By all means he would take gratefully any night that wasn’t frought with dreams pulled up by his inner subconscious. Where it was blissfully blank and dark and silent. At least to recollection, there was probably some weird ones in there. The sort that were like only being able to walk around with a handstand and wearing hats as nose pieces. Things that were so odd and nonsensical that even one’s slumbering mind decided that was too strange to have the waking mind recall.
No more than a faint sensation at the back of one’s head that knew they’d dreamt and knew they’d been wholly peculiar.
Whether it was Calia’s belief that inspired the lack of pressing nightmares, or the general means that even a demon needed to rest after a while; none of it matter. And he didn’t drown in the obscene amount of pillows that were challenging the bed for the plushest in all the land! Having escaped at some point from Calia’s grasp to be somewhat free range on the spread. And probably grateful he wasn’t the sort that ended with their ass up in some strange position because their bodies at night liked to do the hokey pokey!
It was with more of an alerting thought and a twitching sharpened ear due to the swish swish swoop of broom bristles just outside the door from charmed cleaning implements that pulled at least a vague enough awareness to tower dweller. Finding a use for pillows when one was grappled and pulled over head because honestly, let it be known in the world once more that the Archimedes Silverstone was by no means a morning person, once he properly slept. And right now, morning was no more than an un-personified identity that was going to discover it too could be destroyed if he felt clever enough.
Calia did not awaken with a scream, a start or even a simper. It was a pure desperate rage when she reached out and gripped his arm so tight her nails nearly dug into skin. Yet just as quick, signaled by the fact he was sizzling hot, breathing and moving, still alive and felt not just through physical means but the thrum of a bond, she released. Retracting her arm with a quiet sheepish breath before glancing over her shoulder towards the stained glass windows.
Amazing how this realm of his had a sense of time of it’s own. Shifting the light to signal when bodies needed to wind down or to spring forward for the day. In this case, now casting beautiful colored patterns in hues of midnight blues and warm oranges that ever so often shifting into the forms of scampering rabbits when the wind of magic blew through the foliage outside.
Calia didn’t have much want to be a morning person today either, considering that meant her requested day of being a house goblin was to end, sending them back into the reality of the greater world. With this fury now simmering inside her too, wanting to aim it in the direction of one whom didn’t deserve it, consider it was just a dream and not at all his fault! Vaguely remembering a time of two her dear brother Fitz was on the receiving end of his wife’s ire because he’d done something foolish in a dream and she’d decided to be mad at him for the entirety of the day.
But damn it all, now she was too awake to roll over and go back to sleep.
Calia sat up with a grunt, hair spilling in a twisted mess over her should where she’d forgotten to take it loose from the silvery hair pins before actually laying down. Taking the moment to pluck them out and send them vanishing into her hollow, not bothering to do anything about her hair. That dream was still lingering as this ripping of her chest and strange tingling goosebumps up and down her spine.
That was a wake-up call.
One moment, Arc had been blissfully tangled in his fortress of pillows, buried deep in the cocoon of soft warmth, and the next—his arm was caught in a death grip. Absolutely the sort of grab that could make a man question whether he’d wake up with a limb missing, repurposed as some kind of impromptu bludgeoning tool.
A low, rough sound rumbled in his chest as he rustled his head free from the pillow he’d been using to smother away the world. Finding it promptly shoved it under his neck instead, levering himself upward in a lazy, graceless sprawl. Disoriented but annoyingly whole as a person of all tousled hair and loose linen of the bedding, “W-what in the hells are yah doin’?” he muttered, sleep-laden and slow, his voice a husky rasp. Each word coming out uneven, warbling in complaint, thick with the weight of dreams he hadn’t yet escaped. Honestly he could easily think of seven better ways to be woken up, and not a single one involved nearly losing an arm.
A violet eye cracked open—barely, begrudgingly—to squint at the midnight-crowned menace retreating from the bed’s edge. As she shifted back, her hair spilled around her like black ink poured across silk, so dark and smooth it was easy to forget it was even hair at all. “Lia?”
“Sorry, I suppose that is the dangers of sleeping with a feral fae creature,” came her breezy answer. Even a flicker of a toothy smile over her shoulder before gathering herself up to her feet.
Calia pressed the heel of her hand to eye for a moment where it burned and itched, likely from laying too long on her side and sleeping so deeply. Brushing away that discomfort with her fingertips almost as if she could shake it out of her skin too as she moved across the room to open up the stained glass doors to the little balcony.
She stepped up and breathed deep, the magic of his well and the comfort of having it all on the outside like a precious protective bubble. There really was no reason to pay any mind to dreams – they were just useless bullshit dredged up from her on fears, surely. Still… this was the first time he’d been present in one, and what a way to make an appearance. The last thing she needed was a pit of dread getting her twisted up and bitey when they’d found even ground again and needed to start moving forward on her journey.
“Go back to snoozing, there’s no reason to start the day yet,” she called back to him. Leaning on the stone railing and contemplating jumping off. This pensive energy of hers needed to go somewhere more constructive, else she might start to wonder if that bloodied red queen was the newest evolving version of herself and now that her heart was gone, his was now on the menu!
“Yah think yer the first?” He asked blearily twisting palm into eye socket even as he collapsed back into the absorbing comfort, “Yah clearly don’t give me enough credit to know what I’ve brought into a bed.” He highly doubted Calia was the sort that decided to potentially rodeo someone in her bed, but he also could highly suspect that she also wasn’t accustomed to there being a body present anyways. If she was like him, then sharing a bed meant making sheets fall off and there was very little actual dowsing.
And while he might not entirely put it past her to try and flip him out of bed because of a momentary, not quite awake panic; that didn’t feel right either. Because if that had been it, he’d been on the floor!
“Mrmgh!” Audibly complaining at the whole reveal the false light into the room with the doors being opened, squinting after her retreating form slipping out the very same doors.
Giving just a moment so he could make both eyes work in fussy cooperation. And then making the rest of his body work to swing legs off the bed to zombie meander out towards the balcony. With a princess all leaned over the railing looking like she could make for some fairytale work, “Too late. Yah woke me up and not in the usual ways I enjoy being prodded awake,” Tired or not, his mouth would still forever work towards being a sleezy bastard apparently.
Stretching arms up with an all too dramatic stretching so he could flop just as equally over the top into the little chair she had made with the table. “What’s goin’ on, bunny? Yer clearly stressed about somethin’ and unless yah wanna see if yah can materialize yer own echoes here, maybe just talk to me. I promise, I’ll keep one eye open.”
Calia flashed him a smile, one that promised that she knew exactly how he’d prefer being woken up in the morning and just enough of a daring threat that she might just try it one day. Only to follow it up with a cringe and a disgusted look when he plopped down.
“Ugh, gods, not bunny. Anything but a cotton tailed dinner,” she huffed, leaning on her hand over the rail and resting the other on her hip. First regarding him with a smooth, long examination of form.
Arc had slept well, enough that he’d wanted to linger even longer had she not probably startled him into the dawn. A sense of smug pride settled there, pleased that her space of sleep had been constructed so well and too that he could actually make use of this wee balcony along with it. Even if he was just following out here out of disgruntled curiosity over a sudden wakeup grab.
Her second thought sent her glancing at the tower itself with another scrunching of her nose. If her theory was correct and the more one poured themselves into the magical construction… that meant it could be very likely echoes of her own would start to form here. Making her wonder just which pieces of herself she was leaving behind to jump scare him from around corners! It was no small amount of magic she’d been pulling while safe within his realm.
Finally eyes of evergreen returned to him and she gave a casual shrug of her shoulder. Not dismissing him out right, just… it wasn’t that serious. Not something he needed to be concerned about.
“Dreams are unsettling sometimes, as you’ve said. I just need to hit something to work it out. …Unless you’d like to try something wild and kiss it better?” The suggestion came with a smile far too innocence that it had any business being.
The way he grinned at her. All melty sweet and sleepy with just enough endearing annoyance at the whole way she seemed to shift at being coined a whole new pet name amongst the slew he gave. Feeling perfectly pleased that she took to it so terribly. Happily adding on, “Face it love, yer vicious of course as any predator but I’ve seen yah all soft and adorable too. Yer just guna have to accept it because we both know I ain’t guna change it now that I know yah love it.” Sliding chin into the palm of hand with his best sleepy smug grin.
Of course as he was the focal point for her up and down assessment, Arc wondered if he ought to put on a show. Drape himself over the table for added effect but wondered more so just what had ruffled her up so badly that she grabbed him and in turn fled from the domain she had spend a long time cultivating.
Baring witness to the casual shrug that felt almost too casual. “They are, and from what I’ve learnt in the last few days, it’s better to make them known rather than have them fester around in yer brain to add to a potential future mental illness.” Arc countered, but not before a grin unfurled slowly and deliberately across his lips — the kind of grin that promised trouble and delivered it wrapped in satin. Sleep clung to him in the tousle of his hair and the lazy sprawl of his body, but his voice was sin incarnate. Low, rough-edged, and warm enough to make the shadows blush.
“Petal,” he murmured, the word sinking into the air like smoke, thick and dangerous, “I’m always wild. Yah ought to know that.” His gaze was sharp, oh so unhurried and glittering with the kind of intent that made breathing suddenly optional in the right circles. “And I’m the one who usually entertains all sorts of nonsense.”
Tilting head back just enough so he was watching her from the corner of his eye. Keeping the motion languid and entirely predatory with a perfected ease. “A kiss,” Drawling gradually with clear purpose of meeting her mettle, “Is hardly anythin’.”
The pure unbridled twist of disgust in her face bloomed into a narrow eyed hint of future violence, with all his melty sweet nonsense. For Calia could be soft in her way, but adorable was going too damn far. There was nothing adorable about her. She twist around to lean her rear against the stone rail, sitting straight as a rail herself and crossing her arms. That imperious air of a royal princess broadcasting clear as day that she was not amused with his shit.
Though there was a small crack in her facade when he threw out her own carefully attended advice. That things needed to be spoke out loud and not to let fester in their own heads. That was… well. Damn her last night self! It wasn’t supposed to come back and bite her in the ass. It seriously wasn’t a big deal, she’d have it out of her system within an hour of throwing her whole self into something.
He was turning on that predatory charm and it was too damn early in the morning for it. Especially when his hair was all bed messy and gave off this nice sheen in the morning light. Spinning up some thoughts she had to immediately stomp back down into the vault.
Still… a game of words could maybe get some of that fiery energy out of her. He was practically begging to get socked in the face.
“Ah, see, a kiss is more than hardly nothing. That’s gonna devastate you for days. You won’t be able to think about anything else and then you’ll be wanting more. On the other hand, I could wrap you up in a shirt and toss you off a balcony again, and you’ll just have suffered a fun ride and I’ll be far more amused.”
Oh she could pull on whatever facade she wanted; warlord, princess, sultry trollop, wild boar: he wasn’t about to be scared. Simply smiling all the moment longer till the whole topic shifted just enough that he could verbalize his curiosity. Waking up more and more by the second.
However, she could use his own remarks in an attempt to mollify whatever had set her off, he could do the same. Just because he was a demon gremlin of sorts didn’t mean he never listened. Right now, it seemed she had quite the dream. Enough that really, it could very well materialize itself into reality with how the were sitting at the nexus point of his very well.
Yet she was being her typical self. A type of deflecting that he’d meet head on. “Hmm, see yah talk a big game and say the right thin’s, but notice too that instead of darin’ to see how much yah can do the walkin’ part, yer instead threatenin’ to turf the one person who’s not layin’ in bed makin’ the letter z, stream out my face.” Arc shifted, leaning back into the chair. “Yer deflectin’, love. Not payin’ attention to the fact that yer not the only one who can care about the other.”
A finger lifted to point while pushing himself up from the chair, “But fine, I know when my concern ain’t wanted.” Throwing her a look over shoulder, “When yer ready to walk the walk instead of just doing the talk while simultaneously threatening to throw me off the balcony for yer amusement, yah can come find me in the tower.”
It was sharp how her anger twisted and burned when he dared to call her out instead of playing the game. Shut her down in an instant and turned away, which really just fanned those flames ever more. She’d said it wasn’t a big deal, was that not enough!
And she knew it wasn’t. Calia had stalked and stomped and pestered him to the point of being the most obnoxious menace in the world to get him to talk to her about the things twisting his head up. He was clearly seeing something in her now that begged him to ask the questions. Why shouldn’t he too demand she speak. It’s not like he could read her mind and thoughts to actually know what she felt was nothing worth being concerned about, and what actually irked her.
He got as far as the bedroom door before she pushed herself off the stony rail wall and followed after him. Arms still crossed tight as she was a little worried she might still make good on those threats of violence.
“…I told you it was a dream, and I wasn’t kidding about needing to go do something physical to get those eerie feelings out of me. I was trying not to direct it at you. Because you’re not-” she hissed out a breath, pausing there in the middle of the room to squeeze her eyes shut and tilt her head back in frustration.
“I’m not deflecting on purpose, it’s just easier to work out the physical thing that is clawing at me before I can do the words. Right now the words are just dream and bad, and you and dead. None of which really feels like something you ought to be listening to first thing in the morning.”
He knew well enough that pestering her was liable to actually result in her deciding that hurting him physically was the best response. Granted he wasn’t really a fan of being threatened either but it was better than the actual thing. So he left it in her hands. Expressed that he was curious to what perturbed her while not outright at first demanding she explain. Just really being potentially thrown over the newly created balcony was not something he wanted to do.
Being a literal punching bag was not something he was going to sign up for.
Making it to the boundary of the door jamb, she was shouting after him. Following too, warranting a look to her whilst fingers were reaching to tug away the means of upper attire. Pausing at least while she hissed about it not being more than a dream and her need to do something physical.
Shortly pinching her eyes shut so he resumed the upper strip. Letting her speak in turn. Which apparently resulted in it being a bad dream with him dead. “I don’t think yah get to determine what I think is somethin’ worth listenin’ too. Last time I checked, the only person who gets to choose my emotional response is me. Just like yah get to pick yers, Lia.” Arc stated surprisingly gently, “Plus, if I didn’t care about yah, I wouldn’t have asked in the first place. Can yah remember that for the future? I’m not tryin’ to piss yah off, but when somethin’ wakes yah with such a jolt and yer threatenin’ me with jestin’ harm because I worry about yah as a friend and someone important. But yah can’t exactly treat me like I’m yer enemy because of that.” He tossed the shirt to disappear into oblivion, “Yer throwin’ me cold and hot signals. It’s startin’ to feel like yah just want to hate me too simply because.”
The demon frowned, “What do yah need from me Lia? Right now, I don’t know if I’m supposed to care about yah in all ways, or if I’m going to get beaten for being genuine with yah?” A hand gestures outwards, “Yer dream upset yah, but yah don’t need to treat me like I’m yer personal villain for bein’ concerned whether yer alright, love. However, maybe that’s part of the problem? I don’t really know what yah want from me either but i won’t be yer punching bag, just so yah know. So, tell me what yah want or need from me?”
“I was trying so hard not to do this to you again and here it is anyway,” came her pained mumbled. Truly pained, for the restraint it took to stand there as still as she possibly could, not to raise her voice into a frustrated scream. Not to draw up some piece of magic just to get the emotions to come out of her body instead of building up to this overwhelming state of being balled up tight and ready to explode.
God, she should’ve just blurted it all out as soon as she woke up and it never would have come to this!
The irony didn’t fail to occur to her, how he was a demon and the last thing he wanted was a fight. How poorly he handled the yelling, even nonsense threats made in jest. Somehow instead it was Calia whose very soul seemed to crave violence any time she got swept up into her own feelings. They were born into the wrong bodies, surely. Archimedes should’ve been the fae and she the demon.
“I don’t want to aim it at you or hurt you, but I told you these feelings are consuming. And they’re not just mental they- They need-” she cut off there, losing how she could possibly describe it beyond repeating a physical need again. So she clawed her hands together and made a quick burst of fire between them. Then a second one with more force. Glancing to him hoping that it somehow conveyed what she was trying to say where the words were failing her.
“You don’t want to fight me, I don’t want you fight you, I just need to get it out? Do you understand? I have to get it OUT or I can’t talk the nice and calm way. Please. I’ll go outside. I’ll come back.”
Eyes flickered to where she expelled the flame bursts and mentally he just sighed. It really did feel as though he was never going to get through to her. That she could seek, and demand from him but if he returned it? Then it was like dealing with a very angry brick wall that he wasn’t sure if he could help her.
But there was that own frustration that stemmed from himself. That sense of uselessness that was only good for the comedic value.
Sweeping hands through his hair, Arc shrugged. “Yer free to leave whenever, yah access my magic. Just open a door outwards and do whatever yah think best.” A tempered grin was put into place. Not the false one of normalcy but it was a bit pressed.
Irritated at himself. “Guna wash up, I’ll be in the workshop, alrighty.” Flipping a half lazy shrug and wave, honestly he didn’t know what to do with her.
Hot, cold. Hot, cold.
“Please don’t be mad, I promise it isn’t you,” she whispered, not matching that tempered grin of his at all. Her look was more akin to someone feeling like their heart was breaking, or watching a puppy getting mauled. Either way, she was already backing up away from him. Turning on her heels, casting the magic to shift her clothes back to her usual black assassin’s garb as she stalked towards the open balcony. Fluid without even an ounce of hesitation, Calia stepped right up on the stone rail and jumped down to the ground below. Hitting it with a practiced roll before she continued her wild escape as far away from the tower as she could get without leaving his private realm.
When she stopped, she let out such a scream of Fuuuuuuuuck! it might’ve sent animals scattering for a mile. Long and shrill and angry. Going on until there wasn’t even a molecule of breath left in her and the lack of oxygen nearly sent her staggering on her feet.
That might’ve been enough if it had only been the dream she needed to shake off, but now it was another blunder in trying to communicate fueling the fires. Calia couldn’t summon up the magma of the earth or go shaking mountains – the only thing here to destroy was his tower and she wasn’t about to have him thinking this complicated rage was because she hated him.
So she summoned herself a legion of wooden and stuffed training dummies then drew out her sword. One by one she hacked and parried. Practiced her form and forced herself to move. Destroyed them down to the nubs with only the force of her body, using the magic only when she needed a new one to hack her way down.
At first the motions were wild and chaotic, fighting with the anger that burned so bright it was concealing all the other emotions. Anger shifted to frustration, helplessness… that feeling of failure washing over her again and again. Calia conjured another round when her heart stopped beating thunder in her chest, finally finding control of her breath and through it control of the movements she chose. Practiced, purposeful, graceful. The feelings found there were more complicated to decipher. Fear coming out prominent, but the fear of what, exactly? For that dark wicked voice inside her whispered that she only feared the loss of magic. To loose him would send her back to that fragile state of being nothing. Weak.
Yet, she knew it was not the loss of magic she feared as she’d been there, she’d found a way through it. This fear was far more tricky, for it involved the sort of feelings she still didn’t know how to manage. Where to put them. How to use them. They weren’t the sort that were going to be released through brutalizing a bunch of wooden dummies or launching a mountain into the stratosphere.
Calia ran through the routines until she was covered with sweat, her muscles ached, and her wound burned. When she was heaving for breath and her stomach growled, leaving nothing left in her to fight with. It must’ve been an hour, maybe even two or three. Sending her battlefield and sword vanishing, she grimace to herself. Still unsure how she was going to explain herself to the man that probably thought she was being the ultimate bitch, but at least now simmering down enough that she couldn’t even fight him if she wanted to.
She might’ve been a bunny after all with the way she reentered the tower almost on her tippy-toes, filled with trepidation and this sense of guilty dread. Seeking him out in the workshop as that is where he claimed he’d be.
The workshop had been shifted since last night—though really, it was less “shifted” and more “finally made to behave.”
Arc leaned his hip against the main workbench, corking a vial with a deft flick of his fingers, and allowed himself a quiet hum of satisfaction. The space no longer sagged around him like a tired drunk trying to find its footing but instead was measured, clean, intentional. Intentionally made to start looking less like the den of a creature living on instinct and more like the workspace of a man who once carried a scholar’s weight on his shoulders.
He’d begun with the workbench. The cluttered heap of glass and wood had been stripped down to its bare spine, scrubbed clean until the pale stone beneath gleamed under the soft runelight. The stains from old experiments, long ignored in favor of more urgent chaos, had been scoured away. Taking to reorganizing the surface so that everything was exactly where it should be: pestle and mortar aligned by size and use, the alembics arranged in a descending arc, vials standing in precise rows within carved wooden racks. No more reaching into a tangle of half-used ingredients and hoping he didn’t grab something volatile by mistake. He preferred keeping his eyebrows on his face after all.
Naturally the bookshelves had become the next victim. Of course he’d never admit aloud just how much it had irritated him seeing the way they used to sag—like exhausted old men with bad posture. Perhaps a reflecting of the old elven court back in the day. But now their spines stood proud again, neatly levelled, with tomes sorted by alchemical category and arcane relevance. He’d even carved a few subtle sigils into the lower shelves to stabilize the weight—a little old elven trick from a lifetime he no longer claimed. Some of the older, frayed journals had been rebound and set aside on the left shelf; the more modern references sat on the right, their spines clean and unbent. The center shelf—the one he’d once avoided because it reminded him of his own scattered past—now held his working notes, organized in neat leather-bound folios. It had certainly lightened a bit of his hollow since he had taken plenty of said old notes from his office.
He debated putting Carlisle’s heart on display but quickly determined that while it might fit his macabre mindset on the best of days, it was probably a bit too graphic. Even for himself. Maybe in the future. With a sign that said, “Here lays the heart of a noble dumbass, we don’t know what he was thinking.”
The plants had been tamed, too! No more wild, crawling tendrils slipping under his boots while he worked. He’d transferred their roots into clean wooden planters lined with silvered runes that redirected their creeping urges toward the artificial sunlight above. They flourished, but they did it where he told them to now. Controlled—not crushed. Much like him, in a way.
The statement of the room had changed because of these small, careful decisions. It no longer whispered of disarray and half-abandoned projects. It held a quiet, deliberate strength. A place of creation, not just survival. A space that mirrored the discipline of who he’d once trained to be—an elven mage advisor in waiting, before everything had burned and twisted into something else.
He checked the bubbling flask before him, the soft orange-red glow pulsing like a heartbeat. This time, it hadn’t fizzed out or curdled. It had stabilized. The healing potion—finally!
Arc tilted the flask to the light, watching how the mixture caught it like liquid quartz. A rare, warm satisfaction curled under his ribs. Not triumph. Not yet. But close. With practiced precision, he reached for the clean glass vials he’d set in neat lines across the bench, filling each one with a steady hand and stoppering them with wax-sealed corks. Every vial had its place. Every potion was labelled in a clean, slanted hand. This wasn’t some haphazard experiment anymore. This was work. Real work.
And beneath it all, in the quiet hum of the room and the rhythmic clink of glass, was a part of himself he hadn’t let breathe in years.
Calia felt as if she were stepping into an entirely brand new room, so much so she even paused just inside the threshold with a wary confusion. No longer were there a snowfall’s amount of dust motes lackadaisily floating in the hair. Everything had been tidied, straightened, rearranged to a state of well used and well organized. Even the air smelled fresher, like newly chopped cedar wood and summer air. Making her wonder if she should’ve had a bath before tromping in here covered in sweat and having not bothered to ever brush through her hair.
…and wonder too if this was a good sign or a bad one. Had she upset him enough to send him into a cleaning spree and take on that distanced, polished with his cold court accent. Or did he have that good of a night’s sleep he was ready to tackle the next leg of their journey.
Either way, Calia stepped further into the room with a pensive energy of her own. Rubbing her fingers together nervously at her sides as she gave a curious look to the newly arranged shelves.
“I’m sorry,” she announced right from the start. No excuses, no deflected blame. Just an apology. “You were right, I wasn’t being fair and I made it weird. I should have just told you what was in my head, or asked for a few minutes to get is straight before we talked, right from the start.”
A violet gaze peered momentarily over shoulder at the sound of her cautionary footsteps. In mid pause of filling another vial with the successful build of potion, his attention lingered. Taking in her state of being with the same sort of consideration that a parent might to a unruly child. It wasn’t hostile or cruel, just sort of accepting.
He’d spent more time straightening and organizing things this time than labouring mentally over Calia. Truthfully, it was all on purpose. Because honestly, the amount of room she took up in his thoughts was starting to become an invasion. Where frustration seemed to follow and really, he didn’t want to keep repeating the same problems over and over again while expecting different results. He had plenty of his own issues to deal with and trying to be whatever it was that Calia demanded one moment and shirked the next, was liable to make him properly crazy.
She was either going to figure herself out, or she wasn’t. One couldn’t force anyone to do something they didn’t want too and wasting mental and physical energy to be continually getting one’s hand slapped was absolutely the definition of insanity. She had her own demon’s to contend with and he was surprisingly not one of them.
She clearly had worked things to whatever way she wanted and he corked the newest vial with a firm press. Giving her the floor as it were to apologize –though he didn’t know if she knew what she was apologizing for or if she was doing it because it felt like the thing to do. “Okay.” Arc offered her a easy smile, earnest. But he wasn’t going to repeat this whole spiel or song and dance again. “Tower’s yers as usual. Have fun.” The demon brightened his grin easily, “Gotta finish what I’m doin’.” He was actually not mad at her and it was showing through his mannerisms. There was no tension, no pensive bite at his jaw. He wasn’t being a jester either that was concealing his emotions, it was more that he wasn’t about to preach and press either.
Calia was Calia. She was going to do whatever she needed and he wasn’t going to keep pushing at her or pulling away. He was here, present and living. That was all one really could do at the end of the day.
“Okay,” she repeated the answer under her breath. He smiled easy breezy, that tone of his voice matching the whole image that he was fine and nothing was awry. But was it? Calia had no idea how she was supposed to interpret it, because there was suddenly that sharp twinge in her chest again, and it felt as if he were basically telling her that he didn’t need or want to hear what she had to say.
She pressed the heel of her palm into her eye, thankfully too worn out to let those twisted feelings flare up into anything beyond the dull ache. Calia turned to leave him be, getting a few steps towards the door before she stopped herself.
Instinct had her wanting to go somewhere and isolate. She was supposed to be doing things differently, even if it felt like dragging herself through glass. The trouble was trying to figure out how to approach it without being so damn aggressive. Without making it a combat situation where he had to be defensive. And how was one supposed to do that when she herself felt defensive and as if she needed to explain herself!
“I can’t tell if you’re done with me and want me to leave you alone, or if you want me to stay and explain,” she finally muttered, stiff and wavering slightly on her feet. “…I told you what I feel is overwhelming, and because of that sometimes I’m not even sure what I want or how I feel until I’ve stumbled through it. I can’t- …I always read others wrong, their moods and intentions. I never know what you need and want and it seems like I am always getting it backwards.”
A long sigh followed and she finally turned back rubbing at her temple with a cringe, before letting some of that stiffness melt away into just being tired of plain existing.
“…I guess what I need is directness. I should have been more direct with you this morning and let you know that I was feeling off and needing time to think. From you I just… tell me to stay or go. To speak or be silent. Hold on to me please, crush me, tie me down to the earth so I don’t feel like I am drifting off out of the stratosphere? I am always reaching towards you even if it seems like I’m not…”
There it was. The great big sigh as hands settled the glass vial gingerly aside all the others that had been finished. Laying palms softly to the counter before turning to face her. So his back could lean into the workbench but kept his posture open. No arms crossed, no tense puckered brow. Just readable while Calia went into a spiel. Guessing this was more for her than anything else and he was listening.
Waiting patiently. Taking notes where things seemed to be the most urgent while he couldn’t entirely say he understood it all.
“Lia, I can’t choose yer emotions. Nor would I.” Arc stated softly, “Yes, I heard yah yesterday when yah said yah feel big. I never condemned that if yah would recall but I’ve also gotta learn from what yah show me too. I can’t be actin’ like a cleanser in the wash that just says rinse and repeat, love. At some point, one’s gotta get out of the wash less they turn into prunes because they don’t figure out that the rinse and repeat part has an end. Then try again later.”
The demon scrubbed fingers through his hair, “Mortals are complicated beings. We ain’t all one size fits all, hell I know that like a fuckin’ prayer. But in that complication, we have the ability to observe. To learn, to see and to change things hopefully for the better. I can’t push yah to do anythin’ and I don’t really want to. Doesn’t feel right. But I also am not a fan of yer cold indifference and hot anger when I ain’t doin’ exactly the right thin’. Look I ain’t guna claim I’m brilliant but I do have some sense. All I can do is what I did today. Ask yah what yah need from me and if yah can’t tell me then I need to step back and let yah do what yah need or want too. Yer a livin’ person and honestly, I can’t hang onto someone that snaps and bites and tears either. I don’t think yah’d want me to either, right? I’m askin’ yah, not tellin’.”
Arc tilted a shoulder, “I was direct this mornin’ too by the way. It didn’t go well, if yah recall. And I’m sure yah figured out, I don’t like bein’ threatened. It may sound playful but really, it sounds like yah just hate me for extendin’ feelin’s out to yah that are mine and real. Yah told me to stop pretendin’, I’m not actin’ the circus clown in front of yah. But please understand at some point, when it seems like yah threaten and speak lowly of a person, that stuff starts to stick. Those words, playful at one point, become barbs. Added to the noise of my own thoughts that aren’t by any means positive to myself and leaves the wonderment if what I already think of myself, is really thin’s others do. That sense of worthlessness and purpose of only bein’ good at destruction, builds. Words, even in jest, have power. Yah can apologize and I can accept it, but stuff like that doesn’t just disappear either with such thin’s.”
Carefully he pushed himself away from the bench. Stepping closer till he could at least put a hand to her shoulder. “I’m not done with yah Lia. But I also don’t need yah to explain anymore. Feels like a lot of pressure anyways, so try not to fret about it. I’m here, and whenever yah want me, then I’ll do what I can. But I’m not guna chase yah down and force anythin’ from yah. Alright? It’s all good, love.”
“It doesn’t feel all good,” she whispered. She heard him loud and clear – her moods and violence were near impossible to deal with. Despite her best efforts of not directing them towards him, he’d still come out of it feeling like he’d been barbed by a porcupine’s spines. With Calia herself feeling like she was missing some big clue that’d help bridge the gap between them. This missing piece of something that would help her understand what she was supposed to do and not spin herself in circles.
She was about two seconds away from letting herself just drop to the floor sobbing and she’d promised herself she wasn’t going to do pull that bullshit again. Inciting comfort from him when she didn’t deserve it. As he said, he couldn’t keep hanging onto her if she was going to continue being so prickly, and Calia was certain she was always going to be someone sharp and untouchable.
Conceeding to his words she nodded, taking the step away to hover herself over to the plush sofa he kept in his workshop. Curling herself up there with head rested on the arm, setting herself to stare at the fabric, as at least she could be closeby without forcing herself too close.
“So I will just tell you about my dream,” she told him, altering her tone of voice to be something casual and neutral. “I have them all the time, but I guess it was different than the usual.”
One could tell that his means of being honest and open without throwing his own mansized tantrum, hadn’t exactly done much. But really, he didn’t expect it would. Whatever it was that Calia needed or wanted, it was something she was going to have to figure out. He could be present but he couldn’t be the cane she kept leaning on, or smacking against the nearest surface when she felt it was the best response.
She was in fact missing something and that something had to be discovered by herself. He had no great epiphany to offer, nor a grand insight that would unlock that. Her choices had to be hers.
Watching her shift over to the sofa to settle down in, she was applying that falsitude in the same way he had with his own behaviours. Not sure if she seen how hypocritical she was but having no need to point it out either. “Mhmm, yah don’t need to. Though yah havin’ them so often is probably a suggestion that similar to myself, thin’s internally are mentally imbalanced.” The demon rotated his position back to the workbench, having to deal with the remains of the cultivated creation into its slotted bottles. “Not that I can say that’s fact, mere guess.”
You don’t need to, you don’t have to. He might as well have said stop bothering because she was out of her chances today. Calia was trying her damndest not to let that ache try to shift his words into things he wasn’t actually saying, to leave it be and just stay the course. She did want to tell him and share with him, not shut herself down and disappear back into her own company.
At least listening to him tinker at the bench and resume what he was doing was a comfort in itself. Just being there while he worked even though she was presently wallowing in her own mood and feeling like a blight on he day.
“I am mentally unbalanced,” came her muttered retort, losing some of that casualness by accident with the humor of it. Drawing in a deep breath afterwards to try and steady herself so she could try and speak like a normal human – fae – thing.
“Most of the time I see myself as a heartless, dark queen. Sometimes the landscaping is different… barren mountains, or snow buried forests. It’s always me, though, sitting on a throne, bleeding from the space my heart is supposed to be. There’s no one left in the world, it’s… obliterated. So quiet and desolated and alone. And I just smile about it. Hollowed out and empty inside just like everything else, and oh so happy about it. I guess I don’t really pay it much mind, because it’s me. That’s the voice of who I am inside craving silence.”
It was enough to make her shiver and curl a little tighter into herself. A grim admittance of her truth – a violent, ending truth. A world where she was alone and never had to do anything but exist. No feelings, no ambitions. Cold, hollow silence.
Terrifying.
“This dream the world was barren, nothing but flattened earth and glacier ice with torrents of blinding snow. I came upon the mirror I’d shattered in that stupid cave and all of it’s glass was gone, with this dark void of nothing in it’s place. A manicured clawed hand jutted out, an arm… this… blank form of a twisted queen in red stepped out. With no hair, no ears or face, just pale skin and a bleeding gold crown. And she ripped my chest open and pulled out my heart.”
Calia could still feel it even now – how her ribs had cracked and splinted, how the hand squeezed tight until her blood pooled and slipped down the creature’s arm. The horror and helpless and her immediate instinct to seek him out.
“…I reached for you and could not grasp the bond. You were there just behind me, as mangled and dead as you were in Cragjaw’s valley, with your own heart ripped out and shattered across the ground as if it’d been flash frozen. You were gone, there was no bringing you back.”
There, it was said. The worst part of it and why she’d woken up in a rage, in fear, in a twisted rope of conflicted feelings. Because how could she not think and believe it wasn’t her who destroyed him. Calia herself who iced him over and shattered him to pieces.
“A smile grew on that blob of a face then and said I found you. It was… not a good omen of a dream.”
Arc stayed quiet for a long while after she spoke, fiddling with one of the rogue corks from an empty bottle. Moving it between fingers as he was thinking, long and deep about it all. Her voice had carried pieces of that nightmare like shards of glass—cold, clear, cutting—and he wasn’t about to step carelessly through them. He turned her words over carefully in his mind, the way he used to turn stones over by the shoreline—searching for what hid beneath the surface. “Y’know,” he murmured after a moment, “Mages do get a bit of trainin’ on dream readin’. Not the ‘tell yer fortune with tea leaves‘ kind of thin’. More… practical. Sometimes dreams are just noise. But sometimes,” eyes softened, “They lean prophetic. Fractured glimpses of what could be, or reflections of what we fear most.”
Turning to face her once more, he settled yet again with his back pressed to the workbench. Looking to her so she knew he was focused on her! “What yah described… it doesn’t sound like some beast waitin’ out in the dark for yah sort of thing. It kinda sounds like a shape yer mind’s given to somethin’ already inside yah. The barren world, the throne, that bleedin’ gap in yer chest—” His brow furrowed slightly, not in disapproval but quiet understanding. “—That’s not a monster’s kingdom. It’s yers. A place yah believe yah might end up if everythin’ else falls apart.”
Arc didn’t flinch away from the weight of it, didn’t soften his tone so much that it lost its honesty. “The queen yah saw—the one with no face, no voice—she isn’t a stranger, rather I’d take a guess that it could be the silence embodiment that yah keep tucked away. Kinda that part that craves an end to the noise and the ache. Not because yer cruel, Calia,” Adding in with a gentle but steady placement. “Because yer tired.” His fingers flexed unconsciously, remembering the part of her story where she’d reached for him and found only ruin. That… had been the blade’s edge of the whole dream. “Yah didn’t just see a dead world,” he said softly. “Maybe yah saw one where yah stopped fightin’ to keep anythin’ alive. Where I was gone. Where everything that tethered yah… slipped away.”
Arc’s breath left him in a slow exhale, a curl of warmth in the cold air. “But the thin’ is,” Continuing on, less he get sidetracked, “Even standing in front of that void, with yer chest torn open and everythin’ else gone… yah still reached for me. For us. That part matters. That’s not somethin’ the queen on that throne would’ve done.” He tilted his head a little, thoughtful, almost fond in the way he watched her. “I don’t think that dream’s a promise of what will happen. I think it’s a warnin’. A void mirror held up to yer fear of lettin’ yerself go quiet. Of not caring’ enough to pull yerself back. And if that’s what it is,” Arc murmured, “Then it’s not some unstoppable thin’ huntin’ yah. It’s a choice. One yer already fightin’ against.”
His lips curved, not into a smirk but something far quieter. “Yer not the queen in that dream, Calia. Not yet. Not while yah still reachin’.” Naturally he shrugged, “Just my thoughts though, I never really did pay too much attention in those classes. Slept more than studied.”
Calia probably shouldn’t be surprised that a mage’s training came with dream reading. Diving into the depths of their own mind to find meaning within every thought and action. She listened as he shifted in his chair, practically feeling when his full attention and gaze shifted in her direction. Calia didn’t move herself to face him, merely remained silent and let his voice sink in. Letting him pull apart the threads of her dreams to see if his perspective brought some new light to them.
A kingdom of isolation because she was tired, not cruel. There was the quietest huff of a single laugh there. Tired was the understatement of the century. Yet to hear his suggestion it was a world where she’d stopped trying, stopped fighting… not one that was dead because she’d destroyed. One that was a prison of her own exhaustion and desire to give in? It made her skin crawl and wriggle.
Maybe it was why this dream found a way to be so unsettling and so different than the ones before it. Where that dark queen was not herself, but some faceless monster trying to rip out her own heart. Where for the first time she was not sitting alone in her isolation, but instead desperately trying to reach him.
Calia finally moved then shifting onto her back to set her gaze towards the ceiling as she still wasn’t quite brave enough to peer at him directly. Still unsure if in these moments he was just going along with her because she’d refused to leave.
“…and what if it’s just showing the results of my reaching? That I am the one that leaves you shattered and broken because I ask for too much? I take too much? I am too much. Peaceful one night and a nightmare the next morning. Because I ask you to carry me and all I give you is grief? What if alone is what I am meant to be and it doesn’t matter what I actually want.”
Arc huffed softly through his nose—not a laugh, not quite a sigh, but something in between. The kind of sound that carried the shape of his exasperation without any real heat behind it. He leaned his head back slightly, studying her till he felt like he found something to say. “Mercy seas, Calia,” he murmured, a rough edge of fondness curling into the words, “Yah really do have a talent for paintin’ yerself like some sort of natural disaster I just happened to wander into. Last I checked, I found yah in that cage. Not the other way around.”
He tilted his head toward her then, a little crooked smile at the corner of his mouth—not mocking, but warm. “Yah talk as if yah reachin’ for me is what shatters me. Like I’m made out of glass. I’m not.” His voice softened, losing its sharp edges but not its certainty. “Yah can’t break me just by existin’. I’m not that fragile, and yer not some curse waitin’ to go off.” Violets lingered on her, a little steady, and absolutely stubborn. “Yah don’t get to decide what I can or can’t carry, if I’m here, it’s because I chose to be. Not because yah tricked me into it, not because I’m too blind to see the weight. Because I looked at it, at yah, and decided I wanted it anyway.”
Daringly he moved over to the couch so she might realize he was a lot closer than she may think. “And this idea that yer ‘too much’?” His brow arched, teasing just a little. “Yer really not a collapsed star, Calia. Yah don’t get to rewrite the laws of the universe just because yer good at catastrophizin’.” Once more his tone softened. “Wantin’ someone, needin’ them—that doesn’t make yah a burden. It makes yah human. Fae. Whatever the hell yah are. Alone might’ve been what was written on the walls of yer old life, but it’s not what’s carved into it now. If I end up shattered, it’s not because yah asked for too much. It’s because somethin’ got through both of us. And that’s not on yah alone.” Arc paused, his voice dipping a touch quieter. “So no,” he said. “I don’t believe for a second that yer meant to be alone. And I sure as hell don’t believe reachin’ for me is the thing that ruins me either. That’s just fear talkin’. Nor do I think yah fear me breakin’,” he murmured, “Yah fear yah bein’ the one who does the breakin’. That’s the truth underneath all the noise.” Leaning in slightly, enough that his voice slipped into something more intimate, as though meant for her ears alone. “But here’s the thin’—yah don’t scare me. Not the way yah think you do. I’ve watched yah build a wall of sharp words just so no one else gets close enough to bleed. And yah think that makes yah dangerous.” His voice dropped lower. “It doesn’t. It makes yah scared.”
Hands twitched slightly, resisting the urge to cup her face, but his tone softened even further. “And I can live with scared. I can live with jagged edges. What I won’t do is sit here and let yah convince yerself that yer some storm I can’t weather. Yer not the end of me, Calia. Yer the one still reachin’ in the dark.” A small, quiet smile touched the edge of his mouth, warmer now. “Yah fear yerself more than yah fear anythin’ else. And I get that. But don’t mistake fear for fact. And maybe one damn day, yah’ll be willin’ to see that reality. And understand that as much as yah say yer the baddest around, yah really aren’t. Even dragon’s need clutchmates.”
She almost jumped in her own skin when she realized he moved closer, pinned in this wary awkward space of wanting to skitter to some other part of the room and this intense desire to grab him and pull him on top of her. Not even for anything salacious, just to have that crushing contact of physicality consuming all of her senses so she wouldn’t go running and screaking.
“Liriel told me you had a heart of glass,” she countered, as if the crowned heir’s opinion was the law of the land. Despite the fact that even as she said it she couldn’t find the will to insist that he should be scared of her. Watching him encroach even closer, with every lowered dip of volume to his voice that somehow was both soft, yet strongly firm in every word he spoke. Solid conviction pressed into her simply through intimate nearness.
It soothed something savage in her chest that hours of hacking away at wooden dummies wasn’t able to dull. Drew her away from that precipice she’d been backing towards, into a space she hadn’t realizing she’d been longing for and so desperately been missing from her life. A new and scary thing she didn’t know how to hold to and was likewise terrified if she grasped at it, that it would slip through her fingers.
She was afraid, afraid, afraid.
But even swimming in her own fear one couldn’t go say something silly like clutchmates without inciting that puckish part of her.
“…why are we always so dramatic. You could’ve just said we’re soulmates.” Calia finally shifted again, hand at first clenched at her chest because she was still so damn scared of bridging the gap and discovering what the consequences would be. Lured in by this new feeling wrapped around her, unsure of it’s name and so tired of fighting it. Finally just reaching up to brush her thumb against the corner of his mouth and the knuckles of her fingers along his cheek.
“Yeah well I don’t think her opinion and judgment of me are entirely up to date either.” Arc huffed noisily and was almost tempted to point out that he had every damn right to have a glass heart! But really what the hell was that going to do. “Nor is she the be all, end all.” That got a roll of his eyes till he was suitably present and watching this dumb girl who acted like she really was some thunder lizard when in reality, she was exactly the fucking rabbit he called her earlier.
All gusto and fire breath and entirely more afraid of herself than anyone else.
“Yer dramatic cause yer a fae, I’m dramatic cause I’m me.” Arc arched a brow at her, “And I said dragon’s, yah ain’t one. Even if yah try to sell it, I ain’t buyin’.” Shifting his form so it might sit on the arm of the couch so he was well within reach, feeling how she was brushing thumbpad over that turned to knuckles. “Y’know yah’d be bored as shit if we weren’t dramatic anyways.” The half moon crescents rested upon her, even leaning into the gentle touch in hopes it affirmed he was truly present. “Now the question is, what are yah guna do about yer worries that are all internal. Face them, or keep lettin’ them chew on yer subconscious ear. Word to the wise, that shit is super fuckin’ exhaustin’.”
There was a soft grimace at first, but she did pull her hand back to settle them both over her stomach and actually seemed to considering the question with all due serious. Not immediately launching into some cheeky comeback, or flippant commentary to get them away from the darkness of her moods, instead actually trying to decide what should be done.
Face it, the way he had to face his phantoms. Somehow that felt harder to do seeing as her fears didn’t have a form she could glare at. Her fear was quite literally the whole of herself, all that she was and could do. Could feel if she allowed herself to feel it.
“I guess if I talk the talk, I should walk the walk,” she grumbled, almost reluctantly. “To trust you. Can’t really call you the darkness that can hold a shooting star if I never let you have the chance to do it.”
Dramatic indeed and in that moment she almost broke into a smile, for there was a truth too. Chances were they’d both be suffering of boredom without the theatrics. She could not imagine a different person in his place.
“…alright in the efforts of speaking without filters, I’d like you to sit and squeeze me until I can’t breath anymore as that seems to be the only thing that has ever made my stupid feelings shut up and settled back down on the inside where they belong, instead of coming out to wreck chaos on us all. A kiss is still on the table, that was not me being facetious, that was a… tentative suggestion of curious merit.”
“Yeah, that’s the shit end of it now ain’t it. Can preach all we like but if we ain’t doing the whole doin’ part, the opinion portion is just lip service.” Entirely he agreed with her there. It was easy to talk the talk, but walk the walk? Man that had such unnecessary added effort that made you wonder just what the hell you were thinking.
Of course he had something to feel towards it all since he was equally having to deal with this whole mood of managing those internal conflicts. To move past and to start squashing them down less they attempt to devour one whole! By no means was it going to be quick and easy either.
Quirking that of crown as she spoke up once more to speak without a cryptic or potentially blackened jest at her tongue, but an asking. Wanting to be hugged so tightly that he might have worried in some part of his mind that Calia was in fact asking him to smother her. But it wasn’t so malicious, rather her way of expressing that she simply wanted to be affirmed she was present. He was present. That reality around them was just that, reality! So it was easy enough to slink from the arm rest onto the couch –with a bit of soft shooing less they clatter against another like wooden dolls.
Easily tugging her close to squeeze and tie her up into limbs, tightly. Just colour him a bit surprised if not wondering what the hell she was going on now about apparently liplocking. “Curious merit?” Arc asked with a lilt, “Of what? To see where I stack up or if yah do have devastatin’ power at all that brings a flirtatious demon to heel?”
Calia invaded his beast like some sort of tentacled monster, taking claim of his lap and entwining her arms up under his to squeeze just as much as she demanded her squeeze her. Truly, if she had extra limbs they too likely wouldn’t been clinging with a death grip! And in those moments of tight pressure, all of those numb places and coiled tight feelings trapped in her chest found their way to unwinding. Slithering free from where they held taunt, melting her limbs until it was only him squeezing and that split second wonderment if he had in fact squeeze the breath out of her.
Why did this simple act do better in a few short moments than all of her railing and hacking. How could this be more effective than the outward explosion of magic and force. While she soaked in the warmth of him, listen to him shift into confusion about her last statement, it really solidified that she had indeed been missing a big key reason why she always struggled. For she should’ve asked for this morning was this. Not to shirk back and create distance, to cave into those savage feelings and fight against the wave. She needed to be still and allow herself to be pulled in.
Calia shrugged at the question, and didn’t move from her spot.
“Of being close. Trying the first thing that popped into my mind, but tend to immediately shove out of the way because it seems more like it would be a hot disaster instead of the comfort I’m hoping for. Although since you’ve said it first, of course there is the wonder if you live up to your bragging, with a splash of me being pretty sure I’m ruining your life. So you aren’t wrong there.”
This damn fickle little faeling that was all steel and teeth and swift threats of punches upside one’s head and yet she grappled to him like a barnacle to the bottom of a boat! One that would need a chisel and a hammer to be removed as he carefully plonked his chin over her crown. Mostly so she couldn’t see him rolling his eyes so damn hard that they might actually get stuck inside his skull. Because really, for all the truth that she was a fearsome force to mettle with –lightning in a jar as it were- she was needy for physicality.
To be reminded that with all that bluster –both false and truth portions of it- that she was still mortal. Flesh and blood and worth being wanted and appreciated as just that.
He knew damn well that standing alone didn’t make you strong, it was being willing to let others in. But that was a curve that was hard to get past when you thought yourself only valid of being left alone. Unworthy, unwanted, incapable of more than face value.
Good thing he had no problem with her climbing into his lap and suction cupping onto him, while he was sure to adhere to her request. Tightly squeezing even if he was wondering just what the hell she was getting at with the curious merit.
Staying safely put in his grasp even as he was adjusting them slightly that they weren’t being all elbows and shins. “Oh for fuck sakes, yah and yer convincin’ that yah ruinin’ my life. Blah blah,” Arc did roll his eyes loudly, “That dead horse topic is getting’ turned into dust at this rate.” Of course there was more to this than that, “I mean, I always live up to expectations.” Boasting that proudly before tilting attention just enough to peek at her, “Yer allowed to ask to be comforted, Lia. I’ll tell yah if it’s somethin’ I ain’t comfortable givin’ or if yer bein’ a little horn dog. I mean, half the shit yah already do with me isn’t exactly typical friend stuff anyways. So, make of that what yah will.” Naturally he puffed up a little, “And whose to say, I don’t have the devastatin’ power hmm?”
“Yeah yeah, it’s cruel to keep beatin’ the fae horse,” she answered with the huff of a quiet laugh and a gentle mimic of his accent. If he rolled his eyes any harder they were going to rattle around in his head. Tilting her head backwards to avoid his line of sight when he insisted she was allowed to ask for comfort, as well… that was still hard to swallow.
Only to find herself snapping back to attention with the slow crawl of a faeish smile to the phrase of horn dog because it was so damn ridiculous, to this sheepish sort of strange shyness because apparently this was not the sort of things friends did. What WAS she supposed to make of that! Especially considering he let her do it!
Calia almost opened her mouth to give the usual self deprecating spiel, that he would in fact have to have a devastating power if it were ever to appeal to the likes of her and her cold, detached bullshit. Yet here they were. Unrepentant closeness. More near than anyone had ever been allowed to get in ways that Calia had never actually thought were real, anyway.
“I sit corrected,” she muttered instead. “Not really sure how you wriggled through where no one else has. You’re the first thing I think about, I never get tired of you being nearby. It never feels like you hold me long enough. And I am realizing that it is no wonder I thought blowing stuff up was the only way to get myself under control, as I had no idea that this is something so… vital to my very existence.”
“…so yeah you’re kinda devastating.”
Nodding solemnly at the idea that she truly best stop beating said horse to into anything beyond powder, because at this point it was already polluting the air with its bone dust! Granted, if he had to repeat it, so be it. He knew she wasn’t stupid. Stubborn? Oh absolutely, she made a mule look reasonable, but by no means was she dumb. It just took apparently a certain level of care with blunt truth and determination not to lean into her want to duke it out –physically or verbally- to hopefully start getting through to her. The soft squishy parts that she likely didn’t want people knowing she had.
In turn, he gave her some of his humbling truth. That she was in fact allowed to ask for comfort because honestly, there were going to be many times that he wasn’t going to know exactly what she needed. Probably no better than herself. It was going to be a large learning curve and he knew it was going to have potholes and bumps and great bit ramps too!
What he wasn’t expecting was her to muttering that he was correct. While sizing it up in a way that made him sound like some sort of parasite that wormed its way into her vacant chest and pointing out that for all intents and purposes to the privacy of his own thoughts, Calia had a slight –dare he say- crush on him. Such terrible taste!
It was difficult not to let the corners of his mouth twitch upward. Trying—and failing spectacularly—to maintain some kind of dignified composure while processing her words as if they were a alchemical equation instead of a hard left into territory that had to be a managed a little bit with care. “…So what I’m hearin’,” Speaking at last as voice dipped into that dry, velvet-lined drawl he used when he was far too amused, “Is that I’ve somehow been promoted from ‘occasional nuisance ‘ to ‘essential life function.’” His grin widened, wicked and bright now. “And wriggled through where no one else has? Gods, woman, don’t make it sound like I’m some eel with good emotional timin’.”
Leaning closer, dropping his voice as though he were letting her in on a very serious secret. “Truth is, I’m just exceptionally good at being… inconveniently irresistible.” Giving his chest a good tap while feigning solemnity. “A rare, devastating curse. Yah might need hazard pay.” Cupping a hand to the back of neck as to lightly knead at it, “Look yah little faelin’ sprout; I care about yah. A lot, in case yah need to hear it verbalized. I don’t go outta my way to keep people safe and fed and give them free range with my magic just because they got the right flavour of gremlin chaos that appeals to my jackassery, yer very much a first in a very long, long time. Yer important to me Lia. Enough so that I will happily rip through fae realms to save yah each and every time! And probably more absolutely gross heroic crap that has no place being thin’s associated with my type.”
He gave her a cheeky glance, “The mischievous sort, nothin’ more than that.” In case she thought he was about to say something self depreciating. “So keep all that in mind. I do what I can for yah not out of some obligation or moral compass,” Hand shifted to palm at cheek, “Because I want too. Being vital to yah is a plus and a strong motivator to keep goin’.” Pinching her cheek softly before kissing her brow softly. “Blowin’ stuff up is fun though. Depends what it is, I guess.”
As soon as she saw the corners of his mouth start twitching her eyes narrowed and her expression twisted into that of a sour-faced cat. Knowing all too well he was about to make it all weird. Be over the top ridiculous about the entire thing, as if she’d just confessed her undying love or some other sentimental romantic nonsense!
Like clockwork he became all wicked smiles and all too pleased with himself. Leaning in close and using tones that she hated admitting felt like a soothing balm over what was a very exhausted heart and mind. Hell, body too for all that she was had to come out through the physical means and she’d near worked herself to unconsciousness trying to expel it all out.
And he was making thing all the worse with the sort of gentle intimate touches that held none of the scorching flame and intense passion she was well acquainted with when being in someone’s arms. This was sweetness paired with a lackadaisy candor that was dredging up a very unwanted tinge of pink to her features.
“So then now what am I supposed to do with you!” she asked, in dead earnest, following with a sigh that was so fill with dramatic despair it would’ve been comical had she heard it out of someone else. “Mind you this is going to keep happening now that I know it’s delightful and will surely save me loads of time and headaches, but– How do I live like this? How does anyone get through a day!”
He could have started waggling his brows at her when she asked him so seriously what she was going to do with him, but managed to contain it. Mostly. There was no way he was going to entirely conceal everything into a prim and proper effort. Because she was sighing like she had just been given the biggest problem on the planet to solve and to do so with only the head of a pin. Expressing in the same moment that she was baffled at how people managed every day this sort of things.
“Well, most people aren’t emotionally constipated as we are.” Arc stated matter of fact like. Giving head a quirk, “Yah just do it. Yer alleviatin’ stress and botherment in a new way that’s merely that. It’s new. Eventually yah just get accustomed to it while it doesn’t lessen the feelin’, it just comes second nature.”
One might wonder how the hell he knew but then would have to recall that he did have relationships at one point in his life. Not that he was titling this as anything so grand! “And most people act on what they want when they know it’s allowed by the other, so do with that information as yah will, love.” The demon eyed her somewhere between pleased, amused and serious; “Regardless, it’s a new chapter for yah to discover. We’re friends but there’s more of a nuance to it. A strong comfort that doesn’t need to be detailed by some sort of label. Alright, less yah stress about it.”
Unfurling his fingers so he might use them as counting steps, “A recap, yer allowed to ask or seek comfort from me, even without havin’ to ask. Yer not a burden or too much. If yah don’t go and wash up, I’m guna throw yah in one myself and that’s guna lead to a whole new level of discovery. Mhmm?”
Just live with it, huh. Deal with the fact she needed to be around him all the time, touch him some fashion or another, share the same space and hear his damn voice. At least if it had been pure sexual chemistry, Calia would’ve known what to do with it. Caved into those moments where things sizzled just right and gotten it all out of her system. Now she didn’t know what the hells was going to happen! Something more than friends.
He seemed to be pleased with himself about it, liable proud of the fact he still remained champion of charming women, even the likes of Calia.
And now the being charming was no longer a game. This was serious, and as he held up his fingers to set the new rules of their complicated relationship (while simultaneously also insulted her current mess of a form) she was ready to meet this new chapter as he’d call it without any trepidation. Finally pulling herself free of his arms, only to sit there for a moment with a stern frown.
“Fine. As such you can also ask me for comfort. You can touch me as you please. But absolutely under no circumstances can you think about me naked with other men, I don’t care how much it entertains you. These are the new rules of this endeavor.”
“What?” Ears flicked upwards adding to the surprise if not entire shock at the whole think about her naked with other men! Where the hell did that come from –even if he could figure it out promptly, it was still a very what the fuck moment.
Of course he could pretty much tell that Calia had no experience with the means of liking someone for more than just a fervent bounce on whatever stable surface was present; but he didn’t know if she realized any of it either. Blinking at her with a few ups and downs as if that would clarify her silliness in this moment.
Shortly reclaiming his visage into a quiet bemusement, “Yah do know I never thought about yah in that way. I only mentioned such thin’s because well, call it a weird level of support and my own way of hopin’ that yah would blow off some steam while being happy about it. It’s more than that but I ain’t guna get all fancy with words.” Laying palms over knees as she still sat upon lap, “And what new rules are yah thinkin’ then besides that one. I shall not attempt or imply any intention to throw a beau at yer feet unless otherwise asked. As I’ve proven I can be quite the wing man of course.”
The grin that bloomed was immediate at his confused exclamation, successfully hitting the mark of harmless vengeance for his amusement at her current plight. With a little tiny splash of being able to set the seeds of thought into his mind the way he had started dominating hers. He’d opened these doors, and was continuing to hold them open… so Calia intended to take advantage. To flirt free as she wished without fear and without filter.
“That’s all,” she affirmed, almost enigmatic in the way she smiled. Especially so now that her whole body had softened to something loose and languid and there were no longer those hints of something troubling her behind the eyes. Maybe a few remaining tinges of pink in her cheeks, but that was neither here nor there!
“Just don’t be thinking about me naked with anyone else. And while I’m in that washroom, if you happen to feel a few pulls of magic just know that I’m in there making it the most splendid place in the world to have a bath, and I’m most certainly buck wild naked while doing it. That you’re allowed to think about at your own risk.”
Calia finally slipped off his lap to stand on her on feet, bending and stealing a moment to press a gentle kiss to his temple, chaste and sweet and leaving it with that.
Arc watched her slip off his lap with that infuriatingly unbothered grace of hers, the kind that made it feel like she was a storm that had chosen, very deliberately, not to wreck him tonight. His head tilted back slightly as her lips brushed his temple while spurring all sorts of commentary ready and easily springing from lips. “Right,” he drawled as she straightened, his grin spreading slow and wicked like ink through water. “So what I’m hearin’ is: no imaginin’ yah naked with anyone else… but imaginin’ yah naked while yer in the chamber changin’ it to your fancy magical luxury spa that may or may not burn my brain out through sheer mental imagery is fully encouraged.”
He gestured loosely with one hand, as though presenting an invisible contract. “Very clear. Absolutely straightforward. No emotional landmines whatsoever in that instruction. I love our healthy communication.” Immediately his sights flicked over her, shameless, then back up with a perfectly charming, mock-serious smile. Leaning back in the couch, ankle crossing over a knee, the picture of ease once more. “Y’know, most people would just say ‘I’ll be right back.’ Yah, on the other hand, leave me with a live feed to yer very naked magical bath time.” Arc made a small, thoughtful sound. “Truly, bunny, the generosity is unmatched. Devastatin’, really. But I suppose that is what yah be wantin’.”
Fingers temporarily scrubbed at that of chin. “And if there happens to be a little pulse of magic that feels like it’s trying to get my attention…” His smile sharpened just enough to be dangerous. “Well— Don’t expect me to sit here like a saint. Just remember, petal. Yah start somethin’ and hintin’ loud enough, yah’ll be dealin’ with me showin’ yah exactly the sort of behaviour that makes me a hit with the fairer sex. And makin’ right on that suggestion yesterday at least about screamin’.”
Calia erupted into a laugh, bold and bright and near as joyful as it had been yesterday when she cackled out in the yard when she realized just how far she could cast magic in this space. Changing her stance with arms opened wide as if to reveal… yours truly! Presenting herself in all her glory.
“You told me to stop bottling up all my feelings and let myself feel how I feel, so you best remember you opened this door, love, and that you are not the only devastating flirt in this strange duo. And now I’ve been given permission to seek my comfort as I please, I do very much intend to be pleased.”
There came a smile that could send a dragon fainting, and it wasn’t even coming from a vixen’s seductive grace. It was all genuine girlish glee, mischief, and a little bit of promise that this was only a start. A wink was all that was necessary, before she was snickering under her breath and turning on her way to leave.
“You’re more than welcome to join me if I do give a little tug. Do as you wish – except calling me bunny! Fucking stop calling me bunny!”
That he couldn’t say anything against. He had told her to stop bottling things up and well, she might not enjoy reading but Calia did learn when she wanted too. In this matter, she was clearly going to start having fun with it and he was liable to be at the resulting end of such joy. So long as they both knew when and where to cease something when it started to feel strained or potentially liable to explode because tempers were getting battered.
Not that he could say that was about to happen now when she was grinning like a young girl. All sorts of joy wrapped up in the delightful mix of impish intrigue. Purposefully using the moment to turn away with the suggestion lingering that had even him pushing up finally from that of the couch.
With her back faced, he was already hunting. Prompting the effortless predator’s delight sparking being that of vivid heliotrope. Coming just close enough to lean and cease her departure so soon. Bending his presence to wrap around her. Dropping voice that molten timbre, and needing not to touch her to make the room feel smaller. Simply he was the gravity pulling it tight. “Mhmm,” Arc hummed deep in his throat, “See, the thin’ is, love… when yah tell me not to call yah somethin’, yah may as well carve it into stone and hand it to me as a family heirloom.” His grin brightened.
Tilting his head slightly with a smooth control, as if he was leaning in to taste tension or interest. Then closer for her to feel the warmth of breath against the shell of ear, giving an sultry murmur, “And unless yah’ve found a way to make it less enjoyable on my tongue, bunny’s here to stay.” Then, as she gave him the freedom not to ask and he lacked the haste to do so, Arc slipped in just close enough to press a kiss against the corner of mouth. Not a full claim, never that. But it was deliberate with a measured grace. A teasing whisper of heat against skin meant to rattle and meant to stay with her. Saying everything he didn’t need too.
Only then he drew back that half-step. Not a retreat, but a means of control. The kind that left certainly no doubt that it was him intending to tip the air between them. Pointedly lingering a gaze on her mouth for a heartbeat too long before sliding back up. A grin present and oh so wicked. “Just remember, love. I don’t like bein’ threatened. Makes me want to misbehave.” A deep chuckle and he stepped back properly to reconvene to that of workbench. “Try not to go overboard with the bathin’ chamber. It doesn’t need to be large enough to fill with an entire theatre troupe.”
He’d caught her before she could make her grand exit in such a way that made her ever so slightly wary. Able to have her pausing without ever using grip of hands, just aura alone. An interesting little trick of natural charisma and maybe a splash of demonic talent! Calia was going to have to try that.
A scoff was the first thing he received, already debating in her mind if she was going to fight him on this stupid new nickname or leave it be until he got bored and found something even more dumb to call her. He drew wickedly close, almost making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end with a shiver just from the warmth of his breath alone. It was a soft sound that came from the back of her throat, somewhere between a grunt and a growl when she tilted her face towards him, but whatever cheeky thing it was that she’d been about to say, it died on her lips. That very moment he dared to tease her with a whispered press. Not a true kiss, not not a kiss.
Her hearted stopped beating in those split seconds where all of her thoughts displayed in quick succession across her unguarded features. The stunned surprise, mild confusion… that shift into thoughtful intrigue as if in those moments she was weighing the pros and cons of just what she wanted to do about it.
He probably thought it had her. And he did for a minute there. Trapped in a breathless moment of too much interest and not enough hesitation. The spell only broken when he finally backed away and returned to that of his workbench. Only then did the slow broadness of her smile return. Unseen and unusually tender in that brief moment he wasn’t looking at her.
Calia let him have this one, muttering something under her breath akin to hopeless scoundrel when she left his workshop.
When she took to the washroom, bending magic to her will to craft a space even as she washed up, she was unaware just how much of her mood leeched into the way she cast her magic. With all of those inner stone walls down, it flowed like water. A little bit of frustration that absolutely wasn’t of the annoyed or irritated sort. The warmth of amusement and the gentle prickle of wonderment mixed with intrigued. And the smallest quiet sense of peace.
The faint pulls at the edge of his awareness were already the telling signs that she was delving readily into cultivating a new space into whatever luxurious over expansion she wanted. And he had finished most of the potions. Enough so that even if they were unfinished, it seemed like there was no need to continue. Not when he knew well enough that her reshaping the world or rather the bathing chamber was going to equally tug on her appetite; he set himself into a new task.
The kitchen wasn’t far. Crossing from one chamber into the other in a effort of at least preemptive consideration.
They both knew that cooking wasn’t his favourite thing to do. It was far too domestic and too soft around the edges for the type of life he had participated in. Both elven and demonic. But Calia was one who had the voracious appetite, and when she was burning through magic without a way to refuel immediately, he was going to at least attempt to do something half decent. With hands rather than a swish of articulated magic doing the work.
Settling for so simple that a child could do it. Cracking eggs that were materialized from somewhere and needing moments to recall exactly what sort of spices tended to go well with the very things. By no means was this going to be elegant but it would be warm. Leaving him to work as the pan hissed softly and tended to the vices of a mortal stomach that would make every little bit disappear in a manner of seconds.
Calia did not spend hours upon hours weaving together the perfect space for the most extravagant baths in the world – not to say she wouldn’t in the future! For the time being it’d been just enough to have a tub for one as tall as herself to spread out and lounge comfortably, with a careless flick of a hand here and a wiggle of a finger there to shift color or texture in the room while she soaked her muscles in water as hot as she could tolerate. Letting whatever tension and soreness that remained in her body melt away until she felt refreshed and far more stable than she had in a long while.
The stab wound was healing well now, between Archimedes fussing at her and that accelerated healing due to their bond, it wasn’t going to be anything more than a nasty gash and a fresh new scar before long. She’d redressed at her leisure, seemingly to always adjust her clothing how she felt, regardless if she realized it or not. But because they would have to leave this place whether she wanted to or not, Calia was back to a good pair of pants, protective leathers and a comfortable shirt she could kick something’s ass in if need be.
Somewhere in the middle of taming her hair into a braid over her shoulder the scent of a fresh meal started wafting through the tower. Prompting plenty of curiosity from the mountain princess, as he’d mention plenty enough before that he wasn’t one to cook. After all, it was why she’d taken it on as her own personal duty when it came to looking after them both.
So it was a great deal of interest to return to the bottom of the tower and stroll into the humble kitchen to find him fussing away. For a demon that claimed he didn’t care for being domestic, it was indeed a very domestic sight. Him bustling about the kitchen while one rotund and chunky cushion cat did everything in it’s power to be a tripping hazard while the slender one was on watch duty staring out the window.
Calia made no comment as she entered the room, merely crossed the distance to reach out and rest the back of her hand against his forehead as if checking him for a fever. Her grin was enough to say she found this all curious without her having to speak a word.
Mr Buttons was very lucky he wasn’t getting tossed into a corner somewhere for how many times it kept attempted to be a tripping hazard! Though he was thinking of ways of containing the cushion cat that wasn’t actually unraveling the spell Calia put on it, while Avia was being a helpful little guardian. Watching the world even as Calia seemed to have migrated all fresh and clean and moderately less assassin-y.
Stepping over to grin with her checking his head if he had a fever. Enough to huff at her, “I pay attention, yah gremlin.” Arc squinted at her. This wasn’t the first time he cooked, he just didn’t like too!
“Unless yah want to eat rocks and dirt instead, don’t get in here thinkin’ that I’m ill cause I do know how to be kind and considerate.” Of course he pointed down at the cat, “That thin’ is being a right soddin’ pain.”
Calia could easily feed herself when she needed to, but she knew better when to argue about – or at least now she did! If he was itching to do something nice, she was simply going to have to shut up and let him do it.
“Oh, I am not complaining in the slightest. Just imagining you with an splattered apron and a tiny little hat,” she mused out loud, skirting away to scoop up the plush inconvenience, that immediately stretched out it’s cushiony arms as if it weren’t going done being a pest to a specific demon and wanted to go back for more.
That was interesting too! Perhaps she’d poured a little bit too much personality into her latest creatures. Calia rolled it onto it’s back in her arms and squished it a little to see about refining those threads.
“Lord Buttons is simply overseeing the work in his domain. Keeping you on your toes and making sure your reflexes are nice and spry.” Notably he hadn’t kicked it across the kitchen else there’d be a boot print on the thing, leaving her musing over that with a smile.
“Well that’s all yer guna be doin’ for that. Imaginin’ it. Just because I’m being kind to yah and makin’ sure yah throw something down into yer gullet, don’t mean I’ll be turnin’ into an everyday housewife. No apron, no little hat.” Arc tilted with an amused grin as he lowered the heat on the pan. Watching as she stooped down to pluck up the loaf of a cushion cat. Moving it out of his way less it really did succeed in making him eat a face full of floor.
Allowing a brief look to the food cooking, then to Avia being the proven good creature of fabrication; while Calia went into the attempt to rally behind Lord Buttons at all. “My reflexes? Well how kind of it though I don’t think it would do very well for it to find out how fuckin’ blisterin’ mad I can get to an unreasonable level only to sail it right out of this realm into the ether to be chewed up by the void beyond this space. So for its safety, it doesn’t need to be testin’ my skills.”
“That’s fine, I have a very vivid imagination and can imagine you doing all sorts of fun and entertaining things,” she revealed with ease. Truthfully he could set a plate of charred rocks in front of her and she’d eat it without a word of complaint or even a grimace. Swallowed the rocks whole if she had to simply because he was trying not to make a big deal about it.
Meanwhile he sure had a lot of ire for a stuffed cushion that only swatted at him once because he’d poked it in the belly. Not that it surprised Calia in the slightest, for that was really all it took for him to suddenly label someone his mortal enemy. A lesson she learned the hard way, after both legit attempts to kill him and even worse attempts of being his friend! Likely something she was going to continue to blunder her way through.
So Calia didn’t alter the thing’s personality at all, simply grinning to herself. Arc would eventually come around, and dear Lord Buttons had a better chance of it for he was just a cushion and not actually trying to harass him. Instead she wove her magic through the details, refining the looks of him so curves and angles were more lifelike in the right places. Less pillow and more portly feline.
“Luckily for you, they’ll stay here in the tower. I’m sure they’d be good travel companions but I’m not sure I want to be washing mud and slugs off them half the time.”
Arc’s mouth twitched at the corner. Barely subtle and absolutely a crooked half-smile that so often gave him away when he was trying very hard not to laugh outright. Her words floated between them like smoke, light and teasing, and something about the way she said “fun and entertaining things” made his chest feel inexplicably warmer. “Ah, dangerous words, love,” he drawled, letting the soft amusement settle beneath the lazy lilt of his voice. “Yah hand me an imagination like that, and I’ll end up ‘t my full-time profession to live up to it. Within reason, of course.”
Shifting his weight as he crossed the room, with the plate in hands that was the simple arrangement of food. Eggs and greens fainting seasoned with a few herbs. Setting it down in front of her like it was a casual gesture, though the small flourish of the motion betrayed how much he might easily be swayed into liking doing these quiet, unspoken things for her.
His gaze flicked — first to Avia, who was lounging like a smug little sunbeam, all soft fur and harmless mischief. A huff escaped him, quiet and warm, the kind that gave away a fondness he wasn’t actually trying to hide. Then his eyes landed on the rotund, overly dignified face of Lord Buttons sitting squarely in Calia’s lap, and the amusement took a different turn. “…And then there’s him,” Arc muttered with mock solemnity, as if forced to acknowledge an ancient, bitter rivalry between man and cushion-beast. His violet eyes narrowed in dramatic suspicion, though it was all for show. “I see your dark little tyrant’s plotting his next reign of terror.” A glimmer of mischief broke through the feigned wariness as he leaned against the edge of the table.
“Thankfully I can be grateful these two can remain within this space. Unless yah get an idea to unleash Lord Buttons on some other witless soul,” he mused, lowering his voice like he was conspiring with her. He gestured loosely toward the plate. “Eat before he claims that, too. I’ve seen the ambition in those button eyes.”
“Thank you,” she murmured soft, though by the way her mouth crooked with that sideways grin it wasn’t clear if she meant the plate he set down before her, or if she liked the sound of making him live up to her imagination. With the way she manipulated magic and got herself out of and into things, he could be sure that imagination of hers was truly limitless and indeed dangerous!
Lord Buttons certainly retained all of his smugness, roosting in Calia’s lap grunting out that demon-low baou as if he agreed he was plotting new schemes. Perhaps there would in fact be a reign of terror, though Calia suspected that primal objective was just to find a warm spot to air out in.
“That does beg a good question,” she mused out loud, after taking a few bites and giving an appreciative hum to have something in her stomach and it really not be bad at all. He didn’t give himself enough credit, all it really took was cooking something without burning it and adding some herbs to make something perfectly edible. To his luck Calia’s inclinations towards delicious finery didn’t get in the way of needing to swallow anything of valuable nourishment when she’d expended her body beyond it’s means to just sit and rest. Magic had a cost and apparently it was nutrients and naps!
“I could easily unleash them on unsuspecting victims, but I’d have to be able to summon them from a place that is very specifically yours. I have a feeling it takes a little more than just leaving echoes of myself all over the place to grant me the freedom of pulling things in and out.”
It certainly wasn’t clear to what purpose or reason he was earning her gratitude, but as he plopped his own rear down into one of the mismatched chairs, he didn’t exactly ask to have it elaborated either. Accepting it as it was and needing no further explanation to it. Simply making sure that Calia properly started eating while he personally was considering Lord Buttons with a suspicious amount of silence.
As if the damn thing was agreeing with the assessment that it was in fact, thinking up new schemes. And why he seemed to suddenly understand why not many mages had familiars like the more wild witchy counterparts. It seemed like one wrong familiar and you were stuck with something truly miserable and devious.
Worse than himself!
Brows lifted up, chin placed upon palm like that of a swivel to consider the stone and ice princess, and listened. To the query that had him quietly thinking about it in return. Taking that thoughtful pensive control to thumb over mental knowledge that was vast and deep in the very fabric of what magic was. “I mean, yah are entrenched with that of my magic. It’s very much a what is yers, is mine or whatever. But, for this, yer likely very right. Similar to my Arcanum hollow, yah can’t access it even if yer magic is mine.” He did understand the depths of the why not’s, but didn’t think it was necessary to delve into such lecture style information anyways. It was simply all mechanics and words and very specific details.
“Granted, yer a fae. Yah likely can make yer own realm entirely, just it likely would be akin to those in which yah’ve entered from the others.”
“Then alas, they will have to remain here pampered and spoiled where they belong.” Not that it bothered Calia in the slightest. She’d made them for his tower and within it they would stay to provide a quiet sort of company while being watchful little sentries. Gargoyles made of cotton and thread instead of stone and shaped to bring a certain amount of cozy comfort. Speaking of… closing one eye she held up her thumb towards Avia on the windowsill, swiping her thumb over the sight of her to refine that slender shape too. More firm cat and less lumps.
“Pulling magic from you is as easy as breathing now,” she admitted with a shrug of her shoulders. “As long as I don’t think too deeply about the filter of arcane and abyssal. I never really knew that there was different strains of magic and it has it’s preferences on the way it likes to be used. I always thought it was all the same and you just.. did it. That’s how it always worked for me before. I still can to a point, but it doesn’t want me to.”
Here and there she took a few bites, not in any rush to shove food down here throat and happy to sit in the moment. Giving that lump on her lap a stroke too, having the thought that he and his slender counter part needed to have more of a furry exterior rather than crushed velvet, if they were going to end up being lap ornaments. Lord Buttons surely needed to be a long hair variety and she’d make Avia sleek but soft.
“Are you still scared to even try to pull anything from me?” A bold question to be asking outright, but Calia was curious. She’d said it from the very start that this bond did not just flow in one direction, it’d been important to her. That he wouldn’t be some living battery for her to leach off of, nor a chained prisoner to her service. All that she was could be his to use… and they were already slowly discovering not all of her natural magic had been stolen away.
“Not even a little peek?”
As Avia was given a bit more of a slender form from Calia’s swipe from afar, Arc found himself tilting his head a little. Listening as she expressed that she hadn’t exactly known there were different strands of magic out there. To her prior, it was all the same.
Which in nature, wasn’t at all true. There was never really one strain of anything, there was multiple of practically everything!
“I mean, yah weren’t exactly in the know about magic besides yerself anyways. So how would yah have known there were different threads to the yarn ball that is magic itself?” Arc asked a hundred percent rhetorically. Doubly so, Calia hadn’t known she was a fae either. So that also added a new level of knowledge.
These were things he learnt from his vara, from Omai and just his general expansive education as a youth. Where being a elf had made a massive different in the line of learning what came naturally. Well, maybe not naturally, but was more ingrained in the elven heritage and ancestry than humans. But fae were also diverse creatures and he only knew so much about them! Things that could easily be vastly wrong merely due to the fact that elves lived a long time but that didn’t mean they were always great about keeping records! Or hearsay was a thing.
“Hmm?” Her question then came from seemingly nowhere. Where she queried to if he was scared to pull anything from her in which Arc did almost scoff at her. To shrug off the idea of being scared about it but managed not to fall victim to his own ego. “Let me put it this way, I don’t really want to pull from yah. Not because I feel its inferior or beneath me. It’s still a strong source of discomfort as well that it feels, like it’s tryin’ to take a sea creature and put it in fresh water. From my perspective, though that may not be the best way to describe it either. It just makes me… very uncomfortable.”
Arms were crossed over the table then, “And a stronger part is, I have both arcane and abyssal magic. As yah can feel, my well isn’t exactly petite.” Hence his whole lifelong awe and worry from others that he was incredibly saturated in something that was easily too much for one person. And gave him incredible reason to be deemed both useful and dangerous all at once. “I don’t feel a need to pull from yah because around me, I’m pretty immersed and already honestly –and this is guna sound entirely egotistical- incredibly powerful. I don’t really want to expand or feel somethin’ else. I am… I suppose I am very comfortable in my own magic and can do pretty much whatever I wish.”
Calia had pretty much devoured all that was on her plate and was now using a piece of bread to scrape up the last bits of seasoned butter. Watching him carefully as he spoke, almost as if she were waiting for a very specific sort of answer and now that she’d gotten it, it wasn’t exactly what she was expecting. Not in a way that surprised her, instead in a way that drew out more curious questions.
“…what if I told you that my well is limitless?”
The statement was tentative, hesitant, said in such a way that she didn’t he’d believe it. One more than one occasion Calia had told him she was extraordinary – had told this to others too. Every time she told people she was powerful and dangerous, they thought she was bragging, exaggerating, or usually just thought she was puffing up and trying to intimate them away from her because of deep rooted insecurity of some manner or another.
Some of it had been true… there was no denying that she issues allowing herself to get close to people. Sometimes because she thought they’d hurt hurt, and sometimes because she believed she’d hurt them. When the faerie tree of Edelguard suggested that Calia take the binding to use his magic, her first thoughts were that she was desperate not feel weak and powerless anymore. Then immediately recognized how problematic it was to crave magic so desperately, that she was worried what she might do to him just to feel like herself again.
Now here it was that quiet admission, finally feeling herself safe enough in a space with him. An amount of trust that gave freedom to discuss the very thing that was making her the target of everyone’s ambitions.
“It always makes me wonder why the Great Tree suggested a binding, when she could have suggested so many alternatives. I can think of a dozen different ways that could’ve satisfied Queen Ashera to set you free. The tree could have even told me how to take your heart and be done with you. I have a feeling she knew that you wouldn’t care about my magic. That I needed you more than you needed me.”
Even if it was limitless?
A brow arched at her. Thoughts rolling a long moment before he seemed ready to say anything. “Limited or limitless, I’m still not interested. If I was, that’s a suggestion that I’m desperate for power. When in reality?” Arc hummed thoughtfully but ultimately shook his head, “Power comes with strings, expectations, and others lustin’ after what yah got so much that really, yer guna spend more time lookin’ over yer shoulder and fightin’ everythin’. Never any peace till yer so burnt out that yah fail at keepin’ what’s yers alive, or yah make a stupid mistake.”
The demon frowned, “I’ve been lusted after in such ways. My well isn’t limitless but it’s so damn massive that it seems like it. And I know damn well I’ve climbed the ranks in my demon existence without my arcane abilities.” An eye looked at her, “I’m not power hungry Calia. I don’t want what yah have cause what I got is exactly what I need.”
Easily he leaned back then in that of the chair. Attention tilting towards Avia in her perch, “Pretty sure I told yah before, I just wanna be entertained. Granted thats altered since recallin’ my life but its still simple. I don’t want more responsibilities, personally. Just gettin’ to exist is my kinda deal.”
Eyes once more looked to her. Curious why she asked but it seemed Calia was on a thought tangent. Mentioning the Fae tree, the binding and more why’s than answers. “Who says I didn’t need yah?” One asked earnestly, “Not yer magic, but as a person? I’d say so. In what ways, well that’s bein’ discovered daily I suppose.” Immediately he leaned in, grinning, “Isn’t this that part that yah remark about soulmates again. Hmm?”
Calia didn’t need to be convinced he had no interest in her magic, although it did bring her a great deal of amusement to hear him be completely meh whatever about it. He likely still didn’t believe her about the limitless part, while at the same time the reaction was so perfectly Archimedes and what she’d come to know him to be. It was refreshing to have someone just not care. Not afraid, not jealous. Just content in his own self… at least when he wasn’t hating himself.
With that last piece of bread popped into her mouth, she took care of the dishware herself with a little sprinkle of her fingers. He already had some sort of tidying spell woven into his tower where chores and whatnots seemed to handle themselves once signaled to do so, and all it took was a little tapping of her fingers to have dishware whisked away.
Leaving her to meet his grinning with a broad smile.
“Are you admitting we’re soulmates now?” she asked first and foremost, because at some point he would have to say it! “You needed me at first, that much is true. Although I’m afraid those responsibilities you didn’t want are in your hands anyway in the form of a newly discovered faerie princess thing being the realms most wanted.”
There it was, the reason why the questions and thoughts had even come up at all, in the way she gave a weary sigh and mirrored the way he’d rest his chin in his hands before. A reluctant slump and a frown.
“It’s time to go back to the world.”
Eyes narrowed at the way her grin started to broaden because he was waiting for her to give him the punchline of this dramatic idea of being soulmates. Something obviously he didn’t believe. The idea of there being someone so perfectly made for another, felt so closed minded. That you are unfortunately stuck at this idea of fate and being guided to this predetermined choice in various ways that you really never got a choice with!
So she could grin and tease and all that. He likely wasn’t about to utter an agreement about it any time soon. Not unless some really concrete evidence was dropped into his lap that he couldn’t disclaim.
But she did have a point in the state that he did need her at first. And he still felt the same but it wasn’t in the entirely same way as to why he needed her. “Suppose that is true,” Arc sighed with depth, lamenting at the idea of his hands being full with the means of a newly discovered faerie princess being the most wanted thing on the menu. “Good thin’ I am absolutely terrible with sharin’, now ain’t it?” Flashing her his best grin, all fang and smoulder. “Means that I’ll prolly fight everyone and anyone that tries to make yah do somethin’ of their biddin’. Sounds like yah have yer own problems with responsibility in that case. Managin’ a traitor former elf turned demon, awful.”
As she mimicked his posture, Arc hummed at her. When she explained it was time to go back to the world. “And where would yah like to go back too, love? We are suspended in the void. Yer guna have to tell me where yah want the door to be opened too for the real world once more.”
There was a great deal of irony in the fact that Calia was meant to be the one managing a traitor elf turned demon, yet so far it seemed he’d been the one having to talk her out of stormy spiraling. And even more irony that this must be the first time in history that a princess wanted to be isolated in a tower with a demon companion. Fully dreading going back into the world and simply wishing she could stay there doing a whole lot of nothing.
Calia wouldn’t be happy though. Even she had to admit that. She’d miss the forest, miss music, horses, and blue skies. After awhile she’d probably even miss people, for people were the best way to hear good stories as Calia sure as hell wasn’t going to become a bookish girl anytime this century.
“I guess back where you found me face first in the snow, or as close to that mountain pass as you can get. I made it pretty far while I was stomping mad.”
Finally she shifted that couch cushion of a cat off her lap and onto the table, giving Lord Buttons a proper pat. A little proud of this new pair she’d made and how much life they seemed to have in them for a couple of stuffing lumps.
Dark brows lifted at the suggestion to return back to the point where she had been rescued from eating snow for eternity. Humming a little more just to drag out the moment till the fanged grin could appear. “Well, we can do so. Preferably yah don’t go trying to face plant in the snow once more. It ain’t so cute to see yah in such a state.”
Folding hands together and pressing to crack all the knuckles at once; the slothful demon rose. Stretching one way then another as eyes passed over in a clearly judgmental stare to Lord Buttons. Unlikely to ever forgive the creature for having the personality of a clenched asshole, “Well, if yer ready love, we’ll plunk back down into the real world through the front door. Granted, unlike yah, I need proper attire.”
Of course he made a motion to alter the very form to be heavily dressed in that of thickened cloth and fur. Disliking the cold for what it was, “Ain’t no demon have any business turnin’ into a yeti out in that damnable frost.” Already shuddering with the very idea of the blanket of white, a newly gloved hand was flicked forward. Indicating she was the leader in this grand start all over again and simply needed to turn the knob on the front entrance to the tower to lead outside that would be once more the real realm and back into the frost, ice and miserable eye piercing white landscape that made him think religiously of hot fires and alcoholic wintery drinks!
Surely there were demons that preferred the chill of ice and snow, she thought. Grinning away, but decidedly keeping those comments to herself. Archimedes had grown up in a land that seemed to spend most of it’s time in those warm cozy temperatures. Spring and summer and a splash of frosted fall, but not the sort of heavy winters one like herself was used to deep in the mountains.
Although she might’ve had an unfair advantage. Calia always did have a special kin to icy things, despite her magic being a wonderous and varied thing.
“And yet now you look like a yeti,” she murmured softly as she passed him by. Headed to the front door where her hand hesitated for a fraction of second. She could feel the shift already, the difference that would be on the other side. Renewed delight in this special private realm of his mixing with her inner dread about going back to the world at all.
Had to be done. No one was going to go get her heart back for her. Calia was no damsel princess.
A twist of the knob and Calia led them back to a snowy reality. While it was still the summer season, that didn’t mean anything to mountain elevations and high cliffs. Likely aided by still being so close to Cragjaw’s frozen domain. She didn’t linger long enough to look around, not wanting to even think about the creepy woman she’d had to slay just to get Arc back where he belonged. Calia merely took a look at the sky, seeking where the sun was glowing the brightest behind the cloud cover and settled onward in the right direction.