The air broke apart as though the world itself had inhaled the moment her head touched the ground. Cold, snow, ruin, stone—gone in an instant, as if the wasteland had been nothing more than a fever dream. The rift sealed behind them with a soundless snap, its edges curling inward like the last breath of a dying flame, erasing every trace of ice and dust that clung to their skin. The silence that followed was not empty but full, dense and resonant, as though the space itself had a heartbeat.
Warmth unfurled around them, thick and absolute, as if it had been waiting centuries for their arrival. It carried the scent of old paper and brittle ink, the faint sweetness of dried herbs, and the grounding musk of damp earth. Each breath drawn filled the lungs differently—less air, more enchantment, as though magic itself had been distilled into atmosphere. It pressed against skin like velvet, weighty but strangely comforting, a presence that wrapped around them with the intimacy of a cloak. The chamber was alive in a way the wasteland could never be, pulsing gently with its own rhythm, its own ancient intent.
Bookshelves crowded the walls, crooked and sagging under the burden of their knowledge. Their wood was swollen and warped with time, the once-fine carvings reduced to soft, weathered ridges. Tomes bound in cracked leather slumped against each other like weary companions, vellum pages curling at the edges where ink had bled and spread from centuries of stillness. Between them, vines had crept in secret patterns, threading across shelves and spilling over spines. They flowered in soft glows of bioluminescence—delicate blossoms like captured moonlight, shedding halos of pale blue and silver that swayed as though stirred by an unseen current.
The floor bore its own story, stones uneven and laced with hairline cracks that had filled with moss and creeping roots. Dust had settled in thick drifts, stirred now into lazy spirals that caught and lingered in the air like embers suspended in amber. In the corners, glass vessels and jars lay in disordered ranks, some intact, others mottled with age. Powders had clumped into hard cakes of forgotten color; liquids remained luminous, their surfaces faintly shifting as though stirred by unseen hands. Some vessels glowed faintly, their light muffled under grime, defiant against centuries of neglect.
Every surface hummed with threads of magic too old and too numerous to separate. They hung in the air like cobwebs spun of light and shadow, unseen until one moved, only then brushing faintly against skin with a tingle sharp enough to raise gooseflesh. It was the kind of sorcery that had outlived its maker, sinking deep into the bones of the tower until stone and spell were inseparable. This was not a place rooted in geography or time—it was untethered, set adrift between worlds, untouched by the decay of one realm or the pull of another.
Arc sat hunched at a table blackened by age and accident, its wood bowed under the weight of countless experiments. Dust filmed the edges, disturbed now by the measured motion of his hands. His violet eyes, dulled with exhaustion, stayed fixed on the arrangement before him—alchemic glass twisting in spirals, pewter bowls lined with crushed herbs, a candle guttering faint blue. Skin was pale, his jaw set, his shoulders sloped with weariness, but his focus did not waver. On the edge of the table sat a small bottle of red glass. The black-market potion they had stolen. Its liquid caught the candlelight, glinting like fresh blood. He had pried it open, its cork discarded nearby, and now working on unravelling it piece by piece. Droplets fizzled when mixed with powders. Thin glass pipettes trembled as he measured each fragment, testing, distilling, separating. A faint hiss rose from a dish, releasing the sharp bite of copper and the sweeter undercurrent of herbs charred too long.
Her frame had been laid nearby. Attention given to bound her chest into that of clean bandages as to slow that of the bleeding. As it was easily the first thing necessary to manage otherwise well, it risked far too much else! Where he worked in silence for her, every movement deliberate, his exhaustion a shadow at his back but never halting his hands.
The tower itself seemed to stir in answer, its walls exhaling faint whispers as the old magic woven into their bones roused beneath his intent. Dust rose in slow, weightless spirals, drifting through the candlelight before settling across his hair and shoulders like a mantle of ash.
The silence carried more weight than any vow, heavy and unbroken, a stillness steeped in resolve. The only sounds that filled the chamber were the muted clink of glass, the hushed trickle of liquid into waiting vessels, and the steady rasp of his own breath. A demon stripped of healing light, yet still at work, piecing together salvation with fragile, mortal means—because he refused to surrender her to the same silence that had already stolen too much.
This was an exceptionally good nap, Calia decided with ease, for this was nothing less than the most perfect of dreams. Knowing with certainly she hadn’t died, because she still hurt in every possible was a person could hurt and such a comforting cozy place surely wouldn’t be a crafted hell just for her. Besides, Calia had always thought if she died she’d find her way back to the stars so she could spend eternity floating around in the cosmos being beautifully useless.
When she shifted, everything in her felt weighted down and forced to move in slow motion. Even in her and thoughts were a little fuzzy, which was all to be expected. One thing after another had decided to demolish her whole life, her restful days had not been restful, her anger endless, magic pulled from every possible source she could grasp it, a demon’s torture and making very questionable decisions!
Living was so much work.
She’d lost her train of thought again, taking in a deep breath of that old parchment and worn leather. Wood and greenery left to age with grace, with that cedar and sagey smell. And magic. Whispering in a soft breeze. Rocking to a fro like a gentle river current. There was no place in the world that had ever given her such a sense of welcomed peace. Not her homeland where she grew up, not even that faerie’s court where she should’ve felt amongst her kin.
There was a clink of glass and this weary breathing sigh nearby, and she knew who it belonged to in an instant.
So it must indeed be a dream and Calia intended to enjoy it while she could.
“Take a break and come have a nap with me,” she murmured to the room, finding amusement in that it didn’t echo or even sound that loud at all. Unsure if it was her own fault in not being barely above a hoard whisper, or if the room itself demanding things be in this warm muted quiet. Who was she to argue with this dream? Let things be cozy.
There was always the echo of it in his mind—a strong recollection of the place that had once been his alone, a space between spaces. Athanor’s Gate was not merely a spell of travel but a ritual of binding, one of the first true workings a mage learned when crossing from apprentice to journeyman. Yet its weight was more than instruction; it was a covenant, a tether of soul to stone. Born of a mage’s essence, the Gate tied them to a sanctuary outside all maps and calendars, a place suspended between the heartbeat of the world and the silence beyond it.
It was not unlike the hollow—born from the mage’s self, inaccessible to any but its creator—yet where the hollow shut its doors to all others, Athanor’s Gate allowed chosen guests to step inside. A privilege granted, never owned. The mages of Bladerift Tower had used the art to weave their infinite halls, bending their fortress into vastness within impossibly narrow walls. The trick was not in creating space, but in severing it from the world’s demand to remain finite. A tower that didn’t stand in the world, but waited beside it. A door that only opened with the keeper’s will. A sanctuary inviolate—once sealed, it was sealed utterly.
That they were now within his own was undeniable. They stood inside the wellspring of his magic, an echo chamber of his being. How he had remembered the spell, or why, or when it had risen out of the mire of his fractured memory—he couldn’t have said. Not surprising, perhaps. He had forgotten more than most would ever learn in their lifetimes.
It was safe, yes—untouchable from without, inviolate against intrusion. But its walls carried no balm. The air hummed with his own essence, and that was no comfort to him. If anything, it only deepened the press of guilt and the aching detachment that gnawed his ribs. Safety was a thin thing against the constant weight of himself.
Still, necessity demanded. The wound in her chest needed tending, and his magic—what was left of it—could not knit flesh. What he could do, what remained to him, was the craft. So he bent himself to it, dismantling the black-market draught to understand its secrets, reverse its threads, and try to replicate its cure. The potion at hand had to be prepared for her use—and more must be made if she were to live through what was still to come.
The sound of movement pulled his gaze up. A shift of breath, the murmur of her voice, soft nonsense about taking a break, about sleep, about laying down together for a while. His eyes flicked over his shoulder, weary and brief. For a moment, the suggestion was almost enough—sleep, surrender, the quiet forgetting of the world. His body, his very soul longed for it. A few days stretched beneath silence, allowing himself to dissolve into nothing but to be temporarily surrounded in a presence that he was extremely conflicted about. But that was not his path, not with guilt seated like a gatekeeper at his chest, barring any thought of freedom. The ache was too heavy, the reckoning too constant. He turned back to the work, shoulders tense, and let the words slip low, roughened by fatigue. “Manage yer strength,” he muttered. “The gap in yer chest needs mendin’ first—before anythin’ else.”
He sounded so tired. Not a surprise either, as he’d gone through the same never ending chaos she had. Even more than that, as it wasn’t every day someone got chomped by a drake and went through literal hell and back.
Calia shifted again, brushing her hand against her forehead as she sighed and finally dared to open her eyes. Stone cliffs covered in thin layers of snow were no more, this lovely little dreamscape had taken the form of a librarian’s lair paused in time during a quiet summer afternoon. Light casting the hazy glow with dust motes dancing along to some unknown air current. There were probably walls somewhere behind those rows and rows of books, but she rather liked the way they added gentle color and made the room feel warmer. A living space instead of something cold and barren.
He was being stubborn, though, and dream or not, she wasn’t goin to let him work himself unconscious.
“I’m not going to die,” she answered easily, finding enough of her own stubborn will to force herself into sitting up. Frowning at the pain of it and… damn. If it hurt this much in a dream, Calia was glad she wasn’t awake.
“But I am going to make you some tea,” she murmured then, finally taking a better look around now that she was upright. Mildly annoying that she could be so exhausted even inside a dream, but that wasn’t so unusual anyway. Who hadn’t had dreams where they’d wake up only to realize they were still dreaming all along. This one was perfectly pleasant. Somewhere around here there ought to be a stove and a kettle. A cat to pet too if she were lucky. A place like this needed a cat.
His palms hit the table with enough force to rattle the glass, a crack of sound that seemed too fierce for the weight sagging his shoulders. It wasn’t rage—it wasn’t even close. It was fatigue sharpened into an edge, the collapse of restraint when he was already drowning under the press of his own guilt. He was executioner and condemned both, carrying the weight of wounds he’d dealt himself, and yet still she insisted on piling his failures on her back as if she could bear them better. That, more than anything, was what undid him.
“Calia.” The word came low, tight, compressed into something cold and stripped of patience. His violet eyes were rimmed red with exhaustion, but they cut to her all the same. “Shut the fuck up. Lay down, and deal with someone else tendin’ to yer stupid ass for ten minutes.”
The growl that followed wasn’t anger—it was a warning, the kind that left no room for refusal. His voice carried the strain of someone who could barely keep his own head above water, who could not—would not—watch her tear herself apart for him when she was already bleeding. “Yer wound may not kill yah now, but infection will. So climb off that gods-damned stubborn horse of yers and shove whatever argument yah got so far up yer ass it ends up behind yer eyes. I’m fuckin’ tryin’ to keep yah alive, and yah need to rest.” His jaw tightened, words ragged with fatigue but unflinching. “Yer fae—not immortal. Quit actin’ like yah are, yah dumb bastard.”
If there was any hint she was near faded enough to be moments away from passing out again, it was how she didn’t immediately jump at the sound of slamming palms and rattle glass. Instead her surprise came delayed by seconds, sucking in a breath and leaning ever so slightly back as if her name so curtly spoken had come with a physical push.
When he did turn to stare at her, looking like he’d been trampled by an entire herd of moose and cursing up the sort of words Calia would never dream up on her own, that creeping sensation of realization began to sink in. A warm and cozy dreamlike space this might be, but it was definitely not a dream. Archimedes was back to the living world again, and so utterly done with her shit.
Wisdom had her shirking back, returning to the means of laying down proper with the added bonus of a faintly burning red in her cheeks and a sudden desire to curl up and bury herself. Instead she focused her blinking stare up at the ceiling.
She was no where near close to dying, he really didn’t need to be fretting himself to the point of severe fatigue. For fuck’s sake, how long had she been napping for that to even be the case!
“…can you at least stop for two minutes and make yourself tea?” she asked tentatively. “Complex magic needs fuel for the body and mind?”
Oh he was expecting a fight from her. So when it didn’t come, well even he was a bit bewildered. Where his stare had been the sort that offered no room for rebuttal, it turned into dumb blinking. Turning slightly on the stool that moved only at the top, so he could openly gawk at her. Being the singular audience member that was seeing the girl with a dagger wound in her bandaged chest, comply.
That she laid down and was staring up at the ceiling with such a state that even Arc turned to question if something was up there.
He knew this place of course, well maybe less so than before but still he did know that there was absolutely nothing there! However, he was hardly as monstrous as he wished he could be. Had sought to be once more only well… that clearly went super well. Although he would have to question just how the hell Calia officially destroyed one 2nd rank demoness into the means of nothing, because that was no easy feat! Later… maybe way later… “Hmm, sorry. I ain’t yellin’ at yah. I’m… yellin’ at the circumstance.” Arc offered sincerely even as he shifted that of body back around to his little work station. Eyeing it questionably with a dull thought throbbing behind eyes.
Searching mentally for the ingredient list that would recreate the damn healing potion! It shouldn’t be this hard!
Clawed fingers no sooner were rubbing at that of eyes when she spoke up about stopping for two minutes to saturate his gullet with tea. Which he wasn’t sure what that was going to do besides make a means for one having to use the bathroom sooner. “It ain’t complex just… time consumin’.” He offered in a mumbled counter, “And I don’t need tea… thank yah.”
Well since she was awake and he doubted she was going to entirely comply with the means of getting her rest, “Why did yah stab yerself… that was a pretty stupid idea for someone who has more brains than rocks. Contrary to whatever bullshit yer guna say next.”
“I’d rather have you yelling at me than not talking to me at all,” came her quiet confession. Truly, under the circumstances he had every right to and she deserved it to boot. Calia surely as hell wasn’t going to get mad at him for trying to take care of her at all.
…she just wanted to make sure he wasn’t keeling over just to do it!
Which funnily enough was about to be what they were going to bicker back and forth over. Sane people didn’t argue over just whom was taking care of whom, then again neither of them could be considered sane, could they!
At least the tension had fallen away, even that thick numbing pain that had been in her body for days. A different kind of pain was in it’s place, which was less of a problem in her opinion. Calia twisted her position so she could lay on her side, easier to watch him without getting fussed at again.
“…she was too many steps ahead of me.” she muttered with a frown. “Stronger, smarter… you can’t fight smart with smart, so I did something stupid. Found herself too flabbergasted to see what was coming next. I wasn’t actually trying to kill myself, I just wanted her to think I was that desperate.”
And it had worked flawlessly! Ignoring the part where she hadn’t taken into account the bigger picture of the shape she’d been in and then the whole wounded part afterwards.
“A cookie,” came her next suggestion. “Buttered bread? A piece of deer jerky. Or come sit here and close your eyes for ten minutes. You’ll feel refreshed and think better.”
Again, he turned around to look at her. Probably because his brain was really struggling to understand why the hell she would want him to yell at her either. Of course she said why but that didn’t mean it made sense. Even if his mouth started to try to flap uselessly in some sort of brilliant remark that was falling quickly flat. Turning into a thin grin line on his features. Veering sights sideways like the action was going to materialize all sort of witty commentary to be readily picked for said comebacks. Only nothing was coming. Probably for the better at the moment because he didn’t exactly know what to say in totality.
Allowing himself the chance to right his posture, his angle and give his head a hard figurative squeeze in vain efforts that it was going to produce pulp that had the means of ingredients best suited for the alchemical recreation.
It wasn’t working and he damn well knew it wasn’t. Forcing it wasn’t going to help but damn it, pacing the floor wasn’t going to help any more than sitting here.
Perhaps it was why he found the means of asking what sort of dumb nonsense Calia had intended to do with a dagger sticking out of her chest as some macabre attempt at a Hallow’s Eve decoration. Flicking an ear to indicate he was acutely aware of her, listening raptly while she sorted herself to adjust posture. Thankfully having enough sense not interrupt while Calia explained her reasoning for doing so and it was one hundred percent reckless. Grade A Calia plan to the very marrow that even hearing it, made him sigh in pure exasperation.
Slumping shoulders till he was turned again just enough that elbow could rest on the workbench. Cheek in hand and violets aimed her way with a half moon draw. “That’s what yah get with a demon style carrion problem. But, yah could have done any number of other thin’s. Yer not stupid Lia, I know yer not. Reckless, leagues of it. Granted… I can’t say shit about it in the end considerin’,” His other hand simple made an empty flick to suggest he was more than aware of his own stupidity in how his actions resulted in so much.
“Yer guna have to learn stronger healin’ magic if yer guna be stabbin’ yerself out of situations.” It was his sort of period to the end of that sentence. Not so much a suggestion, more of a requirement at this point. “Or have a priest on hand because, yah ain’t guna feel hot when yer got twelve different infections in yer body.”
Breath inflated and exhales shortly after. Letting lids sag shut only for a second which apparently was long enough for her to suggest all manner of things at him. Earning a singular eye to open at her, “Are yah tryin’ to fatten me up?” Asking in his best attempt of bare bone comedic timing, Arc was still frowning. Shaking his head, “I don’t want too. I mean… I want too but… I don’t.” It might be one of the rare moments that he was going to be open to her. “I just want to make sure yer safe and healed Lia…”
“I guess I am clever when I finally get there. …although I get there a lot faster when someone with a calmer head is around to point me in the right direction.” The comment wasn’t subtle at all, as she tended to never be subtle. Calia was better with him, that was as clear as day to her and she didn’t understand why that never seemed to sink into his head.
To be fair, this time he had been in the middle of his own stupid reckless bullshit, even admitted that with the gesture of his hand. They were both stupid.
“I don’t need a priest when I have you,” she answered without missing a beat. Eying him carefully at that shake of his head and the soft admittance that in this moment he couldn’t seem to tear himself away from his present singular focus.
Bringing them back to the original bickering. Whom was taking care of whom.
“I am going to do everything you tell me to do without a single complaint,” she reassured him. “See? Laying down, not getting in trouble. I’m not bleeding out, I’m not currently dying and I’m aware enough to be annoying. So then, you could come here just for a few minutes to let that over active brain rest long enough so all the secrets of the universe start flowing again. Set a timer if you want.”
Her comment was in fact, not subtle. Though his frown that accompanying that commentary was probably just as loud as her own words. That he didn’t exactly agree with her but didn’t deny it either. Yet there was more about it to chew on that he was so unfamiliar with. Making his stomach twist further in on that medley of various emotions that were ripe for becoming poison at this point. Trying truly just to state what he thought was better said than internalized.
Which the whole reply back that she didn’t need a priest, Arc leveled a eye at her. Almost, almost he told her that was probably all the more reason to have such a person on hand. Something self depreciating but found himself not really interested in going down that road.
Probably because she was being unusually soft. Bidding him to either eat or come to rest with her. Surely she knew how off that sounded even if they’d been in close proxy numerous times. How many days they slept nearby another outside, in the damn palace… even the most recent bathhouse. It wasn’t new but something about it just made him so uneasy.
Raising attention once more when she stated clearly so there was no marring of clarity to be had. That she wasn’t doing anything that could be potentially worth them getting into bickering semantics. While piling on that she was going to be just annoying enough that he’d either tell her to piss off or disappear her into another room in this place. Which would just invite Calia to wander, he knew that!
“Lia—”
Her name slipped from him like something broken, fragile and jagged, and the sound of it startled even him. His voice was stripped bare, raw and trembling, no trace of bravado left to stitch over the cracks. No cruel quip. No jester’s mask. Just a hollow honesty that made his throat tighten and his chest ache. Balling hand into a fist, released, then balled again, that restless rhythm betraying the storm gnawing him apart from the inside.
“I… don’t want to get close to yah.” His breath shook, every word dragging up like glass. “Not because I don’t want to—but because I’m terrified. Terrified of what I am. Every part of me—” Jaw tightened, eyes closing against the weight of it, “—It feels like a weapon pressed too close to yer skin. My teeth, my claws, my magic, my fuckin’ nature—all of it. I can’t turn it off, and I don’t trust that it won’t tear into yah without meanin’ to.” The confession trembled in the air like something poisonous, heavy and unshakable. His voice cracked low, almost hoarse with the effort to force it out. “I’ve already ruined enough. Hurt enough. And yah—” his gaze lifted to her at last, wet with anguish he couldn’t disguise, “—I can’t… I can’t watch myself become the reason yah bleed. I don’t want another face in my mind that is just like the others.”
It wasn’t just fear of violence. It was fear of himself. The truth that his very existence had been sharpened into something monstrous, and that caring for her meant putting the edge of that blade against her throat every single time she drew close.
Oh damn, did he have to say her name like that? In such a way that made her missing heart twist at the sound. Calia hadn’t meant to get him upset and in his feelings again, she was honestly trying her best to keep things as calm and non argumentative as possible!
Yet what did come tumbling out of his mouth was the last thing she could’ve expected. To raw and too real to have these sorts of words spoken with her laying down on some library chaise like she was a wilted storybook damsel. These were the truths of him, his deepest fears and for some reason he seemed to think she could was not aware at all. Calia had known fully well he didn’t want to be close to someone new and to loose them again. For another ghost he failed to save to come haunting him.
Although, maybe she’d not known the full scope of her after all. How could he-
Fuck this, she couldn’t deal with it laying down, this was stupid.
“Gods, you can be so fucking dense sometimes-!” she uttered under her breath, pushing to sit up again, but his sake leaving it at that. Calia just couldn’t have such a conversation looking at him sideways, not when his soul was pouring out and he needed someone to catch it.
“Did you really think I don’t know what you are? What you could be?” she sincerely asked, fervent and serious with that verdant green stare and endless exasperation. “I was faced with it all with the first contract. By second I knew exactly what I was tying myself to – and you seem to think they had to coerce me, trick me into binding myself to a monster?”
Both hands it took to gesture firmly at herself, at first not knowing how to draw out the right words. There were so many she wanted to say and all of them were important so how could anyone even organize such a flurry of thoughts! A frustrated, baffled sounds escaped her before it all came out with a sigh.
“Do you have any idea what it’s like growing up and knowing you are something too much for the world? Of course you do! That was your whole damn life! You were too damn powerful, too smart, too dangerous for anyone that has ever met you. You are a force of nature and thank the gods for that because for once there is finally someone who can meet me mettle for mettle. Someone who would help me crack this stupid unfair world apart – or better yet someone who can stop me from doing it because you know I would regret it. I don’t have to be afraid with you. I can breathe when you’re with me. I can just exist.”
“So please, for fuck’s sake stop thinking I want you to be anything less that what you are. Even the parts you think are going to hurt me, as I can promise those parts as just as important to me as the rest. I just need you.”
It was almost immediate too because if she was going to start screaking at him about things that were pressing into his throat like a hot brand, he was going to make her disappear into another room officially. As while he was not comfortable revealing things about himself in such a raw manner, it came out regardless. Revealing its truth and facts while just trying to point out that it wasn’t her, it was one hundred percent him.
Still leveling a non too please glare when she was calling him dense, while pushing herself to sit. At least that was it, she wasn’t making the effort to stand up to stomp over to him. And she seemed –much to his own mental appreciation- not to launch into a harpies fury to start shrieking at levels that even dogs might only ever hear. It was clearly annoyed but it wasn’t yelling –as it was starting to become abundantly clear, he did incredibly poorly when he was being screamed at. If anything, it raised his hackles and provoked a part of him to be properly snappy and aggressive right back. For a long while, Arc didn’t move. His hands had moved to braced against his knees, claws digging in until little crescents of pain bloomed in his palms. His breaths came shallow, uneven, as if speaking at all might crack him open too wide. When the words finally scraped out, they carried all the raw weight he’d been burying. “Lia… every time I close my eyes, I see them. Faces I can’t forget. My vara standin’ in the doorway, his hand on my shoulder, tellin’ me I was better than what they called me. And still, I watched him die by my own grasp. My mind replays it—what I should’ve done, what I could’ve done—but no matter how many times I change the endin’ in my head, the truth never shifts. He’s still gone. And it’s still my fault.”
His jaw worked, and for a moment he looked like he might stop, but the flood was too heavy now, too dammed up to hold back. His eyes burned as he spat the last name like a curse. “And Carlisle… I can’t even kill that bastard right in my head. He comes back twisted, warped, sneerin’ at me in the dark. I see him leanin’ close, whisperin’ that I’m no different than them, that every drop of blood on my hands is proof I’ll end up just like worse. Every time I fight it, he laughs. Every time I try to deny it, he shows me the faces, the wreckage—and I can’t tell if he’s wrong. That’s the worst of it. I can’t tell.”
He shook his head sharply, hair falling across his eyes as his voice hollowed into something more brittle than iron. “It was easier before. When I didn’t remember their voices. When I didn’t know every scream, every silence I left behind. Back then, I could breathe. Walk forward without feelin’ chains clatterin’ behind me. Easier, ’cause I didn’t know the names. ‘Cause I didn’t feel the ghosts diggin’ their claws into my back.”
Hands rose to drag down over his face, claws catching briefly against his skin before dropping back to the table. Shoulders sagged, the air around him heavy with exhaustion. When he looked at her again, his eyes were glassy, rimmed with red, torn wide open. “But now I do. And every memory cuts deeper. Atticus. Aelyra. Carlisle. Faces I don’t even know but recall. They walk with me, Lia, and every step feels like another noose I’ve tied around my own neck. If it can carve me to ribbons, what’s stoppin’ it from carvin’ yah?” His voice cracked then, soft and splintering, frayed down to the bone. “And yet… gods help me, I still can’t let yah go. Yer the only reason I want to keep tryin’ to walk under all this weight. The only breath that feels real and… I just… I-.”
Violets lifted to her then. A hundred more things to say and the lack of breath to say it! “I don’t want to hurt yah…” It wasn’t what he wanted to say but it was all he could say. Hoping… truly hoping that she understood that it wasn’t easy to simply be needed because what she was asking for, was something never sought after.
Everything in her was screaming to get up, cross the floor and squeeze him. She could see it in his face when she inched to the edge of seat almost motioning to get up, how he tensed and looked ready to do battle over that – so she didn’t. Her ass stayed where it was and that urge had to be suppressed into digging her nails in the damn sofa cushions.
Calia listened though, because he was finally FINALLY telling her something real. All of those terrible things he’d been allowing to brew in his head and heart, and oh how she could see where Fawna had truly left her mark. Had drawn all of his pain up to the surface fresh, scathing, burning with every memory. He needed to say it all out loud, even if he didn’t realize it. More than just giving her the trust, there was no way he was ever going t be able to heal if he couldn’t acknowledge and face it all head on.
She wasn’t exactly emotionally stable herself, but she did know that.
The part that made her heart twist the worst, however, was that he still somehow thought it was all going to come down on her. As if the weight of his pain was somehow going to come to life and she was going to be the next one he hurt.
“Your ghosts can’t hurt me,” she told him softly, catching those rings of violent. If she couldn’t hold him at least she could hold his gaze. “Your ghosts don’t want to see you buried under your own guilt either. Not the ones that really loved you. Trying to forget them wasn’t doing them any justice, and you know what, maybe they knew you were struggling and chased you right into me. You made sure I didn’t make the same mistakes, as you can bet had some other demon found me I would not be somewhere good right now.”
Had another demon charmed and weaseled it’s way into a contract, Calia would’ve burned her way through the mountains with a devil whispering in her ear. Every mistake a little bit bigger, every calamity even more deadly. She might have gone straight to her heart and be returned to herself already, but it wouldn’t have been the same Calia. She’d have already become that very vision of a queen in her nightmares and the world would tremble from grief.
“The only way you hurt me is by not talking to me, so… talk to me. Let me help you carry the grief and the pain until it’s weightless. I could be anything that I want, and all I want is to be part of your life. Let me be the pieces that are missing, I promise I will be the one thing you never have to regret.”
She finally took in a deep breath and couldn’t help the furrowed brow and frustrated scowl that was forming. Sitting still here was agonizing and she really could not take it anymore.
“…so can you please just come here and sit with me for a few damn minutes.”
Arc didn’t move at first. He sat hunched forward at the worktable, claws curled tight against the scarred wood, his whole frame strung taut like a bow that had been bent too long. Breathing came slow, ragged, his shoulders heavy beneath a weight that was far older than either of them. Every word she had given him, he’d taken in but it showed in the way his jaw clenched and his throat worked, like swallowing the truth physically hurt.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low, stripped bare of its usual armor. No bite, no bravado. Just weary honesty. “Lia… I hear yah. I do. But I ain’t good at lettin’ anyone carry the weight with me. Been draggin’ it so long it feels like it’d crush someone else, even if they swore they could bear it.” His eyes lifted toward her, violet dulled with exhaustion, but sharp with sincerity. “And gods, I don’t want that person to be yah, especially since yah have a lot on yer own shoulders. I’ve got a track record a mile wide of hurtin’ the ones I care about most. Yah don’t understand how fuckin’ easy it is for me to ruin thin’s without even meanin’ to.”
His hand flexed against the table, knuckles pale, claws biting into the wood as if grounding himself. “I don’t mean fightin’, or yellin’, or bein’ cruel. I mean me—what I am. My nature. It don’t switch off. Every part of me feels like a weapon. And if I let myself get close… it scares me. Yah scare me. Not because of who yah are, but because of how much I care. Because losin’ yah would—” His voice faltered, cracking at the edges. He dragged in a breath, sharp and shaky. “—It would finish me. And I don’t know if I’m strong enough to keep that from happenin’.”
His face turned away for a beat, pressing his palm over his eyes, like he could smother down the rawness clawing its way out of him. Silence hung heavy, broken only by the slow rasp of his breathing. Then, at last, he moved.
When he finally lowered himself onto the sofa beside her, it was with the care of a man who thought even the act of sitting down might do harm. His body remained angled away, knees turned slightly outward, shoulders tense as though braced for impact. Leaving a deliberate sliver of space between them—enough to mark a line, a boundary, a measure of control. But it wasn’t convincing.
His hands betrayed him first. He rested them on his thighs, claws curling inward until the knuckles whitened, but every few moments his fingers twitched—like they wanted to reach across the gap, wanted to rest against her, and he had to fight himself back from it. His shoulders stayed stiff, yet every slow exhale leaned him closer by an inch, as though gravity itself was conspiring against his resolve.
Violets stayed down for a long time, pinned to the floor as if staring hard enough could keep the rest of him in check. But his eyes drifted, inevitably, toward her—sideways glances quick and guilty, as if catching himself in a crime each time he looked. Then, with a groan that was equal parts genuine ache and deliberate performance, Arc surrendered to the moment and flopped backward into the cushions. It wasn’t neat or careful—more of a collapse with flair, as though the very cosmos had struck him down. His limbs sprawled out far too wide for the narrow sofa, claws hanging limp, his whole body declaring look how tragic I am.
The wince that followed was all too real, pain carved into his features like an afterthought—but beneath it, the faintest twitch of his mouth betrayed the showmanship in the act. Even stripped raw, even frayed down to nothing, Arc couldn’t quite resist making a spectacle of his own misery.
Eyes shut, head tipped back, he looked the very picture of a man martyred by life, sprawled in a posture half exhaustion, half parody of it. The fragile line of space between them was almost laughable now—like the curtain of a stage that had already collapsed. He looked starved for comfort, stretched within reach of it but refusing himself, as though denying it was its own form of penance.
“I do care about yah, Lia,” he said again, voice low and uneven, as if the words needed to be re-spoken to anchor him. “That’s the part that scares me most. Every time I stop fightin’ it, every time I let myself get closer, it feels like I’m invitin’ the blade nearer to yer throat. But by Gaia’s heavin’ bosom, I’m so damn tired of fightin’ it.”
His hand flexed once more against his leg, claws scraping lightly at the fabric before falling still. “So if you’ll have me here… even if it’s just for a minute… then I’ll stay.” And though he sprawled as if to dramatize the distance, the faintest lean of his body toward hers gave him away—an unconscious betrayal of how badly he wanted the closeness he pretended to resist. “I’m sorry, Lia. For everythin’.”
Calia could’ve said that she’d had plenty of experience of being on the receiving end of him trying his damndest to ruin this relationship they’d been building. Every time he’d snapped at her and put distance between them, making her believe that he could barely stand the sight of her and that her presence had been torture!
Maybe it had been. At least now she understood better the whys. That all along he’d been too afraid to reach simply because he thought he and everything he was would be something that crushed her. How ironic that it was truly the very opposite!
Thank all the gods in all the pantheons of the world that he’d finally caved into sense and left that damn stool to join her. Like waiting for a skittish cat, Calia remained still as possible so he could sit himself down. Breathed softly, calmly – make no sudden movement lest he get skittish and scamper off under a chair. It wasn’t lost on her that he kept sliding this faint look like he was still afraid to even touch her or else she’d shatter like glass. Then, as one theatrical demon must, he finally flopped himself down as grace as a fainting goat.
Spoke pure stupidity with it too. An apology that need not be given, yet still her heart twisted upside down.
Knowing he was liable to pitch a fit if she tried to pull him onto her lap and force him to take a nap simply because she had a silly little self inflicted stab wound, Calia did the next best thing. Scooting to drape herself onto his lap instead, reaching her arms to circle around his neck and burying her face at his ear. There was no ceremony to it, no awkward words or sassy taunt. Simply a chance to hold him the way he so desperately needed someone to. Letting her own calm and fearlessness seep into him through the way there was no tension in her. Only quiet even breathing and a steady rhythm of her heartbeat. Just because so often she was storm and thunder, it didn’t mean she couldn’t be as comforting as an evening snowfall.
Arc went still when she shifted, startled in that sharp, half-bewildered way he always was when Calia broke through his expectations. He had braced for the usual—a verbal jab, a shove of stubbornness, something he could spar with. Instead, she folded herself into him without a word, calm and steady, as if she had always been meant to fit there. The move disarmed him so thoroughly that, for a long beat, all he could do was blink down at the crown of her head, the faint glow of her hair catching in the dim light. The way she pressed against him—unafraid, unhesitating—slid into his chest with a kind of ache he couldn’t name, the kind that made his ribs feel too tight and his throat too thin.
He’d been ready to fight again, to keep that last scrap of distance, to sit rigid and prove he could hold the line. Yet there she was, weaving herself into his lap and arms as if it cost her nothing at all. As if it were the simplest, most natural thing in the world.
And he didn’t resist, not this time. Too tired, stripped bare down to nerves and bone, he couldn’t summon the will to push her away even in pretense. Rather arms came up slowly, a little halting at first, claws catching against the fabric of her tunic before he adjusted, careful not to tear it. But once the embrace began, it wasn’t hesitant. He drew her in fully, tucking her against his chest, his chin brushing the crown of her head. There was no halfway about it—as though the moment he let himself close the gap, he knew he had no intention of loosening it.
The silence they shared pressed in heavy but not suffocating. Allowing him to lean into it, into the steadiness she gave him—her soft, even breath warming the side of his throat, the solid rhythm of her heartbeat beneath his hand. It soothed at the ragged edges of him, those places that felt perpetually frayed and bleeding. His body sagged, the fight drained from it, his weight settling into hers with a kind of weary surrender. For once, there was no sly quip, no pointed mockery to deflect how bare he felt. Just the quiet of a man who, at last, allowed himself to rest in someone else’s grasp. He stayed there for a long while, simply breathing with her, until at last he dipped his head and pressed a kiss into her hair. It was faint, little more than a brush, but it lingered, and in lingering it left his chest aching. “Yer a right soddin’ pest,” he murmured into the strands, voice thick and rasped from exhaustion. “And I care about yah more than I got any right to.” The words were stripped of sharpness. No attempt at disguise. Just plain, tired truth, laid bare with the softness of someone too worn to lie anymore.
Silence reclaimed the room, broken only by the dull hiss of his breath as he tried to steady it. At length, he added, his voice low and hoarse: “If more demons crawl outta the woodwork… yah don’t stab yerself next time. Not ’til I’ve sorted this bloody potion out. Just stab them instead, all right?” He tried to bend it toward humor, tried to give the line his crooked bite, but fatigue dragged it flat. It was still him, though—still Arc, still clawing a crooked path through the dark, even if the weight in his tone betrayed more plea than jest.
His arms tightened around her then, brief but instinctive, before he leaned back just enough to look at her. His violet eyes cracked open, dull with overtiredness yet sharp with the unease that gnawed him. Every line of his face carried the wear of the day—creases at his brow, shadows beneath his eyes, his mouth set tight as though holding back the words until he couldn’t anymore. “…What happened, anyways?” The question slipped out quieter than the rest, tentative, wary. “I don’t remember much. Nothin’ from when I made the deal with Argentina ’til… yah were laid out, showin’ me it was time for a wintery nap.” His gaze lingered, heavy and uncertain, his voice fraying at the edges. It was a confession as much as a question, and in it was the plain fear of a man who knew the answer might undo him but needed it all the same.
He needed this so much more than she did and yet there was no denying that Calia herself had been desperate for this kind of comfort. Not something she had dared to reach for often in her life, somehow being the worst combination of finding such things entirely awkward and yet craving it all of the time. Once he’d put his arms around her she almost asked him to just squeeze her until she couldn’t breath more than a squeak, and that still wouldn’t be enough but it’d come close. Grateful he’d finally accepted this moment of quiet support, as the more he relaxed she too melted into a puddle of limp fae limbs. Surely ready to fall asleep there had he not called her a pest and drew out a silent laugh.
Then he decided to point out that the only thing she should be stabbing is demons, adding on with the query on what had after he’d gone. And that… well. Calia withdrew her arms from around his neck to reposition herself, this time drawing them around his back where she could effectively bury her face out of sight entirely. Knowing fully well if he were exasperated with her pretend-self harm, he wasn’t going to be so pleased about when she had attempted a swift death on purpose.
Regardless, he needed to know and she could feel that in him. See it in his face when she did finally dare to pull back enough to look at him and grimace all the same.
“It was a lot. A story of three acts, if you will, of a crazy woman who just wanted one single thing and a whole bunch of people being pains in the ass about it.” It was an attempt at delaying it with a splash of her usual nonsense, before she sighed with a twist of her mouth. Best to get it over with, then.
“You died, and in my infinite wisdom forgot for a moment that demons just pop right back into the hells. And I have told you that I need you to stop me from making stupid decisions and with you gone the whole of everything just seemed sort of pointless. I flipped him the finger and called him a dragon’s taint and told him to go ahead and eat me.”
She let that sink in for a moment before sending her gaze looking at the ceiling again – the guilt and the embarrassment of it written pretty clear across her face.
“Apparently there is ancient law where he couldn’t eat highblood faeries. I was just going to stay there with your corpse and become a tree or something, but he reminded me about demons. I picked myself up and left. Deciding I would have to go fetch you, except it’s not so easy to think clearly when you’re raging mad and pretty certain the person that left you preferred the depths of hell to being around you. So… that was act one.”
The very second she buried herself into him, he already knew she had done something that was entirely Calia. The tempest in a mortal frame that would, could and absolutely will make sure that things bowed to her by choice or by righteous fury.
Reserving the means of such sighing out his entire soul because he was ready for some wild story to come frothing from her lips, Arc simply welcomed her want to just sink in further. Calling no attention to it but just sort of allowing himself to be a lump of flesh. With less teeth being introduced into him. Ready to hear what this tale was going to be and it already started off so well. “Three acts?” He knew time moved very differently in the hells –most realms moved at different speeds anyways- but that was one hell of a tale to make if it came in such a trilogy.
Tilting just enough that the stare of someone that was in fact tired but intrigued, when she told him about people being pains in the asses. “Seems to be a theme regardless of who and why.” Which was true, it didn’t matter where or who was involved, others were content at being thorns in their rears. But if he was about to be quietly shaking his head at her antics, it had clearly not been the best prepping emotion. For she explained that in her moment after he had been successfully murdered, she had forgotten that demon’s did not die. At least not by being stabbed by drake claws! And Calia took the whole death as well as anyone sane might.
It was Arc shifting slightly so they could at least not slip off the sofa like two boneless blobs, that had him widening his stare at her. And pressing a hand into his eye sockets at Calia saying she had called Cragjaw a dragon’s taint –not the worse insult she had ever come up with surely, not her finest either- but told the bastard to munch her down. “I wish I was surprised.” Arc sighed some behind his hand that quickly lifted as she continued. “What?”
Thoughts picked up at the whole ancient law and well, “I… Interesting… I didn’t know that.” Granted he had never made light chatting a topic to have with the surly frost lizard in the past. And knew of no other draconic beasts anyways. But that was interesting information to have, not that it lightened the idea that Calia was telling him that she had believed he had truly not wanted to be around her anymore.
He couldn’t lie and say it was wrong. He had his own emotions acting like the world’s best private hurricane in his mind and blew absolutely everything out of proportion five times to Sunday. But in the eye of it all, he still wanted to be around her. “Yah know yah can summon me as long as the bond is intact. No bond, no summonin’.” In case she forgot.
Only then did he move again. Shuffling her back so she was at least not burying into him and well, it wasn’t like he was the most subtle being in the world. Rolling his hand under her shoulder so he could use the other to loop a claw against that of the bandages. Pulling them back to peer at the self inflicted wound, “Yah need to work on yer draconic insults if yah ever run into another.” Violets were flicking with inspection, “These are guna been to be changed soon,” Smoothing the linen back down with a gentle brushing of the back of fingers, only so he could land his stare firmly upon her. “So what’s act two? Is this the climax and yah better tell me too if yer the one who’s hungry by the way. The tower ought to still be functional for that… I think.”
One said but made use of his position to at least snatch up one of the cushions to tuck under his head so he could at least keep an eye on her.
“I’m always hungry,” she admitted, as if he didn’t already know that by now. Calia was glad to eat whenever she had a treat in front of her, and really the only time she didn’t was those moments she was upset. Eating well had been a necessity with her own magic, and thrice as much when having to use his. …and while she was thinking about it, she honestly couldn’t remember the last time she ate. At the bordertown? Because of the strangeness in faerie realms and likewise her dumb ass passing out in the snow, Calia honestly sure if that was yesterday or weeks ago.
In any case, she was presently distracted with him moving her about and tugging and pulling at things to check her bandages, and that really should’ve been embarrassing or pull some sort of girlish blush from her, but all it really did was amuse her to death. These were things she could manage herself, it was so ridiculously sweet.
“I thought about summoning you, I just wasn’t so sure if it was a good idea if you did hate me.” another admittance. He had poured his heart and soul out to her, it was time Calia reciprocated that honesty in her own fumbling way. Her thoughts and fears and insecurities laid bare, so he might finally realize all she actually wanted was for him to just be there with her.
“While I was climbing up the mountainside looking for the passage, that magpie paid me a visit again. It said the court could help me and I figured it didn’t hurt to find out. It was…” she paused there, rolling her fingers in one hand trying to think of the best way to describe it. “The Court of Vines was an eternal masquerade, hosted by one that called himself King Alewillan. I’d never seen fae in human forms before, most looked just as elves do if a little more…. ethereal? Magical. Otherworldly.”
That ought to have been a clue to Calia that she did not belong there, for there was nothing ethereal or otherworldly about herself. Perhaps if she was one to change and shape her form she could dazzle herself up to something truly enchanting, but it all seemed a little superfluous and overly dramatic for her tastes. …at least of the level that they’d all performed.
“Anyway, he told me out right that it was me he wanted and said he would help if I joined his court. And I just… I don’t know why I didn’t answer right away. He asked a hundred times and it felt like a hundred years and all of five minutes at the same time. Dancing and beautiful gowns and all of the attention I could ever want, but they were all strangers and I wasn’t happy. I felt like there was a new hole in my chest all over again and that it’d been filled with solid stone.”
Calia didn’t want to add more guilt to what he already had, just to make sure he knew what he had left behind. That his presence had meaning to her, that she felt the absence just as much as her missing heart.
“It was there that Argentina followed the bond and break her way into his court. Made a grand a show of it, and in hindsight I think she was a great deal more powerful that Alewillan even without your power in her hands. Otherwise why would a self proclaimed king of a court not immediately blast her ass right out of the realm?” She hummed then, already having he answer herself with a soft annoyed growl under her breath.
“Ah right, because then he wouldn’t be able to twist my arm into agreeing to join his court. Let me rule you, Calia. Say you’re mine.” she mimicked with a sneer. “He was a bastard. I might have… blacked out for a moment and pulled his skeleton free of his body. Stole his magic just for a few minutes. I wasn’t thinking, I was furious.”
“I never hated yah. I wanted too but I couldn’t.” Arc offered even as he was somewhat thinking about the health potion again. Would it just be easier to have her take it now from his work bench and throw it over her wound? They could find another one, just it would take a bit of investigating and or, he could just come back here now that he remembered he had it and try to just make his own. Equally difficult but not unfeasible. “I told yah before to summon me,” He leaned a bit closer to lightly press a kiss to her crown before he was sufficiently settled back down into place.
Well somewhat. There was a hand moving freely in the air that was orchestrating something somewhere else. Thought and motion here worked well that he didn’t have to look for casting. Manifesting an assistance to make Calia something to eat so she could mend her hungry stomach.
While this also let him be an attentive audience member for her declaration of what act two was. Apparently an escort to a place deemed the Court of Vines –idly tracing his thoughts for the information but promptly settled that it was about as obscure to him as any other court. He was a thespian imp through and through, but fae were dramatic in all sort of other ways. Offering only a bare shrug that simply expressed elves were fae at one point. Things she likely had gotten enough of an education from when they were in the palace and the capital city. So that didn’t need to be rehashed.
Allowing his features to animated in their slog to lightly knit brows at the mention of a man that was King Alewillan. The name rang not even a singular bell but he did roll his eyes a bit when Calia expressed that unsurprisingly the king wanted her to be part of his court. About to say something that was stalled when she expressed she had not been very happy in such a realm. With all the attention she could ever want but holding onto a stone that apparently was equating to him being some she was loudly declaring she just wanted him to be present. Near.
Important.
Arc offered a hum, a nod and a light nudge that expressed he was hearing her. Loud and clear, no more taking what was being said and assuming it was with lies sewn in. She meant what she said and said what she meant. He didn’t have any gray zones to find in this. Not anymore.
So when she declared this was the part that Argentina had helped herself into the realm, Arc sighed. “I don’t know who the fuck is more dramatic at this point in the tale. Her or the court.” Brows flicked somewhat, “She was a second rank demon, so higher than myself. If she were stronger than the king then I suspect he was no king at all.” He offered his insight with only the details presented. Nodding to agree that Calia likely figured out why the man didn’t throw Argentina right out onto her flaming rear. Because he was trying to use her as a bartering chip against Calia.
“Yah know, yah would think the faelin’s would have better intercommunication that tryin’ to force yah to choose one evil or the other, ain’t guna go so well.” She was highly independent and anyone trying to put a golden leash around her neck were truly asking to be thrown through the very crust of Gaia’s earth.
Or apparently just have their skeleton pulled out of their body while she casually used their magic against them. Earning a very animated few blinks because that was not at all what he expected Calia to say, and laughed quietly. “Yah best be careful, sayin’ and doin’ thin’s like that is practically foreplay for a demon. And I’m too worn out to be frisky and or praisin’ yer terrifyin’ power, Lia.” Well never let it be said that Calia wouldn’t be a frightful terror when she was truly pissed off. “Yer magnificently petrifyin’, Lia. But yah said it comes in three acts, so if yer makin’ kings lose the right to their own bones, it’s only guna be worse with Argentina then.”
The wooden door in the room swung open so the simple wooden tray could float its way in. Carrying that of a teapot and a small collection of sliced meaty sandwiches that had been orchestrated. A mere motion of hand was enough to have the enchanted items come settling down on the couch and he gave a bare motion for her to make it disappear like she was a thief in the night.
“It’s been a curious thing the way they approach me,” she mumbled, tilting head with the thought. “They can’t just steal me and do as they wish. It’s all been trickery to get me to make the choice myself. I don’t know if that’s some faerie thing or if I’m just… that much a pain in the ass.”
As it was well known that no one could force Calia to do anything she didn’t agree to, not without there being all kinds of unpleasant consequences for everyone involved, including herself. Maybe that meant she should be a lot more accommodating and compromising. She wasn’t so sure.
Of course, then he made a grand fuss about her ripping some bastard fae’s skeleton out and for some stupid reason that was thing that had the apples of her cheeks scorching red. Didn’t think twice about gently affectionate kisses to the forehead. Just- damn! She didn’t know why that bit of teasing hit her so oddly.
Thank goodness for the distraction of magically summoned food by invisible butlers. It drew a curious enough look from her, then immediate interest, and she was reaching instantly without an ounce of hesitation. Already having completely forgotten that she’d made such a big deal about him having some tea and food himself, or she would’ve hassled him now about the ease of it’s summoning. Seemed she was content enough that he was finally sitting with her.
A whole sandwich and a half had disappeared into her mouth with a very questionable amount of chewing before she’d settled with a cup of the tea between her hands. Still perfectly comfortable to be seated there curled up with him as her throne.
“It wasn’t so impressive to her and she made a grand speech of making sure I knew how much you suffered and how futile my struggling was. You’d given yourself to her, she held the leash on the tether, which made me hers by proxy. She made sure I felt it with every searing whip she sent through it. And I felt guilty enough I did believe her. Especially when Alewillan manage to slither himself across the floor to snatch his magic back and throw me at her. I was just a thing to both of them and I was so tired of fighting it.”
She paused there to sip her tea, wonderfully hot and without anything to sweeten it, so she could taste all of the steeped herbs with their flowery flavors. Having something in her stomach already felt worlds better and the tea gave her something to tap her fingers again while she thought.
“I decided I’d play her stupid game and I left with her. Which was act three. It’s not really exciting or dramatic. She talked and talked because she loved the sound of her own voice and because it made me miserable. Struck me with a searing snap here and there so I couldn’t get my thoughts together. Knew what to say and when to say it to send me spiraling. Told me you were a svartálfar. Laughed when I called you my soulmate and made me feel like I was nothing but selfish and careless and self serving. That I didnt do anything but tear things asunder.”
That still hurt the most, for it was Calia’s insecurities there. Her fear and self loathing and problematic thoughts that helped fuel all of her misunderstandings and misconceptions. It was what helped reinforce every time he left as the very reasons why he did, as it was all too close to the truth. She stared down at the tea in her cup for a quiet moment, at least until the moment she caught her own reflection and then it was a return to looking at him.
“She pissed me off when she said you weren’t extraordinary. Reduced you down just to magic, as if that’s the only thing that made you who you are! And she wouldn’t stop fucking touching you, just petting and stroking and that pissed me off even more. I wish I could say I had some grand ephany and solved the puzzle of how to get rid of her, but I was just so tired of her being a creepy bitch that I could’ve done anything. I stabbed myself because I knew that’d either make her stand there being smug over me being stupid, or it’d force her to have to act to stop me. Then I stabbed her with your sister’s sword. You’d said it was a demon slayer, and I was going to make sure she was never coming back.”
It was a lazy gesture while she thought outloud. About how it was peculiar that the fae thus far had been trying to trick Calia into her giving up her autonomy to them. “It’s not that yer a pain in the rump. At all.” He suggested with an accompany stare to prove that he wasn’t really in the mood to have a verbal sparring match on whether she was or not. “I could be wrong but I believe, fae need yah to agree to the choice so they can snatch yah away. Somethin’ somethin’, free will. I don’t know the depth of it or whether it’s true, but yah gotta be willin’ to give it up so they can take it. It can’t be stolen. Similar to a demon, we can’t make yah do anythin’, but we’ve gotta make yah want to. Some ancient promise of greater actions.” He didn’t know the jist of it, just knew that some things had very clear rules and they couldn’t be seemingly broken, twisted or altered to get around. An ironclad expectation that wouldn’t be foiled.
Or hadn’t been thus far.
Whatever it was, he wasn’t in the business of figuring it out. Only that it worked in Calia’s favour thus far. It meant unless she really wanted too, no one was ever going to be able to force her to something she didn’t wish to do herself.
Granted, he could think about such things for a while if he felt like it but the whole reveal that she had taken a man’s skeleton out of his body? Well Arc couldn’t entirely resist making a comment about it. And lucky for her that while she seemed to be gingerly embarrassed about it, he didn’t feel the need to add on commentary to that either! Merely keeping the blushing cheeks to himself. To be served by unseen forces that brought the means of suitable dietary items so she might reclaim both strength and relief of a potentially yowling stomach, one had to wonder if Calia unhinged her jaw like a snake. A good thing he didn’t care, but took those few moments to just rest his the ache in his head and behind his eyelids.
Humming only once Calia spoke up and the sound of her nails were tip-tapping on the ceramic of teacup. Bidding half closed gaze to look at her rested so seamlessly in that of his space. Listening to the antics that Argentina had committed and a slow smirk came to his face. “Yah sensin’ a theme? Villains like to talk,” He even tapped a claw to his own chest because she also had not been a fan of how much he nattered away when they first were encountering another.
Though the difference between him and Argentina wasn’t simply on how they worked the binding. He’d not used it to torture Calia –only snapped it once or twice when he had gotten mad back in Tir Elas and that was now not a reoccurring thing. Not too interested in causing the faeling herself, that type of discomfort. Because he didn’t like that type of discomfort.
Was it any surprise that as she expressed the depth of what Argentina did with it –through him- to her, that it made a rather grim expression form. Temporarily stopped at the casual mention that King Alewillan had crawled back to take his magic back and toss Calia at Argentina’s feet. “Some king.” Arc muttered, not impressed by any letter of the word.
A gentle shake of head and the sharps of ears lifted subtly as she continued while fingers were tapping again. Detailing how Argentina worked and made sure to truly use every little thing she could against Calia. Pain, turmoil, verbal barraging of truth and lies intermingled into one. Pressing and pushing in strong discomfort but the problem in that was, she pushed too much. Calia wasn’t like most people. She would reply in kind sooner and with more of a determined hatred that truly could rival the stars for how bright they shone.
Just there was two things in the commentary that caused Arc to straighten and his gaze widened, “I’m a what? And you called me a soulmate.” Those were two distinctly different things to casually drop into a retelling, before he was glancing around.
“I mean, the whole reason I was sought after was because of my magic, Lia. To most, if not all, it’s the only part of me worth much.” A hand raised to dismiss that he wasn’t agreeing with it, just that he knew well enough. Only for his palm to turn back outwards and to tap upon the bandaged portion of said plan she had. “It was reckless. Effective but reckless. Granted I ain’t entirely about to be fussed because yah used the sword to prove it can kill a demon permanently and removed a miserable piece of shit from all realms. But I stand by my former point, no more stabbin’ yerself. Stab others, ones that warrant such attention.” His touch lingered a moment before it was pointing its sharp edge to the workbench, “Yah ought to use the healin’ potion to render yer medal back to sewn flesh rather than recklessly marring yer skin. Yah’ve got enough scars unseen, yah don’t need physical ones alongside.”
“Svartálfar and soulmate,” she repeated, momentarily feeling that tinge of pink again as she hadn’t meant to let slip some of the more sentimental things she had said. Giving a small shrug of her shoulder as she took a sip of tea to procrastinate a bit longer. “Svartálfar, old blood of elves or something like that. Soulmate, as in a missing piece in person form.”
She’d drank the last of what was in her cup, making it effectively useless for any more prolonged sippings so she bent to set it aside. Following his gaze over to the workbench where he’d been apparently trying to decipher the whole of it’s ingredients to easily make a ready supply of the things. Another shrug of her shoulders followed and it might’ve even seemed dismissive of his concern if it weren’t for that quirk of her mouth and the way she twisted back to burying her face at his shoulder and neck.
“It’s all the way over there, and you told me to stay still and rest,” she murmured, with that crooked grin. One might call this mischievous compliance, doing exactly as she was told, for she’d gotten enough of what she wanted that there was surely no reason to bother moving at all now! Besides, holding him captive for as long as possible was going to do him some good. Archimedes still looked quite rough, but at least now all those jagged edges and stiff limbs had finally softened and lost all of their tension.
“I’ll only stab others from now on, promise.”
Now it was his turn to echo her again, “Svartálfar and soulmate.” Each word feeling so vastly foreign on his tongue. Like neither knew how to settle there. Desperately trying to climb off because neither fit. And yet, it felt equally so… so near correct that it drew him into a temporary hush.
One opened when she helpfully pointed out what both meant. “I k-… know what they mean, petal.” His tone wasn’t harsh or cold. Merely dipped in a set of confusion because both terms needed to be properly assessed. Lightly and oh so gingerly. To let him digest what was potential truth and fact rather than just expecting him to take it and toss it into the mental bin somewhere.
Easily using the means of pointing out the potion that they had lifted from the black market only for Calia to offer a form of malicious compliance. Or rather, impish compliance when she told him it was all the way over there and he had told her to literally sit down, shut up and rest. Earning a deadpan stare while she tucked herself right in neat and quick. Fanning heat of breath across that of collarbone. Steadying palm to the middle of back, his chin lightly folded over the top of her crown. “It is a cold day in hell when yer bein’ attentive to what has been asked. I suppose I best not look it in its gifted mouth.”
It would have been easy enough to summon the item surely but if she was going to actually heed wise advice then it seemed best not to provoke her with a chance to get up and start thumbing around the space either. “Good. It is all I ask for. I am not a fan of yah bein’ hurt after all, doubly so when there is not a shred of healin’ magic left in my body to fix those wild ideas yah have.” Touch upon back lightly cinched and unfurled. Drawing slow circular traces of claws, “The court of vines however… it still seems peculiar that they would invite yah there and only toss yah out momentarily after. It seems… not to reek of the dark fae the tree warned about. Or a rather stupid dark fae that was bigger than his britches. “
There was a soft hum of her agreement, that he ought to just sit there, stay still, and be glad she wasn’t getting up and digging her hands into everything she could touch here. Maybe it was a testament to just how bad of a shape she’d landed herself in this time, how tired she was, that she hadn’t immediately started asking him a million questions of just where they were, how he made it, and then proceed to start getting her fingers all over everything to see what it was and how it worked. He had to know that she’d want to pull at every thread.
Instead of being a general menace, Calia was more interested in taking advantage of this quiet moment. Not a sweet dream at all, only a rare gift she intended to stretch out and linger for as long as he’d let her get away with it.
“I didn’t know what svartálfar even meant and Argentina didn’t give me anything really useful,” she admitted. Shifting up her head to gently tap her fingers at his collarbone in a slow rhythmic thuthump, thuthump, starting with the speed of his own heartbeat before gradually taking it down to an ever slower beat. A little trick from a fond memory of her mother trying to get her restless child to actually settle down and go to sleep. Not magic but pretty damn close, in Calia’s opinion.
“…was kind of hoping the vine court and Argentina both counted as one each. The tree didn’t really specify if it were all dark fae or demons or someone else, so that could be all four out of my way and now it’s done.” Even Calia didn’t sound so convinced, letting out a soft sigh. “Or it could mean anything and none of them but the very first counted and there is still three.”
“Would be nice if everyone just left me the hell alone.”
It wasn’t even any sort of list of thought he ever had. Knowing damn well that it was not at all associated with his late father, because the man was as elven as the next elf! Sure his parent had a strong magical font himself, it was still vastly different than his own.
But to hear svartálfar being associated in his direction, it was never something he considered. They were stories in their own right. Svartálfar and Ljósálfar were some of the base designs of elves. Fae in their own right but associated not entirely with the fae realm, rather another. Closely related but distantly at the same time. The sort of things you heard about or read about in passing without a secondary thought, really.
Feeling the tapping she was making, his mind was already chomping on this vague detail given. Wondering if it was fact or fiction. “They are old bein’s. It’s not clear if they are older than faelin’s and dragons or not. Lots of mystery wrapped around them to the point that its more myth than anythin’.” And apparently one he was now going to have to invest some time into locating the difference between stories and reality. Not an easy feat by any measure.
Humming lowly as he simply had adjusted himself to merely sort chin over her crown and focus a bit on the tapping fingers. While in turn she express the utter nonsense of vain hope that the court of vines and Argentina had been an amalgamation of the whole crap. A tired smirk broadening till the peak of fangs were telling, “Considering what yah’ve dealt with thus far, I ain’t guna say that yers or my luck in such thin’s would be so grand. It’s worth thinkin’ about even if yer wish is to be left alone. Sadly, yer a sought after trinket apparently by others eyes where they fail to see it ain’t no trinket but a very ready young lady that’s dangerous in her natural right.” Arc exhaled softly as touch had slowed some, “Power is something people of all types want to chain, causin’ problems for yah in various sorts of ways.”
Lids had shut at this point. Thought thick and working laboriously behind those sealed irises, “There is an advantage to all this though, it means yah have the cards in yer hand. They want yah, and are clearly guna keep tryin’ but yah have the ability to make them grovel, chase and hopefully make mistakes because their greed is blindin’ them.” Palm flattened upon the middle of back, “And the other tell is how determined the fae are to break the bond, but from what I picked up, Argentina liked the bond. I have a feelin’ on the demonic side… its better yah be bonded. So one wants to break it, the other wants to covet it… more mystery.”
Loudly he huffed at that, “What a fuckin’ mess.”
“Everyone wants to claim they are the oldest and the first, but we all came from the stars so it doesn’t much matter,” muttered Calia, finding no interest with the history and beginnings of things, for that was so far back in the ancient past, what did it even matter anymore. Maybe for the creatures who were as old as time itself and liked to bragged about. She supposed they had little else better to do.
There was a soft disgruntled sound from her about being a sought after trinket for those who just wanted a nice handy-dandy little source of magical power. Her presence now known to the world, and it seemed that was to be the whole of her life now. Pestered and chased and bothered, when life was hard enough back when it was just her piddling around trying to make sense of her own self. Now there was kidnapping and attempted murder on top of it!
It was a curious thought that he brought up, in the potential that fae wished to sever the bond – or rather it was more they wished to remove him from the equation and put themselves in his place. Calia bound to a fae, no demonic taint involved. Then the possibility that demons would prefer it remain strong, a two for one deal of powerful magic.
He was correct, this was a mess and Calia wanted no part of any of it. If she could just stay here, like this, did she even really need to go back out into the world?
That tippy tapping might’ve been working more on herself than on him, eventually slowing to a stop as she drifted closer to that sleepy napping. While she was perfectly fine and not at all about to die just because of a little stabbing, now that she was fed and the flurry of worries in her mind had been put to ease, wrapped in arms that were solid and safe, it was far too easy to let comfort take her doze off to sleep. Confident that he’d gotten at least a few minutes himself to stop wracking his brain dry and give himself some rest too.