[IC] Realms of Sun & Shadow

[The Muse]

Collab between @The Muse and @c3p-0h
_{Location: Seluna Temple}

Part VI

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She’d said it so softly.

“My husband.”

Flynn’s breath stilled the moment it left her lips. He didn’t let his gaze leave the Priestess, not yet, but the sound of Amaya’s voice rang through him all the same, warm where landed in his chest.

It shouldn’t have been so surprising to hear, but it was the first time he’d heard her claim him in any verbal sort of way. And she’d chosen to do it here—in public, standing in the face of two Lunarian’s who made their disdain perfectly clear.

He should have been pleased—he was. But Flynn knew Amaya well enough now not to mistake her words for sentiment. He knew she wielded words like weapons. Knew that she had chosen her words precisely—and it hadn’t been meant for him. It had been for them.

He felt the shift it created. A side chosen—a line blurred where the Priestess and Royal Guard had drawn it.

He could feel how the word tethered her more tightly to him, how it made her more vulnerable to these proud Lunarian nationalists and their ire. How it made her more his. And him—hers.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught movement—fabric gathering, metal glinting in candlelight. The Lunarian Royal Guard had risen. His gaze swept over her tall frame, noting the house emblem stitched into her cloak. He’d seen it once before, marked across Lord Coswain’s armor.

So there were two of them in Dawnhaven. And neither seemed content to be silent.

Flynn said nothing as she turned to leave, but his gaze followed her, just as the two Aurelian guards did too. They watched her posture, her sword, and the way she carried herself out of the room.

All the while, ice crept thread by thread along the fabric of Flynn’s sleeve, the cold quietly stretching out, out, out.

Only after she passed through the doors did Flynn return his attention to the Priestess, who had begun to speak. He held her stare as she turned her attention back on him, his green eyes sharp.

He knew defiance when he saw it.

The Priestess hadn’t softened at Amaya’s request—the peace offering she’d laid out to bridge the divide. Her expression, drained of warmth, held nothing resembling compromise.

Flynn had preferred her yesterday, when she could barely stand on her own two feet.

As she continued, trying her best to establish some sense of authority, Flynn’s eyes narrowed. The way she spoke of Amaya’s protection needled something in him. As though she alone could offer safety.

As if trained guards hadn’t failed Amaya just yesterday—under Lunarian watch.

Some small voice in his mind urged restraint. Let the Priestess keep her sense of control. Let her believe the temple was hers to command.

But another voice, louder, hotter, told him to take a step forward. Make her feel the weight of his presence. Put her defiance to the test. Let her act on it.

“I’m sure your confidence is well-earned, Priestess,” Flynn said, his voice edged. “But so is my caution.” His gaze didn’t waver. The ember in his chest stirred, slow-burning. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t wager the Princess’ life in unfamiliar hands.”

Amaya’s frozen voice suddenly wanted to snap at Flynn – what was Dawnhaven, if not a wager? After a scant two months, how familiar was Flynn?

But she couldn’t pull away from him — just as she couldn’t bring herself to reveal the ice along her fingers, the fractures in her control that betrayed her.

She was contained chaos, a storm hidden behind an empty sky. Thoughts and uncontrollable emotions had been kicked up, up, up, with each new development in the scene Amaya was part of, but apparently powerless to influence. She’d dared to step forward, to make herself real and solid — only to be casually dismissed, as though she hadn’t said a word, had never been real at all. Her own voice wasn’t enough to give herself shape. It was only through Flynn, that the others saw her. Only his voice made her tangible — made her something unpleasant and offensive.

Because that’s what she was to them. To the guard – her father’s royal guard, with his authority and ice and shadow – and her cold departure, without so much as a glance at Amaya. To the Priestess, and her acquiescence as if she were indulging a child, (and infuriatingly, had offered more empty words about grief as if she too had tasted the iron in the air) before turning her full attention back on Flynn and continuing on as though he held all the authority amongst their party.

She’d warned that she wouldn’t dilute their practices – but had Amaya requested that? Had she insinuated in some way that Lunarians – her people – should alter their practices?

Or was the Priestess’ comment yet another mark against Amaya – her dilution? After Amaya’s feeble attempt at asserting herself, reminding them all that she had Lunarian blood, that this was her temple as much as it was theirs… still, Amaya was small and cast out, made foreign where it should’ve been familiar. She’d dared to tie herself to Flynn so blatantly, and instead of it being a mark in Flynn’s favor, it was a stain against Amaya.

But… what if there had been another meaning behind the Priestess’ words?

Had the Priestess recognized her Shivanti ritual for what it was? Amaya suddenly felt foolish and reckless – worse, shameful – for having performed it. Shivanta was Lunarian territory, by law and magic. But culturally, socially, it had always been tied more to its Aurelian neighbor, Sundavar, than to the Lunarian mainland. The two islands had evolved together, isolated from both of their capitals – and both of their populations had originally come from the deserts of Aurelia, generations ago.

Whispers of Amaya’s heritage, her inadequately Lunarian blood, had followed her for her entire life – the inescapable tie to an island Amaya had never seen, and yet another excuse to discount her. Queen Anjali had been embraced despite it all – her birthplace, her customs, her very body, and how starkly it stood out amongst the people of the capital.

But Amaya was not her mother.

Her expression never shifted as her fingers froze in a painful grip against Flynn’s sleeve. Cold pierced her skin, her joints, her very bones, with frigid needles. Each one had a different name. Shame. Fear. Rage. Rejection. Grief. They each commanded a different thrashing wind in her body, wrenching ice against the confines of her control. Amaya felt small – she wanted to be small, to fold herself away as tightly as possible, so that no one might notice her, and they could all forget her as they’d always done for her entire life. She wanted to lose herself in her own storm, let it swallow her whole and hide her away.

Ice crept up past her fingers, over her knuckles and onto her palm as she stared blankly at the Priestess. Amaya’s eyes unfocused as she tried to concentrate on her breathing. Her control. Her expression. The scene began to shift as the shapes grew indistinct – the shadows on the wall lengthened. Their echoing voices – both the Priestess’ and Flynn’s – grew sharper, tension building like ozone in the air. Amaya tasted iron with each breath. And all the while, she fought to press in on herself more and more, her magic growing wild against her tightening grip, frantic and untamed as if to spite every reaction she managed to conceal.

The ice crept higher. Her breathing grew shallow. The black fabric that covered the corpses seemed to grow ever darker behind the Priestess who’d been assigned as her killer – and if her dagger never pierced Amaya’s heart? If Flynn’s wager paid off?

Flynn, with his solid frame and strong voice – Flynn, who’d never known anything except for his own right to live.

Velvet midnight stained with fresh, pooling blood as her father’s inescapable hands –

Amaya was too numb to register the pain of her frozen skin pulling away from the fabric of Flynn’s sleeve. Her fingers slipped down to lightly brush against his palm.

Flynn’s hand twitched at the sudden bite of cold against his skin, his eyes sliding toward Amaya at his side. In an instant, he realized that the cold he’d felt seeping into his bones hadn’t been from the open-air of the temple. It was her.

Suddenly all too aware of the damage she was capable of unleashing here, the request she’d made of him came to the forefront of his mind: “remove me.”

He pulled his attention back to the Priestess, careful not to draw more attention to the magic slowly unraveling along Amaya’s fingertips.

“It seems the temple’s endured enough strain for one day,” he said, voice composed but edged with finality. “I've no intention of adding to your discomfort, Priestess. You’ve made your position clear. We’ll find another way to honor these souls, if teaching pains you so.”

He let the words hang between them, unmoved by the polite curve of her mouth, offering no false smile in return. “Though, if you intend to remain in Dawnhaven, I’d suggest taking the time to understand all who call it home. And learning to see its people as more than a burden to simply tolerate.”

He let his gaze shift to Amaya then, the steel in his tone softening. “I could use some air,” he murmured, slipping his hand into hers with deliberate care, pressing his warmth over the ice spreading across her palm. “Walk with me?”

Amaya forced her breath to be slow and even, the burn of Flynn’s hand sinking into her, thawing through the numbness. The pain of it refocused her. Her fingers twitched, but her muscles were still too frozen. Only the weight of the Priestess’ eyes kept Amaya from flinching.

And behind the Priestess, on the other side of the table, against that shadowed wall — the Aurelian guard was looking at her again. Thoughtful brown eyes flicked between Amaya and Flynn, expression shifting subtly as he weighed their movements and words — both of them.

A hard lump of ice froze in Amaya’s throat. She wanted him to stop looking at her. She wanted to lean into Flynn and his warmth, let him hide her from sight. She wanted to be formless and silent, so they’d all forget her entirely.

She wanted to scream until they heard her.

Flynn’s hand, callused and familiar, was achingly gentle around hers as he answered her silent plea. Amaya considered pulling away. Her gaze found Flynn’s.

And the ocean held her in its current.

Her other hand slipped loosely around his arm, tucking against his side. Amaya took a tiny step closer to him — let him chase away the chill. She nodded in answer, as though his words hadn’t been an excuse for her sake. As though he wasn’t shielding her from view even now, with her many fractures and broken pieces. There was something resentful about it, that she needed his words to make her will real. But the bitterness was buried under a growing layer of warmth.

Ice formed faster than Flynn could melt it, crawling along the hands she’d hidden against him. Amaya should’ve offered more words, she knew, to soften the harshness of Flynn’s tone, but…

Amaya looked at the Priestess and couldn’t find anything to say. Anything that she might hear, if it was said in Amaya’s voice. She held the Priestess’ gaze, sharp as ever, but cold as steel now.

What was Amaya to her? Had she ever been more than an empty, lifeless doll? Or had that fragile connection, formed only through silent looks and piercing reminders, been the delusions of a lonely child?

It felt like another loss, somehow. Another shame that made her want to disappear. Another grief. For a moment Amaya imagined letting go — releasing the storm she was fighting so hard to contain, and forcing them all to see her as she could be. Undeniable and vengeful.

Why did grief always feel so much like rage?

“Priestess,” she managed with a small nod of her head to the woman — the blade who’d once been a girl. Amaya cursed herself when she saw the tiny wisp of fog that escaped her with the word.

Needles danced along her skin as her fingers thawed enough to curl painfully around Flynn’s. The motion was weak. Her hands shook from the cold as her grip on her wild magic wavered.

Without a word, Flynn gently turned them toward the door and guided them forward. The guards responded in unison—one falling in step behind them, and the other moving ahead to open the door. All the while, Amaya felt the press of eyes on her, keeping her tenuous control in place.

As they passed the threshold, the two guards stationed outside turned sharply, then fell into line with the others. Four now, moving as a unit, they drifted back a few paces, giving Flynn and Amaya their respectful distance of privacy once more.

At first, Flynn didn’t speak as he led them back into snow-dusted streets. His free hand slipped over hers where it clutched his arm, enclosing her trembling fingers beneath his. The cold of her skin stung, but he didn’t pull away. Instead, he gently curled his fingers under hers, trying to coax life back into them.

His pace slowed as they moved further from the temple, not wanting to rush her—giving her the space to stop, to speak, to breathe.

After a few quiet strides, he broke the silence with a low voice, tinged with regret. “I suppose I should’ve known better,” he started, then sighed. “I’m sorry.”

He glanced over his shoulder briefly, at the guards in their shining silver and gold armor. Perhaps it was time for Dawnhaven to wear something different. Something that didn’t draw a clear line of division.

“If you want to go back in, I can wait outside,” he offered, hesitant to pull her away from the closure she hadn’t received simply due to Aurelian presence. Her trembling hands flinched against him. “We can find Lunarian guards to accompany you instead, if you wish.”

The thought of it twisted a knot of anxiety in the pit of his stomach. The Priestess and the Royal Guard had all but dismissed their Princess and offered little in terms of reassurance. But it would be Amaya’s choice—he wouldn’t take it from her.

Her slender hands curled tighter around Flynn bit by bit as painful feeling returned to them.

Amaya never wanted to set foot in a Moon Temple again. She wanted to coat it all in ice and freeze the damned moon pool solid.

Agitated snowflakes fluttered around her feet with every step and she tried to tell herself she wasn’t fleeing. She moved automatically, all of her attention focused on her magic, her walls — Flynn.

Somehow, she managed to shake her head in response. It was a wonder she could do it at all, with how desperately she wanted to hide herself and deny any useless thought or opinion she had.

Amaya pressed herself closer into Flynn and his warmth, as magic slipped out of the ever-growing cracks in her composure. They were still in public, still viewable, but it wasn’t enough. The streets were too empty. There weren’t enough strangers anymore to keep Amaya from falling apart.

“The guards mattered because I don’t.” It was a soft, emotionless whisper. Flynn tensed. Fog billowed past her lips with every bitter word. “I’m not truly welcome, either.” As had been the case for Amaya’s entire life. “A different escort won’t change that. It’ll just make me more palatable.”

She heard the guard scolding her along with Flynn for bringing incorrect guards into the temple. She saw each time the Priestess offered her an empty platitude before returning her steely gaze to Flynn — where the real authority lied. She —

She felt her heart break all over again as Elara fled the main chamber of the temple the moment Amaya set foot inside.

Magic, harsh and uncontrollable, lashed out, stopping Amaya in her tracks as she flinched. Ice created a jagged scar against her wrist — an echo of the wound that had been carved into her the day before.

Flynn halted, his gaze snapping to her hand. Ice laced its way across both their fingers now—cold biting into his skin like a thousand invisible needles. He turned to face her fully, keeping her hands cradled gently in his before she could try to pull away.

“No,” he said, quiet but firm.

His eyes met hers as he lifted her hand and brought it to his lips, pressing a warm kiss against her knuckles. “They don’t get to decide your place anymore,” he murmured against her skin, holding her gaze. “You do.”

As the words left him, he could see the hesitation flicker in her eyes—the doubt that clung tighter than the frost as she glanced at her hand in his. She didn’t believe him—couldn’t believe him.

Just because he believed it didn’t make it real for her. Not yet.
But he’d make it reality, or die trying.

Gently, he lowered her hand and offered his arm to her again, ignoring the numbness in his own fingers.

“They’ll see,” he said softly, a note of quiet conviction in his voice. “They’ll see what I see. In time.”

He had to believe it. For both of them.

It took a long moment for Amaya to convince herself to move again. Standing beneath the falling snow, her pale eyes were shadowed as she looked down at their hands — at the ice that spilled out of her and crept over his hand. She knew it was painful. Just as she knew Flynn wouldn’t let go if she tried to withdraw.

She looked up again, arguments and denials cluttering her throat. But when she met his eyes…

Amaya found that she didn’t want to fight. Not now. Not when she was suddenly so exhausted from the morning. Her defiance, her hard-edged words, the cruel realities that Flynn was too optimistic to face… she tucked them away again, just as she tucked her other hand into the crook of his arm, nestling into the warmth of him.

The cold would always be there. She didn’t want to welcome it back just yet.

---

_{Interactions: Kat @SpicyMeatball}

[Qia]

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_{Location: Frostmoon Lake -> Town Square
Interactions: Céline (@Beard Dad)}

---

He did not interrupt, not when she spoke of Tingara, Gadez, the storm, or the spring. His expression remained inscrutable, but his stillness marked deep attention rather than detachment. And when she spoke of hunger—her hunger, that familiar feral undercurrent—his gloved fingers twitched faintly, recalling the fox’s fragile pulse beneath his palm. The creature’s trust had been a mirror, reflecting a version of himself Orion had long barricaded behind control: desperate, ravenous.

Weak.

Her candour disarmed him more and more as she continued to speak. So, when Céline finally stopped speaking, he had no choice but to stand quietly for a moment longer, as though honouring what had just been laid between them. And then, at last, he nodded once.

“Thank you for telling me. All of those things,” he said simply. “Most wait until their truth has caused damage. You offered yours while it still cost you something. That matters.”

At her expressions of regret, however, Orion found himself frowning, not out of judgment, but weariness. He’d seen too many lie through polished smiles and perfect posture. People, blightborn or not, who spoke of duty with honeyed tongues, only to bare their teeth when power or pride was at stake. Regret, real regret, was rarer than all of that. He’d learned to recognize it by what it wasn’t: not loud, not showy, not used as a shield. It lived in the small things—in the way someone returned to the same memory again and again, or how their voice broke only once and never on purpose. Céline had it. Not just the hunger. Not just the danger. But the weight of having lived through it and still wanting to be better.

“I won’t reconsider my stance,” Orion declared in turn. “We’ve had worse come through our gates pretending to be saints. At least you’re honest about the wolf at the door. That’s more than I can say for some.” Because Orion had vouched for him, too. Willis. Against his better judgment. Foolish, he’d thought then. Yet the man had steadied, his lies and rash episodes less frequent. A small redemption, perhaps. A bit of proof that some wolves could be leashed.

But still, there were others, like Ayel, who’d never see anything more than a beast to be handled. It hadn’t even occurred to the nobleman before that Orion might not be the one holding the leash. That he wasn’t there to tame creatures, but to walk among them. Because he was one of them. How could he consider himself anything else when “to tame” meant to have control over, and when that kind of control, that kind of power from someone of the same nature, required delusion. No, Orion’s truth was simpler than that. He wasn’t their keeper. He was kin to the creatures he guided. Strangely, irrevocably.

Blightborn, he’d eventually learned to accept.
Beast-tamer? That label stripped the name right off his back.

Besides…it’s just as he’d told Céline previously. Labels were cages. Beast-tamer. Advisor. Monster. He’d let them clatter around him, meaningless as pebbles, so long as they obscured the deeper truth: he belonged nowhere, a shadow straddling the line between Dawnhaven’s new order and the wildness of the blight that surrounded it.

Céline pulled him back once more, Orion finding himself pausing at her request. The wind caught the hem of his coat, and then he gestured faintly with one hand for her to follow as he began to walk again.

“I can show you to the temple where he’s kept,” he said. “He was Lunarian, so I’m afraid I did not know him personally.” The admission carried a tinge of regret, not for the dead man, but for the chasm between his world and Seluna’s. Lunarians had always been enigmas, their rituals as opaque as their moonlit sigils. Orion had respected their distance, though; Dawnhaven’s existence demanded enough feigned intimacy without courting more.

[Qia]

---

_{Location: Outside Eye of the Beholder
Interactions: Nyla (@The Muse)
Mentions: Tia (@c3p-0h)}

---

Thalia’s lips parted, not for the cookie, but a breath that carried the weight of restraint. Not all truths needed to be spoken aloud to land where they belonged. She studied Nyla a beat too long, hazel eyes moving slowly from the outstretched basket to the glimmering charm of her smile. A performer, indeed. Every inch of her was rehearsed.

“Fortunate,” Thalia repeated, the word flattening beneath her inflection. “A quaint euphemism for watching your legacy possibly razed by another’s ambition.” Or watching your father’s honour flayed in council chambers, she refrained from adding, his life’s work reduced to ash in the mouths of gossipmongers.

She still didn’t know the whole of it. Her father had only told her the broadest outlines. Like how the court had lost faith in House Evercrest’s integrity. Debt? Treason? A lordling’s petty grudge weaponized into ruin? He’d refused specifics, shielding her with omissions, as if ignorance might inoculate her against bitterness. We retained the land. We have each other. As though dirt and dwindling kinship could stanch the hemorrhage of her pride.

Her mother, ever the pragmatist, had disagreed. Illness kept her rooted in the capital, a fiction as transparent as the letters Thalia had spotted before they’d left, which dripped with veiled directives about securing alliances through “advantageous connections.” She could picture her mother still: sequestered in their abandoned manor, penning pleas to former suitors, bartering nostalgia for a foothold in a court that had already spat them out. Restoring the family’s standing, she called it. A poet’s term for auctioning dignity to the highest bidder.

Lucky.

If that was luck, Thalia would hate to see misfortune.

Movement caught Thalia’s eye then—a woman approaching on a steady stride, wrapped in ceremonial layers. Not lavish, but there was a quiet finery to her robes, the kind that spoke of status earned through devotion, not coin. A priestess, clearly.

Lark stilled, ears pricking. Not in warning, just… recognition. That sense of interest he often saved for people who walked like they had a purpose.

The woman’s eyes flicked toward Thalia’s briefly—polite, distant—but it was the slight tension in her fingers as she passed Nyla that drew Thalia’s attention. Something flickered between them, almost too subtle to catch. A familiarity, maybe. Or discomfort.

Curious.

The priestess continued on, not pausing, not speaking, and not so much as grazing Lark’s fur with her fingertips. Yet her gaze clung to him a moment too long, a fissure in her austerity. It was the look of someone denying an old reflex, like biting back a childhood endearment or resisting the pull of a melody once loved and long abandoned.

Thalia filed the reaction away for later. Lark could use some getting used to the place, after all. She took a step back, eyes flicking down to the basket with the faintest glimmer of polite dismissal.

“I’ve already sampled the inn’s fare,” she said, her tone polished to a veneer of civility. “The eggs are passable, if you don’t mind charring them yourself. A lesson in self-reliance, I suppose.” She hadn’t made herself any eggs, of course. Mainly because she didn’t know how to do so without possibly burning them. Had never needed to know.

There was subtext to her words once again, however: Offer your trinkets to those still hungry for crumbs.

Thalia was already turning to head once more for her destination, her boots scoring fresh tracks in the snow as Lark fell into step beside her.

“Though I’d be careful near the hearth,” she added over her shoulder. “Cold fingers tend to get burned when they reach for something already claimed.”

[c3p-0h]

_{Location: The Road Between the Jail and the Inn}

Part I

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Elio still regretted not shoving a boulder up Volkov’s ass, but his mood had much improved from this morning. Hands in his pockets, he sauntered down the path towards the inn. Elio’d need to follow up with Barrett about the prisoner and Seth he was sure, because no one in this fucking town could be trusted, but at least he’d set things in motion. In the meantime, there was always other work to do.

And there’d be other opportunities to fuck with Volkov.

For now, he planned on getting a bite to eat, some entertainment among the masses, and then off to the residential district to finish up the latest batch of home foundations Astaros had put in an order for – because people kept moving to this shithole for some reason. World really must’ve been falling apart, if this was their preferred destination. People didn’t come to Dawnhaven, they ended up here.

But that meant that everyone here was just a little bit desperate – and desperation always added a fun new layer to human behavior. Made people make interesting choices. They were a little quicker to snap, a little harder to recognize in the mirror.

A little more entertaining to poke and prod.

So, perhaps Elio didn’t always hate that he’d ended up in Dawnhaven, too.

Something stood out against the glittering snow and shadowed night in the distance – a pale figure walking down the path towards him. Elio raised an eyebrow, amber gaze darting over the approaching stranger.

Tia massaged her cold fingers as she listened to the crunch crunch crunch of her steps, mind replaying the conversation she’d had with Ivor and Kira. Her mouth skewed to the side. She’d added yet another person to the growing list of names who knew too much because of her – another person who might get in trouble or be at risk because of her.

But at risk of what?

There was still too much Tia didn’t know about her visions – where they were coming from, if they could be trusted, what they meant… Images of her fourth vision – the last one that she’d yet to investigate – ran through her mind. A burning hand, coated in flames and hanging from chains suspended above.

But the hand had been uninjured – there’d been no charred, blackened skin, no bubbling, blistered flesh. Burn wounds were some of Tia’s least favorite to treat, but she knew them well. But the hand… it’d worn the flames like a garment, limp but uninjured.

And then there was the gemstone, and its ominous vision. Tia hoped Eris would be able to make sense of it. She hoped even more that she hadn’t inadvertently put her at risk, too. She remembered the visceral, petrifying hate that had coursed through Tia’s body – the burning force of the colossus’ gaze, older than she could possibly imagine.

The snowy path blurred in her vision as Tia looked down at the cobblestones, lost in thought. A cold winter breeze picked up, tangling her long, loose hair around her face, and Tia scrunched up her shoulders, shivering. Lifting a cold, shivering hand, Tia tried to push the loose strands of hair from her face and –

The toe of her boot caught against the edge of a cobblestone, higher than expected.

Letting out a squeak, Tia’s eyes widened as lurched forward, the world suddenly rotating around her in a way it definitely wasn’t supposed to.

It stopped turning though, when a pair of strong hands caught her.

“Careful there,” came a smooth, low voice directly above her.

Blinking with wide eyes, Tia stared down at a sturdy pair of legs standing on the path. There were large hands on her – one spanning the distance between her hip and the middle of her ribs, the other securely on her narrow shoulder

Catching her breath, Tia turned her head to look at the hand at her shoulder. Warm brown skin, a large palm, long fingers with old, faint scars along the knuckles. It moved slightly, the muscles flexing as the hand repositioned itself, fingers curving and flexing over her shoulder to get a better grip.

Tia finally looked up — and up, and up — to see eyes that danced like firelight, shining raven hair, and full lips curving upwards, surrounded by dark stubble.

Her face began to warm. Was an inordinate amount of Dawnhaven’s citizens exceedingly tall and beautiful?

“Evening,” he said, smile growing.

Tia was fairly certain it was noon.

[c3p-0h]

Collab between @The Muse and @c3p-0h
_{Location: The Royal Residence}

Part VII

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Flynn held the door open, letting Amaya step through first.

As she entered into the stillness of their home, Flynn turned slightly, catching the eye of the guard who moved to follow. A silent exchange passed between them. Flynn’s quiet request met with a flicker of hesitation, a question unspoken in the guard’s brown eyes. But after a breath, the man gave a short nod and stepped back, falling into place beside his companion at the door. For now, they would be left alone.

Flynn stepped inside and shut the door softly behind him, his gaze fixed on Amaya. On the frost that still clung to her fingertips. His own hands ached, fingers numb from where they’d held hers. He flexed them slowly, trying to will life back into them, then dragged a hand through his damp hair. Snowflakes melted in the strands, along his shoulders, soaking into the threads of his coat.

But on Amaya, the flakes lingered—clinging to her coat, caught in the dark strands of her hair, glittering like stars. Even here, wrapped in the warmth of their home, the cold was reluctant to let her go.

He took a slow breath.

“Let’s get you warm,” he said softly, gesturing for her to continue into the living room.

Shaking and silent, Amaya moved as directed. She was too cold to argue. Too warm to be numb. She sat in that painful middle ground, drained and aching as she found her way to the couch in the middle of the room – the one they’d spent the night on, wrapped around each other. Amaya’s blanket was still there, folded neatly and draped along the back. The fireplace was dark and empty, the wood so thoroughly burnt that it’d turned pale, somewhere between ash and snow. She heard Flynn’s steady footsteps trailing after her like a shadow.

Without any other eyes on her, Amaya’s composure slipped away bit by bit as she sank into the couch. Fog drifted out past her lips as she curled in on herself, clutching her frozen hands around each other and squeezing her eyes shut. Her magic had grown less wild, drained by her own exhaustion, but ice still stubbornly clung where it’d managed to grab a hold of her.

Opening her eyes again, she glanced up at Flynn. Even in the darkness of the room, she could still make out the concern on his face. It sank into Amaya so sharply that she looked away, back to her shaking hands. Something tightened around her heart. Even through the frigid pain, she could still feel the ghost of his lips on her knuckles – against her temple. All the little touches he’d peppered her with throughout the morning, how closely he held her, like he was trying to make up for all the distance she’d created over the last two months. Even as she froze him, too.

Flynn knelt in front of the hearth without a word, reaching for the kindling kept in a worn metal basket beside it. There was something grounding in the process of creating fire. Something sacred in the friction it required, the slow coaxing of embers, the patient ritual of building warmth out of nothing. It could offer a rare moment of calm against the storm in his mind.

So he opted not to use magic this time. Instead, he laid out the kindling by hand, carefully arranged logs, and struck flint.

“Thank you,” Amaya murmured through her shaking breaths as she watched him, the words billowing in the air. They felt inadequate. Too small and thin, for all that was layered in them. But Amaya didn’t know how to pull those layers to the surface. She settled on what was easiest. “For pulling me away, before…” Her icy fingers curled in on themselves and her expression flinched. “This.”

Flynn glanced over his shoulder as the fire sparked to life, casting flickering gold across the room. His eyes found Amaya, and for a moment, he simply looked at her. Something ached deep inside his chest, but he rose to his feet with a playful glint in his eyes anyway.

“Oh, that wasn’t for you,” he said casually, his voice light, a half-smile tugging at his mouth as he tried to soften the tension in the room. “I did need air. Before I could start arguing with a High Priestess and say something truly regrettable.”

It was a joke—barely. But he was rewarded when light flickered in her eyes, quick and fleeting like a stray ember.

Rounding the couch, he reached for the blanket and unfolded it before carefully draping it over her shoulders. His hands lingered only a moment as he tucked it around her. Then, quietly, he returned to the hearth and held his hands out toward the warmth.

Amaya’s fingers were stiff and fumbling as she pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. She watched as the growing firelight danced through his hair. The heat was slow to sink into her.

“I knew her.” It was a quiet admission that slipped out before she could stop it. Flynn’s eyes flicked back to her. The words hung in the air between them. They felt more vulnerable than they should’ve been.

“Not well,” she amended. Amaya wanted to wipe the words away, scatter them like snowflakes. But she couldn’t stop looking at Flynn, aglow in his own fire. She couldn’t stop the words from coming out of her, reaching towards him. “Not at all, actually.” Amaya shook her head to herself, pulling back. Her eyes drifted to the window, the fire’s reflection painting the glass. “She grew up in the palace. We’d never officially met.”

Flynn went still. The fire crackled beside him, but its warmth barely reached through the sudden chill washing over him.

His brow furrowed as Amaya’s voice trailed into uncertainty, his jaw tensed.

He might’ve been relieved—grateful even—that she was speaking at all, if not for what she’d said. He’d expected the silence to stretch, for it to fall on him to break, as it so often did. But Amaya, too, could be like coaxing an ember into flame. She required patience. The right pressure. The right conditions to bring her to light.

Yet her words pulled his thoughts in a different direction. The fact that the High Priestess had also come from the palace—under the thumb of King Jericho—didn’t sit right. Was she another pair of eyes for the Lunarian crown? How many of them had been sent here?

He wondered how cold the High Priestess might’ve been to Amaya in the past—if she too had stood among the countless people who’d never allowed Amaya to take up space in the way Flynn had always been given the right to. It made more sense now—the Priestess’s cold shoulder. Not just to him, but to Amaya too.

The fire popped quietly.

“Do you know her family connection?” he asked at last, his voice quiet, thoughtful. His curiosity edged with caution, as he wondered what sort of power her family might’ve held to allow her to grow up within palace walls.

Amaya hesitated, her lips pressing together. Her fingers curled a little more tightly around the edges of the blanket. The pain was less and less with each pull of her slight muscles. She shook her head, eyes still trained on the window pane. Images grew more distinct in the reflection as she let herself focus on more than just the dancing fire – her own figure bundled and hazy on the couch. Flynn, cast in golden hues.

“Only that her father is someone powerful.” Powerful enough that Amaya had never even been allowed to know his name. She’d been kept far from anyone and anything of real importance – it had always been the easiest way to tell who she actually needed to pay attention to. But the Priestess and her father… Amaya had never been able to learn anything about them.

Her lips parted to continue, quiet thoughts and observations bubbling to the surface as she remembered the cold girl and her looming father from her childhood – when the image in the window shifted. For just a moment, the shadow that she cast, flickering in the movement of the fire, grew too large, too dark behind her.

The words died in her throat.

Reality seemed to shift and refocus around her – she was the Princess of Lunaris. Wanted or not, she was an extension of the Crown, even the parts that had been hidden from her. And Flynn – Amaya found him again in the reflection, outlined in shining summer gold, and focused solely on her. On what she might reveal.

Her mouth closed as she looked away from the window. She found the fireplace, if only for something else to focus on. She tried to lose herself in the movement of the flames.

“I haven’t seen her in years.” Her voice was softer, careful and flat as she tried to breathe under the weight of her father’s anger crushing her chest.

Flynn didn’t answer right away. He only nodded, thoughtful, as his gaze slid back to the fire.

“I met her yesterday,” he said after a beat. “Briefly. She was with the body—Sir Abel—when I arrived.”

His voice was quiet, steady, but edged with something colder as the memory took shape. “She looked sick. Pale, exhausted… trembling, even. She could barely stand on her own. At the time I assumed it was because of Sir Abel, but…” he paused, brow furrowing as he tried to make sense of what he’d seen. “Earlier, she claimed she’d ‘felled far greater than a single blight-born.’”

He shook his head faintly. “I know Priestesses of Seluna are often made tougher than those of Aelios, but… I’ve never known them to be warriors. That can’t be common, can it?” He briefly looked up to Amaya, then continued with his train of thought, “If she’s battleworn, why did she look so petrified at the sight of gore?”

Flynn didn’t expect an answer. He assumed that Amaya couldn’t explain it either, but something in his gut told him the Priestess wasn’t to be trusted.

Turning to Amaya again, he watched her quietly for a moment, checking to see if she still shivered beneath the blanket. She held herself still, her eyes distant as she watched the fire.

Without a word, he crossed the space between them and sat beside her, facing inward with one knee drawn up onto the cushion. Something warm stirred in his chest again—an echo of the night before, remembering how they’d sat in this same position. Remembering how she’d discarded the blanket for his warmth instead. Of how she’d curled into him, the weight of her against his chest, her breath warm in the hollow of his collarbone.

He blinked the memory away.

Reaching for her hand, he gently took it in his own and examined for any remaining frost. “It’s a wonder you haven’t given yourself frostbite,” he murmured, half-joking as he turned her hand over in his.

She felt her breath still in her chest, with how carefully she held herself, unable to focus on anything but the nearness of him. Amaya wasn’t quite looking at their hands, her pale gaze still unfocused even as she turned her head slightly. But she could trace the feel of him along her skin. Sensation danced through her hand, down her arm, mixing with the swirling guilt that had emerged from her anxiety.

Her guilt only compounded as she filed his words about the Priestess away, aligning them with the few pieces she knew. He’d offered his thoughts and information about the Priestess so freely – just as he offered his warmth, his partnership, expecting her to meet him halfway. And what did Amaya offer in return?

Even now, with her hand in his, Amaya felt the force of her father’s presence more solidly than she felt Flynn’s. Fear turned the words she would’ve given him thick and jagged in her throat, as they lodged themselves painfully in place.

“It wasn’t a concern until recently,” she said instead. She’d steadied her breathing, but her pulse was still too quick – and it only sped up under his touch. She thought maybe he could feel it, always too mindful of her. Amaya slowly drew her hand back, away from his. She felt the loss of him immediately. Echoes of his touch still danced along her nerves, but they were less potent. They made the guilt less bitter on her tongue. She tucked her hand back under the blanket as she looked back to the fire, as if to hide any new crystals that might form along her skin in his absence.

As she withdrew from him, he shifted too—leaning into the cushion, propping one elbow along the back of the couch. Though she wouldn’t meet his eyes, he still faced her, studying her quietly. Watching the way the firelight caught in the pale shimmer of her eyes and flickered shadows along her cheeks. He thought, maybe, shadows danced behind her eyes, too.

“What would you think about letting the Sage help?” he asked at last, gently. “Lady Hightower should have tools—something to make it easier to manage.”

Her gaze sharpened immediately, taking on a proud, stubborn edge.

“I’m handling it.” But there was a flicker of hesitation in her eyes, before she snuffed it out. She forced herself to take a breath, to push down the guilt of snapping at him. “She has more pressing concerns,” she said, more gently this time.

Flynn’s lips pressed together as he raised one hand in quiet surrender, palm up—a silent gesture that he wouldn’t push her. “Okay,” he said, his gaze drifting from her back to the fire. Amaya glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, regretful. An apology sat at the tip of her tongue – and moved no further.

After a moment, he shifted again, lowering his knee and planting his boot flat on the floor. Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, he rubbed his hands idly, his eyes dropping to the ground in thought.

When he finally spoke, he glanced up—meeting her eyes for only a moment. “Do you still want to talk to the prisoner with me? Or come to the blight-born interviews?” he asked. “You can rest, if you’d rather. It’s already been a… difficult day.”

He hesitated before adding, “I still need to go, but I’d understand.”

Amaya finally turned her head to face him, watching him carefully. She felt exhaustion seeping into her, weighing her down with every heartbeat. But they seemed to lengthen as she looked at Flynn – that space between each beat growing heavier with anticipation.

He was suddenly too far from her – but not by his choice. By hers.

“Do you want me there?” Her voice was neutral, but the question was too soft and she watched him too closely.

Flynn looked up at her again, this time meeting her gaze fully. His brows drew together as he considered her, searching her eyes for the things she refused to voice.

“I want you to be where you want to be,” he said at last. “Not because I asked, or anyone else expects it of you. Just… because it’s where you choose to stand.”

He held her gaze a moment longer, then added, “I’d always rather have you beside me… but only if it’s what you want, too.”

Emotions flickered behind her eyes, too quick to name as she stared at him. His words sank into her like heat from the fire, painfully stark against the chill.

Unbidden, a memory came to her: Elara offering to stay by her side. But only if Amaya wished it. There’d been no mention of Elara’s desires – she’d dismissed the very idea. And she’d pulled further and further away until finally, Amaya’s friend had made herself into only her handmaiden.

Amaya blinked against the pain, sharp and bloody where it cut at wounds that hadn’t yet healed. Doubts and regrets, mistakes that she was too scared to yet examine. Her eyes dropped from Flynn’s.

The crackling fire punctuated the silence.

Then, with sore legs and hands still stiff and aching from ice that always seemed to wait beneath her skin, Amaya pushed herself carefully towards Flynn, like she was waiting to be told no with every motion.

Amaya crossed the short distance between them, blanket still wrapped around her shoulders, and leaned into his warmth.

“I’ll go,” came her fragile words as she fit herself against his side. “I just… need a moment.”

Flynn stayed where he was—elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely. Shoulders stiff.

She’d brought herself to him now for the second time. But somehow, this time felt different.

It should have made him feel the way it had the night before—when her touch had been passionate and instinctive, when she’d reached for him because she’d wanted to. But now… he couldn’t shake the doubt that coiled in his chest.

When she agreed to come, he wasn’t fully convinced that she’d chosen it for herself. That it wasn’t a choice made for his sake alone.

Was she beside him because she wanted to be, or just to keep peace with the man she was forced to share four walls with? The man who’d brought her here in the first place and asked her to stay—to feel what he felt.

Someday, he thought, the guilt for it all would eat him alive. If Aelios didn't demand his life first.

He drew in a breath and straightened. Carefully, he slipped an arm around her lower back, his fingers curling lightly at her waist beneath the blanket. He leaned into her and pressed a soft kiss to her temple. Amaya’s eyes fluttered closed.

“Okay,” he murmured against her skin. Closing his eyes, he rested his cheek atop her head. For a fleeting moment, he tried to quiet the ache wrapped around his heart—the sharp tangle of doubt and longing that bound him to her and asked if she was bound to him too.

“I need to tell the guards to send out the summons,” he said finally, lifting his head and drawing back. Reluctantly, he stood. Amaya was surrounded by the empty space he left behind, blue eyes trailing after him. “I’ll be back.” he added before stepping out into the hall, leaving her alone in the firelit room.

She sat there on the couch, with nothing but the murmuring fire and her blanket, staring at the empty doorframe he’d stepped through.

Finally Amaya sighed, pulling back into herself. The scene played in her head again — how hesitant he’d been at her side, before he’d moved against her. Only to pull away again. Nerves built under her skin like her ice. Amaya had only ever known how to create distance, to guard herself. How did one just… reach for what they wanted?

How much distance would he tolerate before he pulled away entirely, just as Elara did?

The fire popped, its orange glow filling the room.

Amaya bit her lip and glanced back at the darkened door frame. She heard the soft murmur of his voice as he spoke with the guards, muffled and out of reach.

Another sigh. Amaya pressed herself deeper into the couch, leaning her side against its back and curling her legs up just enough that her feet still hung heavy off the edge — truthfully, she wanted her shoes off. Her feet ached from the trips they’d taken across town, the distance farther than she was used to and the cobblestone a far cry from the smooth floors of the palace beneath the low heel of her boots.

Exhaustion tightened its hold on her as she thought of the day — the morning. The commanders. The argument with Flynn beneath the snowy canopy. The temple. And all the while, there’d been the constant fight for control over her magic. The chaos of the previous day, that she still didn’t think she’d recovered from. The ever brewing fear of her attacker and his poisonous promises. Elara’s absence. Flynn’s distracting presence.

Shame filled her as she thought of all the ways she’d failed today — how unprepared she’d been to face those who knew enough to dismiss her, as Flynn stood tall and sure… and reckless. Open and direct, in ways she’d never learned how to be.

Glancing at the doorway again, she tried to listen for his voice, or maybe approaching footsteps. It hadn’t been long, though — perhaps a minute or two. She told herself she was more patient than this.

Amaya pulled her blanket tighter around her shoulders, trying in vain to find his warmth again. Her head dipped to rest against the corner of the cushion that lined the back of the couch. Everything felt too heavy. Too slow. Amaya tried to concentrate, the flickering of the fire growing indistinct and hazy, just like her thoughts. It was nearly hypnotic, with its dancing colors and warm light.

Not warm enough, though.

She blinked slowly, until finally her eyes couldn’t open anymore. The last thing she saw before she slipped away was the golden glow of the fire and the looming shadows they cast around the room.

Flynn paused in the doorway the moment he stepped back into the room. He took in the stillness of her, curled up against the couch. Her eyes closed. The tension eased from her brow. Unguarded and peaceful, for once.

He didn't need to step closer to know she was asleep. Or at least somewhere close to it.

Flynn stayed where he was, one hand resting lightly on the doorframe as he watched her, letting the quiet wrap around them.

Then, as quiet as he’d come, he turned and stepped away.

[enmuni]

Where Grief Sings and Prays
Part 2

Location: Seluna Temple | Collaboration with @Qia

Ramona sighed softly. She nodded, her tight-lipped smile forming a sort of hesitant, if warm smile that suggested, whatever her intentions were, that she had scarcely expected anything like what she was seeing to come from her actions, and that this surprise was very much welcome.

Quickly, she hoisted herself up and stood with Elara, if the slightest bit behind her rather than directly alongside her.

“Guess we’ll learn together,” she offered as they began to exit the little room, “Want me to hang by you for a bit before I get back to work? I still got a bit of time…”

Elara paused at the threshold, shifting slightly at Ramona’s offer, feeling the urge to say yes war with the ingrained reflex to decline.

“I'd like that,” she said eventually, the words small but genuine. Rather than moving immediately, however, she leaned lightly against the nearest column, letting the solid stone cool the last of the tremor in her hands.

“You know...” Elara said after a moment, her voice low, reflective. She studied Ramona from the corner of her eye — the veil, the muted posture, the way she somehow seemed both solid and half-faded at once. “I used to think you were just another ghost in the palace,” she admitted, her thumb brushing the edge of Aliseth’s cloak. “Not invisible, exactly. Just... easy to overlook. Like you were part of the stonework. ”

Elara tilted her head back against the column, her gaze tracing the worn arch of the ceiling above them. “I think... I just never looked closely enough.” Her voice carried no bitterness, no self-reproach, but only the quiet surprise of a curtain pulled back on something she should have recognized far sooner. “I’m glad I finally did.”

Ramona stood patiently a short distance from Elara, not quite at attention, but in a position that suggested a certain awareness that was anything but casual. Truthfully, the entire thing was still a surprise. In theory, they definitely did have enough in common to reach an understanding. Ramona had herself never imagined it would have been enough. Her mouth pulled to the side in a more easy-going smirk as it all clicked into place. Neither of them had really thought. But wasn’t that the way of things, back at the palace?

Ramona had gotten furthest by not asking questions. By pretending she couldn’t see anything in front of her other than her express duties. And maybe Elara had been the same way after all. Maybe it was just the right of the servants of Lunaris, that they should be at their best when they should know so little of others that they might barely even know themselves. And here they were, finding a camaraderie to grow so easily, as if it had been destined from the start. Wasn’t it all a bit…stupid?

“Heh…heh…” she let out a few little chuckles. Ramona brought a hand to her chest and snorted. Her smile grew, until it cracked past a smirk into a plainly warm, good-humoured expression, even as she shook her head, like the whole thing was all too much.

“I, uh, heh—I kinda figured the same thing about you,” she remarked, “I mean, it’s the whole job, right? Sorta like, I get to be a piece of the palace that cleans itself, and you get to be a shadow that dresses the Princess. Only other real person I ever knew who worked there was my husband. Until now, anyway.”

Ramona let out a wistful sigh and put her hands on her hips, shaking her head again, like she was laughing at herself.

“Dunno why it never occurred to me back in those days to—oh, why am I talking like we’ve been here years! And like this for years! It is all that different here, and now, isn’t it? It feels like a thousand years ago when he and I watched that last sunset on the palace walls. It could have always just been us, and I would have been fine with that. I’d never really thought that much about you, or the Princess…or, if I’m being honest, even the King. It was always just a job. But now he’s gone. Now all of this is just…life. Which I guess…is the way it’s been for you for a long time, hasn’t it? And now I’m here too, because of the Princess. And I’m talking to you...”

Ramona started to trail off. As she’d spoken, her expression slowly sank, without even really realizing it. As she spoke, half to herself, she finally closed her eyes, reached up, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Sorry. I’m hearing myself; that sounded kinda bitchy. I mean…it’s crazy that I never thought to do it before. And now it’s all like a whole different life,” she concluded.

“It’s not crazy,” Elara said.“It’s... easier not to look too closely. Back there, it’s…it’s different from how it is here in Dawnhaven.”

She glanced sidelong at Ramona again.

“In Lunaris, you learn to survive by keeping your eyes down. Everyone’s too busy fighting the cold, the dark, their own hunger, to notice anything they don’t have to. People are hard-edged and careful. Even in the palace... maybe especially there. You’re not meant to be seen. You’re meant to serve and endure.” Her mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile, more a recognition of a bitter truth. “But Dawnhaven...It’s too new. There aren’t enough walls to hide behind yet. Here, everyone’s survival is tied to each other’s, and no one can pretend otherwise for long.”

A dry laugh escaped the handmaiden. Endure. How many times had that word been hissed at her by stewards and seamstresses? A mantra for a kingdom built on scarcity and silent compliance. Her shoulders lifted in a half-shrug, the gesture at odds with the seriousness in her tone.

“And anyway... if it helps, I’m fairly certain I sounded much….bitchier yesterday. You’d have to ask the princess about that, though.” The self-deprecation, especially with Ramona’s chosen profanity, was armour, polished but transparent—an invitation to laugh, to deflect, to pretend the admission didn’t cost her. Yet beneath the levity hummed genuine uncertainty. Had her bluntness with Amaya been necessary, or merely a reflex honed in colder halls? The doubt coiled in her chest, familiar and venomous. Old habits, she chided herself, or survival? The line blurred these days, and she no longer trusted her ability to distinguish them.

Elara shifted, the urge to say something easier tugging at her, before she pressed forward instead.

“So…you were married?” Elara asked then, changing the subject. Of course, she was not married, hence the curiosity. “I’m very sorry for that loss. I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you.” The words were careful, stripped of the court’s performative pity. Empathy, she’d found, required no embellishment, and only the courage to meet another’s gaze and hold it.

Ramona nodded solemnly as Elara responded, her expression sinking into a grim, stalwart frown that affirmed all Elara was saying. It was a different world here. One where none of the old rules made sense. In another world, perhaps that would be terrifying. But it wasn’t as if the old rules were all that worth missing. So what if things were strange and unfamiliar, then? It had to be good for everyone, save for maybe the…Princess.

And here Elara was confiding that she’d been somehow…bitchy…with that Princess? Ramona’s eyes opened wide and her mouth narrowed for a moment at the shock. Elara had done or said something, and was able to speak about it this way? Able to think about it this way? Able to stand here at all, alive? The very notion, Ramona imagined, would have been utterly insane to even fathom back at the palace. But here she was, standing before another servant, commenting that something like this had happened. It was completely different.

Ramona did not have long to sit with the surprise, however. Elara asked about her husband. Ramona’s face shifted, first to a grave expression, and then to a weak smile which bore behind it a clear, deep yearning. She let out a soft, drawn out sigh as she drifted from standing free to leaning, not far from Elara.

“My sweet Nico…” Ramona murmured. She gingerly brought one hand under her veil and held her cheek.

“I—mmm. Thank you for your…condolences,” Ramona responded. Her voice wavered as she spoke, crackling still more than it usually did. Ramona let out a weepy laugh as her fingers drifted up to her eye.

“He—oh…it’s only been…a few months,” she sputtered, “And yet it feels like an eternity.”

Her voice cracked at the word eternity.

“He was so warm. And then he…wasn’t. I hate the blight. I hate it…so…much.”

Ramona’s state had quickly deteriorated, as her voice wavered more and a contingent of hot little tears escaped her. Her hand drifted down from under the veil and pulled close to her chest, joined by the other. She started to hunch, bending towards Elara.

“I could…I could never tell you what it’s like,” she continued, “It was supposed to be us together. Together forever. W-we w-were going to do so much…build something together…be something…together.”

Ramona shook softly. Her voice nearly cut out as she half-sputtered, half-whispered, “I’m sorry.”

She whimpered for a moment. Then her muscles tensed as she tried to rally. She reached into her dress roughly and shakily tugged out a small silver locket with a ring sitting atop it, threaded through the chain. Her hand quivered as she clutched it tightly in her hand.

“I don’t know if it will ever stop. I don’t know if it can,” she whimpered. She shakily inhaled again, then concluding, “I-If you ever find someone, promise me…as a friend…you’ll pray you won’t outlive your love. Nobody deserves this. I don’t know how my father did it.”

Ramona slumped against the wall, clutching her locket, and slowly began to sink towards the floor, still breathing shakily and whimpering.

Elara remained motionless, her stillness not born of indifference but of reverence for the unbandaged truth between them. Some sorrows defy salves. They demanded the open air, the sting of unfaltering witnesses. She lowered herself onto the stone beside Ramona, the chill of the floor seeping through her skirts. Her hands stayed folded in her lap, resisting the urge to reach out, to mend. Instead, she let her shoulder rest against Ramona’s, a bridge built not of words but weight. The contact was featherlight, a counterbalance to the locket’s iron grip in Ramona’s palm. I’m here, the pressure whispered. I won’t shrink from the shape of your grief.

When it came, her voice was quiet enough to almost be lost in the tremor of Ramona’s breathing.

“I want to,” she breathed, her shoulder pressing harder, an anchor against the riptide of shared despair. “I want to promise you.” The words hung suspended, a vow half-forged. But the silence that followed thrummed with the unsaid, the unbearable arithmetic of love and loss.

“But I can’t.”

Her hand lifted, trembling, toward her sternum, a reflex to clutch the phantom weight beneath her ribs. But the motion aborted halfway, fingers curling into a fist as if catching the ghost of a name she couldn’t utter. “There’s someone—” The sentence splintered, sharp as a bone breaking. Amaya. The name lodged in her throat, a shard of obsidian: beautiful, lethal, hers to carry. “Someone I’d cross mountains for. Someone I’d tear the world apart to protect.” Her jaw tightened, the prophecy coiling in her veins like frost spreading through the tributaries of her blood.

Nine months, a countdown etched in nothing but borrowed time.

“And I know…” Her voice cracked once more, fissuring with the knowledge she had and wished that she didn’t. To live in ignorance, yes, but also bliss. “I know there might come a day when all the fighting, all the wanting, won’t be enough to keep them here.” She stared at the floor. How many had knelt here before her, bargaining with gods or fate or their own failing hands like she’d done only moments ago?

“If I can’t even keep them... I don’t know how I could ever promise not to outlive someone I love.” For even she was here, and her mother was not. Amaya would simply be another love she would outlive against her will, wants, and desperate desires.

Ramona clung tightly to her locket as Elara spoke. She let a part of her weight rest against her as Elara joined her on the ground, coming shoulder to shoulder with her. In a different state, Elara’s words might have prompted questions in Ramona’s mind. But here and now, Ramona couldn’t bring herself to think. She began to fight back against her own tears, blinking vigorously to bat them away. She fumbled again, stuffing the locket back down into her dress. She opened and closed her hands quickly, as if trying to physically grasp her thoughts. There was no strength here. There was no strength in being alone. And here they were, weeping together. Together.

Ramona didn’t think. Not really. Her spine straightened, just for a moment. She rallied, just for a moment. Her mind tried to tell her to leave. To go before things got harder still. That this wasn’t worth it. But every other fibre of her being overrode those quiet thoughts and doubts with action. She had never really wanted to leave people. Not before. And again, she was up against another person she couldn’t bear to part from. It just wasn’t right. Not to either of them.

Ramona reached around with a sudden burst of speed and strength, and pulled Elara into a tight and warm, almost bordering on hot, side-hug. She was strong, still, just for a moment. Her muscles tensed and shook as she embraced Elara. But her head needed something different than the warmth and connection of a tight hug. It couldn’t be strong, not now. Her brief bout of silence broke again as another, quieter sob erupted from her.

“I wish I could take that away for you,” Ramona sputtered, beginning to almost rock as she spoke, still embracing Elara as she did, “It—it’s the worst feeling in the world. You don’t deserve it. Nobody—n-nobody in the w-world dese-erves it.”

Ramona made a little sound, like she was trying to speak more, but couldn’t get anything else out in that moment, either for failing to put the words together in her mind, or for failing to produce them from her mouth. All she could offer was a brief tightening of her hug, and a shaky inhalation through the hot tears which streamed from her face, through and past her veil, onto Elara’s shoulder.

Elara’s breath shuddered as Ramona’s embrace enveloped her, strong yet trembling, fierce yet achingly fragile. She hesitated for only a heartbeat, instincts warring again: the ingrained habit to pull away, to guard herself, against the simple human yearning to be held. In the end, it was the warmth and honesty of Ramona’s grief that won out. Her own arms lifted, slowly at first, then with some certainty, wrapping carefully around the other woman as though afraid of disturbing a fragile peace.

Ramona’s words, whispered through tears, resonated deeply within Elara, unravelling something tight and knotted inside her chest. She closed her eyes, her forehead pressing against Ramona’s shoulder, feeling the tremors and heat of the other woman's grief against her skin.

“I wish the same for you,” she murmured. “You don't deserve it either.”

The words held no illusions of ease or immediate solace. Instead, they were an acknowledgment of the shared burden, the commonality of loss that now bound them as surely as the embrace did. For the first time in too long, Elara allowed herself the grace of leaning fully into another’s support, letting her tears fall silently, joining Ramona’s in quiet, mutual understanding. She let herself be held, offering and accepting comfort in equal measure, as the warmth of their shared sorrow gradually softened the cold edges of grief. No words could erase the pain they carried, but in this moment, neither woman was alone with it. That, perhaps, was enough. It had to be.

Elara allowed Ramona's tears to continue falling without interruption, feeling the warmth seep through the fabric at her shoulder. The embrace was fierce, desperate, everything she had felt earlier but had been unable to express aloud. It was humbling, she realized, to hold another's grief, to accept it without promise or deception.

When Ramona’s breaths finally evened into something resembling calm, Elara spoke.

“That song you sang earlier,” she began, her voice thoughtful. “I'd never heard it before. But it felt like I had.” She hesitated, the silence stretching briefly before continuing, “Was it yours?” The question was gentle, careful not to pry open wounds too harshly, yet holding a quiet invitation for Ramona to share more, if she wanted, if she needed. “It sounded... like something that came from deep inside. From somewhere that hurts.”

Her gaze flickered to Ramona’s profile, tracing the damp trails on her cheeks.

“I’m sorry if it’s hard to talk about. But it felt important.”

Ramona was quiet for a moment, her head still resting against Elara as the stillness overtook her. She loudly sniffled, then swallowed. Another breath, another exhalation, and another breath went by, then she at last spoke again.

“It’s…an ol’…uh…ol’…” Ramona trailed off briefly, clicked her tongue, and then continued, “I dunno if anybody else sings it. But my folks…people in my village…it’s, uh, one of the songs we used to sing. For worship.”

Ramona sniffled again and cleared her throat as she lifted her head.

“Some of the old ladies at temple used to say it’s a song to sing for if you have to leave home, for when the winter’s getting too cold to bear, for when you have to leave something…even if you never got a say in it,” she explained, “I usually don’t like to sing it when there’s a full temple. It’s for longing, for grievin’ something that had to end even though you never got a say. It’s about growing up, as much as anything else.”

Ramona sighed. Her hug loosened faintly.

“I just…never know how to say the right words. How could you say what you need to say here? So I pick a song I remember—one of the ones we used to sing—and I hope Seluna’ll take it.”

“Maybe there aren’t any right words,” the handmaiden said softly.“Maybe... a song says it better, anyway. There’s something honest about music, isn’t there? It doesn’t try to fix things, but somehow it does.” She lifted her gaze, meeting Ramona’s eyes through the gauzy barrier of her veil. “I think Seluna heard you,” she murmured, conviction gentle but genuine. “I know I did.”

Her eyes lowered. “I remembered a moment I’ve spent years trying to forget. Amaya and I, in the gardens back home. She laughed, barefoot, and I—” She broke off, swallowing. “It was nothing. A summer day. The kind you don’t realize is precious until you can’t get it back.”

She didn’t elaborate further. She couldn’t. But her next words emerged steadier, almost reverent.

“Your song made it feel like it had just happened. Like, I was still there. And also like I’d never get to be again. I hated that. But I think… maybe that’s what makes it sacred and I…” The confession scalded her tongue, unable to finish it aloud.

And I wanted to burn it down. And I wanted to kneel.

Her hand drifted to her sternum, pressing as if to stanch an invisible wound.

“Seluna is cruel, to let beauty linger where joy cannot.” The words were an accusation and a prayer. “But cruelty, too, can be holy, I suppose.”

Ramona smiled softly at first, letting a brief moment of calm interrupt the tears in recognition of Elara’s compliments. It wavered and faded, returned for just a moment, until it once again melted into the tears at Elara’s assertion about the Goddess.

Again, Ramona remained silent for a spell after Elara spoke. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft—barely above a whisper.

“When my father died, I looked up at the sky for days. I wanted to study it. Find where he was. He had to be there,” she began. She spoke slowly, like a woman defeated.

“I used to bundle up in the winter and lay in the snow, looking up at the sky, till my face went numb. I feel like I know it well… And now. Ever since I lost Nico. I look up. Every night. He has to be there. How can there be no new stars in the sky, shining so brightly that I cannot imagine it to be anyone so beautiful as him? I just hope he’s well. Up there. If Seluna hasn’t accepted him, then I can only hope she’ll reject me, too. I hope she’s not so cruel as to separate us when the time comes. My memories are still so vivid, I can pretend we’re in that moment. That’s why I do it. To have a moment where it’s us, even if it’s pretend. I don’t know if Seluna will let me have anything more real.”

“If Seluna has any mercy in her, as I’ve always thought she did... she’ll never let you forget what it felt like to be that known. That held. You were both…greatly blessed,” Elara conceded, the admission tinged with a envy she refused to name. “To hold and be held is Seluna’s rarest sacrament. Most of us only ever kneel outside the temple.” She paused, thinking aloud now.

“I hope... that if I’m ever loved like that, I’ll be brave enough to let it stay. That I won’t mistake it for something that needs to be outrun.” Elara let her gaze drift upward after this, toward the window’s panes that obscured the night sky. She imagined the constellations anyway—Seluna’s Crown, the twin arcs of the goddess-sisters drawn across the heavens. Aelios and Seluna. Light and shadow. Creation and undoing.

The myths painted their schism in grand strokes, Aelios’s anvil versus Seluna’s loom, ambition versus compassion, but Elara suspected the truth was much subtler than that. A disagreement over how to mend a cracked vase. A withheld apology after a petty quarrel. Mortal failings, magnified by divinity. She envisioned them in their primordial workshop, Aelios’s hands calloused from hammering continents into shape, Seluna’s fingers stained with the ink of star charts. Partners, once. Sisters, always. Until the day Aelios declared survival demanded sacrifice, and Seluna replied that survival without grace was mere prolongation. The world bore the scars of their stalemate: mountains split by Aelios’s chisel, valleys drowned by Seluna’s tears. Elara had once read that the stars were their scattered regrets, remnants of what they could have built if they'd remained united. Another tale, called the moon’s phases, Seluna’s silent mourning for the bond she'd lost. And now the blight…whatever it truly was.

Sometimes, Elara wasn’t sure which she was in essence, despite being born under Seluna’s waning crescent, swaddled in her mother’s lullabies of resilience. Silverglen, her birthplace, had been Aelios’s domain once, too, for a short time each year. She remembered how her father’s laborers sang as they scythed the wheat, their bodies glazed with sweat and sunlight. How the small harvest festivals blazed with bonfires, sparks spiralling upward like offerings. Strength and sorrow weren’t opposing forces there; they were the twin pulleys that hoisted life forward. We honoured both, in our own way, she realized then. Until the continuous war between the kingdoms made it impossible to see anything in both light and shadow. Until the world that had demanded a side be chosen decided that reunification could be the key, no matter how arduous the path.

Her throat tightened. Flynn’s face and the faces of his people appeared in her mind—pale, gaunt, skin starved of sun. The priests called it a necessary purification, this eternal gloaming. But Elara knew the truth, had swallowed enough holy lies to choke a saint: Seluna’s grief had swollen into something possessive, a smothering embrace. She closed her eyes, and suddenly she was younger again, chasing Amaya while their laughter unspooled beneath a honeyed sky. Sunlight had streamed through the leaves like liquid gold, dappling Amaya’s hair as she spun, arms wide, revelling in the simple and rare miracle of warmth. They didn’t know to call it a gift then, of course. They didn’t even know how to pray, to want. But they’d had each other, and it had been enough. After all, time and Seluna had a way of teaching her people how to live in shadow.

With Ramona’s grief anchoring her in the present and Amaya’s laughter echoing faintly in memory, Elara found herself staring into the space between myth and moment, between what was lost and what remained. And with the other’s grief still pressed into her shoulder, Elara wondered:
Was it mercy that the goddesses no longer touched?
Or had they simply learned the cost of looking too closely?

And if even the divine could drift apart, what hope did mortal love have?

But then she remembered Ramona’s voice, cracked and fervent, singing into the silence, hoping for an answer. That had to be it. That was faith: not the absence of doubt, but the decision to sing anyway.

Maybe, Elara thought, that was the point.
Not reunion, but remembrance.
Not answers, but endurance.

Just two sisters, still watching from opposite ends of the sky.
Still holding the world between them.

And maybe…. that was love, too.

The moment lingered, suspended like a breath between verses. Elara allowed it to remain this way, knowing it wouldn’t last. Grief never did, not in its purest form. Eventually, even pain had to move, to rise, to return.

So she exhaled, letting go not of what was shared, but of the stillness that held it.

“We should…really return now, ” she said. She didn’t move just yet, though. She looked at Ramona, and the words that followed came without hesitation.

“Will you still walk with me?”

An invitation.

One that meant: You don’t have to return alone.
One that meant: I won’t pretend I never saw this part of you.
One that meant: You matter, now.

Ramona shifted her head slowly on Elara’s shoulder. She let out a gentle, tragic sigh as a weak smile returned to her lips. She swallowed.

“Of course,” she responded, “Of course I will.”

[Beard Dad]

Collab between @Beard Dad, and @The Muse
_{Location: Eye of the Beholder}

---

Kira watched the Priestess go, eyes settling on the door she’d left cracked open. Without a word, she stepped forward and gently pushed it until it clicked shut. Kira stood there a moment longer than necessary, fingertips resting on the wood, gaze drifting to the door knob as she considered what she was about to say—or not say.

Ivor, in all his naive efforts to see the best in everyone, hadn’t seemed to notice the same things she had. On her own, Kira could dig deeper. Hold it. Keep the information close to the chest until she saw fit to reveal it. Form it into a blade to press against an Aurelian throat.

She blinked. The word ‘sister’ rang quietly in the back of her mind.
She didn’t know how to be one. Or if she even wanted to be one at all.

Still, an unwelcome ache deep inside her chest had given her enough pause to not walk out the door.

Ivor had shown her unprecedented kindness since the moment they’d met.
Perhaps she could repay it, in her way.

Turning, she leaned back against the door, arms crossing as one boot pressed flat against the wood behind her. Her eyes found Ivor’s again, their glowing hues of orange and purple mingling faintly in the dark.

“She’s hiding something from you,” Kira said quietly—flatly. No judgement, no emotion, just fact.

Ivor had been absentmindedly stretching out his back and cracking each knuckle individually as Kira closed the door shut and laid her truth on him. The giant simply stared at her, blinked, smiled and replied, “Ivor know already.” There was no shock in his voice, no anger of betrayal, just a quiet and resigned understanding. Kira studied him silently, taking in his body language, his expression, and the unbothered tone of his voice. It struck her then—that Ivor might understand more about the world than he let on, or at least more than he could articulate in the broken common tongue he spoke in.

And that maybe… maybe he didn’t need to walk through the world as rigidly as she did. Not every secret had to be pried from someone’s lips, not every hidden thing was a weapon waiting to turn on you. Ivor could allow others to come as they were, to present themselves however they wished, and he waited, patiently, for them to reveal their truths when they were ready.

Like Aleski.
Like her.

“Ivor has known since she asked to go to crystal cave…hmmm” he paused and mused, “perhaps Ivor should call it something else…fish cave maybe…”

Ivor knew he wasn’t good at lying and if asked directly by the prince or anyone else for that matter, he could only hope he wouldn’t reveal anything vital. It wouldn’t do him any good to be revealing her secrets, especially now that he knew they were secrets. Looking over at the other blightborn in the room though, he realized the solution was with him the whole time. “Miss Kira, you are good at the lying, perhaps you can give Ivor the…how you say..Pointers?”

Kira exhaled softly through her nose, a subtle huff of amusement slipping out. The corners of her lips lifted just slightly, her hard stare softening as Ivor somehow managed to disarm her again. With the Priestess gone, her walls had weakened—just a little.

“Don’t call it the fish cave,” she said dryly.

She hesitated, studying him. How exactly could she teach someone like Ivor—kind-hearted and sincere to a fault—to lie with a straight face? It would take years, maybe a lifetime. And more than that, it would cost him part of his soul to truly master it.

Lying wasn’t just a trick. It was an art. One that demanded a myriad of masks, practiced tones, carefully measured expressions, and a willingness to let go of guilt.

“Don’t bring it up.” She said, her tone sharpening. “To anyone. Not unless they ask you directly.”

Her gaze drifted to the floor, brows knitting together in thought. She didn’t know the full truth of what he was trying to hide, which made it difficult to shape a lie around, but she could try. For him.

“If they do ask… mix in the truth. Wrap it around the lie, but don’t touch what matters. Keep it simple. Don’t over explain. Too much detail, or not enough, makes people suspicious.”

She looked up at him again, watching to see if anything was sinking in.

Ivor’s focus was entirely on the woman in front of him, the explanation was simple and her terse vernacular easily flowed into his brain.

“Remember the story you’re going to tell, and say it like it’s true. With confidence, like you believe it.” Her eyes narrowed slightly, studying his face once more—those expressive eyes, the smile that always came too easily. “And control your expressions,” she added, grimacing slightly. That, she suspected, would be the most difficult part for him to manage.

“Use your language as a shield.” She said, thinking through all his possible weapons or means of defense. “If someone gets too close, act confused. Perhaps you don’t understand what they mean.”

Not knowing the common language perfectly—it could be a weapon, if he learned to wield it correctly.

“So,” she gestured to him, “what’s your story, if I were to ask what the crystal cave is?”

There was quite a lot for him to remember, but for the most part he understood what she was getting at. Avoidance would be the easiest way for him to remain silent, but if absolutely pressed he would need an excuse. He didn’t understand the common language as well as everyone else, they all knew it and she was right that he could use it to his advantage.

He closed his eyes and thought for a moment, searching his mind for the proper vocabulary. What would have been a proper excuse anyway? All Tia had asked him to do was show him the cave where he found the…the fish!

His eyes shot open as he looked at Kira and his mouth moved to speak before stopping. He remembered, just briefly, to control his expressions. A deep breath in and an exhale and Ivor returned his gaze on Kira with as soft a smile as he could muster. “Oh, crystal cave?” He tried to keep a low and even tone to his voice in an attempt to be casual. “Ah, you must mean the fish hole Ivor found! Yes, many many fish, in little holes in ice!” Breath Ivor, you’re getting too excited… the giant huffed, “Ivor thought it was a cave with many shiny stones, but was actually many glittery fish instead.” He gestured with his hands the size of the fish, a full bodied cod in appearance, “Ivor already bring to Syraea this morning, should last some time, yes.” He nodded, then his smile grew, “How did Ivor do?”

He stared in anticipation of her answer, watched her neutral expression that barely shifted and in that moment felt a deep sadness for her. The advice she had given was incredibly useful, but Ivor wondered just how many times she had used that advice to her own benefit? He knew she had not lied to him directly, that much was certain when she spoke of coming from the capital; but what truth was she avoiding? It seemed a lonely life to keep so many secrets and a confusing one to fabricate so many stories.

Something stirred in her. Warm and unfamiliar. She wasn’t sure what to call it—had she ever even felt it before?

It curled the corners of her lips into something far too genuine. A smile, entirely unguarded, as she watched Ivor formulate his lie. It was like watching a child take their first steps—clumsy but brave. There was pride in it. He had a long way to go, but she could appreciate his immediate effort.

Whatever this feeling, it cracked through her like sunlight through a storm cloud—sudden, bright, radiant and—
Uninvited.

Her smile had widened without permission, broad enough that her razor sharp canines flashed in the low light. Realizing it, her expression swiftly snapped shut—sealed on instinct. She pushed the feeling back down where it belonged. Deep. Out of reach.

“It’ll do.” she said, the words clipped but not cold. Not quite praise, but not disappointment either.

She pushed off the doorframe, clearing his exit, and stepped deeper into the room. “You’ll get the hang of it. With time.” Her voice softened, touched with a faint glimmer of dejection. “It’ll become second nature.”

As she passed him, something venomous coiled in the back of her mind. A whisper, dark and tempting: Reach in. Take it. Become shadow and slip beyond the barrier of his mind. Tear it from his memory. Make it yours.

Who were they to hoard secrets they could barely manage to keep? It would be easy.

But she didn’t.

She walked on, resisting the pull, forcing the impulse back into its cage.

She moved toward a table in the back, near a window—a quiet little perch from which to observe and vanish all at once. She would stay. Just a little longer.

Ivor watched her glide past him, a sadness of her own threatening to enwrap her. While he didn’t want to leave her in a melancholy state, he felt that their time to speak had passed and that whatever gripped her now required self-reflection. He too wondered what burdens she held onto her soul, what sort of secrets she continued to keep; but that was not his place to ask. She had helped him, even after he enlisted her aid involuntarily, and it was time to help her in return.

“Thank you, Miss Kira, for all your help. It is most appreciating.” He nodded and bowed slightly, before he made his way over to the door. Carefully pulling the latch he opened the door, ducking beneath the frame to exit out he looked back into the room while pulling the door. He paused, briefly, “Miss Kira…”

He stared at her, unsure of what to say. No, it wasn’t that, he wanted to say ‘It does not have to be like second nature,’ but the words held fast, unwilling to go further than his throat. Instead he swallowed and smiled, his eyes soft and weary.

“Please take care of yourself,” he nodded one last time and latched the door shut behind him.

[c3p-0h]

_{Location: The Road Between the Jail and the Inn}

Part II

---

Elio smiled down at the Priestess in his hands as she blinked up at him with wide, dark eyes and pink wind-blown cheeks. A loose cobblestone slid neatly back into place behind her.

He’d heard about her – had apparently blown in last week in some golden and gaudy procession. Elio would’ve written her off as another example of Aurelian pomp… if not for what he’d heard next. That the Priestess, some tiny thing from Aurelia’s Ember Islands with uncharacteristically fair hair, had immediately saved some brat from death by blight-born in front of a crowd of her devoted.

Impressive if it was true. An ambitious (if on the nose) bit of propaganda if not. Either way – intriguing.

Especially as he looked down at the Priestess in question now, who looked about as impressive as a bunny. Big eyes. A softly sloping nose. Full pink lips, parted slightly, as her breath drifted over them in gentle white clouds. She was a delicate little thing – practically pocket sized, and swimming in her winter Sun Priestess robes. Hell of a contradiction, that. Seemed Aurelia hadn’t quite figured out how to make cold weather clothes yet that didn’t swallow their Priestess whole.

Shame. But discovery was part of the fun anyway.

Elio’s hands tightened their grip on her narrow shoulder, around the waist hidden beneath layers of fabric, and helped the Priestess straighten up.

Tia could feel the heat building up her neck and across her face as she stood before the towering man – he was… awfully close still, hands lingering as if to hold her steady. The weight of them pressed against her, even through the thick fabric of her robes. His smile grew, amusement sparking in his amber eyes as she blinked dumbly at him.

“You alright then, Darling?” His deep voice rumbled through her and it was like Tia snapped back to life. Nodding, she gave him a thankful smile – though she was sure it looked as awkward and nervous as she felt.

“Thank you,” she said softly as she took a tiny step back – out from under his enormous shadow, away from his firm hands. His dark eyebrow quirked up slightly at the sound of her rasping voice, but his expression shifted easily back into one of genial ease and charm.

He moved smoothly with her, hands lifting away as she stepped back – only to start drifting around her body, brushing snow off of her shoulders and the top of her head, even as more stray flakes drifted to take their place. Tia was frozen under his ministrations, too surprised by this turn to do more than watch as she stayed obediently in place. His touches were light and efficient, defter than she would’ve expected from someone with so imposing a presence. His eyes, the color of smoldering smoldering firelight, seemed to move without seeing her, focusing only on the next problem area to solve.

Tia studied him as he worked, the way the snow landed lightly against him, too. Startlingly tall, broad, warm-hued in a way that made Tia think of the nomads who’d sometimes visited the capital for trade or performances, and, at the moment, attending to her in a way that was almost… paternal. Her unease drifted away like the errant snowflakes he brushed off of her, replaced by something still timid, but more thoughtful. Endeared, even.

A stray lock of midnight hair drifted across his eyes as he grabbed at the collar of her robe, the edge of his short nails catching lightly at the bare skin below her scarf. Tia couldn’t help the sharp inhale as his touch sent her nerves dancing across her chest and down her back. Her eyes widened slightly – he caught them with his own.

Then he straightened out her collar and tugged at the fabric of her sleeves, removing any rumples that’d formed when he’d caught her.

“There,” he said, gently, smile growing on his face again. “Set to rights.” His hands fell away from her at last.

Tia tried to swallow. She didn’t want to know what color her face was. She focused on returning his smile instead, giving a small bow of her head in thanks. Straightening, Tia tensed as another biting gust of wind blew through her, tangling strands of long hair in front of her face.

“You’re the Sun Priestess, I take it?” Elio asked, watching her shiver. She blinked those big eyes up at him as she brushed her away from her face with shaking fingers, before her expression shifted slightly. It was subtle, but Elio watched it happen with keen eyes – how she straightened up slightly, some of her meekness melting away and replaced with a serene professionalism. The Priestess retreated into her title like it was one of her oversized robes, nodding at him with a smile that wasn’t quite so nervous.

“Elio Azkona.”

His name had the intended effect. He watched as she registered the name, just a handful of letters away from that goddess of hers she was so devoted to. Her smile was a little warmer, a little less unsure, as she nodded to him again with the indulgence of a calm, patient teacher. When the Priestess’ eyes found him again, it no longer looked like she was waiting for the appropriate time to make her escape – duty took over instead as she stood before him, waiting to see how she could be of service to one of her flock.

“The stonemason here,” he continued. “So I’m afraid it falls on my shoulders, if this path was too uneven for you,” he said with just the right amount of humor.

Her eyes widened as she looked at him and then down at the stones below her feet – then turned slightly to look at the path behind her, before spinning back to Elio and shaking her head to reassure him (because the path was impeccable, of course).

His eyes flicked briefly at the scarf around her neck as he considered her apparent reluctance to use that voice of hers. He wondered idly how loud she could get.

“Come on,” he said, holding his hands up in a staying motion, his smile growing. “Let me take some accountability. I’ll escort you.” Elio stepped to the side, angling his body down the direction she’d been traveling as he raised an arm towards her. “Help you stay upright.” The pretty pink tinge in her cheeks seemed to darken. His eyes grew a little sharper, his smile a little more crooked, as he took her in, watching as she considered him. A drop of that hesitation came back into her expression.

Another breeze brought the chilling winter air, and she tensed again, long hair twisting like solstice festival streamers hung up around the capital, pale as the moon against the shadowed night.

“I’m a very good windbreak,” he added, low and conspiratorial.

Tia didn’t doubt that. Her cheeks warmed slightly as she looked up at this mountain of a man, with his charming smile and offered arm. But in the end, there wasn’t much of a choice to make. Too polite to dismiss him and too cold to refuse shelter, Tia finally gave him another small, thankful smile, and nodded.

Stepping forward, she slipped her arm around his and tried not to think too much about the hard musculature there, or the way the cold pushed her closer into his side – shielded from the wind, and soaking in the warmth he practically radiated, now that she was close enough to feel it.

He began walking, his steps long and slow as Tia trailed along beside him. She listened to the heavier sound of his footsteps, sure and solid.

“Where to, Priestess?” he asked, looking down at her with those bright eyes of his. “The temple?”

Tia craned her neck to look up at him and shook her head. She took in a short breath to speak – and held it for a moment in hesitation.

“The jail.”

Something flashed in his eyes, so quick that Tia thought she might’ve imagined it. Then his smile was back as he looked ahead, gaze sharp.

“The jail then,” her new escort replied.

Elio led the little Priestess down the shadowed path lined with orange torchlight, his mind working as he considered her, and the flash of worry she’d tried to hide, even as she’d tensed around his arm – then he thought of the pale-eyed ’gardener’ who’d taken up residence in his worksite.

Intriguing.

The cobblestones remained in place as they walked.

[Fetzen]

Valthyr

---

The hunt for the killer was over, but that only applied as far as the literal, physical realm was concerned. It had left quite the aftermath for Valthyr's mind to work on, but as the remainder of the night had progressed, said mind had had to fence off the threat of being consumed by all the food for thought itself. Just what should he make about this kind of first impression he had gotten ? Was Dawnhaven better or worse and even more challening than what the sketchy rumors reaching his homeland had promised ?

This Ayel guy was a condensed, compacted lump of degenerate arrogance. That was as much for sure as it was hardly a solid foundation to build a general opinion. An absolute outlier of a corner case he would most likely have to deal again later, but just wanted to forget for now.

The next one: the gold-plated, sun-bathed prince of Aurelia. He had run away as if he'd just remembered that the sun was missing because he had stuffed it in his oven to bake his bread more thoroughly and it would be really unfortunate if his majesty would have the ultimate piece of charcoal on his plate the next morning. Valthyr had no idea about Aurelian customs, but wasn't it an idea generally accepted that a leader should... lead ? On the plus side, this turn of events had effectively bailed himself out of any further scrutiny. Maybe the prince and his advisors had already completely forgotten that he even existed ?

A slight shiver ran down Valthyr's spine as he remembered the lump referring to the prince as 'his friend'.

Had it not been for Lord Coswain, Valthyr's already pretty mediocre opinion about nobility would probably have vanished in the deepest, darkest abyss that night. Was he really a noble though or was that a premature assumption based on the man's looks and choice of words ? That utter cluelessness again... Anyway, the druid felt confident to tag him as reliable.

The same he was halfway tempted to do with Orion, but that person was a tad too great of an unknown still. Red eyes and some other features had clearly betrayed his blightborn nature, but the fact in itself did not say much if one considered that he already was a very far cry from the average blightborn just by having more than basic killer instincts left.

And then there was another humble protagonist: his own feet! They had been reminding him for hours that the stage they were forced to act on was way too cold for doing it completely naked, but the availability of a merchant who could provide an almost seven feet tall individual with a pair of boots in the middle of the night and for no coins in return while a general alarm due to a life-threatening event was going on had been rather disappointing to say the least. Valthyr had not been able to just stroll around in wolf-form through Dawnhaven happily either and spending the night in the forest... Nope, he had some concern about his own life left still inside him, too!

Sleeping as an anonymous cat huddled away between some crates had worked for the night, but he really needed to fix that issue and tend to his injured arm now. At least it didn't seem to have become infected yet.

----

In a somewhat secluded corner of Dawnhaven, far enough away from the awakening marketplace, the bustling inn or what he could only suspect to be the nobles' city quarter, Valthyr dug his bare feet into the snow and even deeper into the ground for what he hoped would be one last time.

He could sense life in there. Or at least life that tried to be, hampered by the lack of sunlight, warmth, air and guidance by the steady ebb and flow of summers and winters that had ceased so utterly. He could also sense decay, partly hampered by the same insufficiencies and also by the abscence of its counterpart. They both needed each other to form a circle, but that circle was barely functioning anymore.

He could be the one to set things into motion again. A small set of runes and cryptic symbols cast into the bare dirt using nothing more than a wooden stick and accompanied by an inner chant nobody else could hear, he could effectively replace the sun for the tiny patch of land around him. Who- or whatever had taken the real object away from the sky had apparently completely forgotten that doing so, if anything, had only bolstered Lunarian magic and that contrary to especially Aurelian belief, not all of that was mostly cold, dark or outright eerie.

Although one could argue whether the sight of the earth moving as if thousands of rainworms had spontaneously gathered in an unbreakable frenzy did have a somewhat creepy aspect of its own. Yet Valthyr remained undeterred, letting things happen around the two lower ends of his body. No fauna here, just hypercelerated flora sprouting like it should be. He could sense the roots tingling his skin, soon had to bend down in order to nudge the first tiny, still bright green branches and leaves into the right direction so they would form a self-entangled web.

A gnarled, wooden shoe was still much better than none at all. The somewhat irregular shape could maybe even provide additional grip and he could let it repair itself from not too great damage by just rooting it again. A moderately thick layer of ivy had effectively grown around his feet, sealing them off against the cold and keeping the mud away.

Did that have potential to attract prying eyes and maybe even irritate people ? Probably yes, Valthyr figured. Yet there were more important things to take care off: If he had any intention to prolong his stay here, he also needed some kind of roof above his head. He had seen a lot of construction going on so hiring some artisans and acquiring material would not be an issue if only he had any coin. Or was this all sponsored and if so, by whom ? The gold-plated prince ? Or even worse the lump that wore a crust of cream and geysers of perfume on top of his skin ?

It dawned upon him that there was a shortcut to bypass most of these questions. He had just taken it on the small scale already, so why not do it on the large one ? All he needed was much more patience, a much larger spot to do it and some makeshift accomodation until things were ready for further development.

A spot nobody else would need anymore.

A spot where something large casting a long shadow wouldn't disturb the neighborhood too greatly.

A spot where he had a permit to erect a tree with a tree house on top.

No, not that one! Nobody except Lord Coswain had asked him anything friendly yesterday really. Dawnhaven had mostly just dragged him into things and then spat him out again. He could do a bit of that himself, too. If the gold-plated prince could jump from one task to another so quickly, then the man could also come to him and just ask what he was doing as it happened.

Part of Valthyr felt almost sorry for all the hard-working people putting stone upon stone and cutting one beam of timber after the other. If things worked out as he thought, he could automate most of that at the acceptable cost of a long-term compromise in terms of building shape and general appeal.

Maybe it was best to pick an empty spot somewhere in the vicinity of this Ayel guy's house. He was the one and only person in Dawnhaven Valthyr already was absolutely certain that he would neither need nor desire his 'good will' at any point in the future anymore. Nothing left to ruin anymore was a good start for making sure that no further damage would be dealt. Also finding that residence should be a stupendously easy achievement, right ?

[The Muse]

Collab between @The Muse and @c3p-0h
_{Location: The Royal Residence}

Part VIII

---

Upstairs, in the cold hush of his darkened room, Flynn crossed to where his sword leaned against a wall—the dark scabbard worn from years of use. With practiced movements, he fastened the belt around his waist. It was another ritual now, muscle memory.

The Lunarians might have claimed peace, but their actions betrayed them, and did little to make him feel safe in their presence. But beyond that—he hadn’t conducted a blight-born interview unarmed since the day he’d started harboring them. Most of the time, Orion had been there too—made into a weapon himself. But if Orion wasn’t there… Well, the blade at least gave him a tangible sense of defense.

Belt secured, sword in place, he made his way back downstairs. He slowed as he reached the bottom, careful to keep his steps light.

At the threshold again, he stopped for a second time.

Amaya hadn’t moved.

He leaned into the frame, one shoulder braced against the wood, arms crossed. And for a while, he just stood there—watching her, letting the fire fill the silence.

There was no need to wake her. The guards would need time to deliver the summons to every new blight-born they could find and ready their horses. She could sleep. They had time.

Flynn’s eyes lingered on her face, tracing the soft curve of her lips.

That quiet, stubborn ache in his chest burrowed deeper the longer he looked. Louder. Wilder. Pulling at him like a restless tide, begging him to go to her.

He wanted to. He wanted to slip off her shoes, shed his own. Slide behind her and wrap an arm around her waist. Let her lean into him. Let sleep take them both.

But the thought stopped him cold.

That was what he wanted.
And he’d wanted—and received—enough for a lifetime, hadn’t he?

So instead, Flynn let his head fall gently against the frame. His eyes slid shut as he drew in a slow breath, steadying himself against the ache twisting jaggedly around his heart.

He’d wait like this, quiet and still, and let her rest.

He could give her that. She deserved that much, at least.

It was several minutes that – of soft breathing, and only the crackle of fire crossing the distance between them. Of Amaya, peaceful but alone. Of Flynn, standing quiet sentinel in the doorway.

The fire snapped loudly, a crack of sound that commanded the room.

Amaya’s eyes shot open, muscles tensing as adrenaline shot through her veins like foreign blood. Her gaze darted around the room as she searched for a threat and fought through the fog to reorient herself. Home. The couch. The fire.

Flynn.

His eyes were open too. He’d straightened where he’d slouched against the doorframe, watching quietly as she gathered herself.

Amaya closed her eyes again, trying to steady herself as fear slowly ebbed away and embarrassment took its place. Her heart still pounded in her chest, and her breath was still too quick, but she could slow them. She just… she needed time.

When her eyes opened again, they found him first – too far away. Too close to hide from.

Her fingers curled, testing the stiffness of her muscles. She pulled her gaze away from him to take in the ceiling and walls, as had become routine whenever she woke up now.

“How long was I asleep for?” she finally asked when she looked to him again. She glanced over him – at the sword on his hip. He hadn’t worn it this morning. Something new and unpleasant swirled in her mind – the thought that perhaps he’d gone without her, after all.

“Not long. Maybe…” Flynn glanced toward the window, trying to count the minutes he’d also lost in the depths of his own mind. “Fifteen minutes, or so.”

She let out a small breath, some of the tension leaving her. Looking back at the fire and its lively embers, Amaya spent another moment trying to calm her body – to remind herself that danger lurked, yes, but not here.

Not right now.

She glanced back at Flynn, tall, and commanding, and distant. The silence stretched to fill the space between them. Amaya was still curled on the couch like a child.

It took another moment to convince herself to move. Looking down, Amaya slowly righted herself on the couch, slipping the blanket off of her shoulders and beginning to fold it, if only for something to do – some tangible way to put herself together. The loss of the blanket meant the warmth left her body a little quicker, but Amaya wasn’t frozen anymore, at least. The fire and fabric had done their job and returned her to a more tolerable, familiar cold.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she worked, eyes trained on the fabric – how ridiculous that now was when those words finally managed to dislodge from her throat. “If you were waiting for me.” Far away. Across the room. Out of reach.

Flynn’s brows pulled together, a flicker of confusion in his expression. “There’s nothing to apologize for,” he said, eyes settling on her again. “We have some time. I thought I’d let you rest while you could, is all.”

After a brief pause, he finally willed his feet to move and pushed off the doorway to cross the distance between them. “Besides, you looked beautifully peaceful there—again.” The faintest smile touched his lips, recalling the way she’d looked tucked against his chest. Her hands stilled for just a moment, the corner of the blanket slipping out of her fingers as she tried to align it with its partner. Her cheeks darkened the slightest bit as she kept her eyes focused on the blanket and continued folding. All the while, he commanded her attention as he grew ever closer. “Far be it from me to take that from you.”

As he reached her side, Flynn extended a hand to help her up. "The guards should have the horses out front any minute. Figured we’ve walked across town enough for one day."

Amaya finally looked up at him, and the gentle expression on his face. He’d done most of the work – moved to her, reached for her. All she had to do was cross the little distance that was left. Hardly anything, really. The fire cast half his face in a warm glow, turned towards her as he was. Amaya glanced at the fireplace, the embers still dancing merrily as they bathed her in their light.

Blanket folded, Amaya draped it back over the edge of the couch – like she’d never disturbed it at all. Her fingers drifted over the fabric, hesitating a moment. Then she slipped her hand in Flynn’s and felt the warmth of him, his calluses, the familiar grip, as he helped her to her feet.

Standing together, the space between their bodies suddenly felt too narrow. His scent and warmth washed over her as she tilted her head to look up at him. He was close in a way that brought heat to the surface of her skin instead of ice, her pulse quickening with something that wasn’t quite fear. They’d been touching in some form or another for most of the morning, but somehow, standing together alone in this room, his hand curled around hers, patient and careful as he waited for her…

She was learning to recognize this feeling, she realized. She’d felt it this morning, when she’d woken to find him sitting over her. Last night, as he’d offered her more than she’d ever dreamed and she’d pushed herself towards him like the tide. Yesterday, when he’d called her his, just before he’d kissed her for the first time. She knew how to put a stop to the feeling that danced through her – how to create the safety of distance again.

Amaya didn’t pull her hand away.

“Perhaps the next town you build could be smaller,” she said, trying to distract herself – distract him, before he could look too closely at her and measure the effect he had. Amaya was quite pleased that her voice was steady, even if it was soft as the crackling fire.

Part of her, the part that wasn’t focused on the feel of his hand or the green of his eyes, tried to think when the last time she’d ridden a horse was. Hopefully muscle memory would kick in.

“Or have smoother roads.”

Flynn’s smile grew at her suggestions, a quiet breath of laughter escaping as he held her hand. The small space between them felt too charged. That familiar ache stirred again, taut inside his chest. The urge to pull her into him, to silence her with his mouth on hers, burned hot beneath his skin.

“Oh? Not to your liking, Princess?” he asked instead, lifting a brow as he looked down at her, eyes gleaming. His full attention had narrowed to her—the rest of the world falling away. Her chin raised slightly, proud and proper as she held his gaze. All the while she felt the weight of his keen focus, holding her in place and singing through her nerves.

“My deepest apologies.” He stepped back just enough to give her space, though he didn’t let go of her hand. With theatrical flair, he dipped into a low, overly formal and exaggerated bow. There was a soft, startled huff, almost a laugh, as she raised her free hand to hide her smile with her knuckles. But there was an amused glint in her eye, her eyebrow lifting – a dark tinge to her cheeks.

“Perhaps next time I’ll carry you.” He teased as he rose to his full height again. “Spare you the rough roads I’ve so carelessly built.” He stayed close enough to feel her warmth, but didn’t quite close the distance. “Just say the word.”

Something sparked in her at his words – another offer, as he watched and waited for her. The distance between them was a tangible thing, more intolerable with each passing breath.

“A horse will do for now, thank you,” she said primly as her hand lowered. She’d schooled her expression quickly, though that look in her eye remained. “Clearly we cause enough of a scene as it is.” But her voice was soft and light, despite the memory of the Moon Temple it conjured. It would’ve surprised Amaya, if she weren’t so distracted by that word – we.

Her heart fluttered in her chest as she felt that pull, that tension, the flurry of nerves under her skin that demanded action, a storm waiting to be unleashed. Looking up at Flynn, his eyes dark and deep as he looked back, she thought that perhaps this storm… it wouldn’t be awful to let this one swallow her whole.

Her lips parted slightly but she didn’t have anything to say. All the words had been chased from her mind. He was so close – she’d barely have to move at all. And he was warm. Warmer than any blanket. Even without him wrapped around her, Amaya could feel it, pulling her in.

Distance was an illusion. He already had her.

“You’re far too tall.” It was a thoughtless, whispered observation as she looked up at him, gaze flickering over his face – his eyes – his lips. Her hand slid more securely around his, tying her to him, as she found herself pulled by his gravity.

Flynn huffed a soft laugh, his eyes drifting inevitably to her lips.

He was too tall. And she was too short for him to move without thought. Reaching her would take deliberate intention, and he’d have to push past the hesitation he was barely holding at bay.

Bit by bit, the desperate grip he’d held on restraint slipped as she remained in place. He’d expected her to retreat by now. To meet him with cold dismissal and place distance between them. Not this… playful banter. Soft and close, light and warm.

She was far too near. And still too far away.

Despite everything he’d told himself, his own selfish, traitorous heart only wanted.
And wanted.
And wanted.

“I could kneel, if it’d help.” he smirked, his voice low, the look in his eyes anything but casual. Amaya’s gaze sharpened as he teased her, something bright and challenging rising to meet him. He didn’t move, but the urge to close the final inches between them clawed just beneath the surface.

He kept his hand in hers like a tether, an anchor to stop himself from reaching. Lest his hands go searching in all the places he wanted. Lest they find the curve of her waist, lift her against him, feel her legs wrap around his hips and bring her mouth to his instead.

“You could —”

A loud knock at the door cut her off.

Amaya startled, the world snapping back into place as she stepped back with wide eyes, her cheeks warm and her breath quick. Flynn’s eyes closed for a brief second, a flicker of frustration tightening his features, as if the world had just torn something precious from his hands. His jaw flexed with the effort not to curse.

“Your Highness,” called a guard, muffled from behind their front door, “the horses are ready.”

When Flynn opened his eyes again, they found hers immediately. He didn’t glance toward the door. The rest of the world could wait. His attention was wholly hers—not quite willing to let the moment die just yet.

She’d stepped back, but it didn’t matter. Her hand was still in his, and the heated tension of the thread that bound him to her hadn't gone anywhere.

Before she could find the clarity to create more distance, he drew her back to him. His free hand slid around her waist, guiding her in until her body rested lightly against his. She was quiet, but for the soft gasp that escaped her – still, except how he moved her. He leaned in until his lips hovered just above hers—close enough to kiss her. But he stopped short. Didn’t move. Holding fast to the last shred of restraint he had left. Her breath drifted over his skin, faint and warm.

“I could do a lot of things,” he said, voice low and rough, like they still had all the time in the world. Her eyes fluttered closed, the shallow rise and fall of her chest stuttering out of tempo. He let the words hang between them for a beat, his mouth hovered above hers as he weighed whether or not he should close the distance. It felt almost painful not to.

But somewhere in the haze of his mind, he reminded himself of all his endless wants.

He could feel something between them, could see it in the way she’d looked at him. But how much of it was his own delusion, built solely from his own desires. And were they too loud to truly feel hers?

A faint, rueful smile pulled at his lips as he murmured, “But hold that thought. I want to hear your ideas, too.”

Slowly, he eased back just enough to meet her gaze more clearly. “We should probably go.”

It was like he’d taken all the air in her lungs with him. Blinking rapidly, Amaya tried to reorient herself in the world – the one not made up entirely of Flynn, his voice threading through her, his touch and scent surrounding her, his lips close enough that Amaya could feel the memory of them against her own, her hands, her neck –

And in memories not yet made, Amaya could feel those lips on all the places they hadn’t been.

The air was cold around her. She was too warm.

Wide eyed and breathless (despite the fact that, frustratingly – thankfully? – nothing had happened) Amaya refocused on Flynn. Her hand, the one not wrapped up in his, had found the side of his shoulder at some point to keep herself steady. His arm looped around her waist to keep her close – but he held her so lightly. He was solid against her back, encircling her, but his grip was gentle and undemanding. Amaya could’ve stepped away from him.

Except she couldn’t.

His eyes were dark and fathomless as they looked down at her, keeping her in place more surely than any touch. There was hunger there as he took in the sight of her, too unguarded – and smugness. Amaya tried to remember why that mattered. She tried to grasp at anything at all, to anchor her scattered, frantic, dizzy mind. But there was only Flynn.

“When we return,” she breathed out, almost to herself. She tried to swallow before continuing, soft and unsteady, “Perhaps I’ll have better ideas.”

Because it seemed like right now, wrapped up in him, she only had bad ones.

Flynn smirked, his gaze still locked on hers. “One can only hope,” he murmured, voice dipped low, purring with quiet confidence.

For a moment, he entertained the thought of not leaving. His fingers shifted along her waist, slipping lower, a promise forming in his posture as he—

Another knock.
A muffled, hesitant voice through the door. “Sire?”

Flynn’s hand stilled as he finally peeled his gaze away from her, up toward the ceiling. The world came back too fast. His endless, relentless list of obligations. Duty snapped back into focus.

Reluctantly, he stepped back, the hand at her waist falling away. But the one laced in hers remained. He didn’t speak. Just gave her one last look—a glance that held everything he was choosing not to act on. Her eyes were wide and bright, and just as charged.

The chill in the air met him like a wall, biting against the place she’d been pressed to him. An empty space now, already missed, but he quietly guided them toward the front door regardless.

As they neared, it opened before they could reach it. The guard froze in the doorframe, blinking in surprise. “Oh—” he faltered, brown eyes bouncing between the Prince and Princess. “Apologies. I wasn’t sure you’d heard me.” He dipped his head, then stepped aside to hold the door open. “The horses are ready for you.”

“Thank you,” Flynn said simply, giving him a small nod.

[c3p-0h]

Collab between @The Muse and @c3p-0h
_{Location: The Royal Residence — The Jail}

Part IX

---

Outside, the frost-bitten air greeted them—making her absence against him all the more prominent.

Waiting just ahead was Flynn’s familiar mount: a towering black Friesian, dark as the night itself, pawing restlessly at the snow-dusted ground. He stepped toward Amaya’s steed first, his eyes sweeping over the smaller grey mare, with a coat so fine it was almost silver.

Beside it, Flynn looked to Amaya, ready to help lift her. “Ready?” He asked, his expression softer now as he tried to ground himself back into a reality that didn’t revolve entirely around her.

Despite the way she was still trying to pull herself together, Amaya masked her hesitation well. Even still, it was visible in the way she moved slowly after him, stepping into place as her eyes swept over the animal. Her gaze paused on the side saddle and she tightened her grip on his hand.

“Is it too late for you to carry me?” Flynn smirked. It was the closest she’d ever come to muttering at him. Still, Amaya took in a deep breath and met his gaze, resignation in her posture.

With the help of Flynn’s steady hands (distracting as they were along her waist), Amaya mounted the horse with as much dignity as possible. She was pleased to at least remember enough of her training to not make an embarrassment of herself. Back straight, chin high, one hand on the reins, Amaya set about fixing the way the skirt of her dress draped – and made the mistake of looking down, and seeing how very far away the ground was. She froze in place, trying to collect herself, before shooting Flynn a look. How disorienting, that his face was tilted up to her.

She rather hated being tall.

Flynn met her gaze, a closed-lipped smile still resting on his mouth, quiet amusement glimmering in his eyes. For a heartbeat, he could’ve sworn he’d seen a flash of fear behind those shimmering eyes of hers. But she’d poised herself with elegant bravery despite it. Snow fluttered its way back to her again, but no longer spiraled in unnatural patterns. She might’ve been afraid atop the horse, but it seemed the storm within her had settled.

His, on the other hand, had not.

It still burned behind his ribs as he looked up at her, nearly dazed—until the rustle of armor behind him pulled him back. The guards were mounting up too.

Forcing his attention away, Flynn stepped back and returned to his own horse—Sable. A magnificent creature who’d been his companion for over a decade now. A proud, stubborn beast that had taken great pains to train, but Flynn had loved him for every bit of it.

In one fluid motion, Flynn hauled himself into the saddle and gave the horse a sturdy pat along his neck in greeting. Sable’s ears flicked back at the touch. Hooves shifted beneath as Sable blew out a long, impatient huff of warm air, breath clouding in the cold as he awaited his cue.

Without a word, Flynn turned his horse with barely a twitch of the reins. Sable shifted forward, moving beneath Flynn like they shared thought. A gentle nudge of the stirrups, and they trotted east—back the way they’d come earlier that morning, before they had taken an ill-fated stop at the Seluna temple.

His expression shifted the further they rode, smoothing into something more composed. Control layered over him like armor. The playful hunger from moments before had melted away entirely, left behind in the warmth of their living room.

Or so he told himself.

He forced his mind to the task ahead as they headed into the center of town.

The puppeteer. The strange, blue-eyed man with an unsettling gaze and the odd performance that had lingered with Flynn longer than he cared to admit. An apparently careless man who’d spoken of treason within earshot of a Champion—but had also helped Amaya before she’d been attacked.

He should've remained focused. He wanted to. But despite his best efforts, his gaze drifted sideways.

Amaya rode beside him, her back straight, her own expression composed—though she seemed entirely too focused on the road ahead to notice his periodic glances.

Flynn’s mind betrayed him anyway. Memories surfaced. Her lips parted, breathing uneven. Those pale eyes that had looked up at him like she’d—

He tore his gaze away, jaw tightening.

The puppeteer. Focus on the treasonous puppeteer.

But the image of her, wrapped up in him, was harder to outride than he’d expected.

Eventually, they slowed near the jail and came to a halt at the front doors. A guard stood waiting, straightening as they approached. He stepped forward to steady Sable while Flynn swung down into the dirt and snow.

Flynn quickly handed over the reins—barely noticing the guard’s wide-eyed stare at Sable’s towering frame. His attention was already elsewhere. He crossed to Amaya’s mare and looked up, offering a hand to help her down.

Amaya sat atop her horse, the picture of silent, regal dignity — and hesitated. She glanced at Flynn’s hand. Then down at the muddy, cobblestoned —

No.

Her eyes snapped shut against the sudden rush of vertigo that had her stomach doing flips. She forced in a slow breath.

There was usually a step stool for her.

When her eyes opened again they found Flynn immediately. Another emotion surged through her veins at the amused, patient look he gave her as he waited: irritation.

Letting out a proud little huff of her own, Amaya handed the reins to the waiting guard on her opposite side and set about the work of maneuvering her dress around the saddle with smooth motions. And if her cheeks were a little dark, if she spent a little longer than necessary handling the fine fabric, positioning herself for a dismount, keeping herself from thinking about the impending drop —

She met Flynn’s gaze coolly and dared him to comment on it.

That dancing spark in his eyes only seemed to grow brighter, and Amaya had the very reckless impulse to wipe it away somehow. Several options flashed through her mind. Suddenly her heart tripped over itself for an entirely new reason, all her proud defiance draining out of her.

Flynn’s eyebrow quirked up as he waited, that smile back on his face. That flash in his eyes.

His fingers curled at her in a quick, playful beckoning.

Amaya grabbed onto the first flicker of nerve she could find, slipped her hand into his, and pushed herself off of the horse.

Air rushed around her weightless body, her stomach looping as she fell, gasping —

Into Flynn, a guiding hand at her waist as she landed on the path before him.

Her eyes fluttered open to stare at the embroidery decorating the front of his coat, polished buttons gleaming against the night. Her hands were tight around him, one wrapped around his, the other on his shoulder — once again properly above her eyeline. Shoulders still tense, Amaya blinked up to Flynn.

For a moment, neither of them moved. His eyes flicked down to make sure she was steady, then rose to meet hers again.

Immediately intoxicated.

He should’ve let her go. Turned away and moved on. Said something neutral—or nothing at all.

But his hand stayed firm at her waist, the other still curled around hers. That mischievous flicker in his eyes lingered, despite himself.

“That wasn’t your first time on a horse, was it?” he asked, his voice low, laced with a quiet humor meant only for her to hear.

Self consciousness made Amaya want to curl in on herself. But his voice, that tone — she could feel it pulling her towards him again. Amaya could almost hear how it would grow rough against her skin if she closed the distance, low and full of promise as he breathed it into her —

“Was my interrogation also scheduled for today?” she snapped back, her hands pulling away. But even as she tried to wrap her own sharpness around herself like armor, it didn’t quite fit the way it was meant to. The edges were dulled by the way her cheeks warmed, eyes glancing over him like she wasn’t quite sure where she wanted to look — the way she kept herself close, voice soft. The illusion of privacy, suddenly precious, couldn’t be broken if she stayed hidden here, with only his eyes on her.

But she felt the gazes of strangers against her — weightless and chilling, like the inescapable Lunarian snow. She watched the snowflakes fluttering around them, white and sparkling as they dotted Flynn’s outline. Amaya could count each one, she thought, call a storm down around them, and Flynn would accept them all as simply another burden to carry.

Her gaze softened as she looked up at him, seeing him as he’d been last night — exhausted.

“What should I expect?” she murmured up to him.

She’d been too nervous to ask this morning, afraid of what he might say. If he’d hand her the damning knowledge of another death, if he’d deride her for daring to ask, if she’d reveal the depths of her ignorance to him and how very unprepared she was for all of this —

And what had that gotten her?

Another death had still been laid at her feet. Others had still dismissed her out of hand. She’d been unprepared and blind.

If Amaya was to be of any help at all… if she wanted to keep Flynn from burying himself in everything he thought he needed to carry, then she needed to be better prepared.

Flynn exhaled softly and let his hand fall away from her waist. The weight of the world pressed down in the absence of her touch. But even then, something in him stayed warm. An ember, buried beneath it all, still stirred in her presence, eager for her to bring it to life again. The burdens never fully vanished, but with her beside him, they felt a little easier to carry.

His mind returned to what awaited them in the half-finished stone building ahead. He quickly sifted through every interaction he’d had with the man—all of them unnerving, each in different ways.

“Well,” Flynn took a step back, angling himself toward the prison, eyes scanning the unfinished frame thoughtfully. “When I saw him yesterday in the tavern, he called himself Halcyon.”

Flynn’s brows furrowed. The man had said a lot more than that. In many, many words. “He—” Green eyes flicked to Amaya. Memories flickered behind his eyes as he recalled the performance Halcyon had put on. Memories of Nyla and her wide eyes, nearly teal, as she stared at him from across the room. Guilt crept in, sharp and painful along his heart.

“He put on a… play, of sorts. Dragged me into it.” Flynn’s gaze drifted back to the jail, unfocused, landing somewhere near a stack of timber. “And Nyla too.” His lips pressed into a thin line at the admission. The name sent a painful shock of ice through Amaya that she wasn’t prepared for. “I don’t think he knew who she was—how could he?” He wondered aloud, not daring to look at Amaya just yet.

“He had her play a ‘Princess’ role, while I played a Prince in his story. But the way he acted…” Those ghostly eyes returned to memory, accompanied by that insufferable little grin on his infuriating face—like he held all the cards that Flynn had been searching for all along. “It felt like he was making insinuations about my family—my father specifically—but he used different names. He called me… Red Star, or something.” Flynn shook his head, dismissing the thought. “I don’t know… I think he may just be a lunatic.” He shrugged, finally turning his gaze back to Amaya.

“But he was also the first to warn me something was wrong. With you.” The painful memory came rushing back to the surface. The piercing dread he’d felt at Halcyon’s tone, stripped of humor. Not a single trace of that theatrical arrogance on his face. Flynn hadn’t wanted to believe him then, but he’d felt the truth of the words as they were uttered regardless.

Amaya was silent, eyes trained on the jail as she tried to move past the frigid memory of that name and its unexpected hold on her. It was the first time she’d even thought of it since last night — and the woman it belonged to. Flynn had told Amaya that he’d seen her yesterday. The image had been nebulous and indistinct in her mind at the time, but now she imagined it… Flynn standing across from someone else, a more suitable Princess. She fought to fold it away, letting out a slow, wisping breath.

Briefly, she remembered the odd, disorienting man that now awaited them inside the jail. Amaya knew she owed him a debt — not just for helping to break her attacker’s hold over her, but apparently for alerting Flynn, too. But Amaya thought of how he’d approached her yesterday at the feast, asking about her mother — if Amaya had inherited not just her eyes, but her heart as well.

She suddenly wanted to leave him to rot.

“And our purpose here?” The words were flat, but clear as they slipped out into the air. She still wasn’t looking at Flynn.

Flynn hesitated, watching her profile for a moment. “We’re here to hear him out,” he said, his gaze drifting back to the jail. “And… decide his fate.” Finally, her eyes found his again.

The words sat heavy on his shoulders. He’d played a part in sentencing before, back in Aurelia—surrounded by councils and protocols, decisions diluted across many hands. But this was different.

This time, the weight didn’t fall on a council. Or his father. It fell to him.
And he hadn’t expected to have to make the choice so soon.

Flynn exhaled quietly, tense beneath his coat. “He seems to be an ally of yours, but… an enemy of mine—or my family, at least.”

Amaya watched Flynn brace himself against the press of his own authority, the solidity of his shoulders, the weight of his voice… the shadows in his eyes.

Decide his fate.

This wasn’t managing bickering old men or finding an excuse to leave an uncomfortable situation — this was a life. Flynn’s voice made Amaya too real, too solid in her body. Too visible. Too consequential. The gravity of it suddenly crushed against her, making every move a risk.

Two were dead because of her. Surely Flynn didn’t expect her to —

But even as frenzied doubts swarmed inside Amaya, she knew the answer. Even if she didn’t believe it yet.

She hesitated. Then somehow she managed to take a step closer to him again, her hand finding his.

“And what am I?”

Who was this prisoner to her, if he was an enemy of Flynn’s?

Flynn’s gaze dropped to the hand she’d slid into his, then lifted to her eyes. He studied the quiet in her expression, wondering what thoughts lay hidden that she still refused to voice.

“My wife,” he said at last, steady and confident. A faint, almost hesitant smile touched his lips. “An ally or an enemy… I guess you’ll have to let me know which you decide.”

Amaya was struck with a sadness that sank deep into her core, even as the corner of her lips twitched up in a small, answering smile. Centuries of bloody history sat between their palms, loosely held together. Amaya heard all the words she still couldn’t bring herself to share with him, felt the distance that held her apart, even now — saw the shadows he cast on the ground beneath them, shifting in the torchlight.

But his hand was still warm against hers.

“Let’s see how the rest of the day goes.” The words were light and soft, but too achingly real.

Amaya finally turned her attention outward, to the guards around them — the man hidden away in the jail. And she was a Princess once more, serene and untouchable.

She’d spent too long standing in the dark, searching for words she couldn’t give him — hiding beneath him with only his eyes on her. Her walls felt too thin and fragile, nearly translucent beneath the light he cast.

Flynn’s gaze lingered, thoughtfully drinking in all the delicate features of her face. There were moments, like this one, where he felt the ground shift beneath his feet.

What would he do, truly, if she turned from him? If she named herself an enemy the next time his lips hovered above hers?

He already knew the answer. The thought hollowed something inside him.

His gaze remained steady and soft, watching her as if he were trying to memorize a star before the dawn tore it away.

She had already undone him in ways no blade ever could. He’d been altered by her, and there would be no return from it. No reclaiming the man he’d been before her, nor the world he once knew.

She’d taken pieces of him and shifted them, quietly, until he no longer knew where the old edges fit.

And Goddess help him—he didn’t want to.

Perhaps that was the cruelest truth of all. That the most powerful weapon Lunaris had ever forged… was the one he had come to—

His heart stuttered, fingers wrapping more securely around hers.

She didn’t tighten her grip around Flynn’s hand, but neither did she pull away. Instead, Amaya stepped towards the jail, loosely tugging him forward until he stepped into place beside her. When his eyes left her again to instead focus on the jail ahead of them — on the next task in his endless list of priorities — Amaya felt her walls finally solidify, shielding her at last from view.

As they moved, Flynn’s expression shifted, slipping back into something measured—more Princely.

The heavy jail door creaked open as a guard pulled it for them. Flynn gave a silent nod of thanks before stepping inside, tailed by two of the Aurelian guards who had shadowed them throughout the day.

His gaze flicked to the intricate lavender runes etched along the walls, faintly glowing. The anti-magic field tugged at him the moment they crossed the invisible threshold. Swiftly, it siphoned until he could no longer feel a trace of magic, leaving his limbs heavy in its absence.

His pace slowed as he glanced at Amaya, giving them both a moment to adjust—watching to see how the same unnatural silence pressed against her.

Her expression was calm, but her focus turned inward, the slight hitch in her breath betraying her. In place of her vast, wild magic, normally so restless and alive, always commanding what attention she could afford to spare, there was… nothing. The sudden lack nearly set Amaya off balance. She was still breathing, but it was like all the air in her lungs had been stolen — like some fundamental piece of her was gone, but there was no wound to prove that it’d been a part of her to begin with.

Amaya’s heartbeat quickened — and there was no stir of frost beneath her skin. She tried to poke and prod at the space her magic had once filled, not knowing what to do with the emptiness, and how there was no answering force to press back against her.

Dim torchlight spilled across the stone corridor, casting long, flickering shadows. Every step echoed off the walls, their presence announced long before they reached the cell.

Up ahead, a figure came into view, a guard stationed near a cell—her posture relaxed, leaning against the far wall, gaze fixed on the prisoner within. The glint of Lunarian armor brought Amaya back to the surface.

Flynn recognized her immediately. The young guard he’d tasked with protecting the Seluna Priestess the day before—and she had followed through, without hesitation.

He gave her a nod of acknowledgement and respect as they approached. “Afternoon,” he greeted her. “Glad to see you’re doing well.”

As they came to a stop beside her, Flynn’s hand curled a touch tighter around Amaya’s—not from nerves, but instinct. Protection.

Inside the cell, the man was already watching them.

Seated casually on the edge of the cot, bare chested and calm, Halcyon smiled.

---

_{Interactions: Daphne @PrinceAlexus, Gadez @Dezuel}

[SpicyMeatball]

---

---

---

* * *

_{Interacting with: @Dezuel}

Aldrick gritted his teeth, golden eyes narrowing towards the pirate. He felt the way the man’s armed slithered down his back with the grace of a proper charlatan, knowing well that the man had likely spotted the bump in his pants pocket. It was a game the bard had played many times before, a rather common occurrence in the taverns of the Lunarian capitol.

He let the silence hang between them a moment before reaching into his pocket, retrieving a few coins before shoving them into one of Claret’s hands. “Let me save y’ the trouble,” he spoke in a tone of venom, one that was very unfamiliar to him yet flowed as smooth as wine. For a moment, Aldrick debated letting the issue lie. He’d let many men go without consequence for greater offenses than attempted theft.

But Claret seemed more than a common thief. He was a man with experience, but a man who carried himself with a particularly annoying air of importance.

A man who needed to be taught that not everyone would be an easy target.

In a second, the bard shot up from his chair and closed the little distance that remained between them, his dominant hand planting flat against the pirate’s chest. With a smooth but intentional movement, he shoved the pirate back against the wall and held him there. His glare towards the pirate never faltered, even as his chair clattered behind him.

Aldrick’s normally warm and welcoming demeanor now mimicked the devil of his outward appearance, golden eyes now fiery though his voice was ice. “It seems we’ve a misunderstandin’ here.” Aldrick was close enough to feel the warmth of Claret’s breath on his face, his head tilting slightly up to meet the pirate’s gaze, “Despite what you might be believin’, the favoured bard y’ find standin’ before ya is also a guest of this here establishment.”

“And I’m not terribly fond of bein’ woken from my sleep, handled like ‘n animal, and havin’ my coin taken from me.”

Aldrick lowered his hand from the man’s chest, taking a step back. He sent Claret a poisonous smile before nodding his head ever so slightly.

“Now be a good lad, and fetch us some drink.”

[Dezuel]

The blonde man rose from his seat, his hair falling momentarily over his eyes. He stretched his arms slightly, displaying the tattoo on his back momentarily towards those by the cell door. Then he looked over his shoulder towards them, gradually turning to fully face them, approaching by a few steps.

"You'd come. I knew you would. Red Star. You are bold. It runs deep in the royal blood." Gadez said in a soft tone of voice, his ghostly blue eyes setting on Flynn's and then gave his usual butlerlike bow to Flynn and Amaya.

"It is also good to see that Princess Maize has indeed the heart of her mother. The same bravery and defiance. But you've ought to know that sometimes it is better to stand down. However it is most fortunate that you were able to survive the attack on your life. No doubt you have pondered on the 'if's an 'what's would have happened had you taken a different approach. Well... to put your mind at ease, regardless of what choices we'll make, we have to live with them. You can dream back to a time other than now, yet you cannot ever go back. And even if one could, what is to say the other options would have been better?

Here's my advice. Always heed what your heart tells you, regardless what anyone else says. That's how you'll go on without looking back with any regret." The man walked closer towards the bars separating them, his hand slowly tracing up his abs to his chest. For a moment he felt a rise in warmth, causing him to smile softly. Memories were sometimes indeed a cruel thing. He could not afford it right now. Thus the man returned to a more smug expression.

"Standing down is what has left me to find myself with the opportunity to speak with you without attracting too much attention nor ears. Even if my attempt to lure the wolf which set upon you princess, has not quite yet paid off. He'll come for me. Boys seeking to prove themselves as men always do. Curiously one particular guardsman by the name of Zephyros did not return with the parchment nor coal which I requested. A pity. As I could have by now been able to provide you with quite the ample phantom face to chase. Even if you have seen the man yourselves. The rest of this place may be unaware of what face the boy wears. Here's my suggestion regardless. Refer to him as a human. For are rumors to spread of a blightborn attacking humans, it shall become exceedingly more difficult for you to unify that which must be. Without a unified core. Without a strong base. Dawnhaven. This tower of hope. Shall crumble. We would all lose." He smiled softly as his gaze wandered from Flynn to Amaya, his hand by his waist, momentarily letting his tattooed back come into view again.

"Ah... but you did not come this way to merely listen, you came here bearing questions. Such as how did I find myself locked in here? With abit of luck and guile. That girl. The self-proclaimed champion of Aelios, she played her part well. Nothing perks curiousity as making an open door become tightly shut. And then a few chosen words... made quite the wonders. No doubt you have had moments such as these yourselves in your youths.

Exploring the castles and finding secrets you were never meant to find? Well... if you do have found things, perhaps it is because you were meant to. I was initially very doubtful of the goddesses myself, but after having experienced the things I have, even I, their greatest adversary has come to believe in their wretched existance. They are the reason why this world is never truly whole. Fractured. They've made the divide. Aurelia... Lunaris... I am certain once upon a time they were one, just like the goddesses were likely aswell. Nothing is ever created as a half. Makes one wonder where the glue that held it together went. And what became of it.

Perhaps exploring the very foundation which the twain kingdoms be built upon may yield such answers. But perhaps such knowledge is not meant for mortal minds..." He paused briefly, but only briefly.

"As for the matters at hand. Dawnhaven needs not a prince nor princess, it needs a king and queen. Not necessarily by title. But action. It's soldiers are right now only it's soldiers in name, their loyalties lie with the kings of the two kingdoms. Tradition dies hard. The olden guard are too set in their ways, they will not buckle easily. Even when pushed. Drastic change is required. Ideally a blightborn commander would be good. However with the already strained lack in trust, such ought to wait. Red Star. Maize. You need a proper sword and shield of your kingdom come. Appoint the Aurelian commander to the Lunaris guard, and the Lunaris commander to the Aurelian ones. They will have to earn each others respect in action...

...which has made me draw the conclusion that you need an overseer of this. A supreme commander if you so wish. Fortunately for you... I am quite free at the moment. Despite how deceiving the scenery may be. Unless you came here for a different reason, like executing me for... supposed treason? Well then thing is... I was never aligned with Aurelia. Nor Lunaris. My allegiance has always been towards Dawnhaven. Even before it even existed. These lands were once grounds I gazed upon from quite the elevated position. Therefor you bear not the right nor duty to pass that judgement upon me, Red Star. However I do believe you ought to use your command, a true leader leads by example...if you won't lead Dawnhaven, another will make an attempt to do it in your stead, depending on whom it may be it could lead to catastrophic results. No more hesitation. We cannot afford that." He tilted his head to the side and gave a smirk then looked to Amaya.

"Princess Amaya. Allow me to properly introduce myself. I am Halcyon. My my, you do resemble them both... your mother and your grandmother." Gadez nodded his head softly as he looked over her face.

"Pray tell, do you see any other resemblence here? You see... the Red Star, the man you know as Flynn... is my little brother." He said in a soft matter of fact tone of voice, looking at Amaya with a soft expression, then his head would eerily slowly turn towards Flynn, giving a slight upturn at the corner of his mouth.

@c3p-0h@The Muse

[PrinceAlexus]

Daphne

Jail

Cell block Blues

Daphne quiet shift as she mentally ran through the events of the last week and took change to pause as she was stuck on guard duty. Guard duty for a man who was pretty much in jail for having a big mouth and getting some Champion of the sun gods angry about it far as she had on the gossip line.

The curious inn keeper for one, she was strange, and yet people seemed to trust her, They let a blight born run the towns only Inn, and she seemed to do well. It went against every Lunaris she wad used to and yet here. It worked.

So, what else did they have to adapt to and Abaddon to the sake of survival and practical day to day operation?

Her musing was cut short as the Prince, Princess and guards came.. to the jail? Really she expected an advisor, not the Prince and especially Princess in a place like this. “Your majesties… Thankyou, we made it though safely, Priestess Kat..Katherine was a kind host for the night.” Her use of name slipped as she spoke respectfully but warmly and the younger guard, Squire and still in training stood more to attention.

“I'm afraid, we have little hospitality, stale crackers, a hard chair and water i can offer you.” She said as she picked up the keys as needed for the cells, well the one cell that was finished, the rest was…in Various stages of construction.

Then Gadez talked and she did her best to pay attention but not be overly eager, he Really liked the sound of his own voice and the ideas he had, though she had to admit some of them made sense. Some of them would have had merit if not come from a man in a Cell with a pile of stale crackers and a locked iron door. Did she really believe him, he was a raving mad man surely?

“M lord, milady, what…do you want me to do? I for one admit, my lord and lady are ones who know law from back to front, i am still learning. If even such a law works as it did under your unique situation.” She asked tentatively, execute him, let him go? Was he really going to let him get away with being one to tell him what to do, Red star, odd names, all this sounded half crazy to the younger Squire who was currently being put in charge of the jail and prisoners.

Daphne hoped she had not gone too far but she was trying to feel out the situation and the most appropriate answer within reason. Dawn Haven was not one or the other, it was a place that was a unique hybrid of the two and the laws did not always make sense. She waited, she did not leave though as despite she was still the one responsible for the jail, that did not change despite who was present.

She just waited to see what happened next.

@Dezuel@c3p-0h@The Muse

[Dark Light]

Aliseth

---

Outskirts of town

---

""

Aliseth was two steps away from vanishing from the towns lantern light, two steps away from becoming lost into the darkness of the forest, when a sudden call came out from behind him halting his steps.
"Royal guard Kain!"
Hurried footsteps crunched through the snow, gradually growing louder.
Aliseth paused, frozen at the lanterns edge. Half in shadow-half in light.

"Aliseth, finally." said a young man on laboured breaths, as he came running up and stopped. Folding over as he fought to catch his breath, creating small ghostly clouds with every warm exhale. He wore the leathers and fur of a messenger and had the tell-tale satchel of one strapped over his left shoulder.

"What is it?" Aliseth demanded, his curiosity quickly growing impatient.

"... Was told. Give this. To you."
The young man said, pulling out a sealed note from his satchel and handing it over. Only then finally finding his breath.

Aliseth took the note and stepped towards the nearest lantern where he inspect the seal under the dancing firelight. Once satisfied or convinced of it authenticity he quickly tore it open. As his eyes scan the parchment a serious frustration grew across the features of his face.
The messenger instinctively took a step away.

Aliseth's fierce eyes leapt from the note and fell upon the poor young man. His gaze held there for drawn out moment, then snapped away.

"Tell him it will be done." with that flat reply Aliseth politely handed the note back and started walking back the way he came, not offering the man a single coin for his hard work, no matter how good his theatrical display of effort was.
'choices' Aliseth thought to himself. 'What was it he had said about them only hours ago? why was he still letting others make them for him?'
Then he thought of Elara. 'Where was she now? What choices had she made?'

It was so far beneath his station that this letter was a deliberate insult. Guard duty. Him. A royal guard. At the prison of all places. He couldn't believe it.

[The Muse]

Collab between @The Muse and @c3p-0h
_{Location: The Jail}

Part X

---

Flynn’s jaw was tight, his green eyes darkened, locked onto the man behind bars. He didn’t blink as Halcyon spoke, not even as the man drifted from one subject to the next with maddening ease. Each word laced with the same smug undertone Flynn had come to loathe.

Despite it, he’d been relatively steady. Until he felt Amaya’s fingers stiffen in his. Her body went utterly still beside him, rigid at the mention of the attack. Of her mother and her grandmother. Flynn didn’t need to look to know. He felt the shift in her from his fingertips down to his core.

Part of him, the impulsive part, thought of leaving Halcyon to rot in this cell for the rest of eternity.

Instead, Flynn breathed slowly through his nose, grasping for whatever restraint he still had left. Reining the impulse back.

Halcyon reminded him too much of the men who sometimes slithered around his father’s court—clever-tongued, always smiling, talking people in circles. Their words honeyed but laced with venom. Whispering advice that sounded like wisdom, until you realized too late it only served their own serpentine ambitions. Halcyon had that same way about him, veiled beneath layers of riddles and smirking provocations.

And when the man gave that final smirk—when he turned to Amaya and dropped that last so-called truth—Flynn felt something snap.

A gentle voice drifted through the jail, heedless of the growing ozone in the air.

Amaya’s eyes flicked away from Halcyon for the first time as the guard shifted in her periphery.

The Lunarian sigil over her armor, the sheathed sword at her hip, seemed to grow larger the longer Amaya stared at them. She fought the urge to shift closer to Flynn as she looked the guard over – tall, unsure, deferential but unpolished. There was none of the hostility in her eyes that the other Lunarians had shown when they addressed Flynn – none of the dismissal that they’d shown when they addressed her.

Flynn barely heard the Lunarian guard’s voice as she tentatively asked for direction. Reluctantly, he pulled his gaze from Halcyon. “Nothing. For now,” he said, holding onto the edges of restraint. “Until we weigh the measure of his life.”

The words sank into Amaya like a stone, pulling her down. Flynn’s eyes found Halcyon again, narrowing.

“You are no brother of mine,” Flynn said, his voice cold as steel. “And do not speak of Amaya or her family again. You're here to speak to me.”

Restrained fury slipped through his words as he recalled the way Amaya had frozen solid in his hand, despite her lack of magic. How, even now, she still hadn’t moved.

Motionless beside him, expression blank, Amaya watched Halcyon with quick, sharp eyes as she held back every flinch and reaction. She fought against the urge to slip behind Flynn and shrink into his shadow, where this smiling man could no longer see her. The world was a dizzying, distracting mess – the torrent of Halcyon’s words and the confusion and fear and rage they elicited, the hollow emptiness where her magic should’ve been that she couldn’t help but reach for, Flynn... Amaya felt his anger, his coiled intensity slipping through their clasped hands like ice as it chilled her.

“The only thing I wonder about,” Flynn continued, “is if you knew about the attack, then why did you say nothing to the guards? Why, instead, did I find you loitering at the temple—only offering me a cryptic warning?”

He tilted his head slightly, gaze sharp and unwavering.

“Had I not gone to the temple—had you not seen me—would you have alerted anyone at all?”

His voice remained even, but there was no mistaking the anger burning beneath it. Amaya’s fingers tightened around his in warning, her eyes still focused on Halcyon – a provocateur trying to overwhelm and disorient. He was looking for a reaction she realized, throwing out as much as he could to see what would catch their attention first. Something coiled tightly around Amaya’s heart, the empty space in her core filling with a tingling, anxious warmth. Halcyon had found a wound to pick at: her.

“I asked for none of your advice, nor your opinions. This is not a council meeting. You’re under arrest for suspected treason.” Despite feeling Amaya’s warning, Flynn’s voice grew colder, his protective instincts for his family overpowering her reasoning. “What makes you think you’ve earned the right to offer counsel? What makes you think you're qualified to decide anything for this city?”

Flynn's eyes searched the Halcyon’s, utter distrust etched into his expression.

“You sit behind bars for threats against my father’s life, and still, you speak as though you’re owed trust.”

He drew in a breath and let it out slowly.

“Please enlighten me on why I should trust a single word from your mouth.”

---

_{Interactions: Gadez @Dezuel, Daphne @PrinceAlexus}

[Dezuel]

After having heard out all that Flynn had to say did he finally give in to his held back laugh, going as far as reaching his hand up to his face, taking a few moments to collect himself before approaching very closely to the bars.

"Hnn hnn! Ahaha hahahah… Ahh…" The blonde finally exhaled, assuming a more laid back expression on his face.

"Measure my life? How can you hope to even accomplish that, when you cannot even measure your own worth? Chasing the interpretation of a prophecy which demands your demise? Prophecies can be read in more ways than one. Did it ever cross your mind, that perhaps giving ones life… meant giving oneself to a cause or person. Such as dedication towards someone or a place. As for her family? Well… aren't you part of it now? Whereof you will accept my words as the truth or not. My loyalty towards Dawnhaven and the afflicted ones shall remain as firm as it has been." He blew some air through his mouth, walking over to pick up his shirt, putting it back on whilst momentarily having his back turned to him, displaying his tattoo in open view.

"I knew not of the attack when I spoke to you at the temple. Had she. Whom I am not permitted to speak of… by your majesty's decree. Not taken action to put faith in her own abilities, I would have dealt with that boy right then and there and possibly ended up in here either way. But I do not force others to cross the stream when things take a turn that I do not agree with. To violate the free will of others… is a severe wrongdoing. In this case your other half. But yes. I would have alerted the so called Champion of Aelios or one of the others had I not encountered you there, Red Star. But I did tell you." He took a moment to remove some strands of blonde hair from his face then continued.

"By the sounds of it, you seem to almost blame me for said attack happening. Hardly appropriate. I did not appoint those guards, neither did I command them. A leader is ultimately left responsible for the actions of his or her followers. Some might think it is the duty of a husband to protect his wife. However… that may not be fair considering your many… obligations. I may have said it in a cryptic manner, would you have prefered a barrage of words unleashed in panic? That wouldn't do well for your health, you do have quite the temper, prince. I can tell. Besides I wasn't loitering at the temple, I was visiting the woman I carried out of the blizzard with my own two hands. You may not ask for my advice nor opinions, yet seeing where things are going, how could I possibly not desire to aid the ones that are seemingly trying to aid Dawnhaven?

It is the place that will decide the fate of this world. In Aurelia right to counsel is earnt by whose best at licking the king's ear or has the most coin. A tyrant on his throne, surrounded by fawning merchants, prancing nobles and silver tongued leeches. I would not count myself amongst them. So perhaps your should ask yourself your own question. What qualifies a person to offer counsel? I think the answer is simple. Telling the truth. No matter how grim. At least that is how it should be..." He mused softly, adjusting the collar of his shirt.

"Trust is a curious thing. You can always however expect people to behave according to their true nature. Once you learnt what that is. Or you can tell yourself not to trust a single soul in this entire world, closing your heart to it completely. The former does seem abit less extreme doesn't it? For starters, why don't you try judge people by their actions like I have with you… gradually having more and more of the real you come out. If you intend to remain loyal to Dawnhaven and be it's leader, then I will follow you to the end, little brother. But if you side with Aurelia against Dawnhaven. Then you and I shall be mortal foes, and if this is, or has always been your intention. Then you've ought to spare us all the charade and go ahead and take me to the execution grounds." He gave a content soft smile, tilting his head to the side, his eyes turning into slits.

'The lynx in shadows holds a secret truth… buried in it's paw, lies power that you never saw. With a gem that glimmer brighter still, it guards this key with iron will… this token pure and grand, lies cradled in the beast's command...' The hymn resonated in his mind as he awaited Flynn and Amaya's next move.

[PrinceAlexus]

Daphne

Jail

Cell block Blues

Daphne nodded in the tense moment, she had a rather difficult position to be as a guard, she was technically in charge and the one running the jail but then Prince and Princess was there too.

She calmed her breathing literally feeling the tension going on in the jail and the showdown between what might be Royal brothers.. royal Brothers really? What did she do to keep being dropped into these situations? First a murder scene and now this?

“By your word. I have the keys if you require them.” She said quietly and waited for what to do next, this showdown was rather grand. Though Daphne felt…slow, the magic ..anti magic was stopping her accessing her speed, abilities and enhancing her combat skills. She still had the keys to the cells, well the one working key for now, right now the two men were separated by bars of iron and unable to so easily directly harm each other.

This was the other side of the murder, the part she had been in, then the victims and now she was part of a third? Really, how much did she have to be in the centre of this storm even if the night she shared with Katherine was well worth the trouble this had caused her to land in.

And Gadez began to talk, and talk … she had no idea exactly on everything he said but began to put it together and had to admit his comment about people who should not be advisors, had taken over the seats of power. The rich, the powerful, those with gold and favour. Lord Ayel would answer that accusation entirely.

Princess, Would you like a chair, this might be long, the runes…can be… unsettling if you're not used to them.” Daphne admitted it was uncomfortable with her and she doubted it was any less strange for the Princess And Prince, though he would never sit. A small kindness and gesture she hoped would least be one comfort in this cold place.

This was not her first time feeling the runes but they still felt strange every time, like the cut off part of her body… It was plain unnatural.

She really had very little to do right now so she could try to make this place a little more comfortable… for she guessed could be termed her guests.

How on earth could a single man cause this much trouble in a matter of days? She thought as she paused and rested a hand on her hip and took a drink from a canteen and nibbled at some dried version she had acquired at the Inn.

@Dezuel@c3p-0h@The Muse

[SpicyMeatball]

Collab between @The Muse and @SpicyMeatball
_{Location: Alchemy Chambers}

Part I

---

Cupping the warm mug in both hands, Eris held it close to her lips as she listened, letting Charlotte speak without interruption. Silently, she stared into the fire ahead of them, gently blowing across the surface of her tea, waiting for it to cool.

When she finally spoke, her voice was soft but certain. “I think we all need a little reminding sometimes,” she murmured, lowering her gaze to watch the way the tea leaves swirled at the bottom of her mug. Regretfully, even a Sage such as herself needed to be reminded that failure wasn’t final—so long as you chose to rise again.

When Charlotte offered her thanks, Eris smiled faintly and turned to meet the guard’s eyes, the firelight casting warm gold hues across her freckled face. Somewhere in a distant part of the house, a faint thud interrupted the stillness, but Eris dismissed it without even a glance in the sound's direction. She had heard the tower groan against the wind before, the pines outside brushing against stone walls, or occasional thuds from the Sages shifting things around downstairs.

Whatever the sound was, she thought little of it.

“You’ve helped me too,” Eris said, her gaze lingering on her new companion a little longer than intended. The amber light caught and reflected off the steel-blue of Charlotte’s eyes, and something about it—steady and unpretentious—was hard to look away from.

Forcing her attention back to the hearth, Eris sipped her tea, content to let the silence settle between them. No longer heavy, but comfortable. Different.

Slowly, her mind drifted to Nathaniel, and the time she had shared the same tea with him a week prior. And how, with him—and other nobles like him—silence was something to navigate and fill correctly. The pressures of societal expectations hung like a sword over her head, invisible, but tangible between every word and glance.

Around them, Eris had always felt the need to perform, to act precisely and fit the role expected of her. And now, so far from the Aurelian capital, even Nathaniel’s kind and helpful gestures felt intrusive, pressing too closely against the solitude she had fought to claim for herself. To her, the silence between them had felt strained as she searched for the right words to say.

But with Charlotte, there was none of that weight. No expectation lingered in her eyes. No unspoken test to pass. Charlotte wasn’t a noble from the Aurelian capital—she didn’t carry the same invisible sword.

Around her, the air felt lighter, like Eris could smile without worrying that she might be judged for smiling too widely or laughing too loudly. She could joke without fear of her words being picked apart.

Despite not knowing Charlotte for more than a day, something about her already felt safer.

In a way, it reminded her of the comfort she had oddly found in Sya.

Sya.

Her heart clenched as the name resurfaced a sharp memory—Sya’s… double transformation?
Eris’ thoughts flickered back to the letter the innkeeper had sent, and she took another slow sip of tea, quietly steeling herself for what she knew she had to do today.

“I should get dressed,” she whispered, softer than she’d meant to. She glanced at Charlotte with a small, sheepish smile. “Might I make one last request of you, Miss Hawthorne?”

Charlotte sent the sage a warm smile after lowering the cup of tea from her lips, nodding her head in reply.

Gathering herself, Eris rose to her feet and smoothed down the folds of her nightgown with one hand, the other still cradling her mug. “Would you mind escorting me to the tavern?” she asked, her smile growing a little. “I’ll be just a moment. I can be quick. Promise!”

Taking a step back, Eris turned toward the hallway. She had barely moved when a flicker of motion caught her eye. She hesitated, staring down the long, dark corridor that led to her bedroom. The door was wide open, and through the gap, she could just make out the window beyond—

A soft gasp escaped her lips as a large shadow moved in front of the window, barely outlined by the pale glow of firelight that came from the living room. Her fingers tightened around the mug as she stood frozen and wide-eyed.

For a heartbeat, she tried to rationalize it away. Pine branches brushing against the glass. No—she had drawn her curtains shut, hadn’t she? Then perhaps it was a trick of her tired mind. A side effect of her depleted well of magic that distorted her vision. Or, perhaps, isolating herself in this building had finally made her start imagining ghosts in the darkest corners of the room.

But—
The figure suddenly bolted into her study.

A frightened squeak escaped her as scrambled a few steps backward, nearly spilling her tea. Heavy footsteps thudded on the other end of the chambers, then fell into complete silence. Eris’ wide, fearful gaze snapped to Charlotte, the mug trembling slightly in her hands.

It took only a second for the recruit to read the expression on Eris’ face before she found herself standing, her blade ringing out as she pulled it from its scabbard. Charlotte recognized that look anywhere, having seen it countless times during her service in the capitol. Something was wrong. She hadn’t picked up any sense of danger, but something from within told her to trust Eris’ judgement.

Her own expression had shifted completely, now devoid of its previous emotions. Pure focus and instinct were left in place as she drew her blade back in a defensive stance, putting herself between Eris and the darkened corridor. What had moments ago seemed like a quiet, empty hallway now felt foreign—its peace cracked, replaced with a tension that clung to the walls.

Charlotte spared a single glance back to Eris that wordlessly commanded ‘stay’ before she began a careful, hasty offensive towards the sage’s chambers. Her heart slammed against her chest as her blade crossed the threshold of the room before her. The noise of her armored steps betrayed any attempt of subtlety, but it didn’t matter. The intruder, if there was one, had already been alerted to their presence. Silence was no longer a weapon she could wield.

Her cold, blue eyes darted around the darker room searching for something—anything—out of place. The open doors of the balcony gently swayed as their curtains danced in the breeze, and a frantic trail of mud and melting snow was strewn about the floor. Someone left in a hurry. The room appeared otherwise untouched from where she stood. Not a drawer left open, not a single belonging tossed to the floor, and jewelry in plain sight that remained undisturbed. Not a robbery… they weren’t looking for anything.

For a moment, she paused, listening… waiting. The silence betrayed nothing. Not a groan of a creaking floorboard, nor the whisper of a hidden breath.

Her shoulders relaxed a bit, lowering her sword as she paced towards the balcony. Peering over its edge, she found nothing but the remnants of the intruder’s escape; Broken branches surrounded a larger dent in the snow, leading to a trail of widely spaced footsteps away into the town.

Unmoving, the recruit called back over her shoulder to Eris, her voice calm and just loud enough to close the distance, “It’s safe, they’re gone.”

Whoever they were.

Still frozen in place at the end of the hall, Eris let out a slow, shaky breath. Though she’d managed to hear Charlotte over the sound of own heartbeat thundering in her ears, her body refused to move. Nervously, she bit her lower lip and scanned the length of the darkened hallway, searching every corner as if someone—or something—might lunge from the shadows.

Instinct urged her to summon light, to burn away the dark. But the dull ache of spent magic still pulsed through her veins in a silent, visceral warning. Drawing on it now would come at a higher cost. Her gaze dropped to the mug in her hands, and she cursed herself for having taken the easy way to warm the tea.

If things in Dawnhaven were going to stay this dire, maybe it was time she started to do some things the hard way.

Slowly, Eris drew in a deep breath to steady herself. After a quiet moment, she forced herself to step forward. Charlotte had said it was safe—so it had to be.

And yet, somewhere in the back of her mind, a little voice wondered if this new acquaintance was leading her straight into a beautifully laid out trap.

Eris hesitated for a heartbeat, swallowing hard as she stared down the hall, remembering those steel-blue eyes that had looked at her so earnestly. The tears that had spilled from them. The rosey pink of Charlotte’s cheeks as she’d smiled. The way Charlotte had carried her home and stayed.

No. Charlotte had said it was safe—so it had to be.

One careful step at a time, she moved down the hallway she’d walked a hundred times before without fear of what might’ve lurked in the dark. But now, every creak of the floorboards clawed at her nerves.

Pausing in the doorway of her bedchamber, she carefully surveyed the state of the room. In the dark, it was difficult to see much of anything, but nothing major seemed out of place—still just as unorganized as she’d left it.

Turning right, she stepped through the open archway that led into her private study. The balcony door was wide open, a small snowdrift built up just beyond the threshold, broken by Charlotte and whomever had run through it moments ago.

Quietly, she continued forward, careful not to step in the snow and mud slushed across the floor. Her brows pinched tighter as she scanned the room, unease setting in deeper with each step forward.

“I’m going to have to draw up barrier runes…” she murmured, mostly to herself, setting the mug down on a nearby desk. For a moment, she inspected the dirtied floors, then straightened to scan the rest of the room. Strangely, nothing was amiss here either.

Crossing the study, she stopped at the balcony doors, just behind Charlotte. Her eyes flicked to the edge of the balcony, to the crushed snow along the railing. The drop down was steep, but not impossible. Beyond Charlotte, she studied the surrounding woods, though it was difficult to see much further than the treeline.

“Do you think it was a… blight-born?” She asked softly, her worried eyes lifting to Charlotte’s face, then back to the balcony. “Maybe they….” she hesitated, the theory still forming. “Flew in? And out?”

Charlotte shook her head, though not fully dismissing Eris’s theory, “I’m not sure. I haven’t yet crossed paths with any with wings, but anything seems possible these darker days.”

“I almost want to say that they fell during their escape, judging by the mark in the snow. Had to hurt from this height.” The recruit returned her blade to its place on her hip before turning back to the study, and Eris, “Could just as easily have been from trying to climb up here though.”

Something still hung in the recruit’s mind, however. Nothing was missing. Nothing had been disturbed, taken or otherwise damaged. What kind of thief would break in and steal nothing? Especially in this house of all places, lived in mostly by nobles who would most certainly have jewelry and other valuables around.

Her eyes glanced around the room as she silently pondered the thought, looking for any detail she might have missed.

“Any idea as to what they may have been after?” She asked, looking at Eris with a soft but inquisitive gaze, “Anyone out to get you? Anyone who would want to hurt you?”

Eris shook her head without thinking. No, of course no one was after her. Why would they be?

But the denial faltered before it reached her tongue. Her lips parted, then closed again as she took a moment to think it through.

“... Do you think it could’ve been the same blight-born that attacked the Princess yesterday?” she asked quietly, her gaze searching the darkness beyond the balcony. A chill slid down her spine at the thought. “Or—” she hesitated, reluctant to voice the next thought. “What if it was one of the ones I—we—The Sages and I… have tested on?”

Her mind drifted to the Alchemy Chambers below. She remembered Kira, sharp-fanged and glaring at one of the Sage’s like she might bite off the next finger that dared to get close enough. There were others, too. Some were more cooperative. Some less. Were any of them waiting for a chance like this?

Maybe they hadn’t been looking for valuables—they had been looking for her.

Eris swallowed hard, a pit forming in her gut. How many powerful enemies had she made here, without even realizing it?

A cold draft swept through the open door, raising a trail of goosebumps along her arms—her thin nightgown doing little to protect her from the chill. She shivered and turned back into the study, seeking warmth and comfort from her tea. Picking up the mug, she wrapped her hands around it and let the warmth seep into her palms. “Would you mind closing the door… and locking it?”

She hesitated, frowning faintly. “I… I thought I locked it before.” The thought sank heavy in her chest. She didn’t misremember things like that. Not often.

Then again, she knew she had been spreading herself thin lately. She must have forgotten… right?

She turned towards her bedroom again, pausing at the void of darkness that awaited beyond the threshold. Instinctively, she glanced back, as if to make sure Charlotte was still there.

“We should alert the other guards,” Eris said softly, then stepped through the archway. Nervously, she moved toward the closet on the other side of the room and slowly began rifling through her vast amount of clothing options. Picking out a coat, she carefully laid it out on the bed. “Maybe they can increase the—”

She stopped, her breath catching mid-sentence as her eyes landed on the nightstand.

There, sitting atop her journal, was a purple gemstone—cut, translucent and beautiful. Pressed over a folded scrap of parchment as if it were no more than a paperweight.

She didn’t recognize it.

Setting her mug down slowly, Eris stepped closer. She didn’t touch it. Not yet. She’d made that mistake with enchanted objects before—and this looked like it could be one. Once, during her training, an enchanted artifact had left her vomiting up saltwater for an entire day. She knew better now.

“This is new,” she said aloud, glancing over at Charlotte, then back to the stone.

Hovering her hand above the gem, she tried to feel for any threads of magic—any hum, pressure or ripple. Anything at all.

But she felt nothing. The stone was utterly silent.

Still, she didn’t trust it. Her mana was spent. The sixth sense she’d spent years attuning herself to was completely numb. Blown out like a candle.

Charlotte’s head turned promptly as Eris spoke, tilting her head as she approached. The stone before her was gorgeous, unlike anything she’d ever laid eyes on. A delivery then, from their mystery intruder. But who? Why? Why go through all of the fuss of breaking into the Alchemy tower and not only not take anything, but to leave something?

Her eyes glanced to Eris momentarily, then back to the stone. “What is it?” she inquired quietly.

“I’m not sure…” Eris shook her head, lips pressed into a thin line. “We should find another Sage too.” she murmured, half to herself again. It couldn’t be any Sage—it had to be a powerful one. One so versed in the nuanced veils of magic that they could sense several different types without touching anything at all.

Her mind raced through the names and faces of her colleagues, searching for one with enough skill and discipline that it might rival her own.

As she thought, she straightened and began moving again. Faster this time, she laid out the rest of her outfit across the mattress. When she finished, she paused, glancing up at Charlotte.

“Would you… mind turning around for a moment? While I dress?”

Not a request to leave the room.

Eris’ fear wasn’t gone—she wasn’t sure if it ever would be. But she wasn’t ready to be alone again. Not in the dark. Not with this strange new object. Not when whatever had invaded her space might still be lurking nearby. Not when she had little magic left to defend herself with.

Charlotte’s eyes widened slightly at the request, before nodding to the sage and turning to once again face the forest beyond, though this time from behind closed—and locked—balcony doors. It was an odd request, but Kain had instructed her to heed the sage’s every desire. Though it annoyed her to follow his orders despite how he had acted, Charlotte also knew the consequences of disobedience.

She was not going to be reprimanded by him a second time. Not for this anyway.

Through a window, she looked across the icy landscape before her as the sound of rustling fabric came from behind. She focused on the barren treetops that just barely swayed in the wind, the moonlight that normally illuminated them now clouded. Charlotte kept her gaze steady ahead, not letting her mind wander. Despite the discipline that had been drilled into her, it was a strange situation she found herself in, remaining professional as she stood guard not outside a room, but within it. Not keeping her eyes on someone, but away from them.

Her thoughts flickered back to the brief chase, to open balcony doors and to the invisible assailant. Whoever had slipped into the tower had vanished without a trace. That alone made her uneasy.

And if they came back? If they wanted to do harm to the tower’s occupants? What then?

Charlotte’s hand rested wearily on the pommel of her now-stowed blade, her entire body still tense and ready to pounce at a moment’s notice. Her armor gently clinked against itself as she shifted her weight to one side, still shining almost as bright and new as the day she’d first donned it. The true giveaway of a recruit, armor unblemished by battle.

“Anyone specific we’re looking for at the tavern?” She inquired, resisting the instinct to look back, “Surely there can’t yet be many sages in Dawnhaven.”

She paused for a moment, pondering the thought. “Or perhaps I’m wrong. I guess it would only make sense for the kingdoms to send their brightest here. It's the only way we’ll learn more about the blight.”

Fully dressed, Eris sat on the edge of her bed and laced up her boots, grateful for Charlotte’s steady presence.
“You’re not wrong.” she confirmed, glancing briefly toward the gemstone as her hands worked. “There are… ” Her voice faded as she mentally tallied all the faces that had become familiar over the past two months. “Only six of us. All Aurelian.”

Once finished, she stood and crossed to her dresser, fingers deftly twisting her hair half up before securing it with a golden pin—still every bit the noblewoman, careful with her image, despite how far removed she was from the prying eyes of the capital. “Lunaris has not sent any of their Sages, unfortunately.” she added quietly, her voice tinged with disappointment. It had been a point of frustration for her—no one would know Lunarian biospheres better than the Sages born to them. “I think King Jericho feels that he’s provided us with enough already. Being on his land…”

Rounding the bed, Eris stopped behind Charlotte and gently placed a hand on her arm. “Thank you,” A soft smile followed, fleeting but sincere. When Charlotte met her eyes, Eris let her hand fall away as she stepped toward the door.

The recruit silently nodded at Eris in reply, the corner of her mouth lifting.

“We’ll check the lab first. But I was hoping to find Sya at the tavern, actually.” With a gentle tilt of her head, she motioned for Charlotte to follow her out.

Walking down the dark hall again sent her heart stuttering again, but Charlotte’s presence at her back lent strength. “We can alert the other guards on the way too.” she added as they moved.

At the far end of the house, Eris opened a door that led down into a narrow spiral staircase. The one Charlotte had practically carried her up the night before. Holding the door open, she let Charlotte pass first. Keys in hand, she stepped out and began to shut the door behind her—

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The sudden knocks echoed up the stone stairwell. Eris jumped, her fingers fumbling as a gasp escaped her lips. She barely caught her keys before they slipped from grasp. Her pulse raced, eyes flicking up to Charlotte’s face for reassurance.

Swallowing, she locked the door. A faint breath trembled past her lips.

When she turned back to Charlotte, Eris tried to mask the fear still flickering behind her eyes as she began to descend the stairs. “I wonder who that could be…” she said softly, mostly to herself. The Sages all had keys to the ground level. Maybe one had forgotten or lost theirs. That had to be it.

Another series of knocks echoed through the stone. Impatient. Firm.

Not a Sage.

Near the bottom, Eris slowed, instinctively shifting closer to Charlotte. Her voice came barely above a whisper. “You don’t think… it could be the intruder again, do you?”

Charlotte looked to Eris with a concerned, but unknowing look. Her words were not needed, her thoughts matched the sage’s. The fleeting sensation of safety that had lingered for the last few moments had now gone. In its place, she could feel her heart beginning to race and her mind was quickly starting to follow suit.

Charlotte felt a shiver run down her spine as she looked down the stairs. She could see the innocence of the well-illuminated room below, glowing with candlelight. And yet it felt so unwelcoming. The shadows that normally danced, now haunted. The knocking, where once she would be intrigued, now caused fear to rise within her chest.

“Whatever happens… whoever that happens to be, stay behind me.” Her words came with all of the tone of a command, but lacked the force to make it one. Charlotte held too much respect for Eris to bark an order, despite the short period of time they’d known each other. There was also the small part of her that knew she was no match to Eris’ abilities, should the sage decide that Charlotte wasn’t a friend.

Eris nodded, barely breathing as she slipped the keys back into her coat pocket with a trembling hand. Her fingers brushed something familiar—Tia’s hairpins, right where she’d left them. She closed her hand around them, gripping them tighter than she meant to.

“Your mind, your research, they’re all more important than my life.” She left no room for argument, beginning to move down the stairs as quickly as she’d finished speaking. Eris’ eyes went wide, her lips parting in protest. She didn’t want Charlotte to sacrifice herself if it came to it. How could Eris’ life possibly mean more than another? But the thought stuck in her throat. She closed her mouth instead, nervously biting her lower lip.

Charlotte’s blade sang a low, steely note as it slid free of the scabbard. She felt bare without her shield, something she’d stupidly forgotten by the fire just minutes ago when she’d first jumped into the action. In its place, the recruit tightened her grip on the blade, raising it high once again.

Her advance drew a gasp—and likely a concerned look—from somewhere in the room, but it left her attention as quickly as it entered. Briefly, Eris dared to look away from Charlotte, finding one of the other Sage’s who’d frozen in a doorway that led into the lab.

Only a few paces now separated Charlotte from the door. Her heart thundered in her chest, every instinct bracing for the enemy she’d already convinced herself was waiting on the other side.

Eris slid behind Charlotte, heart pounding, breathing shallow. Instinctively, she reached for her magic—only to feel a faint spark in return. Painfully, the ache of absence sent a frozen fire burning through her veins.

Blade raised in one hand and leveled in front of her at chest-height, the recruit glanced back to Eris for a moment before ripping the door open.

Hazel eyes flicked over Charlotte, finally landing on the weapon.

”Glad to see Dawnhaven upped the security around here.”

[Beard Dad]

_{Location: Walking to the Temple of Seluna}

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Céline expectantly waited for an answer, the silence between them felt like it lasted an eternity. It was only after Orion answered that she realized she’d been holding her breath. Steadily she exhaled, relief filling her as her trust had been rewarded; Orion’s opinion remained unchanged. Furthermore he was willing to lead her to the temple, his hand motioned to her, a signal to follow along. As they started along he told her of the deceased Lunarian origins, how he hadn’t known them personally; for an instant, Céline felt his still pond ripple. The sensation passed over her as quickly as it came and she shook off the remnants of it.

Céline followed alongside Orion in relative silence, her eyes wandered over the sights while her mind wandered over the events he had shared with her. She had already assumed that the body of the dead man had been taken to the Seluna temple, had it been at the Aelios temple, she would have heard something about it already. Still to discover someone lost their life so closeby left her feeling somewhat uneasy. There were too many unanswered questions, ‘did an animal do this or something else?’, ‘If it was something else, were they captured or killed?’, ‘Are we safe here?’. Céline could have bombarded Orion with such questions, but given how recent everything was he either wouldn’t know or if he did, he wouldn’t divulge anything to her, at least not right now.

The trip through town didn’t take too long, despite their meandering path, the buildings slowly began to subside as it gave way to nature. The frostbitten path gave way under their footsteps and the closer they approached the temple, the more footsteps appeared breaking up the crisp, icy ground. She wondered if there would be many others paying their respects, if whatever grief or fear they might be feeling would affect her.

Her gaze wandered over to Orion, wondering if she would need his help should something go awry. She didn’t trust him not to help her, she’d practically bled her heart out to him just moments ago and he was both understanding and unfazed. It felt too much to put that kind of burden on him, to be a wellspring of serenity in a sea of tears and uncertainty. Would it be too much to ask him of that? Her gaze wandered up and down, reading his posture and composure, staring at the features of his face, his pale skin contrasting the piercing red of his eyes. Céline suddenly realized she’d been staring too long and her head whipped forward to see the moon temple just in the distance.

Despite having requested it, Céline found herself visiting another temple so soon after leaving one both unusual and ironic. Religion had manifested and maintained a hostile identity to her for most of her life. To her, faith in the goddesses was as much a shackle as it was a lance for her body to be thrust upon, a bloody and macabre banner for all to see. After escaping her old life and finding her master, he had shown her another side to religion, one that allowed acceptance and love and worship for all, regardless of birth or status.

Even when travelling to Lunarian lands, while most were wary of her presence and didn’t allow her to witness their worship, some compromised. Each person practiced their faith in their own way, some in private, some in temples, some deep in nature itself, basking in the sunlight or dancing under the moon. It showed her that despite the differences in goddesses, lands and banners, everyone seemed to just exist and live their lives as to the best of their ability. Her mind wandered back to what Orion had said, how he didn’t know the deceased because they were Lunarian. The notion saddened her and it made her wonder if maybe this was a place where people didn’t have to be human or blightborn, Aurelian or Lunarian, maybe everyone could just exist.

As they neared the temple, a thought occurred to Céline and she spoke up to Orion, “Would you come into the temple with me?” She paused, letting the question linger for a moment, “I know you didn’t know the man personally, but I’d like to think, maybe he would appreciate it. A stranger come to honour his life and memory, even if he’s not of his people.” She smiled, “I won’t force you of course, but you’ve come all this way, so why not—” she stopped suddenly, only now realizing just how close they were to the temple now. The waves of grief and sorrow emanating from the structure shot through her head like a migraine, nausea instantly setting in. She stumbled, her hand reaching out and grasping Orion’s sleeve as she pulled herself closer to him, anchoring herself to him. “I’m sorry,” she breathed, “I just need a moment to steel myself.”

Composure was not coming quickly to her, she breathed in deeply trying to overcome the feeling in the pit of her stomach. A new sensation was approaching, grief but not nearly as strong, lingering and weak. In the midst of that grief though was a shining beacon of understanding, of catharthis. The sensations balanced each other out, helping Céline to catch her breath more easily now. Her eyes found their way to the temple entrance, two women were walking out together, one with hair silky and white, the other had her features covered behind a hood and veil. Slowly her shallow breathing normalized, her hands still clinging tightly to Orion.

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_{Interacting with: Orion @Qia; Mentions: Elara and Ramona @enmuni}