. And the worst part?
He knew better. He always had, even when he had been given a solution that was so full of bullshit and took it no less! The guilt burned through his ribs like rot. Quiet and steady. Irrefutable. How many more names would he add to the list before Calia joined them? He didn’t know. He didn’t want to know.
He just knew he couldn’t sleep.
Not now. Not while those voices waited behind his eyes, curled like wolves in the dark—patient, teeth bared, ready to tear through the illusion of calm he wore like a second skin. The moment his eyes closed, they would be there. Not as monsters, not as flames or shadowy fears—but as people.
People he had loved.
People he had failed.
Their faces weren’t ghostly or vague. No, Fawna had made sure of that. Each one was vivid, as if painted in oil and lit by moonlight. Their expressions were quiet, hollow, and true. The innocent, the bystanders—every single one bore the same unbearable weight in their eyes: You did this. You made us this.
Not twisted by her magic. Not puppets, not illusions.
Just memory. Just guilt. Just truth.
And the dreams wouldn’t just show him what he’d done—they make him sit in it. Drenched him in it. Nightmares that dragged their claws down his ribs and whispered the words he never wanted to admit out loud:
You are not a mage.
You are not an elf.
You are not someone to be grieved.
You are a ruin in stolen clothes. A demon who smiles to distract from the ash on his hands.
Every time he slept, the world he thought he’d buried clawed its way out. No spell, no charm, no glamour could keep it down. And he couldn’t bear to see them again—those eyes that once looked at him with love and now looked through him like malice.
So he didn’t sleep.
Wouldn’t.
Because he was terrified of the truth waiting for him in the dark. Just the memory of what he had chosen to become. A reality that he had been ignoring since the memories came back and wanted to be given the choice of forgetting all over again! But such things were not in the cards and that was the cowards way, wasn’t it. Granted he was pretty good at that. A coward.
So instead he flew.
He spun and twirled and gleamed.
He acted like someone light. Someone free.
He dipped low near her shoulder again, wings fluttering in mock levity. His voice followed easily in his wake, smooth and untouched by anything beneath the surface.
“Still walkin’ without stoppin’, huh?” he said, tone light and cheery, almost sing-song in its rhythm. “Might not be the most spiritual path to enlightenment, but it’ll sure wear out yer boots faster than yer patience.” He looped once overhead, made a show of it, and came to hover just a few paces ahead—still not touching down, not even brushing against the ground.
“D’yah want me to get us somethin’ to eat, Lia?” he asked next, a touch quieter. The theatrics lowered but still present, still polished. “Bit of fruit, maybe a ration or two. Could be somethin’ sweet in the hollow.”
How in all of the gates of hell was he even still flying around like that. Calia hadn’t failed to notice he’d avoided what was becoming his usual habit of taking a midday night in her cloak. Something that she hadn’t really thought mattered much, and now that it was gone, it felt so… telling! That before he trusted her enough to tuck himself away and know she wasn’t trying to murder him. A few soothing hours of feeling a heartbeat, even if it was tiny. Not he didn’t.
She thought about snatching him and stuffing him in a pocket, but could bet that wouldn’t go over well.
“I don’t have much of an appetite,” was her answer. An honest one too. Calia couldn’t even think about food right now, let alone go through the effort of eating it.
For a long moment she was quiet, watching him do his loops and turns. Twisting her mouth to the side and quietly considering. She’d brooded for an entire day, surely he himself had enough of all this nonsense. They couldn’t keep up like this forever.
Or maybe they could. The white stag had suggested Calia was going to have a very, very long-lived life if she were truly of highblood. Could she stand years of this? Decades? Centuries?
“Why don’t you come here for a nap,” she tested the suggestion. “I know from experience just how exhausting it is pretending like you’re fine, when you’re not. If you don’t want to tell me about it, so be it, I just– …come here and rest, at least.”
With another flourishing twirl like he was truly attempting to win a competition for the more elegant beetle in all the lands; Arc hummed to her reply about not having much of an appetite. He could argue that she ought to still eat because well she needed too. Keep her strength up, especially after the horrid crap she went through in the night.
However, he also knew that forcing someone to eat when they weren’t ready too was only a recipe to ensure the meal went out as fast as it came in. So there was no reason to pester her about it anyways. Nor did he really want too. Taking to mind that he was already told he was pesky and had told her want to do enough.
So he just did his acrobatic one beetle show. Zipping here and there –oh he was feeling the fatigue of it seeing as he had been flying all day. Add on that he had used quite a significant amount of magic the night prior, of course he was worn out. But that exhaustion wasn’t nearly as strong as his own fear. Keeping him aloft.
Evidently it was showing because she spoke up about going for a nap. Had he a neck, he might have looked around to express that it was already dusk and not really the time to start napping! Never mind that he could say the same to her –although she wasn’t acting as though everything was fine- she had walked all day with no stops. She was likely just as worn out as he was but there was no mention of her sleeping either.
“I don’t want to.” Arc replied quickly enough though if he was supposed to posture and frame his reply in a smug sort of way, it was lacking. Instead, his tone was holding onto something clear. Something uncomfortable, “Catchin’ a wink or three is… … I don’t want to.” Arc repeated before mentally sighing at himself. It was a struggle alright because not only did he not want to say anything, he also knew from their past experiences that nothing was going to be solved unless he did say something. It just wasn’t easy. A demon was supposed to be a terrible creature after all, lacking remorse or care. Apparently that memo had been shredded since he relearned his truth because he was full of both of the damn things. Dragging along their siblings of fear and pain and anguish. “I’m… uneasy about it.” He could at least say that.
“Yah would need it too y’know. But I don’t hear yah volunteerin’ to stop for a snooze either.”
He zipped and whipped and twirled – any other time she’d be amused by the nonsense. Those times when he was actually in a good mod and being a showboating mage to brag about his skill or be ridiculous just to entertain her. Not this pretend, though, this was actually physically hurting her to watch!
But bless the gods, Arc was finally at least attempting to say something real instead of making up more of his bullshit. A simple I don’t want to wasn’t much, but admitting his unease about going to sleep told her enough. It eased the tension in her shoulders and allowed her a moment of tilting her head back and considering carefully how she could remedy this. At least something in the short term, because they were both going to pass out on the trail if they kept all his up.
… still there was this hesitation about speaking, because Calia was more like a bull in a pottery shop when it came to words.
“I’m also uneasy about sleeping,” she admitted. Then oh so carefully tried to pick out the right statement that he wasn’t going to misunderstand. “I’m afraid to close my eyes and then wake up to find out someone’s done something to me. I could last night because you were looking after me… but you hadn’t slept then, and you haven’t napped today, so now I couldn’t sleep even if I wanted to because I’m so worried about what’s going on in your head.”
“So let me take care of you and shield you for awhile. Come have a rest, I’ll eat while you do and then later when you’ve rested enough I’ll sleep.”
Any other time and he might have laughed at the idea that Calia could be harmed at all. But any other time, he would have believed it. Mainly due to the fact that she was quite literally lightning in a jar! A force that was contained in a mortal shell but no less dangerous. She said so often, herself. But now? Now that they both had her unceremoniously stolen when one was their most vulnerable, well… well he couldn’t blame her even an inch!
Although he did an impressively shitty job at looking after her because well, reference last night! She had been absconded with and he had been lured into looking into his past when he didn’t want too. Now they were both shattered and probably easier targets because of it!
Figurative lips pursed as he made a barrel roll in a vain knowing attempt to still look totally fine, but he was prolonging the silence. “Yah shouldn’t shield me, Calia.” Arc murmured just loud enough. Missing the explaining part because he didn’t want to have it on his tongue. “I can survive without sleep for a good while even being a spell slinger. I… don’t really know if I can right now anyways.”
The demon beetle was keeping himself out of arms reach now seemingly aware that he could be snatched up merely cause she was trying her damnest to help. And he really didn’t want her to out of his own fears. A little more than tired of people suffering because of him!
“Worryin’ over me doesn’t seem very helpful either. I know I can bitch about it and it’ll do nothin’ to change it but still…” Trying to express that he was in a very uncomfortable state of uncertainty about himself, less so about her. “I don’t want yah to get in the fray… I’ve had enough of that for a few lifetimes and enough phantoms already to clog my skull. Don’t stress about me. It’s all I can ask, yah ought to be worryin’ over yerself.”
He had one thing right, Calia was still thinking about how she might get her hands on him and somehow bully him into taking care of himself. Truly, that’d be the worst thing to do when he value his autonomy more than anything else. A thing Calia understood fully herself, only sometimes a person might be torturing and hurting their own selves, which was certainly what Archimedes was doing now! Trying to punish himself and she couldn’t stand it.
Calia didn’t really consider herself an intelligent person, at least not when it came to other people. Oh, she could pick up and learn a skill so quickly, but this? It was like trying to read a language she never even heard of before. She counted all of her lucky stars that they seemed to share so many traits, so many similar habits that she could actually recognize what he was doing to himself now. They’d finally spent enough time together that she’d learned to see through the lines, to simple truths underneath.
So despite how vague he was being, trying his hardest not to place the burden of his fears and pain on her, Calia was quietly picking out the threads of what he refused to say out loud.
Arc had said in their ugly and hopefully last battle, that Calia was his to protect. It… had honestly been world shaking for her to have that sense of trust in someone, that even now it gave her a fuzzy sense of warmth.
But Fawna had stolen her right from under his nose! That all by itself was enough to send a prideful man into a guilty spiral, to feel as if he’d failed her somehow. Despite the fact that no one could have been prepared for Fawna’s insidious traps – Calia sure as hell hadn’t been. Besides, he’d came when she called for him, so he hadn’t failed her at all.
That didn’t feel like enough to shake him this badly, not enough to flat out refuse sleep, to suddenly declare he wasn’t worth he shielding, or her worry. When he said he didn’t want her in the fray and that he’d had enough phantoms… she pulled at that little thread to softly examine. Going over every statement he’d made since last night with studious attention. Fawna was a manipulator of memories… and Archimedes had enough memories to become an entire cast of phantoms.
That’s what it was. Where Fawna had tried to hide and bury Calia’s memory, she’d done the opposite with Archimedes. Drawn up every single painful thing she could wriggle and grasp her magic into. No wonder he was a damned mess, he had a century of grief behind him!
Which really begged the question, how did she help ease this? One could not erase the past, nor could she steal his pain away. Anymore than he could’ve eased hers. There wasn’t much she could do at all besides just… be there.
“I don’t really care much about myself, Archimedes,” another simple admission. Calia might’ve had this burning instinct to keep on living to spite the world, but it didn’t mean she had any care for herself at all. “I do care about you, though. You might just be the only thing I do care about right now, so I can’t quite turn the worrying or stress off. If it’s too much to sleep, at least come sit on my shoulder for a few hours, I’ll be content with that.”
There was no surprise or shock when she stated she didn’t have much interest in caring about herself. While he could probably come up with examples and verbal statements to contest that very thing, he was in no mood to try. Only cause he did understand that sometimes, one had to figure that out themselves. Even if he was highly disliking how casually she admitted to it. Not sure why either but that wasn’t here nor there.
“Yah’d be the first.” He spoke and instantly wished to retract the words because he heard how utterly bitter they were and in turn, those four words spoke of his vulnerability in ways he highly hated. Just he couldn’t retract them and decided to try to gloss over it instead.
Hovering a bit longer while his thoughts shook, rattled and rolled. Wanting to be flippant. To snap at her. Even if he was smart enough to know she was only trying to help in her own way. Likely trying to alleviate some of her own stress because he wasn’t so stupid not to have picked up that she was more of a physical person than emotional. Granted, it probably wasn’t wise of her to even be close or caring about someone of his particular history.
Still. Still—
Moving downwards to eventually extend the little grabbers that were hands and feet to latch onto her shoulder, he could have actually audibly sighed! Tucking wings away and just gripping on as he flattened out in a press of lingering fatigue washing over him. Drooping the antenna to emulate a sort of misery that he had acted over throughout the day. Lingering in a moment of extended silence, “Y’know… a demon isn’t supposed to be scared… and yah should care about yerself more.”
The first to care about him? Well, that pointedly wasn’t true, even if she could hear her own whispering mean little voices claiming neither had she. Knowing damn well others had cared about her once upon a time too. That was simply a difficult thing to believe in when you were being haunted by guilt, the could-bes, and should-bes. At least he was now with someone who understood that at it’s very core. Knew and recognized his pain in a way others really could see in them.
…he didn’t really know how important that was for her. That understanding. Being seen for who she was and not just what someone wanted her to be.
Finally, he relented his nonsense, landing on her shoulder and the effect was immediate. A melting away of all her tension and frustration, glad that he was finally throwing off his mask of pretending to exist as his own self again too, even if he was so uncomfortable with showing he was more than just some flippant court jester.
Because he wasn’t this monstrous demon he kept trying to make himself out to be.
“I guess sometimes it’s hard for someone to care about themselves when it often feels like there’s no one left in the world that cares about them either,” was her answer, without having to make it pointed that she wasn’t just talking about herself.
Calia had shifted her gait now to something slow and lingering, seeming as if she had no direction anymore and was simply just wandering off into the woods, when truly now she was on a new mission. A hunt for something interesting that would be good for the both of them.
“I’m not so keen on being scared myself,” she muttered after a long silence. “Let me face yours and you can face mine, I’ll think we’ll be okay then. Between the two of us, there’s likely not much we couldn’t do.”
Settling down was both relieving and absolutely nerve wracking. Even as she slowed her gait, he was twirling around on her shoulder to look behind them. Surveying the surrounds like some big bad guard dog that was far too mentally brutalized to actually do a hell of a lot. Well… in theory. If something wanted to fuck around and find out, he just might actually drop a meteor on them. Not about to play around when there was far too much out there just waiting to see what the hell happened.
“How so? From where I sit, yah’ve made quite the impact. The whole royal elven family. Nova and Brux, potentially the latter. I’m sure there’s others that I ain’t gotta clue about when we weren’t travellin’ about.” Arc hesitated and soft of attempted to be fluffed up, “Me.” Although it didn’t sound very convincing. Only that he didn’t add a self depreciating comment after to really sell home he was a struggle bug right now.
Only that if he was about to find some comedic way of saying it, Calia suggested that she would face his preverbal monsters and he hers. “What? How. Why?” he was asking honestly, a strange sense of innocence reflected in his tone. “Yer already a powerful force, Lia. Why the hell would yah wanna saddle yerself with anythin’ more. I… don’t get it.”
Calia could easily argue that those same people he listed also cared about what happened to him, but she suspected he wouldn’t be liable to believe it even if those people were there here and now to say it to his face. Though she did open her mouth to at least point out the closest to believable for him when he muttered out the most disgruntled Me that she shut her trap in an instant.
It’s not as if she didn’t know or didn’t believe he cared about her. He sure as hell wouldn’t be with her now if he didn’t. Still, there was something humbly quieting to hear it out loud. Even for her, who was presently trying to get this dense man to understand he too could be cared about.
Then, of course he had to ask the How and Why with such a tone that Calia almost laughed. The only thing stopping her from doing so was… well. She’d never actually stopped and thought about it herself. Her care existed and she accepted it, even if it was occasionally frustrating. Gods knew, he was obnoxious and antagonizing, frustrating in every sense of the word. Difficult to deal with on many occasions and utterly exhausting at least half of the time. All she wanted was peace and sometimes he was the very opposite of the word.
…and yet?
“…when you are you – not the posturing pretend face you hide behind – the real and honest you… I feel safe. I can just exist and be, even the ugly little dark parts of me because you yourself exist. So if I can ease things for you I’m going to do it, as that’s what you give me.”
By the nine hells and the eternal damnation, this woman was managing to do something that he couldn’t even accurately remember the last time he did! And so grateful that he was in his smallest form because the flush of heat that rushed to his face was both so strange, so unnatural and by every mean thank Gaia, she couldn’t see it. Because he didn’t know what the hell to do with her being so gentle and so sweet and saying things that were so sickening that any other time, he’d have laughed at her.
Just this was not the moment do that. And this was not the moment that he felt she was just lip servicing either.
Rather, he sat there. On her shoulder. Thinking, picking at her commentary for something he could either mock or call utter bullshit. With no surprise, no success at doing so. Leaving a moment of silence to pull between in a thoughtful control. Even if he attempted to open his mouth once or twice when he was almost convinced he had the answer.
Settling with a empty sounding laugh, “Yer not supposed to see through that posturin’ by the way. How the hell do yah think I made it so long in the various circles of life I once had, if I didn’t make that pretend face, absolutely and typically perfect.” He could count on his hand how many seen through it and it was not even the full five digits. “I don’t know if yah can ease this crap nor would I even really want yah too. But… I do understand. Even if it makes my brain itch in ways that are uncomfortable and frighteningly familiar.”
Another pause was given, “I was scared for yah lass. Last night… that dark fae… if she had done to yah what she had done to me well… I don’t know if I would be surprised if yah had nuked everythin’ around yah. Rather, I think I’d be complimentin’ yah earnestly and encouragin’ yah into that means of being left alone.”
That was better! His honest laugh and not the fake one that rang so hollow. Giving her the ease to finally open up into a true smile – tired, definitely still bone weary tired! – but a real one of her own filled with relief and that sense of everything finally being okay. There was a slight shrug of her shoulders with it, not enough to jostle him at all, just a simple movement to brush off his surprise that she could see him at all.
“It’s nice, though, isn’t it, just getting to brood and be surly in peace? No brave face, no fake smiles. You don’t always have to tell me what’s bothering you, but at least you can be bothered and not hide it. I’m going to worry either way, but you’ll not have to waste the energy and I will fret a little less.”
That was all Calia needed herself, she would be perfectly content with that. As she’d never been afraid to fight him or deal with his moods, it was only ever when he pretended and shut down that it ever scared her. That smile of hers turning a bit wry in the moment when he mentioned being afraid for her.
“No need to be all fire and brimstone when someone is looking after me,” she replied easily. “That’s what I was trying to tell you before. You keep me tethered to the world so I don’t… do what I was doing before. Obliterate everything and then feel like a stupid asshole afterwards.”
Finally, her quiet walking through the redwoods off the path and deeper in the forest had provided her with just the thing she was looking for. A great big tree where part of the bottom had hollowed out over the years to make a natural cave right inside the wood. A literal tree hollow, plenty big enough to provide a nice bit of natural shelter.
And with a little magic? Something safe enough for the two of them.
She climbed up the small incline and slipped in through the opening, already tugging and weaving magic as gently as she could to add not add to the exhaustion of either of them. Thankfully as he’d instructed her already, it cost little to create. A few touches of her fingertips provided light by means of bioluminescent mushrooms. A sweep of her hand made that opening of the tree hollow form itself a good solid door. Enough to lock anything out, but still allow them an easy exist.
Calia plopped herself on her rump to have a seat and leaned up against the inner wood with an exhausted sigh of her own.
“I don’t know.” Such a reply felt so absolutely pathetic but the truth it was. That he wasn’t sure how to take in the fact that she was willing to deal with him being well, broody. Upset. Bothered by things that really shouldn’t affect him but he was some strange portion of demon and elf and emotions that were so wrong for the first part of this concoction.
But maybe that was the perfect answer. That he didn’t know if it was nice or not because he had constructed that fake grin and the rest with a perfected art that others didn’t see through. And now there was someone who did and he truly did worry that she wasn’t noticing she was sinking in quicksand while he was the weights on her feet. It wasn’t exactly easy to get over the fact that he had been responsible for so much death and such things were now living manifestations of that burden once more.
“Yer not a stupid asshole. I’ve got years of practice for that too, yah ain’t even close.” Arc offered as he re-flattened himself out on her shoulder. Holding fast and lulling into an unusual quiet that was probably alien to anyone that knew him. Trying to make sense of this idea of being a buoy for her and wondering if she may have hit her head at some point.
Whatever it was, he couldn’t mill the brain power for it. Staying quiet even as she had found a little hideaway that hopefully would act as a bulwark for whatever next stupid dark fae that thought Calia was some festival prize.
Only once she had stopped moving and casting little bits of magic to make some light, did he crawl off to leap from her shoulder. Skittering across the ground to investigate but ultimately scurrying up along the wall so he was still seen but not using her as a mule. Funny how his attitude was different to doing as such compared to their first encounters. “And what’s been lingerin’ on yer mind. I ain’t the only one who got fucked up last night. If we are doin’ this whole kinship thin’ seriously then… I wanna know yer as close to okay as yah can be. And if I need to be a pain in the ass to somethin’ else, I’ll do it.”
Nah, she wasn’t a stupid asshole like him. After all, he’d made his mistakes out of love. Calia made all of hers out of anger and that was so much worst. She wasn’t going to bring that up and argue it though, now that he was finally simmering down and being real with her again. Watching crawl off and skitter up the smooth inside of the tree’s trunk with this urge to reach out and snatch him back.
Calia had this stupid need for clinging and holding tight, didn’t mean he did. He probably much preferred it.
“Dealing with the fact I might be the biggest baddest thing around, but apparently still can be hurt. Realizing with a small amount of horror that I’m going to live and keep on living for centuries and eons, and I don’t quite know what to think about that.”
A small shrug came with that as she pulled her knees up and rest her arms over them. Chin coming next, as she looked past him to the soft glow of the space and not much else.
“Didn’t really know what to do with myself having a normal human lifespan. Rebuilding a kingdom and fucking off to the woods sounded like a decent enough idea when I figured I’d be some old hag spooking travelers for sport and mischief. Now it just seems… unfathomably long. Daunting. Am I eventually going to grow into some prissy stuffed up noble like those elves in the capitol? Lose a sense of empathy like the mages? Or more likely, just increase my chances of getting so fed up I kill everyone. Everything was already complicated enough.”
Had she said she wanted him close—really close—she might’ve been surprised at how little he would’ve resisted. Well… unless she snatched him like a greedy child grabbing candy off a shelf, sticky fingers and all. Then he might’ve kicked up a fuss just for dramatic effect. But if she’d simply asked?
Yeah. She’d have learned something interesting about him.
For all his bravado, Arc was a tactile creature. It kind of came with the territory when one was a shameless flirt and a former elf who had historically slept around. You didn’t get far in that department being squeamish about contact. You couldn’t fake intimacy if you flinched at it. But that was a part of him few people ever bothered to see—how much he actually liked being near someone. Present and within the moment or tangled up in limbs and breath and presence. It was easier to act like he didn’t need anyone than to admit he always had.
His antennae twitched subtly as she pulled her knees to her chest. Large, faceted beetle eyes studied her, his movement pausing with a stillness rare for Arc. She was curling inward, voice low and pensive as she muttered something about living far longer than expected.
He hadn’t eavesdropped on her conversation with the stag—not because he couldn’t, but because… well, it hadn’t felt like his moment to pry. So now, as she quietly spiralled into the vast uncertainty of years, of outliving people, of what she might become, Arc simply listened.
And when she finished?
He leapt onto her. With all the ceremony and gusto that could only described as Arc-shaped. A sudden thump against her scalp followed by the rhythmic shuffle of tiny bug legs scrambling to find purchase. He crawled his way across her crown like a mountaineer until his small beetle face was eye-level with hers, antennae wiggling in exaggerated indignation.
“Yah guna have to catch me up on this whole existential dread of bein’ an old fucker like myself,” he declared, matter-of-fact. “But that’s for later.” He shuffled forward a bit more, miniature hands clasped like a scholar about to deliver a very serious monologue—except it was Arc, so that was debatable.
“Why the hell yah gotta be anything but yerself?” he asked. “Sure, longevity can be a curse—if yah let it gnaw on yah like a dog with a bad bone. But I dunno, the idea of yah as a cranky old forest witch spookin’ travellers? That’s got legs. Honestly sounds like a right good time to me.”
He tried to scoot further along her hair, clearly aiming for dramatic emphasis, but instead—
His footing slipped. With a high-pitched curse and a flutter of wings, he grabbed onto a loose strand of her black hair and dangled like some ridiculous insect-themed windchime. “Bloody—! Wait—give me a tick—” And then— Plunk.
Right into the grass. He lay there for a beat, sprawled belly-up like a flattened coin. Legs twitching, wings fanned in surrender. There was no noble recovery in sight, merely accepting his fate to have tumbled down to the ground. “…Right,” he sighed eventually, not even bothering to flip over yet. “Listen. I don’t wanna go back to the hells, yah know? I’ve got no home down there, not really. Just a pile of ash and bad memories. And—if yah can handle havin’ a pesky demon taggin’ along who’s tryin’ not to tell yah what to do…”
He gave a tired little flutter of wings before finally flipping over and climbing onto his feet.
“I’d stay,” he said, quieter this time.
“I want to stay. With yah. ‘Cause no one else is gonna accept me for what I am—not truly. And I know that’s a lot to dump on someone who’s already got a mountain to carry. But I like yah, Lia.” He looked up at her then, tiny and ridiculous in form, but with a voice full of naked honesty. “But I get it. Wantin’ space. Wantin’ distance. Wantin’ to be alone. Especially if yah plan to become an old hag in the woods. But if there’s room beside yah for one more mess of a soul… well, I make a damn good familiar. I’m even auditionin’ right now as yer contracted demon!”
It had to be a comical thing for the tree itself to witness, this huge golden beetle leaping at her with gusto and forgetting that he had mass that she could feel even when he was small. Lucky for him she wasn’t a squeamish thing, for when he hit the side of her head like a golden brick and a heavy THUCK she merely tilted with a soft surprised uff.
Crawling across her had as he spoke while she straightened and adjusted her legs with this pure look of bewilderment on her face. Finding it a little hard to listen to what he was actually saying when he had her going cross-eyed trying to peer back at him. When he slipped, went dangling and plunked on the ground, sprawled out on the ground like a bird that fell right out of the sky.
…Calia probably could’ve caught him, but she’d been too caught off guard and by the time she got back to her senses it was far too late!
Funny how he could be such a pain in the ass, then turn around to be so ridiculously endearing.
Leaning on a palm she bent over her to gently sweep her fingers under those tappy legs – not a snatch, just a soft capture up off the ground to set him on her knee.
“You’re so tired you’ve got the spacial awareness of a drunk squirrel,” she murmured first, trying not to smile about it at all. “It’s okay to tell me what to do, you know. You’re the only one allowed to, anyway. Seeing as you’re so willing to get involved in all my crazy bullshit, you might as well help keep me alive.”
She gave him the tiniest of little taptaps to his beetle noggin with the tip of her finger.
“I like the idea of us being two instead of just one. Makes life a little less daunting when you have someone that feels like home.”
She could count her lucky stars that things were simmered to a nice calm now, else such revelations and truths were liable to have her bursting into tears and fuck that! Calia didn’t want to be the emotional girl who cried about every little thing, and most certainly not cry because she was pleased. That was ridiculous.
“Why don’t you sleep with me Arc, so we can get a better start in the morning.”
An interesting way of phrasing, but her expression was so deadpan was there any way to know if she really knew how it sounded?
“Always squirrels.” He chuckled at being reference in such a way and well being called out that he was probably far more tired than he wanted to admit. Though he did appreciate being righted a bit more with some help and being brought back to eye level so one could maintain that of eye contact. Flattening out in palms again with antenna just flickering at the tip tap to his head. “Yah would think I’d be preenin’ like a fat hen bein’ told to be a bossy bitch, but I ain’t that interested in it. Advice, sure. Tellin’? No. And secondly, all the crazy bullshit is typically pretty amusin’ just cause yah are someone who isn’t afraid to do what she needs to succeed. It’s the gobshites that keep tryin’ to snatch yah like a snack that we’ve clearly gotta scare off to where ever the hell it is they come from.”
There were two more of those dark fae out there after all. Two more that were nameless but he was ready to throw them up into flames before they even got a breath in!
He was about to offer some further commentary but being told that he felt like home and that things were less daunting because of it, was well timed. Making him chirrup in a way that was typically rather private. Knowing that he could make a cheeky statement in that moment but merely settled contently in palms.
Because of course she gave an addition to where he was arching a little to look at her. That calm delivery, “Yah did that on purpose.” Calling her out bluntly even as he laughed at the whole thing. “If I start screechin’ and panickin in sleep, just squish me like the bug I am. I probably deserve it.” Arc paused before figurative mouth was working. “Thanks… yah know. For things and this and that.”
Did she do it on purpose? Damn right she did. Calia didn’t look a bit ashamed of it either, just that slow mysterious smile that almost even could’ve been sweet had the turn of phrase not suggested something dirty.
Regardless, she was settling back against the wood of the tree, bringing him up to sit on her shoulders before she was stretching out her legs and folding her arms to get a little more comfortable. Not as snazzy and fluffy as a bed roll, but Calia never did need all of the extra stuff. Appreciated it, absolutely! Need, no… this was plenty enough. A nice quiet place that almost felt like a secret hideaway and a little bit of shared company.
Comfortable and safe.
“Pull me into your dreams if you need specters chased away. That might be a new and exciting bit of magic to try,” she suggested, sliding down just a little for a good position. Tilting her head just enough against the smooth hollow of the tree as she closed her eyes and letting out a long slow sigh to finally let herself relax.
“I like you too, Arc.” she did murmur somewhere in the quiet silence. The last thing she managed to get out before exhaustion decided she was way past due for sleep and took her.