Morning in Velmira brought with it a soft grey sky and the sluggish hum of rural life rising slow but sure with the sun. Mist still clung to the edges of stone walls and packed earth, curling like breath from the mouths of gossiping elders and half-awake merchants hauling wares into modest stalls. Arc sat with a cup of bitter coffee outside a crooked inn that smelled of wet wood and garlic, his glamour settled back over him like an old cloak—slitted eyes rounded, horns vanished, his features smooth and elven once more. He listened. Eavesdropped. Bought bread he didn’t eat and refilled drinks he didn’t touch, all to coax information from idle tongues.
The tale had grown limbs overnight, rooted itself into the common tongue like ivy on a crumbling façade. There were whispers that the woman the Queen hunted had been seen on horseback, riding a ghost-pale steed through the Bleakmere woods—vanished into thin air like smoke. Another rumour said she had kissed a guard captain and cursed him with sleep. One tale claimed she could turn into a wolf. Another, more drunken account said she’d grown wings made of blood. No one agreed on the name. No one had seen her up close. But they all swore she had hair dark as mourning and eyes green like ancient pines before snowfall.
A few rumour’s spun closer to truth than comfort would allow. A wandering priest spoke of a broken temple being scoured for hidden springs and half-forgotten rites. Someone else claimed to have seen a Huntsman riding through the valley days before, a figure cloaked in silence and fury. Then came the whisper that made Arc’s hand still over his cup—a soft admission from a tired barmaid who said the Queen’s golden boy had turned away from the chase. That the Imperial Prince, Theon, had stepped off the trail like a knight laying down his blade. “He was supposed to follow her, right?” she said, lips pursed around a pipe. “But he just left. Walked off into the trees like he’d stopped caring.” The idea made Arc pause longer than he cared to admit.
By midday he’d abandoned the inn and the freckled girl with the soft voice and quiet grin. The road east felt longer underfoot than it should have, dust clinging to the worn leather of his boots, his thoughts pulling taut against the weathered string of memory. He skirted wagon paths and took animal trails instead, weaving through tall thickets and half-grown forests where spring blooms tangled themselves in riotous colour. The Imperial banners became fewer, replaced by old runes on stone markers—worn symbols of places most forgot, but Arc did not. By morning, the Temple of Nieve stood before him again. Tall and silent as a grave marker, outlined in starlight and the fading haze of another too-long day.
He didn’t cross the threshold this time. He wouldn’t—not unless necessary. Even now, the place reeked of judgment to him. Holy energy licked at the edges of his senses like the memory of flame, unwelcome and uninviting despite the silence within. Arc stood on the rise just shy of the outer wards, arms crossed, violet eyes bright has he had abandoned the glamour whilst he scanned the grounds below. The structure itself hadn’t changed, as if expecting to have morphed into something set to stab him a little more purposefully this time. But the air around it—it had changed. There was a pull, a scent, a faint impression in the earth and breeze that told him Calia was no longer within its walls. Granted a consideration into the tether would have been enough to tell that as well.
He didn’t need magic to know it. Her presence echoed differently—like the aftermath of laughter or heat on a stone once the fire had gone. She was close. Still here, somewhere nearby. He started down the ridge without a sound, hand lifting to the stone pendant at his neck more out of habit than belief. Whatever came next—he would not be caught unawares again. The Queen was hunting someone, and Arc had a foul suspicion he knew the kind of storm that was gathering on the horizon. But before all that, he had to find Calia. And this time, she was going to hear everything.
The temple’s outline receded behind him, swallowed by branches and shadow as Arc slipped down the slope, guided now by the persistent hum of their binding. It was subtle—a gentle tug beneath the ribs, no louder than a whisper, but constant as gravity. Familiar and unwanted all the same. The kind of pull that reminded him of chains rather than comfort. He didn’t rush. Let the wind press against him, let the twigs and pine needles catch in his boots, let every breath take in the cold scent of bark and damp loam.
It was late—well past sundown—when he found her.
Not on the road, not by the stream, but in the trees. Literally in them. Perched like some lonely forest spirit, dark hair standing out like shadows in the boroughs. Arc said nothing at first. He just looked. Arms folded, one hip shifted with easy neutrality. His gaze slid over her, calculating, measured and cool. Indifferent.
The binding between them hummed, nudging him like an intrusive thought he didn’t ask for.
“Real subtle, Calia,” he said at last, voice flat as the wind. “Gunna guess this was part of the grand plan? Hide in the canopy and hope I sprain my neck lookin’ up?” He didn’t smile. Didn’t joke. Not really.
Arc kept his distance beneath the boughs, leaning back against the trunk of a crooked tree with arms still crossed tight over his chest. It wasn’t theatrical—it was defensive. A clear statement of line drawn and ground no longer given. Because he’d been burned. Scorched, literally and figuratively. And while the burns might’ve scabbed over, they hadn’t healed.
The breeze rustled through the trees like a third party eavesdropping. Arc didn’t look up at her again, not directly. Just enough to clock that she was still there, still breathing, still—against every sensible odds—tied to him by blood and choice and consequence.
“I’m not here to argue,” he added after a moment. “Don’t have it in me, truth be told. Not sure I’ve got anythin’ at all left to offer.” His jaw clenched faintly as he turned his eyes away, violet gaze flicking out toward the deeper wood. “But merely relyin’ information that yah may need before I go away till somethin’ else is required.” The silence stretched, thick as resin. There was no venom in the words. Just quiet exhaustion. And something far more dangerous than anger: the dull, bleeding edge of someone who had finally—finally—run out of whatever was left of hope.
Calia had finally nestled in and had stilled her thoughts enough to perhaps drift to sleep when his voice made her start. The relief to tilt and glance down to see him there was immediate and impossible to hide, but what she found was just as stark as before. He was done with her. Hit his limits. Oh, he’d given it a good fair shake, a solid effort to deal with and manage her. Only Calia was Calia, and even in her own best efforts, she never really lived up to the expectation, did she. Not hers, not his, not anybody’s.
That grim expression of his, with the statement of given her information before he took off. Well, he was making the choices she needed to make very clear. For everything that she’d done, by accident or not, it was very clear now what he needed was distance from her. If Calia really cared about Archimedes, she had to let him go. Not to ice him out or cut herself away, because she hadn’t lied about being his home to come back to. She simply couldn’t keep reaching for him anymore, as every time she did all it seemed to lead to was him getting hurt. Every single time he got comfortable, something Calia did, got into, said… he ended up hurt. Physically was bad enough, but it was the mental wounds she knew he was holding to heart. The ones that cut the deepest.
She’d told him she was the problem and she was so tired of being his problem.
“I don’t want to argue either,” she confessed, with all sincerity. A quiet and calm admission from a tired friend, and that was all. No more seeking comfort, no more of her looking for him to make things okay. Calia would manage herself.
Calia swallowed a small sigh and did her best to paint on that imperious mask of hers. It never really fit the same anymore, but at least if he was pissed off at her he wouldn’t feel guilty about leaving, either. With a quick shift, she slipped off her branch in a dangle before landing neatly on the ground. Having to force herself to keep her arms at her side so she wouldn’t accidentally mirror his own posture or expressions.
“I’m listening. All I need is to be taken back into the mountains and you can do as you’d like. You can always come find me if you need me.”
This—this ache in his chest, the wariness in his bones—he was used to. Oh, so damn familiar with it that it made him genuinely question what the hell the point had been in reclaiming his memories at all. Maybe it would’ve been better to stay that prickly, vicious bastard who didn’t give a shit. The one who killed when he needed to, stole when he wanted to, laughed at people’s agony without flinching. Back then, life had been easy. Hollow, but easy.
Now? Now he had to feel things. Process things. Deal with the awkward, clumsy version of himself that didn’t quite know where he belonged anymore. That part he didn’t blame on anyone else. He owned it. But gods above, he longed for the simplicity of apathy. Because at least then, it didn’t hurt like this.
He watched her descend the trees, light-footed but distant, her presence no longer a balm—just a reminder. She looked better. More whole. Hopefully no longer carrying a mark that would devour her from the inside out. When she spoke of returning to the mountains, he gave only a small, tired hum. No remark, no flourish, just an open palm unfurled in silence. A motion to the bloodstone she still carried.
She knew what to do. Smash it. Channel the memory. Open the way.
And he didn’t say a word about needing her to do it. Because he was done trying to parse which version of her he’d get that hour—the version that wanted to understand him, or the one who’d lash out when he showed her the very things she asked for.
He was so godsdamn tired of feeling.
Of thinking they’d reached some kind of breakthrough only to be met with another emotional swing. Of being made to believe he could be open, only to be scolded the moment he did. She had coaxed the truth from him, pulled it from the dark with warmth and wit, only to leave him stranded when he dared to show any of it.
This—this—was why the mask had existed in the first place. Why he’d built it from arrogance and smirks and that easy, careless charm. Because in that indifferent place, at least, there was safety.
“It’s likely better to return to the mountains,” he said at last, voice low but clear. “There’s whispers floatin’ through the Imperial Lands. Someone’s lookin’ for a woman. Description matches yah—dark hair, green eyes, born of snow and stone. The Queen’s sent her Mercenary and her Huntsman after her.”
He let the weight of that hang in the air a moment.
“I don’t know much about the merc, but what I do know is he ain’t entirely human. Ain’t been for a long time or never has been, ain’t sure. And the other—” a flicker of his gaze, cool and assessing, “—is Prince Theon Edmonstone. Loyal, determined and relentless. Never once gone against his mother. ‘Til now.”
That, more than anything, unsettled him. “He’s given up the search, or so they say. Odd. Doesn’t sit right. But whether it’s yah they’re huntin’ or someone else, women with yer look are gonna face hell until someone’s caught.” His gaze flicked toward the direction of the temple again, sharp and cold. “Might be nothin’, but if the Merc’s on the move, then this was probably a mistake. I shouldn’t’ve brought yah here.”
The apology that followed was quiet, sincere, stripped of his usual acerbic mask. “I’m sorry. For that.”
His violet eyes turned back to her, guarded but steady. One hand still outstretched, open-palmed. Waiting and willing to complete what was asked. “When yer ready,” he said, neutral and final. “I’ll fuck off after.” Because he meant it. No more pushing or pleading. No more trying to mend what always seemed to fray in his hands. If she wanted to go, he’d take her. But he wouldn’t stay.
If Calia had any idea that her own elder sister had been at this same temple just weeks ago, making this very same choice, she would have laughed herself into tears. Cursed at fate, told the Lady of Light to fuck right off, and make a completely different choice out of pure spite.
Instead her brief time here had only solidified in her mind that her sister was dead, for she’d seen the wound Araminta had received on that wild night in Caeldalmor’s capitol. Picked her up off the ground by her own two hands and shoved her at Haaron and told them to run for the mountain pass. By Keeper Nigel’s words, a wound like that was meant to kill no matter what, and her sister’s had been so, so much worse than what Calia had sustained. There was no way she lived, there was no way she could be here in the Imperial Lands.
If only she knew that despite how different they were, there were so many unusual things they had in common.
“You don’t need to be sorry, not for bringing me here,” she told him firmly. Truthfully, for his care was the only reason why she bothered to come here at all! “It was the right way to go. One of the young ones told me something similar of a Huntsman and a Mercenary, so now I know for certain to be wary of the Imperial Lands. I’ll stay in the mountains until I can’t.”
With a soft sweep of her hand, she opened up the hollow to withdraw the bloodstone, Hesitating for a moment before she also pulled out the leather bound, dusty tomb she’d claimed out of that hidden pantheon of gods. Of which she handed over to him without ceremony or flourish.
“I brought that back for you,” she murmured first, then finally dropped the bloodstone into his waiting palm. “Back to our waypoint, please.”
It was casual, it was cool. Every bit of seeming like this was just another day, another moment and Calia did not have a care or a feeling in the world. It might have even been believable if it weren’t the way she stood with her spine so straight and her shoulders back, finding just about anything in the world to look at other than him. Calia honestly didn’t want her last looks of him to keep being this defeated, deflated look of a man who just didn’t know what to do with her anymore. And if that made her cruel and selfish, well, she was already racking up those points anyway.
“Regardless, it warrants an apology for the danger that yah were put in.” Arc was apparently not about to just casually let the means of potentially harming her go by with just a shrug. No matter how firm she was about it, it needed to be said so he at least could acknowledge it. Just he wasn’t expecting that the rumour of such a worrisome tale would have already found her ears as well. Not that he ought to be surprised, it was a hot piece of gossip that anyone and everyone likely knew. And what he knew of the merc, well, he really did believe that other women were going to be in quite the bit of danger till the one he was sent after was found.
All the more reason to get Calia out of here. Whether it was her or not, they didn’t need to stumble into that maniac!
As he stood there with both his hand out and his mind twirling this information about, the whole pressure of a book placed into it was enough to stop him. Looking at it with all the bewilderment fit for both an archaic sage and youthful child. Confused, curious and even a glance at the bloodstone was made when it was given as well. Hearing her express the want to return but of course, she had just given him a book that made absolutely no sense.
Adjusting his grasp to hold both objects but particularly flipping the book open to a random page to look over. Of course not about to glean a whole lot from just picking a spot willy nilly. Mouth attempting to part, working itself till Arc just snapped it closed and let out a deep heavy sigh. Shoulders drooped as his gaze when completely upwards. Considering the network of branches intermingled as they could be, peeking through to the darkening heavens.
Eventually dropping the violet rings to be pressed upon her. “What do yah want from me?” Arc suddenly asked with no lead up or even any real clarity to where the question came from. “And don’t feed me some bullshit cause at this point, I don’t wanna even playfully pretend.” Lips pursed into a grave line, “Yah hurt me, yah realize. How the hell am I supposed to be comfortable with yah when yah tell me to feel thin’s without a mask and the next moment I do, yer screakin’ at me as though I pissed in the pool of holy water itself, rather than bein’ scared as hell that yah were hurt, or taken again. That idiot thought yah were the demon cause yah disappeared and I sure as hell didn’t want him doin’ anythin’ that could have jeopardized yah. But yah return and fuckin’ not only scream at me about givin’ a shit about someone that I thought I could close too, but that my response was invalid.” Arc blurted out at her, though thankfully without any shouting himself.
Disgruntled absolutely and still plainly hurt. But his voice was level, in control. “I ain’t a fan of this wishy washy nonsense. Tellin’ me one thin’ and then gettin’ pissed at me when I actually do it. If I wanted that sort of behaviour, I’d have stayed in hell. So,” The demon was frowning at her now, “What do yah want from me?”
They were supposed to be done! Him cracking the stone and casting the magic that’d open the portal back to Edelguard. Easy, clean, a smooth break apart.
Instead he blurted out a question that finally drew her stare back to him, confused and bewildered in her own right, as hadn’t she told him a dozen times already? Calia wanted a friend. One person that was hers. There was nothing deeper to it, no big grand reveal! She even opened her mouth to say it again, as he clearly needed it told ten thousand times to even recognize it for the truth that it was.
Except apparently now he’d finally decided to talk to her, blabber out and dump his entire means of thoughts. Which he could have done earlier, before taking off and leaving her. Before being so thoroughly done with her and she’d spent hours preparing herself for a separation. Finding that ire of hers rising almost too quick to stamp down and control.
Her bullshit? His bullshit! This was his bullshit!
The way Calia took a step back was more subconscious than anything, almost afraid she might take a swing at him in pure frustration. Needing a moment to just stare at him and think, for she knew how easy it was for her words to be mistaken and twisted into some new kind of meaning. He’d already had the wrong idea on why she’d yelled at him in the first place – and she’d been wrong in how she handled things, she knew that… but he never really gave her any grace, though, either.
Separating might still be the right choice. Maybe she was utterly done with him too.
“I panicked. …there isn’t any good excuse for it. I already knew I’d done something careless and stupid, and then I came out of the springs with you three seconds away from bursting into flames and that monk having a crisis all because I’d been so stupid and I panicked.”
Letting out a frustrated sound she gesticulated with her hands as she spoke, almost like she was trying her best not to reach out and shake or strangle him.
“I KNEW by that look on your face you were going to get mad at me for the wrong reasons! You always do! I knew that I fucked up Archimedes, and I am sorry for that and I sorry I panicked instead of, I don’t know what you want – for me to cry or be so perfectly gracious?! But you’d already done it. You decided that I did it all on purpose because I don’t care about you or I don’t think about you. Instead of considering that maybe I might’ve been yelling because YOU panicked and did something stupid too. Nearly getting yourself killed when you could have found me in a way that wouldn’t involved getting yourself exploded inside a holy temple or murdered by some dingbat of a monk!”
Calia very clearly did not have his same level of control, in fact she didn’t even have her own usual cool control either now as with some alarm she realized she might’ve been a few steps away from those tears she really didn’t want to deal with right now. Tempted to tell him he could fuck right off, but he’d asked what she wanted and Calia was going to answer.
“I just want you, Arc, for fuck’s sake! I want you to be safe and whole so you can stay with me for however long I’m going to manage to stay alive! So what the hell do you want from me then? Because if you want someone intelligent and sweet and delicate and delightful, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you might as go ahead and leave me because I’m always going to be a problem!”
“I was mad at yah for screamin’ at me!” He barked back at her apparently not about to give so much grace this time to wait so she could finish. “And for yer damn information, I couldn’t feel yah through the holy magic in the temple. So if yah think I could have just felt through the bindin’ that was the first thin’ I did. It murks the line, so I couldn’t tell where yah were. Just that it was this feelin’ of foggy fuzz. So excuse me for my response being that I have to find yah so yah weren’t absconded with again by some bastard that only wants to use yah for whatever means.” If she was going to get all huffy and physically emotive, then he was going to meet that.
Bearing teeth at her in his own frustrated ire. “Yah weren’t the only one panickin’ yah dumbass! I was too because yah were gone and I had no idea what happened paired with this gobshite beside who not only had just recently threatened to kill yah, how the hell was I supposed to know? I’m not omniscient!”
Vision flicked up and down her as she was stepping away.
Where she claimed vocally that she just wanted him to be safe and whole, and yet she wasn’t even able to apply that to herself. “By the nines, yah really are dumb as a stick sometimes.” Huffing noisily at her. “How can yah talk like that and not even apply the same logic back. Do yah think I want yah to be hurt, to be hunted? I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t give a shit.” His gaze flared bright and there was a truly ugly angry growling that came out of him next.
Stomping over at her as though he were about to actually pick her up and throw her.
Rather than the fact that he stomped over to her and grabbed her shoulders to pull her into him. Wrapping her tightly up into a strong armed embrace, “Fuck you.” Muttering lowly at her as he unceremoniously thumped his chin on her noggin. “Yer not the problem and yah need to stop sayin’ that because that’s the issue in itself. Yer not invalid, yer not less than. But yah made stupid mistakes because yer so busy tearin’ yerself down that yah don’t seem to see that at least I do give a fuck. I wouldn’t keep tryin’ to fight with yah or beside yah if that wasn’t the case.”
Arc sighed angrily, “I didn’t ask for yah to be someone yer not, but I do think yah need to start bein’ someone that yah already are. With more faith and that’s comin’ from someone who is quite literally on the scale of infernal damnation. Pretty sure if I were inside still, I’d actually be struck down for such commentary.”
“I know you panicked, I figured that already!” she shot back in a blurted shout. That’s what she was trying to tell him! That she’d gone through all her panicked motions and maybe way too late, but she did in fact, realize it and had been trying to apologize for it. Calia might’ve been the biggest dumbass here today, and figuring things out at the pace of a snail, but she WAS actually figuring it out!
He was flashing teeth and growling in such a way Calia nearly missed the next few words, taking even another step back when he moved, poising herself out of instinct getting ready to physically defend herself if she had to. Unsure of why she didn’t just grab his arms and fling him, as generally she was so much more quick witted on her reflexes than this. Having no idea how to internally explain it.
Nor did she even have time to think about it, as the violence was in the form of a squeezing hug and that more than anything had been the last straw. The thing that cracked her, shattered her, broke the dam on everything she’d been trying to keep contained and managed since Tir Elas, maybe even long before. Too many feelings, none of which were ever useful and made any sense, came tumbling out when she crumbled into a choking sob.
Calia could take on a fight, but not this. Not care, not affection, not words that didn’t belong to her and were far too hard to believe. Everything she quietly wanted, but knew she didn’t actually deserve.
There was the smallest attempt at trying to escape, a soft push and even the sucking in of breath as if she had plenty to argue about any of it – and it faded into that sobbing again. The overwhelm taking over to replace words with tears, to turn her into that absolutely embarrassing and pathetic limp noodles of limbs. Too far gone to even try and reign it back in. Hating him for it while at the same time being so damn relieved that the worst hadn’t happened – he hadn’t been so done with her that he was going to leave.
So Calia just cried until she couldn’t breathe any longer and then with that choked humming complaint of her own buried herself into his chest like she was some sort of feral, half drowned fox kit snatched up out the forest.
There was nothing said. Nothing pressed or urged or motioned for her to do. Or not do. Merely seemingly having enough understanding himself to guess that Calia had wound herself up so damn tight that there was very few options in which he could actually rectify the issue.
Never mind that a good portion of him was baffled to why he was still trying when in reality that same part had wanted to just call it quits. He might never understand but perhaps that was a good thing. Where sometimes not everything needed an answer or to be remedied like it was some sort of grander problem. Whatever it was or wasn’t, personally he didn’t put thought into after she broke down.
Just standing there even as she attempted to push away only to devolve into something he began to guess that she probably needed more than being just a mouthy brat. Even he could tell that Calia really did have this belief that even the saddest or overwhelming emotions were weak, but that was absolutely not the truth. Not that he was about to get into a lecture about it considering that was probably calling the kettle black.
Merely tightening grasp, keeping chin positioned over her head till he was certain that the wracking sobs were slowing into something less emotionally visceral. Taking to gentle brushing of fingers across back till he was perfectly certain that she at least got a portion of that welled up dam out, “Yer dumb, yah know that.” Arc stated but his voice was rife with affection rather than insult. Sighing again and giving a tightening squeeze, “And yer own worst enemy.”
“Yeah, I know…” was her sniffling reply to both statements. Likely better than her usual yeah, okay, even if it was in that similar vein of simply not being able to find the words to describe the pure hot mess of nonsense going on in her brain. Just for the moment content with being squeezed near to death and glad for it, as Calia doubted she was even standing by her own will anymore.
Let her be crushed by him, squeezed and squished and so wrapped up in his presence that world didn’t have to exist for a few minutes. Knowing she was just giving into the madness again, simply because she wanted this more than she wanted her peace. She’d take all the frustration and arguments he had in him as long as it always ended like this.
“Can you please stop trying to leave me every time you get mad,” she finally dug up the will to say, even if it did come out muffled because she refused to pull herself away. Too busy now with curling her own arms around him so that squeezing to death was mutual. “I don’t care if you need time alone, just stop making it sound like you’re never coming back.”
Oh there could have been a brand new argument in that very statement. To point out that she told him he could go and he took it. But, did he really want to fall back into the rinse and repeat measure that they were really good at getting stuck in. It seemed, sounded and felt like an absolute pain in the ass in which, thankfully he was smart enough not to get submerged in.
“I’m still guna walk away from yah when I’m mad.” Arc decided, “Because that’s how I think thin’s out, regardless if yah like it or not. I’d rather walk away than say shit I don’t mean. Words can be said and apologized for, but they can still hurt in ways that cannot be mended. That’s how I work through thin’s, but as long as yah don’t close the door, I won’t not come back. Alright.” He couldn’t promise the first part. So it was better to be honest.
And he wasn’t going to tell her either that he truly would have left this time without coming back too. Because as upset as he was, even he knew that he’d come back eventually. He’d be pretty blind and dumb to not realize that whatever this oddity of a kinship with Calia was, he didn’t much care to be without it at this point.
Liable to blame it as Stockholm Syndrome if he was feeling plucky.
“Next time though, could yah not treat me like I’m about to escape either. I don’t need to be sat on like some rogue calf escapin’ the barn. I have enough self preservation that I won’t do entirely stupid thin’s to get me killed, but I will do stupid thin’s if it means makin’ sure yer safe.” Relaxing his grasp so she might be able to move, his brows butted up to each other. “Carin’ about someone sometimes mean’s doin’ stupid shit because its yer first reaction. Yer just guna have to learn to deal with it. That I’m more than willin’ to risk myself if it means I can help or get yah to safety. Even in holy places.”
Hands parted from behind her back but moved to lightly clasp about that of her arm. The one that had been demon marked, “Was the ijit able to do what he said he could without a crossbow?”
Calia too debated what was worth arguing about and what wasn’t. As it surely wasn’t that he needed to walk away to get his head together that did the damage, it’s when he told her he was going to leave and she could damn well see it in his face that meant for good not a for now. Glad that she did keep her mouth shut, for he confirmed on his own that he wouldn’t just up and abandon her. So long as she didn’t slam the door on him. Giving this weird comforting relief that she’d at least done one thing right. That even though she’d been ready to let him go, Calia had still made it clear he could come back to her.
A soft grumble followed on his fussing about her sitting on him – something she’d forgotten about in the chaos of those frenzied actions. Not exactly her finest moment or well thought out in the slightest. There’d just been a desperate need to make sure he was okay first and foremost, how it came about didn’t exactly connect together in any way that made sense even for her now!
And she didn’t care that he was giving her space to move now, Calia wasn’t fucking moving. Telling herself she didn’t have to reach for him if she was stuck on like a barnacle. If she was going to have to deal with accepting his means of doing stupid things to take care of her, he was going to have to deal with her stupid desperate need for contact.
He shifted to grip her arm and Calia didn’t even bother to move to have a look, giving a soft shrug of her shoulder and doing her subtle best to wipe tears from her face.
“Wasn’t nothing cursed, just… poison remnants. Woulda killed someone that isn’t me. Made a big deal about demons following after me for the whole of forever, but that doesn’t make much a difference when everybody is already trying to kill me. Just more of the same.”
As usual she was far too casual about her own eminent demise, but at least this time she had sense enough to almost look like she felt bad about it.
She was lucky he was not someone that grew itchy to be clung too. Rather he was generally impassive about it, accepting it because it was not something he hated. He was a physical person himself after all. Had he not been, he wouldn’t have left and found himself quickly wrestling between the sheets with a random someone that pulled his attention. Probably well aware that he tended to soothe and balm his emotions though such acts.
So her keeping close even as he retracted to lay question to how her arm was, Arc sighed so dramatically. Ears even drooping to add to the show, “If that’s how demon marks worked, demon’s would make a hell of a lot more effort to go leavin’ such thin’s on every person.” Eyes once more flicking towards where the temple was, “I knew their whole temple stuff was startin’ to get weaker but if this is the sort of stuff they are teachin’ now in feeble attempts to stay ahead, I’m surprised the place hasn’t been destroyed fully. And I hate to see the teachers of such nonsense.”
Was he offended. It certainly seemed like it. Knowing why the whole temple was failing was one thing, but the fact they were truly grasping on near superstitious nonsense was a whole other. Only for him to frown, “It does make a difference by the way. Yah ain’t dyin’ with me around, so that attitude gotta shift.” Arc was looking at her again, “I’m a little sick of people doin’ that, I don’t need more guilt on my blackened conscience anyways.”
Another sigh and a short of shake to his shoulders that had him adjusting to look around to what he had done with both the book and bloodstone. Glancing back to see them laying on the ground because apparently his need to close the distance between her had greatly overrode the means of being mindful with the products. Earning a bit of something between annoyed and sheepish, instead making the items come to him rather than him to them.
“Yah want to go back to the forest, right? Better than this damnable place.”
It was going to be real difficult to adjust to the fact that there was someone in the world that did actually care if she died. Finally catching on to the fact that she might need to stop being so blasé about it. Calia had her awareness and suspicions that if something happened to her, it would affect him in terrible ways, but this was the first time he himself was saying so out loud. Admitting that it would add another body for him to carry on his shoulders with guilt.
Calia really did not want to be another regret in his life. Anything but that.
He brought the conversation back to returning to the redwood forests and Calia finally tilted away enough to take a gander towards the steepled temple. Shrouded in the darkness of night now with a few windows still showing signs of flickering candlelight as the holy place full of aged old priests and young orphans were likely getting ready for bed. No doubt Keeper Nigel was preparing one hell of a explanation for the return of the paladins that helped look after this place.
At least she hadn’t mentioned her name. No doubt they’d remember Archimedes’ for she’d shouted it and cursed it enough, but at least no one would realize it was Calia of Princess Caeldalmor that’d been within their walls. Just some unpleasant woman and her scary demon.
“Hmn, yeah. I think we’ve shaken the beliefs of one holy temple enough. Take us back to the forest before I start getting more bad ideas.”
“Let’s just be grateful that they ain’t on the side of the royal twat paradin’ herself as Imperial Queen. That at least will keep yah off the radar as much as possible.” Arc expressed though he was already dipping into the efforts that were crunching the bloodstone in hand and obey the means of the request to return back to the northern reaches of Edelguard forest.
With the same song and dance as prior, the ritual hummed to life. Bringing them back through from the Imperial Lands to the fresh vibrant night air that was the elven lands.
Feeling the returning spark of magic ever present in the lands beneath their feet, Arc wished honestly that he could have been devious in this return. To take them to a inn or something that could have been fairly relaxing after the storm that was their existence. But alas, he was bound not to disobey the request so they were back where they had originally started.
Just a lot darker and cooler. Leaving him to clear his throat and consider her quickly. “Suppose one best rest now, though I ain’t climbin’ up the trees here to replicate what I had stumbled into with yah when I first came to find yah.”
While Calia was keen on the infernal style of fast traveling, much preferring the simple casual flow of her own faeish travel, it was convenient and without those awful consequences of her passing out mere moments later. Even she was thinking that it would’ve been nicer if they’d landed at an Inn or tavern, cursing the fact that it hadn’t really occurred to her to change their destination until after they’d already arrived back to the shaded dark forests of Edelguard.
The magic of the place, though? That felt so much more like home than her own home had ever felt. Strange in that. Calia was almost sad that they’d soon be leaving it.
Following his suggestion of rest Calia’s gaze went upwards towards the impossibly high branches of the redwoods themselves. She’d still not had a chance to sleep up in the bows of one and would’ve been content to do so now if she weren’t still so desperately needy to keep her hands on him. Arc did not seem to like the idea of a night up in the heights despite the fact he could surely fall gracefully and convert to his flying beetle form even if he did tip over!
“And you are still resistant to letting me hop on your back and try a little dabble into fae travel? All you’d have to do is say how far,” she suggested, not seriously considering it, even if it did bring some very amusing pictures to mind. Keeping a squeezing hand to his arm even when she stepped away at least far enough to have a quick glance around for somewhere good enough to just lay down for the night.
There was a suspicious look when she remarked about fae travel and how she could simply leap on his back to take them where they wanted to go. “Consider me far too uneasy to even attempt it. I don’t wanna end up with my insides on the outside cause Fae and Infernal magic don’t like another.” Arc replied though he seemed to be somewhat intrigued at the way she had appeared to linger near him. Close, present.
If he was someone else, he might have read into it far deeper than necessary.
Thankfully he was not and just gave their current surroundings a strong eye. The redwoods stood tall like ancient titans, their trunks thick with age, their canopies whispering secrets far above where mortal ears could reach. The hush beneath them was a softer sort of silence—the kind that pressed gently at the ribs and exhaled calm. Somewhere amidst their roots, Arc came to a quiet halt, one hand resting lightly against the bark of a massive tree, his body still aching from too much divine interference and not enough distance between himself and the recent past.
He let out a long breath. It misted slightly in the cooler air beneath the shaded grove. Then, with a tired roll of his shoulders and a flick of fingers, he began to cast.
It wasn’t flashy, this magic—no infernal runes or blazing glyphs, when intimidation was the point. No, this was gentler, a blend of natural memory and elemental familiarity. The ground trembled faintly as roots twisted underfoot, shifting the earth in a deliberate swirl, clearing away rocks and fallen needles. Moss unfurled where soil once was, plush and spongy, its green so vivid it nearly shimmered.
A protective ward stretched outward, invisible but tangible in its presence—Arc’s own brand of “keep the hells out.” It bent the air, weaving between trees and anchoring in place with a hum only he could hear. Overhead, the limbs of two nearby redwoods groaned and adjusted, forming a natural awning of woven boughs and wide leaves. Shelter. Shade. Quiet.
When he was finished, Arc stepped back and gave it a once-over. A low dome of safety and comfort amid the forest. The moss bed pulsed faintly with heat, as if warmed by coals hidden underneath. He dropped down onto it without fanfare, the usual theatrics drained from him, a long sigh escaping as his limbs sank into the softness.
Turning some to look at her and a slight motion to indicate, here.
“I think if they were going to conflict, I’d have already found that out by now…” It may have seemed like a throw away statement, but it did actually have her pausing for a moment, rolling it all over in her head. Calia already tended to use magic as she damn well pleased, and now had touched on both his infernal magic as well as his arcane. Touched it, used it, bent it to her own will… not to say there weren’t tricks and consequences. A need for practice and an exercise of muscles. But it definitely wasn’t an issue of being impossible, it was simply on the how it blended and where it couldn’t.
All the while she hadn’t let go of his arm even when his casting of magic had drawn her away from those thoughts to quietly admire these simple gentle ways he could cast it. Natural shifts, elemental. The kind most people didn’t seem to appreciate for it’s subtly because it wasn’t all fireballs and lightening or complex woven spells. Just nature growing and shifting, happy to do so because it was being acknowledged and appreciated.
One could not fail to notice the need for a protective shield too. Picking up what details she could while he practically threw himself on the fresh mossy ground.
And Calia in this stupid desperate need to have connection didn’t hesitate at the slightest at his gesture. Telling herself it wasn’t her reaching if he was doing the invite, and convincing herself even further that such a motion absolutely meant she was allowed to take his whole arm to bodily stretch and use as her personal pillow. Fully prepared to pin his hand to the ground if that were necessary.
Half expecting him to argue and fuss, question it and already putting together a hasty explanation in her mind about the Whys and Its Fines and any other means of nonsense she could clatter together that didn’t sound absolutely insane.
Honestly, he wasn’t about to get into the semantics of magic and differences. While pairing down the hows or whys. Because truly, it didn’t matter. At least of all, right now.
What mattered was his own mental awareness picking up that she really hadn’t separated much from him since that abrupt reach out and grabbing her till she broke into a likely much needed sobbing. Now Calia was present. Clutched close by hand or arm or what have you. Where he wasn’t thinking about it being inconvenient but rather picking up perhaps that she had been actually afraid. Of course not something he said, seeing as that was liable to get her worked up.
But she expressed how she didn’t like when he walked away with the attitude that he wasn’t coming back. Pairing that statement with the fact that Calia was commonly alone prior their interactions and the reality that she had this means of acting like she was so perfectly content to be a solo being.
She was afraid to be alone. Now desperate to ensure that he didn’t try to flee or run so long as she was a constant addition, it made one think.
No, he didn’t fuss about it. Didn’t argue or bring it up because fairly, why would it. If what he was putting together was even remotely close to being fact, then he understood her need to be silently reassured. If that meant her holding on to him, fine. He wasn’t bothered by it. So long as she didn’t try to wrestle him to the ground again, it was entirely acceptable.
He was fine anyways tossing himself into the mossy ground to be the newest bedding spot and found her quickly doing the same. Tucking in close and near that he was liable to have pins and needles in his arm because the thing had fallen asleep. “Try another day about yer fae travel, we’ll get yah all practiced up with it first before yah try to explode me.” Arc decided to comment on instead, settling and welcoming the way one’s form sank into the magically influenced natural bedding.
“You wouldn’t explode,” she murmured. “Lose a toe or ear at worst.”
Whether or not she was serious or that was meant in all wicked humor didn’t much make a difference. They certainly weren’t going to try it in the here and now. Calia was all too aware that he was physically and likely mentally exhausted. Calia was for all intents and purposes an exhausting woman to deal with, and regardless what he said that still made her a problem. This time it had been directly her own fault, not the consequences of others coming after her.
And he wasn’t wrong either that she was her own worst enemy, for all of that chaos, all of that brooding, all the damned sobbing, now she was thoroughly exhausted too. With herself, the world, and everything in general.
So if it meant caving into this need she didn’t want to question, think about, examine, or even acknowledge, Calia was going to do so without a peep. Wrapping both her arms around his like it’d been one of her captured pillows she fussed so much about in the elven palace. Nonplussed about the means of bodily touching, spooning and being curled up with the demon, for there was nothing foreign or strange about it. She’d slept with and slept with many a man, and the only difference here was that for once in her life she actually had zero worries or fears about what would come in the morning.
If anything, he was liable to have his arm bitten like she was some sort of swap alligator if he did dare try to escape. Or if someone tried to snatch either one of them. No one was going to get him or her without the other this night, and pure mayhem would befall anyone stupid enough to try.
Finally after a long, lingering moment of holding onto his arm like her life depended on it she did allow herself to relax. Bit by bit staring with her toes and working her way upwards, until there was a soft flexing of her fingers and burying her face. Sleep took a bit longer to follow, breathing quiet shallow breaths until inevitably she succumbed.