Chapter Text
Azriel
I wasn’t going to make it.
The one spot of magic that remained in the Night Court was still two miles away…and they were gaining on me. I could hear their bloodthirsty gurgles. Smell the stench of their decay. My ability to winnow through the shadows, dormant.
I was fucked.
I pushed harder, willing my legs to carry me faster. I was more nimble than the gangly beasts that chased me. If I could just get over this ridge, I’d be in sight of the magical pond. I would have time to climb up into the dense foliage above and wait for them to run past. Then I could –
A sudden searing pain lanced through my leg and I stumbled. I cried out as I met the ground with staggering force. My face and shoulder collided with the leg of a tree that stuck out from the ground. Warm liquid trickled down my temple, into my eyes. I blinked the blood away, wiping it with dirty, scarred hands.
The Siphon atop my hand didn’t glow with the promise that my magic would heal these wounds.
I tried to move, but a sharpness shot up my leg. I stifled my scream and glanced down.
An arrow was sticking out of my leg.
It’s Daglan made. Which means…
They’ve found me.
I can’t go to the pond. I can’t lead them directly to one of the last sources of magic in Prythian.
“There’s no use in running, fae scum!” A voice called out, about a hundred yards behind me.
I need to hide. I can’t let them find me. I can’t let them near the pond. I just need to hide and wait.
And pray to The Mother that she’s watching over me.
There’s a rather large oak tree to my left, its roots big enough to crawl under and shield me from view. Biting down the cry of agony that threatens to escape my lips, I slide my body across the ground. My leg catches and pulls on rocks and branches. The arrow snags on every fucking blade of grass and I feel like I’m about to pass out by the time I make it to the tree.
I tumble and roll down the small hill the tree sits on and press my back into the packed dirt that precariously holds up the massive tree. My wings are a problem and I have to adjust them to awkward, uncomfortable angles just to hide them completely.
Curling into the smallest form I could, I waited. Listened. The sound of snuffling and snorting became clearer. The crunching of forest debris beneath their feet was nearly silent.
“He’s hiding.” The voice was closer now. “Check for blood tracks.”
Fuck. My shadows automatically hide my footsteps when I’m on missions, but without them… I shut my eyes tight and hold my breath. Silently berating myself for not thinking about the blood that gushed from my head and leg wounds.
The seconds tick by. My heart is pounding loudly in my ears and I try not to notice how close they sound now. How they could peer over this hill any moment –
There’s a soft thud somewhere in the woods before me. My heart hammers against my chest now.
A creak, like a branch bending in the wind.
If I’m caught. That’s the end of Prythian. In a matter of seconds, this whole mission will have been for nothing….
“Oh – okay so this is how we’re starting.”
My eyes snap open at the soft, female voice and before me I see the oddest sight.
A large, blue rectangular box sits in the middle of the woods. Appearing out of nowhere.
But what’s more strange is the female now crawling on the forest floor towards me. She’s on her elbows, her stomach and legs close to the ground as she shuffles forward in militaristic fashion.
Her coppery-brown hair is loose around her shoulders, shifting with her as she wiggles across the ground and comes nearly face to face with me.
“What are we dealing with? Kods? Vaxans? Scruut’eon Grair-ots?” She squints and cranes her head around, as if she’s trying to assess the situation for herself. Her teal eyes are lit with a fiery excitement as she turns back to me. I have no idea what she just said to me. I have no idea who she is, why she’s here, or what the hells is happening.
I also don’t have the time to ask all these questions. They’ve probably already spotted the massive blue thing that sits at a precarious angle only feet away.
I let out a breath, “What?”
“Hm, you seem confused by those words. So it’s not any of those. Also are we hiding? Just want to make sure that’s what we’re doing here.”
“Yes,” I said exasperated. “But I don’t think they missed your arrival.” I gesture to the blue box. The movement makes my injured shoulder twinge and I wince.
The female looks between me and the box, “Oh that? They can’t see that. They have no idea I’m here.”
Everything she said just made me more confused and gods this wasn’t the time!
“You need to leave. These are dangerous beings,” I lowered my tone, making sure she understood the severity of this situation. “And I have something they want. If I get caught, then I’ve failed my mission.”
She lowers her voice, in the same tone mocking me and says, “Oh so a very serious situation. Got it. I think I can help –” She pulls out what I think is a wand, but it’s not quite…this device is metal with grooves for a comfortable grip. It reminds me more of a large ink pen.
Whatever it is, she turns something on it. It clicks and whirs. Then she stands and points it.
“What are you doing?!” I hissed. But in the next moment a blue beam shoots out of the device. Is that magic?! Then she’s crouching back down with me.
“We have thirty seconds – give or take – to get you to the T.A.R.D.I.S. –”
“The what?!”
She continues over me “ -- Twenty five seconds. I can explain everything, but not until we’re in the T.A.R.D.I.S. –”
“What is a tar diss?”
“T.A.R.D.I.S. – Tee. A. Arr. – you know we can do this in the T.A.R.D.I.S. We only have eighteen seconds.”
“Before what?”
“Before they turn.”
“Turn?”
“Oh by the Cauldron – we don’t have time! Are you coming or not?”
I have to choose. I have no idea who this female is. What is happening, but something is telling me to trust her. Maybe it’s because she wants to get me out of this situation. Or maybe it’s because she knows what the Cauldron is…
“Seven seconds –”
“Okay! Okay…” I breathe out. “I’ll come.”
She beams and scoops me under an arm and tugs, but she doesn’t realize my wings are tangled in the roots and it pulls them. I call out and she curses, “Oh wow, you have wings. I didn’t realize those were wings. I thought they were large – leaves or something, I don’t know. I’m so sorry – shit.”
I look over the hill, where she’s now squinting and the Daglan and their beasts come into view. She raises her arm again and the blue beam is nearly blinding up close. It forks off and hits the two Daglan and four beasts in the chest. They fall…or disappear…it’s not apparent.
“What did you –”
“Turtles.” She doesn’t stop moving as she unhooks my wing from under a root and helps to straight out the other.
“Turtles?” I let her under my arm, becoming my crutch. With my wings free and dragging behind me, she hobbles toward the tardiss . I grunt and try not to lean all my weight on her, but my leg gives out and we stumble.
With a grunt of her own, she gets back up. Determined. Steadfast. She finally gives me an answer, “I turned them into turtles.”
I blink at her.
“To slow them down,” she says with a cheeky grin.
I smile. Actually smile at her ridiculousness.
I want to ask her a million questions, but we’re at the door of this… thing and she’s ushering me in just as shouts sound behind us. She leans me against the wall of a short entryway as she slams the door shut, locks it and rushes past me into a –
I don’t even know what I’m looking at.
It looks like a war room…or a command center. The room is round and there are lights blinking everywhere. Levers and pulleys and buttons and — everywhere I look I see something new. Things I don't have names for. Large stone structures that extend from floor to ceiling create arches throughout the room. The floor consists mostly of grates. A soft orange glow emits from beneath them.
It’s all metal aside from the light orange arching stone and in the center, is a raised dais with a panel like structure. More buttons and lights and black squares adorn this short column.
It's big . How is it big?!
The female is working frantically around the column, pressing some of the buttons. She pulls a lever and the black squares flicker. Words start scrolling across the squares. There’s a loud hum as she calls out, “I’d hold onto something!”
I do, grabbing a groove in the wall next to me.
The impossible box shakes and despite my tight hold, I’m suddenly chucked to the side as the box lurches. My stomach drops, my shoulder screams in protest as I try to hold on, my leg gives out and I roll, slamming into the column in the middle of the room.
Then everything comes to a jolting halt and I retch. It’s mostly just bile that burns as it comes up.
“Oh boy, sorry about that. The departure can be turbulent sometimes.” She leans down and hands me a napkin. “Alright there?” She asks.
I give her a sideways glance, “No.”
She points her wand-pen at me and I flinch, thinking she’s going to turn me into a turtle or some other creature. But nothing happens. No blue beam. Just a soft vibrating sound then a blue screen flashes from the point of the wand-pen. Words sprawl across it. Like they had on the black squares.
“Your shoulder is dislocated, you may have a concussion, though I think the vomiting is more from my hasty departure rather than from a concussion. You have a laceration on your brow, and a deep puncture wound in your leg.” She glances down at my leg. “Oh wow, yeah that’s quite a puncture wound. You’ve just been walking around with this in your leg? Why didn’t you say something!” She bends to start doing gods knows what, but I stop her. Grabbing her wrist before she can touch me.
“You’re going to tell me who you are. Why you’re here, and what the hells is happening before you touch any of my wounds.” I tighten my grip around her wrist, making sure she knows damn well that I’m not messing around.
She doesn’t wince or try to pull away. “Fair enough,” she says with a nod. I let her wrist go and she continued, “I’m the Priestess.”
That’s it. That’s all she says. As if I’m supposed to know who that is. She smiles and starts reaching for my leg again. I stopped her, again.
“That doesn’t tell me anything. ”
Her face scrunches and her hands fall to her lap. “I would think that should tell you everything. I am the Priestess. It’s why I am here – wherever here is at the moment. As for ‘ what the hells is happening’ , a lot of scenarios and hells are happening at this very moment so you may need to be a bit more specific. Perhaps you can ask more detailed questions as I tend to your wounds because you’re bleeding all over the floor right now and we want to patch you up before some extra dimensional bacteria gets into your skin and infects the wound.”
Dumbfounded, I stay quiet this time and I don’t stop her from tending to my wounds. Because she is absolutely right and it’s only now that I realize how lightheaded I feel.
Her touch is delicate and gentle, but it doesn’t stop the pain from shooting through me. I feel every movement under my skin. I think I may throw up again or faint…
It’s when she snaps the head of the arrow off and pulls the other half out the way it came in, that everything spins, my cry echoes in the small space and I pass out. The lights and the strange female’s face are a blur of colors I see before darkness takes over.
The Priestess
I pause. The bloody arrow in one hand, my other hand on the male’s thigh.
“Well this is going to make moving you to a bed very difficult,” I sigh and set the arrow to the side before focusing on the gaping, bleeding wound before me. I pull the emergency kit from inside the middle console and press thick gauze to the wound on both sides and wrap it in medical tape while I find the suture kit and prepare a needle and thread.
He’s in and out of consciousness by the time I’m unwrapping his wound and starting his stitches. Which is a good thing. It's much easier to stitch up an unmoving, flailing body.
I made quick work of the stitches, cleaned up his blood and vomit then I surveyed the situation. He’s definitely way too heavy for me to carry alone. His wings – his wings – I can’t believe he has wings!
I let myself freak out about that for a moment. Wings were surprisingly rare across the Universe. So to find a being who had them was quite the discovery. Not only did I find him, but the T.A.R.D.I.S. led me here so I know he’s my new companion.
I just know it.
Well, if he survives. Which he probably will…His color is already coming back to his cheeks and he’s groaning. Still not waking though…
I’d need to use a tool to get him from here to the back bedroom. I searched for blankets and rope and rigged up a stretcher of sorts. With a lot of maneuvering and sweating, I manage to get the blanket beneath him, cut and tie the edges to the rope and as I pull, it tightens around him, cocooning him in and making dragging him across the grated floor a breeze.
I have him in the room in less than five minutes, but now to get him on the bed…He’s massive. I’m not even sure he’ll fit. So I bring him to my bed which is a size bigger. He’ll still dwarf it, but at least he’ll have more room.
Using the makeshift stretcher I get him in an upright position. I sit on the bed and prop him against my legs. His back against my shins. His head lolls to his chest and he groans as I try to avoid his injured shoulder, but it’s the only hand hold I can get.
Alright. Guess I’m setting his shoulder now rather than when he’s comfortable in bed.
I poke and prod at his swollen shoulder which slumps at an awkward angle from the socket. Yup. Definitely dislocated. I wrap another sheet around his arm and with one hand splayed over his chest, I hold him against my legs and yank the wrapped arm back –
The male wakes with a deafening scream, spitting out curses and other expletives.
“Good morning!” I say brightly, hoping to make the pain I’m putting him through more bearable.
He groans, “What –”
“What’s happening? Who are you? What’s going on? You’re asking the same questions over and over, but you’re not asking the right questions. Now –” I unwrap his shoulder and wrap my arms around his chest, “Mind helping me get you into a bed?”
“A bed?”
“You’re injured and need a place to rest. So yes. A bed. Can you bend your uninjured leg?”
“How is there a bed in here? How is this even possible? The box –”
I can’t help my laugh. He asks so many questions. I like him. I like someone who questions everything. It makes for great discoveries.
“The T.A.R.D.I.S.,” I corrected him.
“Whatever – it’s small .”
“Yeah. It's bigger on the inside.”
He’s fighting me still. Not bending his leg. Not moving. I get it. This is all new.
So I let him go and slide out from behind him. I stuff a pillow behind his back as I join him on the floor. I avoid crushing his wings as I sit right next to him. My leg presses to his uninjured one and I fold my hands in my lap.
“It’s obvious you’re uncooperative and stubborn when awake –”
“Uncooperative and stubborn?! You’re the one who showed up in the middle of the woods with this thing and you won’t tell me who you are –”
“I did –”
“Yes, the Priestess, but that's a title. What’s your name? Why are you here? What –” He’s getting more and more frantic as he lists off a string of questions. When he’s finally done. His chest is rising and falling rapidly and he’s staring at me with wide, desperate hazel eyes.
I take a deep breath and I tell him what I can.
“I am the Priestess –” He opened his mouth to argue, his eyes blazing with annoyance. I hold up my hand and keep explaining, “-- I technically don’t have a name but if you insist on giving me one, the Randalin call me Gwyneth.”
“Who are the Randalin?”
“They live on Veon 41, a planet two million light years away in the Drov galaxy.” Every word I say puts a deeper crease between his eyes. Again, I hold back my laugh and continue. “I saved them from a giant serpent one time and they started chanting it. To them it’s a word that means ‘good fortune’.”
He nods his head slowly, “Do you prefer to be called Priestess?”
I contemplate that for a moment then shrug, “I mean…what’s a name other than a word? If you want to call me Gwyneth you may. I’ll probably respond quicker to Priestess so if you’re in an emergency I’d recommend using that name.”
The male snorts a laugh at that.
“And what do you prefer to be called?” I ask.
“Azriel…though, I too have other names. I guess.”
“Oooh, did you save a planet from a giant monster too and they gave you a name that means ‘warrior’ or ‘valiant knight’, oh or maybe ‘winged one’?” I eye his wings, my gaze fixated on the crisscrossing of scars that marred them. Which then reminds me of his scarred hands and I glance down at those next. He curls them into fists, trying to hide them away. I snap my eyes back to his and I catch the shimmering of darkness there before it disappears.
“No. I’m a shadowsinger. So that’s what I’m sometimes referred to as.”
He’s got me hooked and it’s my turn to ask the questions. “What’s a shadowsinger?”
“A fae who can wield and control shadows.”
My eyes widened, “Really? Can you show me? Were you born with the ability? Or did you learn it?”
“They were gifted to me,” he says ‘gifted’ like it’s painful. As if it wasn’t really a gift. “And I would, but my magic –” He looks down at his hands. And stills. “Wait –”
There’s a faintly, glowing blue stone atop his hand, same on the other. He studies them then –
I gasp, tendrils of dark wisps uncoil from him, like they were waiting to be summoned. They dance and twirl around the room before settling back around Azriel. They stop short, as if realizing I was there.
Wait are they – “Are they sentient?” I can’t help my shrill excitement eking through my question.
Azriel doesn’t answer my question. Instead he says with a shaky voice, “My magic –” He looks relieved before puzzled. “How do I have magic? Where –”
I tilt my head. “Had you lost your magic?”
He nodded, “Everyone did. The magic just…left.” He reached his hand out and a shadow swirled around his fingers. The corners of his lips tugged up.
“It’s artificial. The magic. The T.A.R.D.I.S. has a proton bonding system that supplies it. That’s why your magic is working right now. It bonds to your DNA, charging the natural magic inside you. It’ll be at your disposal consistently while in the T.A.R.D.I.S., but once you step outside you’ll have to wear a bracelet or carry a device.” I pull my screwdriver from my pocket, holding it up for him to see more clearly now that I wasn’t waving it about.
He eyes the screwdriver for a while before his eyes snap back to mine. There’s a curiosity in his gaze. A spark that ignites the golden flecks in the greens and browns of his irises.
I’m not sure if he’s about to cry, scream, or rage. Aside from the spark in his eye, he’s been unreadable. Mostly just confusion and bewilderment flicker through from time to time. But he always reels the sudden displays of emotion. Like he’s physically and mentally battling with showing them.
He looks to be in one of these battles now. He peels his gaze away from mine and observes his surroundings. He takes in all the buttons that control the lights and temperature in the room. Scrutinizes the screens that line the wall. They’re off now, but one shows me data. Another plays TV shows from Lunathion. The third is a camera that I usually use to check my outfit, but I’ll leave video messages there too to keep records.
I tell him all this as I follow his eyes around the room. Then he swallows as his gaze comes back to me. He narrows his eyes and asks, “Who are you?”
It’s the way he says ‘ are’ that I know he’s wondering who I truly am and my purpose.
I smile, “I thought you’d never ask.”