Work Text:
how could i leave?
there has never been
another.every farewell
returned to my own lips.
every grave
yawned beneath my own feet.i searched the world
for the one left behind,only to find
You were mine all along.
A dream? It must be—
He’s been having a lot of them, lately. He’s found the only way to escape, to wake up, is to go along with whatever happens.
A forest lies hushed beneath a heavy veil of mist, where towering trees rise like dark pillars into a sky swallowed by fog. Their trunks are thick with creeping ivy, the vines climbing upward as though reclaiming the wood one slow agony at a time.
In the vast emptiness, the silhouette of a small child. His boots clack against stone as he approaches it, fog dispersing like smoke blown by a whisper.
“Hey kid, you lost?”
It turns around, and—
He’d rather not acknowledge what the thing looks like, who it looks like, but it has unbrushed gray-moss hair, devilish little magenta eyes, and a blank expression that does not belong on someone of his, its —age. An ugly, familiar mien of arrogance too, like it knows better than him despite its clear inexperience in all that life has yet to offer. It has a knife in its hand, the blade bigger than its entire hand. Clothed in simple farm wear, with some stitches coming loose because he won't let his mother redo them. It doesn't seem to care.
Without ceremony, another familiar figure approaches to stand next to him, and it’s a relief — she’s a relief, to see.
“Celia,” he sighs, grabbing her around the waist, to childishly hold onto her. “Help me, would you? You’re good with children.”
“I believe this is meant for you to handle.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Care for him,” she explains softly, simply, peeling him off of her calmly, then leaning down to pick up the child because it’s still clenching and unclenching its little hands, reaching higher as if it deserves unearned attention. Though she holds the thing rather naturally, he hasn’t forgotten that she is his age, perhaps even younger — too young to be a mother, despite how often she is forced into the role. “Children develop most at this age. You need to give them attention, or they end up — ”
“Like you and I?”
He scoffs, bitter and resentful, but she smiles as if she actually found it funny.
It seems, even in a dream, she understands him.
He watches in indifferent disgust as she wordlessly shifts the child-lookalike of himself in her arms, until she’s forcing it into his grasp, and he has to grab the thing otherwise it will smack onto the ground.
Unsettled, he holds it out in front of him at a distance, under its axillae, unsure what she wants him to do with it.
“Lohen.”
“What? It’s glaring at me like it wants to kill me.”
She laughs, airy and nectar-sweet. “Are you surprised? He looks just like— ”
He clicks his tongue. “You don’t need to finish that sentence.”
The child, with its messy gray-moss colored hair, and its deadstare of crimson-malachite eyes, squirms, lightly flailing its arms and legs. Is it — uncomfortable? Gods, how annoying. Instead of cradling it against his chest as she did, he positions the kid over his shoulder, then onto his back, until its short legs are resting slotted around his neck and its small fingers are yanking at his hair.
Mildly amused, Cecilia hides her faint smile with her clasped hands, and there are those white-lace gloves, even in a dream, somehow. Most people have dreams that are nothing similar to reality, but he just has dreams that seem too close to what reality could be.
“Happy?” He grunts.
“I think he is,” she concedes, lifting a hand up to where the child is, presumably either to tap its nose or tickle it, because it giggles and pulls harder on his hair. It hasn’t stabbed the knife into his skull, at least, not yet.
“Don’t excite it. It’s yanking on my hair.”
“Oh, but he’s so cute. Isn’t he?”
He pouts, leaning down to whisper to her in the fog. “Cuter than me?”
Half-hidden behind her black veil, she turns her face from him. “You want to be cute? You’re too old.”
At the roots of the tall trees, a sea of tiny white flowers stretches across the clearing, their pale blossoms catching what little light filters through the haze. They glow faintly against the deep green earth, scattered so densely they resemble fallen stars blanketing the ground. Nothing stirs among them. Even the air feels still, as though the forest holds its breath.
Near the edge of the clearing, a weathered gravestone stands alone. Time has worn its edges smooth, its inscription long since surrendered to age. Moss and damp cling to the stone, rooting it into the earth as firmly as the trees around it.
He bends down, a knee to the cold ground—
He reads—
Here lies Lohen, ██████ knight of █████████ , █████████
Is this a dream?
Or, some kind of omen? Premonition? The scene doesn’t feel morbid; Cecilia is talking to the child on his shoulders, and its laughing, and he can still hear his pulse in his ears—
I didn’t die, did I?
He’s heard tales of a place between life and death, a place like this: liminal, idyllic but eerie. It drains the warmth from his face and ears. He can’t remember — he can’t remember, what led him here, or when he even fell asleep. It feels like he spends hours thinking over it. Then she’s guiding him deeper into the forest, away from the lone gravestone, deeper and darker and further, and he doesn’t remember what he was trying to remember, and he laughs in confusion and the faintest hint of fear.
The child is still clinging to him. Knife still in its tiny hand, gripping tight.
It’ll be okay, she promises, a hand over his eyelids, a gesture he’s become used to.
Just follow my voice—
Keep your eyes closed—
Don’t look. Don’t let go of me—
And remember, this is—
Church bells chime their midday summons. Heat seeps in all around him, wet and hot but not unpleasant. His sore muscles register the sensations before his mind does; shoulders, then his spine, then deepest and sharpest down his arms. Specifically, his dominant arm, the one he tends to wield his polearm with. It’s a kind of ache that feels good, a pain he would press harder on, if he could make his limbs move. In lack of control over his body, he rolls his head around, blinking at the daylight that filters through sheer curtains.
This isn’t familiar. Some kind of safehouse? Or an infirmary ward? He sees a bed, and some other quaint decorations, but little else other than ivy and overgrowth. A skittish bird that lands on the windowsill then flies back off into the sky.
In a dark corner, a bucket and old rag. Slathered in blood and dirty water. That must be where all the filth on him had been washed off.
His hand twitches. His fingers itch for a weapon that isn’t there. He spots his polearm, polished and clean, leaning against the wall near the door. His Vision dangles from the spear, emanating a cold radiance, an Electro Vision hung along with it.
“Ah. So he finally awakens.”
He turns around so quickly that he strains a muscle in his neck and shoulder. Pain shoots down his nerves in debilitating shocks. He hisses through his teeth, stiff, but still determined to look at her.
“Celia,” he exhales, not realizing he had been holding his breath.
“Hello,” she greets, casually.
“Shouldn’t you be at the cathedral?”
“Hm? Do you want me gone so badly? You just woke up.”
“I’m just confused,” he says, shifting his legs under the water. Oh. He’s in a bath. “Daylight isn’t when we tend to see each other.”
“Your last venture into danger cost you more than I think you realize,” she scolds lightly, pressing her thumb down onto a bandaged wound on his forearm. He hisses, not expecting a pain there — let alone for it to be so sharp, acute. It paralyzes the entire limb. He tries to clench his fingers, but it’s useless. “You were much worse when I found you. Couldn’t even hold onto your polearm like this, I imagine?”
“I could try.”
“I would highly advise against it. You cleared out the nest of monsters; I suggest taking this chance to heal and recover.”
“I got them all?”
“Yes, every single one. It was beautiful.”
Beautiful, hm? He hums, a tingling sensation tickling his chest. It makes him more compliant to let her bathe him. If he were a dog, his tail would be wagging back and forth. If he were a bunny, perhaps he’d leap into the air and run about madly. Luckily, he is neither. He tempers down the good feeling into a repressed smile, hiding it from her, exposing the spots of his neck and shoulders he wants rubbed and washed the most.
She finds the knots in his muscles and kneads them out, is careful in places where he has an uncovered or bandaged wound, skimming lightly over it with wet fingers.
There are some cracks, some pops in his joints; he moans in relief when she gets a particularly sore spot near his shoulderblade. He’s forced to sip on some medicinal tea all the while, bitter as it is, he enjoys it. Though he wouldn’t mind something sweet to cleanse his palate—
He thinks about leaning out of the tub to kiss her, to be all over her, but she keeps him in his place in the wooden tub. Water is poured over his head from a bowl, and he coughs, surprised, and then she’s washing his hair and behind his ears, slower and slower with each second as if she doesn’t want it to end.
His spine tingles, and this isn’t so bad, he thinks; there are far worse ways to come into consciousness.
“You’re good at this,” he praises, leaning into her touch.
“I have —had, to wash a lot of children.”
“Lucky them.”
“My, who knew you are so petty against innocent children,” she laughs to herself, lathering her hands in more soap, then returning to her gentle scrubbing. He can’t see her, but somehow, he can feel her smile of disbelief on him. “I’m doing it for you, aren’t I? and you are a grown man who should be washing himself. Consider yourself privileged. We tend to just throw scented cloths at the men who come in and tell them to wipe themselves down.”
“I’m not that helpless. I can bathe myself just fine,” he defends, tilting his head back over the edge, just to grin at her for a moment. His hair, slick and stuck to his forehead, soapy. “Though, this is nice. Getting blood off is honestly a pain. It really stains everything. Yet — look at me; you’re a real professional. You’d think I was a choir boy with how clean I am. Could make use of this skill somehow, I’m sure.”
“Yes, yes. Stop squirming. You’ll get soap in your ears.”
“You don’t do this for any other man, do you?”
“Just children.”
“You should just do it for me, hm?”
“Greed is a sin, Sir Lohen,” she says flatly, water sloshing as she scoops some up, pouring it down his nape and shoulders, wiping off soap bubbles. “Though, lately, you’ve taken up so much of my time that I barely visit the cathedral anymore. I suspect you are deliberately forcing the Grand Master’s hand in the matter?”
“I’m a sinner, we’ve established,” he counters cheekily, sighing in relief when she massages another tight knot in his muscle. “Also, for the record: I had nothing to do with most of the medics seeking out other Companies. Who knows why they found my leadership so unbearable?”
“I’d guess it was the constant poisoning of their food and drinks.”
“You’d think doctors would be vigilant of that kind of threat.”
“You’d think,” she echoes, forgiving — understanding, as always.
“See? You get me,” he says, wiping soap suds from his brow before the bubbles plop into his eye.
The warmth of the bath envelops him with an almost soporific gentleness, a rare reprieve from the brutality that had so recently claimed him. Steam coils languidly through the air, carrying the delicate fragrance of crushed botanicals and floral oils, while petals drift aimlessly across the water’s surface, fragments of some forgotten spring.
For once, there is no battlefield to command, no insistent voices demanding his attention, no responsibility of expectation pressing down upon him. There is only the quiet cadence of the water, the muted brush of her hands, and the inexplicable tenderness of being cared for. It should bore him, but he quite likes this, with her — the silence, her presence; he’s reminded of biting into cherry-blood apples in summer, the pleasant clamor of the Windblume Festival all around, garlands hung high and lovers arm in arm, no monsters or beasts in sight or mind.
Then his idle stare wanders.
Over the ephemeral sanctuary of warmth and fragrance, the remnants of violence remain undisturbed. A darkened trail stretches from the doorway across the floor, the sanguine evidence of his arrival left behind like the vestige of a storm that has already passed, that he slept through while she endured.
His blood.
Each mark a silent testament to every moment his body faltered, every step he could not have taken alone, every unseen effort required to bring him here. He could be fooled into thinking an overeager artist was in here, slapping their paintbrush of red around without finesse.
His expression shifts as the realization settles upon him, a quiet astonishment he cannot quite conceal.
“Hold on. Did you drag me around by yourself?”
“You likely don’t remember, but you were somehow conscious enough to lean on me. So I did not need to carry you. Or, drag you, as it were.”
“I didn’t mumble anything weird, did I?”
“Hm?”
“You know, in those popular novels from Inazuma — the male lead tends to confess something he shouldn’t to the female lead, when he’s in a state like that,” he explains, tapping his fingers on the porcelain edge of the bath.
“I am surprised you’ve read those,” she admits, appearing genuinely confused, how rare on her. How cute.
“Kept hearing about them during missions. Needed to see what all the excitement was about. So I read a few.”
“I assume you found nothing of worth in them?”
He shrugs, flicking at a wandering rose flower that floats too close to him. “I get why the knights may enjoy them, but they have to understand, I hope, that real lovers tend to be far more disappointing than in fiction. Romance isn’t all rainbows and fated encounters at cafes.”
She exhales with a tinge of humor, still smiling adorably. “May all romantics take heart. Sir Lohen has exposed the truth of all men.”
“Have I? Well. It’s boring anyway. Don’t you think?”
“Romance — ? I wouldn’t know.”
“You must have an opinion,” he insists, lifting his legs in the water until his knees stick out from the surface, petals and flower buds undulating.
“I wouldn’t know anything about romance,” she deflects, twisting a soapy length of cloth, draining the excess water back into the tub.
For a while, he says nothing. He simply watches her. The careful rhythm of her hands, the concentration softened across her face, the way she refuses to look at him for longer than a heartbeat at a time. He wonders how long she intends to keep pretending she cannot feel him staring. She tends to every scrape and bandage with meticulous care, as though the task itself might spare her from acknowledging the danger of his gaze upon her.
He almost smiles.
She has noticed. She must have.
No one could remain so deliberately occupied otherwise. Yet she persists, wringing the cloth, rinsing it clean, smoothing it over his skin with the same measured calm. He wonders how much longer she intends to indulge the pretense before finally meeting his dilated pupils. The warmth of the floral bathwater settles into his aching body, dulling the sharper edges of pain without erasing them entirely. Every careful touch draws his attention, every brush of the cloth lingering in his mind longer than it ever lingers against his skin.
He is content to wait.
( She has always been more interesting when she believes she is the one controlling the pace. )
“Behave yourself.”
“I have pure thoughts only, I promise.”
“You’re still an injured man,” she warns, but she sounds like she already knows what will happen anyway. “You should finish the tea.”
“I feel perfectly fine,” he lies, leaning in closer to her, closer and closer, until his lips touch hers— undeniably, the bones of his ribcage ache, his lungs are sore, and each bandaged wound on his body stings with each movement. Yet he wants her. The pain is only a thrill enhancer for him. It reminds him he’s alive, paired with his desire for her. An intoxicating blend. “Come now, won’t you indulge me? Should I say pretty please?”
The moment between them breaks as the cloth in her hands becomes too stained with blood to continue using, the crimson spreading through the fabric like petals unfurling in still water. A simple replacement is all that is needed; only a few paces away, only a moment before she returns. He understands this, logically.
Yet the brief separation unsettles something buried deep within him, like a fragile branch trembling beneath the suddenness of a passing breeze. The distance between them is hardly more than a few steps, but his mind twists the innocent act into something far more painful. It does not see the fresh cloth waiting nearby, the warmth of the bath, the flowers drifting around him, or the hands that have patiently healed and mended him.
It only sees her leaving.
His hand moves before thought can stop it, catching hers with a desperation that betrays far more than he ever intended. He had to stretch out of the bath to reach her, unthinking and abrupt, and his wounds bleed apart under the bandages, sensitive and pulsing.
“Don’t leave this time,” he begs, choking it out of himself.
“I’m just getting another— ”
“Should we get married?”
The sky could have fallen then. Or eternity, in its infiniteness, could have found its nonexistent end.
“ — What?”
“Married,” he reiterates, a strange suffocation in his throat. As if his heart leaped in it to kill him. “Then you won’t have to leave. It’s just a piece of paper, you know?”
“I think the bath may be a bit too hot,” she ponders aloud, tapping his head playfully. “You’re talking nonsense.”
“If we’re married, I can be around you as much as I’d like without having to invent an excuse for it.”
“How hot is the water — ?”
He drops his head back against the edge of the bathtub, staring at her, neither teasingly nor serious. “You don’t want to get married? I’m offended. I’d be a wonderful life partner.”
“Oh, certainly. A husband to die for,” she teases, monotone, squeezing excess soap and water from the ends of his hair once she comes around behind him.
“Is that a yes?”
“In what world would you, Mister I-Do-Everything-Alone, want to get married?”
“To you,” he mumbles.
“You must have lost more blood than I thought.”
“It would just make things easier,” he mutters.
“You should marry for love, not convenience. Or whatever weird advantage you’re thinking of,” she tells him, and certainly — he knows, he knows that, but he doesn’t think about the future, because he won’t have a future, so why not just — ?
He’d be the worst husband, he knows. That’s why he laughs as she blushes, flustered, acting her age for once. Yet — his self-loathing does little to dampen his imagination, as his mind paints and embellishes a future of white and flowers before an altar, just him and her, a promise of forever. His parents had married because it was convenient. So their wedding, as he was told, was quick and unromantic. Sign here, then have a nice dinner, then go home, kind of affair. On good days, they could tolerate each other, and his father had the stability and funds to make a simple living while his mother possessed skills in weapon crafting and commerce. It was all so bland when he heard about it. Not that he’d consider himself a romantic, but come on —
If you’re going to bother committing your life to someone, why not at least make the occasion one to remember?
A white dress splattered in vivid crimson would look beautiful on her, flowers that will bloom then rot in her hair, a pretty, glittering ring on her finger for him to look at and remember he always has someone to come back to, no matter what he does or where he goes.
He smirks at her, dragging a hand through his wet hair enticingly. “Would you like to see me in a formal suit?”
She pinches his cheek, slippery. “You know what, I think I regret dragging you out of that monster den.”
“Do you oversee any weddings?”
“Not really. The most I’ve done is assist the Officiant. Or the bride with her hair and dress.”
“You’ve never once thought about it during that?”
“Technically, I should be promised to my faith, so no. Other than that, who would want to be with — ?”
He can joke all he wants.
Reality, however, is another tale entirely.
He could be terrible to her, be a blatant liar, declare: of course, I want to be with you, but he isn’t made for such mundane love, he’s made to tear his lover into pieces, to eat them alive, have their sinew and skin stuck in his sharp teeth, and know they will do the same to him. He hopes she knows this. He’s certain she must know this.
It’s been a while since he’s been welcomed into her existence, and in that time, she’s proven just how effective her many years of stalking him were.
She knows his preferences, his likes and dislikes, the routes for patrols he takes most often, the bard songs he hums, which strategy he uses during a card game. How early he begins training those under his command, the intricate tricks and surprises he plans to keep them on alert. How he likes his coffee. What temperature he needs his bath to be to feel clean. How spicy his food needs to be for him to actually taste any flavor.
In that time, he’s gotten to know her, too, but he has a lot to catch up on — but that’s okay, he has plenty of time with her. He’ll get there eventually.
“Who would want to be with someone like me?” He finishes for her, scoffing. “Yeah. I know the feeling.”
Sadness twitches her lip, but she bites it and smooths it away. A practiced art of erasure.
“Perhaps you should read this note the Grand Master left for you,” she tells him, plucking a note from a small round table near the bath. Teacups clatter together, mingling with plopping droplets of water. “I think it will ease your worries.”
He stares at her, perplexed, unfolding the parchment quickly as to not get it soaked before he has the chance to read it.
Kid,
Vice Captain Lohen,By my order, a personal physician has been assigned to you, effective immediately. She will be the one handing you this. Of course, your Company will still be assigned routine medics when needed, but this is a personal attachment for you specifically.
You have a troublesome tendency of ignoring your own injuries until they become everyone else's problem, and I've grown tired of hearing the reports and seeing you half-dead in the infirmary. Consider this less a suggestion and more a standing order. You go off alone too much to be held accountable by normal means, so this should do.
Treat her with the same respect you expect from those under your command, and, for once, let someone take care of you.
— Grand Master Varka
He rereads the words over and over, until the parchment becomes wet at the edges and the ink blotches into black blooms. Becoming illegible, letters dripping into each other, but the order has been given.
He got exactly what he wanted.
“Congratulations, Sir Lohen,” she sighs, tilting her head a little, fondly. Her long hair, unbrushed and damp, falls in waves with the movement. “You have officially bound us together.”
“Getting myself killed a hundred or so times was all it took? Hah.”
“I hope you will not regret this.”
He laughs, a wet and delirious sound from deep in his throat. “How could I, little lamb? We’re made for each other.”
Plucking the dripping note from him, she lays it back on the round table, careful not to drench it further. “You sound so certain of that,” she mutters, her dark lashes glinting with particles of celestial sunlight. Blink, then inhale — in slow, out slower, everything she does so practiced and perfected, even breathing. “You did not need to take pity on me, if that is what this was. I told you I was content with how my life was.”
His teeth crack in his jaw as he bites down; wouldn’t you rather die with me, than rot in that boring church? but he keeps quiet, unsure if this acrimony is meant for himself or for her. Call him selfish, certainly — he’s sick of seeing her tend to other people, care for others, meander around in that dull life and wither away when she could be fighting on the frontlines with him.
He wants her to himself, in whatever manner that has to be. Falling from the broken sky together, standing together as everyone else runs, plodding through the trenches of wilderness just to reach her, one last time. He wasted enough time while she watched him in the shadows like some creep; it’s time he pays back this debt. Or begins to, at least.
He’s never felt this before, he doesn’t know what to do with it: he can either kill her, or become one with her, and so he’s choosing the latter.
“Hm? I just like having you around. You don’t need to overthink it.”
“ — Is it really that simple?”
“I’m a bit evil sometimes, but I’m not a liar,” he promises, kissing the back of her hand playfully. “If I ever lie to you, it’s the end of the world. Or, it’s an impostor pretending to be me, and you should kill him.”
“Hm,” she hums, glaring at where he had placed his lips on her skin. As though she sees something still there, branded, terrifying.
Arm to her shoulder, a lot of her skin is exposed, his attention lingers, and then he notices—
“I just realized,” he says, stilted. “You aren’t — dressed, like normal.”
“That took you a while.”
“Too long. Look at what I’ve been missing.”
A single length of soft ivory fabric, more akin to a blanket or loosely woven shawl than a tailored garment. The material is thick, textured, and gauzy, its folds pooling around her body in effortless layers. It wraps across her chest and waist without any visible fastenings, held in place only by the way it has been gathered around her. One shoulder is left completely bare while the other is only partially covered, allowing the cloth to slip low across her collarbones. Around her waist, the fabric cinches softly before cascading over the floor in thick ripples, exposing one thigh while concealing the rest of her figure beneath layers of cream-colored cloth.
Corpses are folded in fabric like this, and in the same manner, he’s seen the faithful dipped in holy water in such cloth, baptized, greeting gods, defenseless.
It’s not her protective medic uniform, and it’s not her modest Church habit.
No veil, no earrings, no makeup — she looks like she took a bath herself, before she ever began cleaning him off. Her hair isn’t damp, but freshly washed, and looks far softer and unkempt than he’s ever seen it.
It’s almost more scandalous than if she were simply naked, somehow.
“You look— different,” he whispers, his cock throbbing in the warmth of the water. He moans, carelessly dragging himself out of the tub, crawling like some deep-sea creature emerging from a chasm, onto her. Splashing water all over the place, flowers without their stems plopping out, too. “And you’re always so — soft, hah. I missed you.”
“I think the bloodloss has made you too honest,” she murmurs, cradling his head, her fingers brushing through his wet hair as he kisses her wherever he can. Collarbone, chest, breasts, shoulder, neck — anywhere, anywhere. “We weren’t separated for long.”
“How long was I asleep?”
“About half a day.”
“Embarrassing.”
“You still need to heal, I should point out— ”
With a lidded, sober stare, he lifts himself off of her, forcing the separation against instinct to be closer. “You really want me to stop?”
Blinking at him, she frowns like he offended her, like he insulted her. Then her lips are on his, and he’s laughing like he’s drunk into her mouth, her teeth, each vibration another ripple of pleasure. Another sip of the forbidden, sweeter than the Apple Cider he loves.
With the grandeur of a true sinner, he kisses lower and lower, until his head is between her thighs and she’s laid on her back on the floor, legs spread on his shoulders.
“You look pretty here, too,” he comments blithely, parting her folds open more, exposing more of her cunt to the tepid, moist air.
“Do I? Isn’t it —weird?”
“You think men have anything better between their legs?”
That seems to checkmate her, because she clamps her mouth shut and doesn’t even moan or whimper when he leans in to lick at her, experimentally. Whenever he’s done this in the past for her, he’s done it rushed — either because of the weather, the circumstances, or because they each had more work to attend to. He didn’t have the leisure to explore her, so he takes this chance greedily.
It’s tender. Fleshy. Glistening and he preens at that, knowing the wetness is because of him.
He huffs a tentative breath against this vulnerable, dripping part of her, and she keens, spine arching against the wooden planks of the floor.
“Lohen.”
“Mm?”
“What the Hell are you doing,” she gasps, somewhere between humiliated and interested, leaning on her elbows to glare down at him.
“Having a little fun,” he laughs, darting his tongue out to flick it against her clit, enjoying how she shudders.
“This is weird.”
“I’m enjoying myself.”
So much arousal leaks out of her that it pools under her, slips between the cracks of the floorboards. Is it just seeing him down here that gets her? Or was it washing him off, touching his body but keeping her desires restrained? He grins, satisfied regardless of what the truth is — his lips surround her clit, he sucks lightly, then more intense, observing her for any reaction, learning things he doesn’t have the chance to in the darkness, in cramped spaces where the most he can do for her is shove his hand into her underwear and hope he gets her off before he has to leave her.
His tongue slides lower, along the smoothness of her slit then back to that sensitive bundle of nerves, his stare seeming to do more to her than anything.
Caught between glaring down at him and at the ceiling. Thighs trembling. If she squirms away, he drags her back to him, laughing, burying his face ever-deeper into her cunt until he can’t even breathe, and finally, finally, she succumbs.
Hand tangled in his hair, pulling, pushing.
He licks faster, slower, sucks and sticks his tongue in places she probably didn’t think he would, obscene slurping noises from where his mouth eats and eats and eats her, his teeth aching to bite, to tear, but he refrains.
Lohen, Lohen, she sings, and it’s so beautiful, heavenly; higher pitched when she at last comes undone, toes curling, spine bending.
He’s as breathless as her, his chin coated in her slick, bracing himself higher to stare down at her, to admire what he did to her. The sight of her flushed, splayed out, so clear and sparkling under the sunlight.
The silence, her breathing that steadies until she’s quiet again; he contemplates his entire life, he contemplates her, and their existence together, the strange dream he had earlier, coming to a revelation. He remembers his parents like a vague anecdote that was spit and stuck into his ear — bothersome, unreachable, and still, he can’t help but talk about it.
“If I ever have children, I will teach them how to wield a bow, then a dagger,” he breathes, so quiet he thinks she may not have even heard him. Yet he continues, desperate, ineluctable. “Then a spear, a polearm. A sword of course. Hm. A crossbow wouldn’t hurt either. Educate them on poisons to see if they take well to alchemy. I want them to be so capable, they will be able to defeat me in combat. Kill me, even.”
He blinks down at her, waiting.
Either that was too random for her, or she’s overthinking what he said more than he wanted her to. The birds keep chirping. He glances at the outside world that’s visible from the window, clouds of wispy white on cerulean blue, wondering how much longer he can reasonably keep her like this, keep himself away from his Company and his responsibilities.
“I understand.”
“Oho? I knew you would. Speaking of, are you — ?”
Gesturing at her vaguely, he flicks his crimson-malachite gaze away from her, then back, then away, again and again. The vines climbing the walls all at once seem quite appealing to stare at, instead of her. Warmth floods his cheeks, like sun-kissed Starconches on hot sand. His blood hotter than the rose scented water he was surrounded with earlier.
He thinks of, and also tries not to think of, her with a swollen stomach, her, with her breasts full of milk and her skin even softer, her, shamelessly and undeniably claimed by him—
He coughs in the birdsong repleted silence, cutting and stabbing each of those thoughts, one by one.
“You’ll need to elaborate.”
“You know. We’ve done that a lot, and you — ”
Choking on the implication, he stares at her, hoping she’ll understand, but she just stares back at him, waiting for him to explain further. Curling in on herself in the aftermath of her climax, knees held against her chest as she rests her chin on her knee.
He suddenly feels much more his age; young and altogether, arguably inexperienced. He’s had affairs of passion, had fun with a few temperamental girls who threw themselves at him when he was bored out of his mind — the kind of experience that after about an hour, all you can think of is when it will be over. Not all of them ended amiably. In truth, he would find himself being slapped or chased after by their fathers because of something he said. He can charm and tease effortlessly, but keeping himself tolerable is the difficult part.
He’s never had someone that could just stay with him, like this. Someone that didn’t smack him, curse him and his bloodline, and then declare they never wanted to see him again. That he was a bastard of a knight who would never be loved or cared for.
It didn’t bother him. He had accepted his life of loneliness long ago, and became quite fond of it as well.
Though, with her —
His attention lingers on her, his gaze hunts her down as if he was born to look for her. That first touch has made a disaster of him. Here he is, naked and wet like he’s fresh out of a womb — acting like a fool, thinking foolish delusions, and somehow still insistent to pretend he knows what he’s doing.
He wouldn’t be able to say what this woman is to him even if a gun was pointed at his head.
Imagining a little lifeform of himself and her, blended together, all their finest and worst traits in mortal blood. Would he raise it like his father raised him? His mother? Overprotective, too idle and passive, or would he guide it in some other, different, wrong direction?
Her stomach is as flat and normal as ever, the concern is meaningless, but he stares at it nonetheless. He’s too young for thoughts like this, but he can’t stop them, either. He wonders how she’d be with a child that was hers, rather than someone else’s — a life that isn’t some discarded, abandoned creature, but her own to care for and nurture. He’s heard of women going mad once they give birth, he’s heard horror stories of women losing their newborns or their own lives in the process. It all sounds rather ghastly, and to him, a phase of life he’d personally not want to inflict upon her.
Still—
He isn’t exactly cautious when he is intimate with her. He gets reckless, careless, he completely forgets any consequences and comes inside her each time.
Perhaps noticing his unusual, contemplative silence, she huffs out a tiny laugh, tapping him on the nose gently. Grounding him back to reality.
“Oh? Thinking of me all swollen, helpless, pregnant with your child? How lecherous.”
That was a terrible moment to take a sip of the medicinal tea. He somehow swallows it painfully and spits it out, coughing it out into the bathwater.
“So you did know what I meant,” he scolds, hating how his body betrays him. His cock twitches, a desire so natural and undeniable that he hates it. The last thing he wants is to become a father. To make another of himself. Yet — “Answer the question.”
An amused, restrained smile plays on her lips. “I take a potion to reduce the chances of pregnancy. Though, who knows, one of us may just be infertile. All the more fortunate for you and I, hm?”
There is relief. Then, strangely, a maddening curiosity.
“You don’t want to be a mother?”
“Hm. Maybe if it’s yours? Imagining a bunch of little Lohens running about, we could send them all after the Grand Master, like an army of troublemakers— ”
“Alright, stop. Stop! No more talking about this.”
“You could make use of them. Think of the possibilities.”
“Hah,” he scratches the harsh, unamused sound out of his throat. “That old man would definitely kill me.”
“I’ll defend you, and all your little ones,” she mocks, hitting him on the head lightly with a folding fan she snatched from somewhere on the floor, then she stands, wandering about to tidy the room.
He groans, scratching his nails down his wet cheeks in unfamiliar, ticklish agony. He’s never felt like this. This, want for something more than he wants anything, but is also terrified of it. He doesn’t even know what it is. He tries to convince himself she should be with someone else, be around someone else this much, someone better, someone safer, someone good for her that won’t control her, but then again, it seems to be that’s what she wants. He can’t deny it’s beneficial to him, how she does what he tells her, how she crawls to him through mud and sludge when all others have fallen in their own blood around him, how easy it is to just take her hand and run when he’s caught poisoning drinks at the tavern.
It doesn’t have to be anything, does it? Altered in a lab together, stolen by the Knights and the Church alike, she’s essentially just another aspect of him, another assortment of blood and bone and skin that has to live with this curse, this mortal heart.
Her life intertwined with his, because of Ursa’s flesh in their veins, or maybe because she has no one else.
He can’t bring himself to ask her, out of fear of what she’ll say.
( No matter what, I would have chosen you—
It is just this curse that binds us, this sickness that we can’t get rid of—
If I had anything left of me, I would have given it to— )
Whatever it is that keeps her around him, he doesn’t want to hear it. Some things are better left to the imagination.
He’s not someone who feels fear enough to understand the emotion. He tends to kill the cause of it swift so it doesn’t settle, or he wakes from the nightmare and forgets it entirely.
With her, he wonders things; wonders if she feels fear ever, questions how she deals with it or if she just lets it consume her. He has a funny feeling she does the latter, purely because she has a penchant for the sweetness of agony.
Determined to earn some of his dignity that she plucked from him, he gets off the floor, bandaged and high on medicine, sweeps her into his arms before she can react or deny him, carries her to the bed, laying on it so she’s on him, and he’s sprawled out like a sacrificial offering under her.
“Here. Take my tongue — ”
Sticking out his proffered tongue for her, he makes a show of it, a bodily spectacle. It drips with saliva he didn’t swallow. His breath, tea and mint and medicine, mingled with her pleasure. He guides one of her hands to the slimy organ, letting her feel it, get a good grip, and hums laughter when she pulls it until it hurts. He could bite his entire tongue off like this, if he isn’t careful. Pliant against her, he lets her lead him closer by that tiny, gross thing — and she doesn’t let it go until he’s close enough that she can lick her own tongue into his mouth, stale wine that’s used in rituals in the Church on her palate, and somehow, even her throat is clogged with that woodlike incense that smokes the cathedral.
He moans into her, into her throat and then deeper, into her lungs. He wants to devour her, wants her to devour him in return.
Their breaths are loud, intermingled, suffocated and thick through their noses.
“Put some faith in me — ”
He takes off her thin chemise, keeping his lips on hers until the annoying need for air demands that he separates from her. The dizziness from the denial of breath makes her look blurry. Softer, gentler around the edges of her silhouette, caressed in the dipping afternoon sunlight. Drenched in that holy radiance that pours itself over her whenever it can.
Thinking of stealing her back into the darkness, of adoringly cradling her head into a descant of death, leading her to their mutual demise by her wrist — he kisses lower, dragging his wet lips across her throat and collarbone.
“You can violate me, and — ”
Grabbing one of her delicate hands, he guides it to where his cock is resting against her, thick and swollen, getting harder when she touches it lightly.
“Do whatever you want to me,” he pleads, his finale for her — a flare of crimson glistens in her irises, and she’s stroking his cock before he can even understand what’s happening. He laughs at her eagerness, the blankets becoming soaked under him from the dripping water on his body. “Oh? So you can be a little rough.”
“Is this the punishment you’ve dreamed of?”
Wonderful, isn’t it? and he’s so enamored, and some other emotion he can’t decipher, that he smiles for no reason as he stares up at her, while she traces her slender fingers over his naked chest in reverence. He’s seen her fingers interlocked in prayer. He’s seen her fingers pinching incense sticks. He’s seen her fingers tugging on children’s ears when they yell too loudly or cause some mischief. He’s seen her flip pages of scripture for younger members of the Church. He’s seen her fingers on other knights’ collars, adjusting and fixing them to incite his jealousy, no doubt.
Compared to all those moments, however, with him is when she is most gentle — he takes pride in how he alone gets the softest of her, the most delectable secrets.
As if he’s a canvas, her artpiece, she draws what he assumes are random lines and shapes across his chest and abdomen, lingering where there are scars or healing wounds. Scabs and bruises that he’s forgotten about. Marks on his body to remind him of battles. Dull pains to remind him he’s alive. Identical song and dance, over and over, just as it was when he was in the Adventurer’s Guild; becoming a knight didn’t give him honor, or morals, but he had wanted to sanctify what Adorno had done for him by attempting to pretend he had any dignity or gallantry.
Ah, and look where that got the old man. Six feet under, because the stupid kids he rescued tried to decide what was best for him.
He grabs her delicate, soft hand and rubs his cheek against her smooth palm, like an animal nuzzling for affection.
“Can I consider us equals, instead?”
“If you prefer.”
“Good,” he states, final. He isn’t made to commandeer like Varka does, though he does when the occasion arises, he much prefers this, leaping from shadow to shadow with someone who could watch his back or drag him to safety if needed. “Then you being under my command is just a deception. In reality, aren’t I the one at your mercy?”
“Whatever makes you happy,” she relents.
“Anything at all?”
“Is happiness not something you want?”
“What about yours?”
“I told you a while ago, I am content with what I am.”
He lifts her chin with a finger. “There has to be something you want. Something —grander, higher. You know I want power. So what do you want?”
Water drips between them, onto them, slithering in droplets from him to her, soaking into her chemise and the clean bedsheets. “I want — ” Her lips are parted, but no sound comes out other than breath. He listens nonetheless, listens like his life depends on it. Traces her pretty lips with his thumb, waiting and waiting, the life and death of the world that meet once every thousand years. “I wanted, to be important to someone. Consequential. I guess I still want to be. Though it doesn’t matter to me as much as it used to.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
You’re important to me, oh, he considers the treacherous thought. The sensation of it on his tongue. Saying it to her. Would it make her happy? Upset? Would she even believe him? Does he even believe it?
He rolls his tongue around in his mouth, against his teeth, licking medicine and the taste of herbs. Of her arousal. The loneliness around her is somehow tangible then, vile and alive, licking in ink-black filth of everyone who has left her behind.
“No family?” He asks.
“I’m an orphan,” she tells him, like the information is simply another article of laundry to just fold away, another, ordinary thing to put on a shelf. “When I was kidnapped, I had escaped the orphanage and ran off on my own. I thought I deserved freedom. I thought if I ran off, someone would come find me and give me a place to belong. Hah. Goes to show me, hm? Children can indeed be so irrational.”
“So, your parents didn’t want you, and no one else has, either,” he chuckles, stroking her cheek with his rough knuckles.
“Such an unwanted little thing, the Mother used to say,” she recounts, her accent thematically bitter. “So unloved; you should pray the gods will at least pity you.”
“What a sweet woman.”
“Empty, sad life, isn’t it? No one ever wants me, no one ever stays.”
“I’ll stay,” he promises, grinning. “I’ll stay, forever. Should we get it on a contract? Would that make you feel better?”
“You’re silly,” she chastises playfully.
“I’ll even stand before an altar, if you want. It doesn’t matter to me. Think I’d look good in all white?”
“Funny.”
“Aren’t I?” He hums, his hands drifting all over her, squeezing each soft curve and hard bone underneath delicate skin. He could eat her alive. He’s dreamed of it so much, like a rehearsal for the real tragedy — the flesh chewed off her bones, tendons snapping, blood from broken veins, and she would let him. “You know, I’ve never met a woman as miserable as you. It’s truly fascinating. Were you like this before Eroch turned you into an experiment? Were you always this sickeningly alone?”
Dragging her hands over his chest, across his nipples so he shivers, then to his shoulders, she asks, “Have you been close to many women?”
“Oh? Jealousy? Isn’t that a sin?”
“Curiosity.”
“A few girls here and there. Mostly when I was in the Guild. It’s difficult to find the time for —that, as a knight.”
“And how do I compare?”
“I keep coming back to you, so that’s something,” he says, tinged with dark humor. It likely wasn’t the answer she wanted, but it’s all he can give her. “Or, I guess, ever since I touched you, I’ve found myself chasing that feeling again and again. Is it Ursa’s flesh in us, or something else, I wonder?”
“You can cut me open and find out,” she tells him, her hand shifts, a thumb tracing down from his collarbone, his sternum, to his xiphoid process, where she applies just enough pressure to make his breathing choke. The pain is momentary. Then he feels warm, sharp pleasure, and his cock twitches against her thigh. “Take one of your beloved daggers, hold it against me — drag the blade slow, meticulously, lovingly — ”
“Mm?”
“Lick along my organs, gnaw on my bones if you’d like— ”
He leans in, smiling against her throat. Grabbing her breasts, letting them fill his palms and spill out. “You paint a pretty picture.”
Sunlight bathes a halo around her, but her gaze isn’t angelic or compassionate; it’s hungry, beastly, borderline obscene. It would probably be ugly to anyone else, but he’s a freak just like she is — the heat in his blood burns, his cock is so hard he can’t hear himself think. He licks from her chin to her lips, devouring them, their softness, until the taste of him and the medicinal tea drenches the inside of her mouth. Until she has no choice but to swallow his spit. Gross, filthy, disgusting, but she moans and grinds down against him, and he feels slick leak from between her thighs.
He sneaks a hand to her cunt, rubbing her wet folds, but never pushing inside of her. He teases her clit and she hisses like a snake, shoving him down onto his back on the plushness of the blankets.
Squinting at the near blinding light of day around her, he takes in the sight — her, straddling him, exquisite, gossamery, pupils tinted blood-red.
“You can do whatever you want to me,” he offers, again, breathy. Arching his back, his body sinuous and vulnerable, all for her.
The movement causes one of his deeper wounds to reopen, feeling the sting of it, he dips his fingers under the bandage she had so carefully stuck on with a healing salve and undoes all her care. Slicked in his blood, he lifts his hand to her face, painting her cheek and then her nose in deep, vivid sanguine, in him, then shoves those fingers past her lips—
No resistance from her, no repulsion or shame.
She licks, bites, eats his fingers as if she really intends to snap them off his hand, like a carrot — yes, like a bunny, eating her little carrots.
“Ouch,” he feigns a noise of pain, delirious from watching her, watching her with his bloodied fingers deep in her mouth. “I’m not food, little lamb.”
Held by his wrist, she drags his fingers out of her mouth, down to her breasts, where she makes him spread saliva mingled with blood around. He pinches a nipple, enjoying how she stiffens, his cock throbbing against her abdomen. This lust for her is serpentine, devouring itself, from fang to tail. He ascends higher with her, and falls lower than he’s ever been sentenced.
The gates of Heaven between her thighs, the gliding, filthy need of him to be inside her, to violate her, again and again—
“You said whatever I wanted.”
“So, your choice is to eat me?”
She tilts her head, inquisitive. “What would you prefer?”
In her, he sees his reflection. In her, he sees a thousand deaths and a thousand lives. “We could make it a little more exciting.”
Her body is almost liquid when he grips her hips, guides her until she understands his intentions — her hand reaches between them, fingers around his cock, then she’s aligning the swollen, leaking tip of him against the slick entrance of her cunt. He moans, he laughs in vibrato, he thrusts into her at the exact time she sinks down onto him, and it’s bliss; all the heat and wetness and closeness, all of her, their skin glued together with sticky sweat and remnants of oils from the bath, Qingxin and Violetgrass, the fragrance of medicine warmed by their blood pulsing hotly.
It’s an afterthought he has, too late, too ungrateful, to thank her for healing him. His lips part to annunciate it, thank you, thank you, thank you — but she clenches down around his cock and the words melt, any reason dissipated.
“You look pretty when you moan,” she whispers, fingers threading through his hair, nails lightly scratching his scalp.
“Should I moan loud enough so all of Mondstadt hears?”
“Haaah, wouldn’t that ruin your reputation — ”
He could become a spectacle for her, become a showpiece if it would please her. It doesn’t matter to him, he’ll do whatever will make her less lonely. Collecting power doesn’t require dignity or virtue.
His fingers slip into her mouth again, but this time, she rolls and grinds her body with his, all while he watches her in utter fascination. Egregiously, he pushes them in deeper, until she gags, chokes just a little at the sensation of him pressing down on the back of her tongue, poking at her uvula, and she tears his hand entire out of her throat.
Pinning him under her, hands on his chest, she bounces on his cock in uneven, rapid motions, drooling thickly from what he did to her, and it’s all he can do to gaze upon her, and not finish too early.
The slim slope of her shoulders, the glisten of wetness against her skin, flower soft lips and a tongue moaning his name, silken hair that dangles and dances with each of her movements against him, full breasts to sink his teeth into, pretty nipples stiff, begging him to bite, and so he complies — his face buried in her chest, mouthing at where her skin is thinnest, then higher, then lower, until his arms lock themselves around her in a suffocating hold, and he kisses her, mouth to mouth, and it’s all so embarrassingly intimate, ticklish somewhere low, somewhere that’s almost edging painful —
Ache of a blooming bruise, or perhaps a wound splitting itself apart again under the bandages.
Or—
Ridiculous, he chastises himself mentally, flipping them over, fucking into her in slow, deep thrusts, so different from his usual hurried pace that even she looks shocked, practically horrified, like a rabbit spotted in the dark.
Humans can’t meld together, bodies aren’t meant to become a single entity, but he feels it; that light, all-consuming, he’s heard of it in prayer, and he moans with it as he kisses her, and kisses her, and kisses her, until her lips are the color of apples, blood from both of their mouths; eternity dipping into immortality, and it’s just her, holding on to him through it all. Closer, closer, as if she too, has the same manic delusions as him, that they can escape this life somehow by fucking into each other hard enough.
As he thought, ridiculous.
She’s not yours, a familiar, creeping voice hisses in his ear, you can’t make her yours; you snap the neck of anything that comes too close.
Another time, again, over and over, just one more time; and she acquiesces, so deferential to his needs, he has her drooling into the pillows as their skin slaps together in a cacophony of moans and the bedframe creaking, another, his hips are shamelessly rutting into her as she rides him, yanking on his hair so hard some of it is ripped out, another, he bites his pointed canines into her shoulder as he stares fiercely into her dark pupils, looking down on her from above, seeing Hell and Heaven, absolute darkness and glittering light.
He never knew sex could be like this — why is it like this, with her? Why, why, why —
Each time he comes, hot white spilling out in sin against her, or within her, that question blurs into transcendence, and is inevitably, like most things, forgotten.
You knew from a young age that no one would ever want you.
Not that you ever considered yourself pitiful, or helpless, or in need of saving. It was more of a truth to come to terms with than something to cry over. Though, admittedly, you used to tug on the Mothers’ skirts in the church, or the disciplinarians in the orphanage, you used to beg for attention until you realized the world was better off without you in it.
Content to watch the world pass you by, content to watch time age all things, including yourself; you went through life doing whatever you were told and little more or less, because being seen but not heard was the safest choice. Getting kidnapped by the Fatui was the most exciting thing to happen to you.
You’re going to die, the voices in your ear would whisper. You’re going to die someday, and you’ll have done nothing that mattered.
You’ll die unloved, unwanted.
Alone.
How pathetic. Ha —Ha! How about you just slaughter them all? They’d never expect it from the boring likes of you. Asleep, oblivious; you could even get the children, so, so easily, if you wanted. Then you could save them from having to live in this miserable world.
Sometimes, you wonder what the demons in Lohen’s blood said to him, say to him still, what kind of living contempt haunts him.
Funny, to think you used to dream impossible dreams, of him in your bed, just like he is in this one with you. Hazy, unclear imaginations, but this is real — he’s so close you can touch him, trace your fingertips over his dark lashes and the arc of his nose. You could take the knife he slipped under the pillow and stab him, and he probably wouldn’t be surprised.
Your hand begins to reach for it, but you stop yourself.
He’s quite unguarded like this, but you’re certain he could defend himself if he needed to. You’re certain he could kill you, even in his sleep, maybe.
Good.
You’ll turn on him eventually. You’ll ruin all of this, and he’ll have to end you — one way or another, nothing good lasts. It’ll be sad, but he’ll get over it. He’ll realize that his addiction to you was just because of whatever is in your blood, you’re like dripping meat to a hungry creature, devoured then gone then, bones to bleach under the sun.
At least you’ll have had some actual use, stupid girl.
All your life, you’ve been little more than an unseen mold—
Disgusting, disgusting; unwanted, sickly, poor little thing—
Just beg him to kill you already, Ha—Haha!
He understands you, just like you used to hold your pillow, sleepless and jittery, and think that he would. You knew who he was for so long that it was weird whenever he walked past you like you didn’t exist, but you got used to that too. It was just another thing to remain distant and silent about. His life was better off without you in it, you convinced yourself, and even naked in bed with him, you still have that inkling.
Though he’s blathered on about marriage so much, you’ve become a little greedy again. You’ve been thinking of him in all white, a Cecilia pinned on his lapel, a bouquet of them in his hands as he waits for you; standing at the altar, ah — just for you, just for you alone, and you get to feel loved and wanted and needed for once in your life, you get to leap into his arms and scream like the stupid, pathetic, useless little girl you’ve always been.
How silly.
He’s so silly, you could just eat him.
Who do you think you are, stupid, foolish girl? Do you really think you matter? Ha!
Just take the knife, drag it across his throat if not your own —!
Inhaling sharply, you force your hand away from where you were caressing his soft hair, choking yourself, digging your nails into your skin until you feel it break and bleed small rivulets down, down, down. Holding yourself like that for a while, you count your breaths —one, two, one two three —madly, maddening, you hear each throb of blood, each pointless beat of your heart that not even the womb that birthed you wanted.
He doesn’t want you either, he just thinks you’re cute; he just likes the weird things about you, because he’s a little weird himself. He’ll get bored. Or annoyed.
He doesn’t want you.
No one has ever wanted you: that’s why you have no friends, no family, that’s why no one has ever loved you or stayed, or kept you—
That’s why you were stolen, that’s why no one noticed you were gone, that’s why no one missed you when you ran off, playing victim for attention—
Another useless thing in service to something greater, another miserable survivor who should have just died from the torture—
A sting of a woman’s palm against your cheek—
Ugly, big hands grabbing you by your ankles and wrists, not letting go even when you scream, laughing that you look prettier when you cry—
The clang of cage bars because it’s time to come out, little girl, it’s time for your next injection—
You don’t like praying, you say it hurts your knees and spine, but they tell you suffering is the path to deliverance, and oh, stupid girl, what else could you—
You become older, men tell you that your purpose is to please them, children are now at your knees, begging just as you once did for that demeaning affection—
Taken out of the blood-tinted memories, Lohen is awake; he’s awake and he’s staring at you, his pupils dilated, knowing and ravenous, and just as crimson as your thoughts, glowing like heaven-bathed blood in the sunlight.
“Can’t sleep?” He asks, smiling gently. Gentle, you’ve never seen that particular emotion on his lips. It’s almost unsettling how pretty it is. Kissable, delectable.
He strokes his thumb reassuringly over the back of your hand, wiping some of your blood off, then slowly, drags your hands off your throat by your wrists. He licks the blood, your blood, from his thumb, popping the digit out after loudly, then yawns and squints in the direction of the dying sunset trickling through the window, curtains billowing in the apple scented wind.
“The sun is annoying to sleep under, isn’t it?”
He sits up, like nothing happened, like your nails weren’t just clawing into yourself in some masochistic form of self-inflicted punishment, and he gets on his knees, naked, to hold you, like you aren’t stupid or weird, and he embraces you around your waist tenderly, and licks all the blood from your neck until you’re clean. Until you go limp against him, at last, your spine a bowstring snapped from being too taut.
The cold metal of his earring pokes into you, the coldest sensation about him. The rest of him is warm, heat similar to flames just flickering out of reach.
Gilded dreams were never yours to have, but this is pleasant, all things considered.
Weep silently. Whisper nothing. He’ll hold you all the same, it doesn’t matter; nothing matters. You’ll die eventually. Tragic, but who really cares?
Wash your sins in the coming rain, little lamb.
Tomorrow is another day. Get up and try again, one more time.
You’ll still find me, within all of your darkest dreams.
Hours later, after the sun has long set and most of the city is asleep, a messenger bird soars in through the open window, shooting in so fast that he panics for a moment until he realizes it’s just a dumb bird, and a rolled piece of parchment is dropped onto him. It has no official seal, which means Jean didn’t read this — but it does have the color of thread Varka ties around missives he considers covert, lavender string, and it has an aroma of wine about it.
Tired and drugged from chasing pleasure into oversensitivity, he sighs, unfolding it, squinting in the golden, opaline sunset to read.
Laid beside him, she creeps closer, poking her head past his shoulder to see what’s written. In her hands is his revolver, played with like a toy. In her boredom, she had placed his Vision on the crown of her head, claiming her head was hot, so it rests there, alive and ice-radiant, emanating a chilling frost that makes their breath mist in the air.
“What is it?”
“Our first official assignment together,” he purrs, biting his lip as he waves the report and map teasingly in the air. “Time to see how useful you actually are, Church girl.”
He kisses her supple cheek, then bites it, grinning and laughing against her. Quickly, he steals his gun from her, clicks a bullet into place in the chamber, and aims the barrel under her chin. Grinning like she’s found rapture, she coils her slender fingers around his wrist, letting her head drop, her neck exposed. She really just lets him do whatever he wants, doesn’t she?
His soft cock thickens with blood, flattering her, humiliating him; goes to show what she does to him, how easy it is for her to tug on that leash she has on him.
( you and I were never meant to remain, only to be made honest— and honesty is, this— )
There is no violence in this, only alignment. The blade, the breath, the verdict— all of it is prayer, Cecilia preaches, beautiful, cleansing, worthy of being scripture.
( do you feel it? the Celestial order does not descend to destroy you, it descends to finish what you began— )
A poison laced dagger in their thigh from him, a whisper of sweet revelation in their ear from her.
Come on, friend, won’t you tell us what we need to know? This could all be over.
Yes, allow us to guide you to salvation.
You hear that? Salvation. Sounds like a pretty good deal for scum like you, so —
He dances in staccato steps around their bound victim, humming to himself, tapping his revolver against his palm so it makes a sound. In the blood lights overhead, Cecilia stands beside the man tied in the chair, bends over, ever-gentle and ever-beautiful, like a fallen angel descended for sinners, and caresses the man’s chin as he squirms helplessly against the rope. Electricity sparks at her gloved fingertips; higher, higher, until it hits the man’s eye, and he’s half-blinded in an instant, screaming as the squishy organ pops! deliciously in his skull, bleeding down his cheek from the now empty socket.
Isn’t she just perfect? Lohen laughs, and with another pull of the trigger,
Her lace gloved hands, holding their victim’s head perfectly still—
Stop, please! I’ll tell you all I know, j — just stop this — !
He has found paradise; stars hidden in shadows, dripping down their faces in blood, rain, and sweat. Manifestations of their only choice of redemption.
A flower blooms from a cold, lifeless barrel of a gun.
It belongs where it shouldn’t and still, remains everlastingly beautiful.
The stopwatch clicks, time’s up.
There you are.
You came back for me.
Of course I did, Church girl. Get on my back. We’ve a long way to go to get out of here.
He had to leave her behind. A consequence of a mission gone somewhat sour. Their target would have escaped otherwise, he had to give chase. He’d blame it on himself, but she wouldn’t like it if he did — so he just kneels down, examines her wounded leg, wincing at the deep laceration across her calf to her knee. Someone got her good, made her unable to run or even walk. Glancing around at the scattered dead bodies, he arches a brow in confusion and admiration; there is no blood, no wounds on them, nothing to indicate what killed them.
Just a sharp, crisp smell, like something burnt with silver.
How did you kill them without a weapon?
I don’t know. I think it’s my Vision. I’m not sure.
He grins, laughing quietly, unsettled and excited all at once.
How useful. A shame they have to put their filthy hands on you, though, so I would prefer if you just let me do the killing.
I had no choice, once you ran off.
I know, but next time, let’s try and not get separated.
Mhm.
Careful not to grab onto or rub against the wound on her leg, he shifts her position on his back to a more comfortable one.
So, you’re like my own personal lightning bolt? How fun.
Now I regret telling you—
Hm. I wonder, should we try your little power in bed? Could be thrilling.
It could easily kill you.
You think that doesn’t just make me want it more?
His laughter echoes across the underground walls, stepping over dead bodies, somehow lighter with her holding onto him.
You know you won’t ever be safe with me, right?
This life, this existence — this is all I will ever be, so if you choose to keep coming with me—
I know.
If we ever lose each other, Lohen, let us make a promise to find our way back to each other.
Meaning—?
In life, in death: if we are not who we remember, or someone even worse. It won’t matter, will it?
I’ll still be waiting for you, somewhere.
What if I get turned into a useless little bunny? Would you still want me then?
Of course. You’d be adorable.
He masticates the thin skin of a Jueyun Pepper —Chili, between his teeth as he walks beside her in the afternoon sun on a patrol, his mouth numb to the spice. He doesn’t have to concern himself much with her around; she handles the coordination of logistics and medical supplies, since she joined officially, all he has to do is upkeep the Company training and make himself a clear target on the battlefield. Thus boredom invites evil ideas. Thus, he —
Yanks her by her elbow, turns her toward him, cracks her lips open by her chin, and licks the pepper into her mouth.
Though diluted by his saliva, it still makes her cry. He likes it when she cries, just for him.
—
( There is that darker, forgotten memory: a little boy runs to his mother, sobbing because he cut himself on his carving knife, and she soothes him, brushing little strands of gray-green hair behind his ears, whispering that he’ll never have to touch anything sharp ever again, that she’ll keep him safe, and he’ll never have cause to cry. )
Safe, huh?
On their return to Headquarters, he dares Cecilia to spar with him, knowing her lack of formal combat training. He tosses her a wooden sword from the armory, tells her the basics, and she shrugs off the heaviest layers of her uniform until she’s only in her travel dress. She doesn’t question his behavior, or complain about being more frail than him. The moment he has her pinned under him, a real dagger to her throat — she concedes, beautifully, the wooden sword going limp in her hand, her tied up hair tousled and damp at the edges.
“Again?” He asks, begging. “I’d give you a real sword, but it’d be too heavy for you.”
“What, you want me to hurt you?”
“Maybe.”
And she laughs, and after four hours of back and forth of wood and steel and sweat dripping all over, she manages to get a splinter stuck under his skin that hurts more than it should.
He doesn’t shed a tear, but he whines until she plucks it out for him; at least fake weakness can have a purpose, it can bring him closer to her. At this proximity, he barely has to lean in at all until his lips touch hers, just for a moment, just enough to distract her. That in itself, is all the power he could ask for.
Carved on the tombstone:
Here lies Adorno, cherished Benevolent Knight of the Order.
May the Anemo Archon forever guide him to peaceful winds.
It still stings to look at, for some reason. The old man was a second father to him, as annoying as Varka is, maybe he was worse. It’s getting difficult to remember things. Once someone is dead, Lohen has learned, your recollections of them begin to fade too. Even if you cared about them. What lingers is mostly guilt and regret, which makes him a little sick to think of. He has plenty of both, enough to last a lifetime and longer. He couldn’t even be there when the funeral was held, locked in confinement for what he was convinced was for the greater good.
Immortality. Stretching life on, like taffy, expecting nothing to go wrong.
Kneeling, she places a bundle of fresh Cecilias on the grave, held gently in the grass. Then she stands beside him, hands folded in front of her.
Shall I recite a prayer? She asks.
Normally, he wouldn’t care, hasn’t ever cared, but when he glances for a moment at her, bathed in delicate moonlight, he nods for some reason.
( receive this soul, O Highest Heaven,
numbered before its first breath,
called home before its final one—
let every burden be gathered from these weary bones;
let no sorrow endure beyond the threshold of Light—
may the Gates remember what the earth forgets,
and may no faithful name be lost among the stars— )
He listens, on and on, staring at her the entire time; her hands clasped, her eyelids shut. He considers doing the same, but can’t bring himself to — it isn’t his place; his hands are too slathered in blood he can never wash off, and terrible things he once yelled at Adorno when he was young and too stupid to understand the difference between suffocation and genuine concern.
So he just lets her holy voice wash over him, cleanse him, blessing this quiet night, and eventually, his gloved hand lifts on its own to caress some strands of her hair fallen out from under her veil.
( let no shadow cling beyond this hour;
let all lesser things be washed away in holy radiance— )
At the end of the prayer, she languidly opens her eyelids and stares at him, her lashes fluttering.
He’s still touching her hair, coiled around his finger, and somehow the barest connection is crushing his ribcage.
When I die, will you come to my grave often? He asks.
Under the silver light, she raises a hand to his eyes to cover them, blinding him into darkness.
Against his ear, he feels her warm breath.
I would dig you out from under the dirt, if you asked it of me.
He smiles, and that wicked smile breaks out into maddened laughter.
Celia. Stay with me, look at me. You can’t die, not yet, not without me—
Lohen, behind you—
Knelt over her body, so worried he could gnaw his tongue off, he doesn’t notice the monster that had somehow survived. It attacks with a kind of suicidal desperation that’s almost impossible to block or defend, all there is, he knows, would be to dodge, but if he does, she’ll get struck and likely killed. He braces himself for the impact, the jagged blade of its axe, but —
He’s shoved, or maybe kicked, out of the way, and he does something like a choked inhale or a stifled scream, thinking of her, only to realize she had used the momentum of pushing him to also roll herself just in time, steel clanging loudly against stone rather than slicing her head off.
Growling like an animal, a feral beast, he yanks a broken bone out of a corpse, bloody and slathered in sinew, then leaps with it in his grasp, stabbing the sharper end into the monster. Glimpses mountains of corpses and vast seas of red, and then her, killing her own monster, not far, even with her shoulder dislocated from her arm.
( I saw Eternal Light—
O’ Wind, grant me Your favor, make me Your saint— )
( Fallen Star, helpless rabbit, sacrificial lamb—
Have you been waiting for long?
If you need a witness, I am the last one left—
Follow my voice, and break free of your weak misery. )
In the trees, swaying in the wind, apples dangle over his head, tempting and bright.
I like this secret spot of yours.
You may come here whenever you wish. Even if I am no longer around.
Bottles of fresh Apple Cider clink when he sits up, frowning at her, a gentle spring wind caressing his hair, caressing hers, in the bucolic silence.
Why would you say that? He asks, laughing, a little pained.
We’ve discussed this.
I’ve changed my mind. Let’s be eternal.
We are not made for eternity.
You are closer to the gods than me. You must know how.
Lifting a bottle, she presses it to his forehead, the chilled glass cold with condensation against his sun-warmed skin.
Have a child?
Tsk. I mean, ask your gods to make us immortal—
She stares at him for a while, a long while, and he stares back at her; creatures of the night under the sun, it's almost grotesque, but when he looks at her, he feels a little bit like anywhere would be a fine place to be. That’s what leads to them discussing, hypothetically, all the exciting combat tactics that an army of trained children could offer, as improbable as it is, it goes on for hours, and he’s licking the taste of crisp apples into her mouth when the moon rises.
( blessed are those who descend willingly,
for the depths remember every faithful step— )
( the flesh falters, yet the spirit ascends;
thus is the lesser surrendered unto the greater— )
( let every trembling be gathered into stillness,
for stillness is the first language of Heaven— )
( what is broken before the altar
shall awaken beyond the reach of fracture— )
It takes the exhausted aftermath of a losing battle, a rush of adrenaline from leaping off a high cliff, into murky water, to give something to her he’s wanted to for a while.
Take this key. It unlocks the box under my dorm bed.
What’s in it?
Nothing important.
Just letters for his parents, Varka, Theodore; even Adorno, not that it will ever be delivered to who it was meant for, any longer. Shorter ones for those under his command, and some for others in the Order. Death lurks within each breath for someone like him. That stupid little box also holds the only possession he let himself keep after he left his home and family behind. An amulet his mother gave him, tied around him when he was swaddled as a baby, a charm of protection, for all the good it ended up doing.
It could be sold for some coin, at least.
Together, they stumble from the deep lake, blood and foam washing onto the shore where they fall.
Collapsing in the mud, he pulls off his soggy boots, pouring water and sludge out.
Don’t open it until I’m dead though, alright?
What if I die before you?
In the downpour, he stares at her — waterlogged, sopping, like those sirens from legend that tempt men off their boats; he hadn’t considered that she’d die before him, or that she’d ever die at all. He blinks against wet hair in his eyes, lashes falling off and sticking to his corneas, the torrent so intense he feels separated from her by the rain itself. So he reaches for her, crawls through the silt and filth, and holds onto any part of her that he can, while she grips the string his key dangles from.
Amid the storm, he rests his head against her, letting his eyelids fall shut.
What was that? Couldn’t hear you over the rain.
I said, what if I —
Thunder roars; lightning strikes the water near them, and the conversation dies there.
( The Grand Master, on an unrelated venture, happens across you and Lohen asleep, under a tree, clinging to each other; he’s never seen the kid so at ease, and for once, keeps a secret to himself, even when his tongue is soaked in Dandelion Wine at the tavern later. )
After threading stems and leaves together, you gently place the flower crown on his head.
What’s this for?
Just because you’re out defending the city doesn’t mean you should miss some of the festival.
He doesn’t have any response to your reasoning, other than a half-smiled splattered in fresh blood, dropping the dagger he had between his teeth. Sitting with his legs sprawled out at the entrance of the experiment facility, his polearm resting in his limp hand. The flowers are soaked through, just like you and him, some of their petals dotted with rainwater tainted bright crimson.
He’s been lacerated and beaten, just meat to be carved, but refuses to be eaten.
You crawl to where a twitching should-be-dead body is, lift Lohen’s dagger in your palm, and stab it into the creature’s throat. It stops moving.
Behind you, you hear scratched laughter, then you feel yourself being held, outside of your own body; your head turned, your lips parted, and you’re being kissed breathless, sloppily, as thunder rumbles overhead. This far out, you think, the storm shouldn’t reach the city, at least.
You dream—
Standing in the chancel of Lord Barbatos, draped in long swaths of white, lace and sheer and something heavier, a gown and a veil that could make most wedding dresses look plain. This is not a ceremony of Sacrament, however. It’s a funeral. Accompanied by a choir, and audience, too. Silent and blindfolded in the pews, you alone remain high over the sinner, where he kneels before you, hand over heart — donned in matching, pristine white, the greens and reds of his hair and eyes even darker because of it.
He looks so beautiful.
He looks—
Holy. Fragile.
He was right. He looks good in white.
Send me to Heaven’s Gates, he begs.
Cleanse me with your love.
Do this for me, one last time. I’ll take you with me.
What else are you to do, then, but surrender?
Somehow, there is a golden chalice in your hand. Somehow, it is filled with poisoned wine.
Somehow, you pour it down his waiting throat, spilling it down his chin, ruining his attire in stains of burgundy. He drinks willingly, gleefully.
Horrified, but you can’t stop yourself. You drain the chalice empty. Then let it clatter to the stairs, as you too, fall. He whispers something to you as he dies, but you don’t hear what it is, and moments later, as you hold his lifeless body in your arms, your soul leaks out of your mouth, slides off your tongue. It slithers out of you in blood and in a light that burns all, you become one with him, you die and you’re laughing and you’re finally happy.
He clings to you in the afterlife, eternally trapped in that moment before the altar, and he tells you, — /
Ɨ mɨssɇđ ɏøᵾ møɍɇ ŧħȺn Ⱥnɏŧħɨnǥ.
( This is our, happy ever after. )
A short letter, splattered with Dandelion Wine, delivered by runner to the Vice Captain of the Fifth Company —
Hey kid,
It’s been some time since I had that physician assigned to you, and I’ve been wondering how that arrangement is settling in?
Try not to scare her off too quickly. I’d like to think I didn’t send her into a war zone, though with you I can never be entirely certain what ‘day-to-day life’ looks like.
All joking aside, I hope she’s proving useful — she was certainly eager when I asked her to take full medical courses and accompany you, and surprisingly, seemed to not be concerned when I warned her of your unusual mischief. I also hope that you’re actually letting her do what she’s paid for. You don’t get promotions or medals for enduring things alone, you know. Or for getting yourself killed.
I’ve been hearing favorable reports. Your efficiency is up, your temper is down, and your men haven’t filed too many complaints or requests for resignation. Curious timing, that.
Write back when you can. I’m interested in how it’s going between the two of you.
( She isn’t dead, hopefully? )
— V.
A one line ‘letter,’ delivered by an arrow shot perfectly through the Grand Master’s open window, into the bookshelf —
Grand Master,
The Fifth Company has never had a more useful addition; I dare say, old man, you won’t find another pair quite like us.
— L.
Lick the lamb’s blood from the knife, carve her open and eat her alive. Ribs and neck, and even her legs.
There is no greater bliss than this, no higher ascension.
Never ask, nor trouble you to know—
This radiant love, this laughing death—
I am made of wool and salt, my blood has turned to feathers floating their descent to Hell.
In this, I know, I sing, I embrace—
I’m too far in. I could never turn back.
That flightless bird will turn mad in its opened cage—
The madness whispered you would be mine. Forever. Ascending past death.
This sorrowful breeze, this soft lament—
To drown, to sink, unconscious — this is our, supreme joy.