(no subject)
Cinnamon Swirl #28. Ties That Bind
and Blueberry Yogurt #24. Hold My Hand
with Hot Fudge, Caramel, Malt, and a Brownie
Story : knights & necromancers
Rating : PG
Timeframe : 1240's all the way through 80's
Word Count : 5068
Malt Prompt : Bingo : drunken hookups + trading places + don't stop believing + girls just wanna have fun + can you not?!
I absolutely loved the pocky chain to music that Sara did last week and I felt the need to copy. But I ditched the pocky, and my music list is hand picked rather than shuffled. I tried to cover most of the relationships in the story and there are spoilers like WOW throughout.
Strange how you know inside me
I measure the time and I stand amazed
Strange how I know inside you
My hand is outstretched toward the damp of the haze
_____- Vienna Teng “Eric’s Song”
Sethan stopped, hands on his hips, to regard the shaggy back of Kairn’s head a few feet further down the bank.
“I thought I’d find you here,” he said.
With a meek “Oh?” Kairn turned his head, and Sethan caught the ring of purple around his swollen eye.
“Lucky for you I know you better than Kinu does.”
Kairn shot him what might have passed for half a smile and went back to his task, plucking a fat pink worm from his cup and tossing it into the lake. Both boys watched in silence as the wriggling worm hit the water, sending out little ripples as it sank below the surface.
“You know,” said Sethan, as the mouth of a fish crested the spot where the worm had been. “You might catch more fish if you put the worms on a hook.”
Kairn followed his gaze to the pole that lay untouched on the ground and sort of shrugged. Then he tossed another worm after the first. “I didn’t feel like hurting them.”
The fish or the worms, Sethan wondered. “You mind if I join you?” he asked instead.
“Sure,” said Kairn, and there was that weak smile again as he patted the grass beside him. “You never manage to catch anything anyway.”
You know the games I play and the words I say
When I want my own way
_____- Emilie Autumn “Opheliac”
Blood curdling scream in 3...2...1...
Posted outside the door, Reida held her breath until, right on cue, there was a shriek from within.
“Are you alright?” said Kairn, amidst the flurry of tears and thrashing blankets.
“Alright? Why would I be alright?” came the reply, the girl’s voice cracking as it rose ever higher.
“Abby!”
Reida snickered at the approaching stomps. The door flew open and the girl swept past, too caught up in her own hysterics to even see Reida lounging against the wall.
“Abby, please!” Kairn’s hand caught the door as it swung in. He rounded on Reida with a glare and his fingers tightened against the wood. “You.”
Reida smirked at the sheet clutched around his waist. “You know,” she said, “I could do something about that if you like.”
Is this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment’s pleasure
_____- Carole King “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”
Unable to get back to sleep, Ski found herself tracing ribs in the moonlight. The body pressed to hers heaved suddenly with a soft “mmm.” She held her breath, her finger halfway across Rune’s chest. He shifted, sniffed, and gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze before he went back to snoring and she permitted herself to breathe again.
She spread her hand and dragged her palm down over his belly and up around his shoulder and squinted at the clock on the wall.
Somewhere past three. He was hers for a few more hours still. Closing her eyes, she nuzzled her way up under his cheek, smiling as he greeted her with another peaceful sigh.
Too late two choices to stay or to leave
Mine was so easy to uncover, he'd already left with the other
_____- Sara Bareilles “Between the Lines”
The sparring ring seemed as good a place as any to corner Ski. “Will you please tell me just what is eating at you already?” said Ilya as she picked a wooden blade from the rack.
Ski raised one blonde brow before scanning the weapons to choose one of her own. “Why would something be amiss with me?” She pulled a sword from its slot, tossed it up in the air and caught it with a casual snap of her wrist.
”Oh please,” said Ilya as they stalked into the ring. “If you were any more tense I should expect you would start setting things on fire as well.”
“I am not-” Ski eyed the white knuckled grip she had on her sword and shut her mouth.
The two started slowly to circle, weapons poised.
“It’s Lyssa, isn’t it?” said Ilya. She made the first strike, which Ski easily deflected. “I can imagine it must be stressful having your sister under your command.“ Ski countered and Ilya danced out of the way. “Especially given the way Lyssa carries herself, charging into fights, drinking half the night.” Their blades clacked together as Ilya advanced again. “I swear she spends more time than anything simply ogling Rune. Why, anytime you are in the room with the two of them- But of course! That’s it! Your sister is trying to take your man, and you-”
“My what?”
Just about to swing again, Ilya faultered. Her blade leveled before her, Ski held her with a dark look.
“Spare me,” said Ilya, recovering her step. “Everyone knows you have…had feelings for Rune.”
Ski smacked her blade aside with a force that sent her staggering backward. “Everyone knows I have more sense than to have feelings for anyone.”
“Of course.” Ilya frowned at her smarting hand. “I had forgotten that you were above such things.”
There was a fire in Ski now, and she advanced with another blow and another. “If Lyssa wishes to throw herself at yet another man, that is certainly nothing new for me,“ she said, driving Ilya back. “And if Rune is fool enough to fall for such a display, I suppose that is his own problem.”
“Yes, clearly it bothers you not in the least.”
“Clearly.”
Ilya’s foot fell out of the circle, and she sighed. “You win,” she said. “The match, anyway.”
You say don't act like a child
But what if it’s a father I need?
Its not like you don't know what you got yourself into
Dont tell me I'm the one who’s nieve
_____- Allison Iraheta “Scars”
“You don’t have to hold me so tightly.” Lyssa found herself addressing an armpit.
As if to spite her, Rune gave her another squeeze and she laughed.
“I want to make sure I can remember what it feels like.”
His hands slid to her shoulders and Lyssa pried her face out of his chest to raise a brow at him.
“For when you get yourself killed,” he said, in that tone he always had for jokes that weren’t really jokes.
Lyssa worked a hand free and used it to smack him on the arm. “That’s not funny,” she said.
“Neither was jumping off that roof,” he said, and all the would be humor was gone from his voice. “You need to be more careful.”
Lyssa rolled her eyes. “I have a god on my side. I don’t need-”
“Fire, Lyss.” Rune’s hands tightened on her shoulders, and she could see the tension in his jaw. “You have fire. What are you going to do, break your fall with a bunch of sparks?”
“No, see the cart that was parked along the wall took care of that.”
He sighed so heavily it all but erupted from him.
“What about kissing me?” She wriggled in his grasp until she had her arms looped up around the back of his neck. “You’re not going to want to forget what that’s like, are you?”
There's such a fooled heart beatin' so fast
In search of new dreams, a love that will last
Within your heart
I'll place the moon within your heart
_____- David Bowie "As the World Falls Down"
With a flick of his wrist, Sethan sent the bits of silk fluttering above them like a flurry of butterflies, flapping their false wings as they zipped this way and that. Pressed to his side, Shasa giggled as a tuft of yellow dipped down and swirled past her nose.
“They’re beautiful,” she said.
His arm pinned beneath her as they lay flat in the grass, Sethan gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Not as beautiful as you,” he said, and he wanted to gag. Did people really fall for such drivel?
Apparently they did, because his efforts earned him another giggle and a playful pat on the chest, and for a moment, Sethan wished he could sink into the ground.
Meet me beneath my balcony and say
No one but you could ever fill my night
Be the sunlight in my every day
_____- Emilie Autumn "Juliet"
“No one is looking,” said Tristan, as Ski craned her neck for another peek over his shoulder. They were behind the stables, all but pressed against the wall. That anyone should come that way was all but absurd, but still…
She settled back down, blushing as she met the big brown eyes and sheepish grin aimed her way. “Somehow I cannot shake the feeling.”
Tristan’s smile took on a bit more force as his hand slid up along the swell of her hip. “And you know what feeling I can’t shake?”
“We shouldn’t,” said Ski, but she could feel her pulse quicken as his fingers toyed with the hem of her blouse.
“I told you, no one is looking.” She bit her lip as his palm met the base of her ribs.
“That no one sees it does not make it right,” she said, with a hand to his arm.
“And just what makes it so wrong?”
Those eyes were too much. Her hand left its cautionary stance, sliding up around his neck instead to pull him in. “Not a thing,” she said before their lips met.
True friends stab you in the front; you've got my throat
And all I know is on the floor
_____- Axium "On the Floor"
“Do you want to hold him?” Rune settled himself on the stoop beside him, whimpering bundle clutched against his chest.
“I…I’ll pass,” said Kairn.
The baby let out a squeaky sigh, and Rune ran one long, spindly hand around his tiny head. “I think he’s going to need you,” he said, his eyes never leaving the boy.
“It’s just… It’s hard to even look at him. I mean, Shasa…” Putting words to it was like a rock in his stomach. It felt so petty, being angry at a baby. It was Sethan he really wanted to hurt. “He looks just like his father. If he‘d never used her like he did, she‘d still…”
“You know,” said Rune, with another soft stroke of the infant’s head that brought on a sort of content burble, “loving the boy doesn’t mean you condone your sister’s death.”
Kairn started to open his mouth to say that wasn’t at all what he felt, that such an idea was ridiculous, but it stuck in his throat.
Rune was staring at him now, all solemn and concerned. “Trust me, he’ll make more than enough guilt for himself. Just…hold him?”
The bundle was coming his way before he could even consider looking for a different sort of protest. All his sputtering died as he found himself gazing into the softest pair of big blue eyes he’d ever seen.
Life on the moon couldn’t be any stranger
Life on the moon wouldn’t feel as far away.
_____- David Cook "Life on the Moon
“You know,” said Tristan, tucking Sethan’s pawn into his palm, “this is definitely not something I ever would have thought I’d be doing.”
The scratching of quill on paper from above stopped as Reida peered over the edge of the desk at them. “What are the two of you up to anyway?”
“Chess,” said Sethan. With a grin at her, he put a finger to one of the spaces on the board on the floor and its wooden occupant hopped and wobbled into the square before it.
Reida snorted. “Good to see you’re teaching him useful skills.”
Sethan shrugged. “Magic is magic,” he said.
Tristan curled an arm around the leg of the desk to lean back and smirk up at her. “I could,” he said, “arrange it so that your chair and your backside occupied different corners of the manor. Would that be more impressive?”
Reida’s eyes narrowed. “And I could arrange it so you wake up to pincers tomorrow.”
I’m ever swiftly moving, trying to escape this desire
the yearning to be near you I do what I have to do
but I have the sense to recognize that I don't know how to let you go
_____-Sarah MacLachlan “Do What You Have to Do”
“Any work?” Lyssa’s coins hit the bar before her rear hit the stool, and Otto was shoving a pint her way before her cloak was off.
“The usual,” said Otto. “Couple of wagons looking to make for the pass. You know the deal, keep the rocs off the horses.”
Lyssa took a gulp, thumped her mug down on the bar, and swept a hand across her lips. “I’d thought I heard the crown was buying swords for their little counterstrike in Rayurn.”
Otto laughed as he sent another mug sailing down the bar, where a thick, mail covered hand caught it and sent a coin flying back at him. “Trust me, stick to the caravans. They pay, and your kid‘ll see you home again. No one with any sense wants any part of cleaning up that mess.”
Lyssa grinned at him over the rim of her drink. “Who says I have any sense?”
“Haven’t you heard?” the hulking, hairy form on the stool beside her addressed the barkeep with an emphatic wave of his own mug. “Army won’t be needed against the demons much longer. They say there’s a fellow, goes round wiping out ten, twenty of ‘em at a pop. Don’ take him more than a look.”
Lyssa gagged on her beer, and both men turned to look at her. She waved them off as she found her breath. Her mug met the counter with a violent splash. “When does the next wagon leave?”
So, you don’t have to worry, worry,
mamotte agetai anata o kurushimeru subete no koto kara
(translation : because I want to protect you from everything that might hurt you)
_____-Yumi Matsutoya - “Mamotte Agetai”
“Uncle Kairn, look!” Kairn turned to find Sham running towards him, a sheet of paper brandished between his outstretched hands.
“Just like the one over the door,” the boy said proudly, as he came pattering to a halt in front of him.
Kairn plucked the page from his hands and his jaw fell. Rendered on it was a perfect air form.
Sham puffed up even more at his uncle’s reaction. “Pretty good, huh?”
“It is.”
Sham scrunched up his face for a moment then cocked his head. “So, Uncle Kairn, why do you put those over the door?’
Kairn stared at the page a moment. “I…um, well, they’re pretty, aren’t they?’
“Sure,” said Sham. “Can we hang mine in the kitchen?”
“Sure,” said Kairn, ruffling the boy’s hair.
The earth that is the space between, I’d banish
it from under me…to get to you
_____- Sara Bareilles “One Sweet Love”
Hunched over the table, mouth open, as she was about to ask Sethan about what appeared to be a water form that he was working on at the moment, Reida stopped, her fingers stalled mid drum on the wood, to gape at the man on the cot across the room.
“What,” she said, with a nod at Tristan, who had his arm thrown out around the empty air beside him and a big dopey grin on his sleeping face, “is he doing?”
“What?” Sethan raised his head from his drawing and followed her gaze. “Oh that?” he said, as Tristan shifted and one of his big hands gave the air an awkward squeeze. “He’s busy fondling his wife. He does that sometimes.”
Sethan turned back to his half finished form. Still fixated on Tristan’s antics, Reida laughed. “Well,” she said, “I suppose at least one of us is getting some anyway.”
The one who gifts you, the one who lifts you
She's the angel in your eyes
The one who stayed there so unafraid there
All through innocence's demise
_____- Angela Aki “Surrender”
“Aunt Kari!” the girl squeaked. “That was my horse!”
“Oh?” said Ski, putting the bench back down. “And this?” she asked of the heavy branch that had been propped against it.
“My sword,” said Mara, as if only a fool would ask such a question. She snatched it up and threw her leg over the bench. “I’m riding out with Lady Lathayen’s host. Take that, Imperial scum!”
Ski edged back a pace at the sudden mad flailing of the branch. “Hold a moment!” she said as it swept past her nose.
Mara’s little face fell as she lowered the branch. “You don’t like it when I play knights, do you?”
“No, no. It is simply that, well, there is a right way and a wrong way to do everything, you see.”
“Oh?”
Ski sighed. “I suppose you shall have to learn sooner or later at any rate. It may as well be sooner.
“Where are you going?”
“To fetch some proper training swords.”
Do I need you? Yes and no
Do I want you? Maybe so
You're getting warm, you're getting warm, you're getting warmer, oh
_____- Emilie Autumn “Misery Loves Company”
Flipping the chalk from hand to hand, Rune waited as Reida leaned in, on hands and knees, to inspect the form.
“Nice,” she said. She cocked her head up at him with a frown and a wrinkle of her nose. “You’re sure you’ve never done this before?”
“Not sigils, no,” said Rune, an itch creeping into the back of his neck. “But I’ve had a lifetime of sketching.”
With a sniff and a shake of her head, she crawled back out of the way. “Another artist,” she grumbled. “Well, it helps, it seems. Now-”
“What’s that?” he asked, as she produced a battered lump of grey from the same sack that had held the chalk.
“For the spell,” said Reida, laying it across the center of the form.
“But it’s a water form,” he said, and his hand had found its way down under his collar. “And that…looks like a hunk of steel.”
Reida rolled her eyes and cocked her head at him again, this time with a toothy grin that made him rub all the harder at his spine. “You think when the ancients named the gods they actually knew what their powers were?”
She put her hands to the mark he‘d just drawn and the steel began to bubble.
“Holy mother…” The metal quickly dissolved into a puddle of silvery ooze.
Reida laughed. Before he could make a move to stop her, she’d stuck her hand in it. Like it was so much muddy water, it swirled slowly around her fingers. “It’s not hot,” she said, still grinning.
“You did that with just a few lines?”
“Yup.” She lifted her hand and spread her fingers and trails of grey rolled off their tips into the pool below.
Rune made a timid reach for the liquefied metal, bracing himself before he touched it for the burn. His finger hit the surface and the steel rippled around it, cool and smooth as if it were water. “And that’s all demons really are? A few lines and some bones?”
Reida shrugged. “Well...more or less.”
He dragged his finger through the puddle, watching it shift and flow, marveling at the impossibility. “So with these forms I can mimic the powers of the others.”
“To a degree.”
“Right.” He pulled his hand from the metal and curled it around her wrist. Flipping her hand over, he gave the sigil marked in henna on her palm a nod. “So just how well do you copy mine?”
Now that you're here it's not the same situation
Suddenly I don't remember the rules anymore
_____- Billy Joel "This Night"
“Lemme in.” She was slumped against the door frame, leering up at him with a glassy, slack jawed gaze.
Kairn’s grip tightened on the inside of the same frame “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said with as much resolve as he could muster.
“Couldn’t help it.” She broke off with a loud hiccup, sliding even further down the wall. “Needed to see you.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
Lyssa snorted and pulled herself back upright so their faces were level. “When haven’t I been drinking?” She laughed and he could smell the gin on her breath. “Come on,” she said, playfully dragging a finger over his chest, “just for tonight?”
“Lyssa…”
She made a clumsy swipe at his lips with her own, the familiar sense of her heat washing over him with her touch. She laughed as she pulled away and he sighed.
“Come in.”
“Knew you’d see it my way,” she said, as he stepped aside and she pushed past into the house.
“I’m not about to let you spend the night on my stoop.”
“Course not.” The door snapped shut behind them and he found himself trapped in the entryway with her warmth and the smell of liquor. “How sweet.” Her hand slid down and curled itself around his backside.
“You’re not spending it in my bed either.”
Lyssa gave him a squeeze and a drunken giggle. “Right,” she said before sauntering into the kitchen.
Every single day, every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay
I'll be watching you
_____- The Police "Every Breath You Take"
“So what does the brat call her?” said Reida. “Mommy? Or is that what you call her?”
Kairn paused, knife in the middle of a swipe over the potato in his hand, to glare at the woman curled along the window frame and wonder when exactly it was that he invited her to invade his kitchen. “You know,” he said, “if you weren’t so busy sticking your nose in my love life, you might have time for one of your own.”
Reida reached in and plucked another potato off the counter. “Who says I don’t have a love life?” She scraped the peel off with a deft twirl of her own knife.
“Right,” said Kairn, shaking his head as he went back to peeling as well. “Who’s suicidal enough to get between the sheets with you?”
“Oh,” said Reida, her blade still flicking this way and that. “Tall fellow. Blonde. Corpse thin. Perfectly sweet guy if you don’t pay too much heed to the voice in the head, but that’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”
Kairn’s knife clattered into the sink and he stared at her, open-mouthed. “You’re not…”
Up on her perch, Reida was grinning like a mad thing. “You would not believe the things that man can do…” She stopped, turned, and cocked her head at him with her best approximation of concern. “Or has your woman tried to teach you a few of them?”
“You’re making this up.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” she said, smirking again. She waved the tip of the knife his way. “I am making you squirm though, so it’s worth it either way.”
Kairn reached under the sink for the weapon he knew Lyssa left there. A foolish gesture, he knew, but maybe it would get the point acorss. “Alright,” he said, the hilt of the sword clutched in both hands, “you can get out of my kitchen now.”
Reida laughed. “Oh how sweet,” she said. “She’s trying to help you protect yourself. What about the spells I’ve left all up and down your street?” She leaned in the window, bracing herself with a hand on the counter. “Do I get any thanks for that? I’m thinking a kiss maybe.”
“Out!” said Kairn, knuckles tightening on the sword.
“I’ll just cash that in next time then, shall I?”
“Out!”
And you stand beside me, a shadow of myself
And I feel hollow, and I can't swallow
No, it's not fair, Nobody ever told me it would be this hard
_____- Axium “Leave Behind”
“You look very nice.”
Mara swore she could hear the lump in her mother’s throat. “You don’t approve.” She slid her hands down her ribs, as if there were any wrinkles left in her new uniform to smooth. “I heard you fighting with Aunt Kari last night. Every word of it.”
Mother opened her mouth, then bit her tongue with a sigh. Mara felt a sting creep into her eyes.
“This is your doing, you know,” she said, and her own voice was growing thick. “You spent my whole childhood filling my head with…with these stories of honor and glory.” Her lip was shaking, her hands clenched and released at her hips. Mother didn’t make a move. “And…and I would think you of all people should be proud right now.”
Mother closed her eyes and drew a breath. She was going to offer up some phony apology like she always did when Aunt Kari caught her drinking. Mara swore she wasn’t going to buy it, and more importantly, she wasn’t going to cry, not today. And then she opened her eyes, her hand outstretched, all full of concern. “Mara, I am. I’m very, very proud of you.”
Mara pulled away from the hand that sought her arm. Too close to letting loose the tears, she gave in to anger instead. “You could act like it now and then,” she snapped. “You could act like you gave a damn about anything but yourself.” That hit home. Mother dropped her hand and her jaw. But somehow it didn’t feel like a victory. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a ceremony to attend.”
You try to draw me in but still deny the net
You’re clinging to what I have left
While I forget in my exile
_____- Heather Dale "Exile"
Ski leaned her elbows on the rail, her gaze on the gardens below rather than the man beside her as he did the same.
“I am not asking you to love me,” Dalton said, flatly. “I am scarcely asking you to tolerate me.”
“No, not at all.” She tried to keep her tone as even as his, but her throat felt thick. She focused on the patch of honeysuckle that ran its way around the giant sycamore and tried to will away the bitterness on her tongue “You simply ask me to marry you. That is, of course, a different thing entirely.”
“For show only,” said Dalton. “You keep your ghost, and I will keep mine.”
“And your mistress.”
“Well…”
With a sigh, she pushed herself back from the edge. “A lovely arrangement for all, I am sure,” she said, pacing the length of the balcony. Uncertain what else to occupy her hands with, she twisted them in her skirts.
Dalton turned from the rail as well, his arms folded across his chest and his face drawn as his eyes followed her path back and forth. “Masakari, I need you to keep your seat, and this is the one way I can think of that will ensure it. You are the only person who truly knows what we are up against.”
She stopped, mid-stride, to turn on him. The cotton wound between her fingers felt more real than any of the rest of the scene. “And no one is listening to me,” she said. “Your own sister-”
“Cannot speak out the same way against my wife as she does her cousin,” he said. There was the slightest softening to his features as he added, “Please.”
Ski drew herself up with a sharp breath. “You know,” she said, “Kinari has already offered me a fine position.”
Dalton’s brows knit and his arms tightened themselves against his front. “Kinari means to ruin you. Her hands are as dirty as my brother’s.”
Something always brings me back to you
It never takes too long
_____- Sara Bareilles “Gravity”
The sightless eyes of its enormous skull leveled at them, the demon tensed, ready to spring. Kairn pulled Shamino close with one hand while the other fumbled with the blade sheathed at his hip.
The demon leapt, silken tentacles flapping around its head in a flurry of color as it charged. It opened its jaws wide, baring rows of jagged teeth. Sword drawn, Kairn braced himself, Shamino trembling against his side.
The monster lurched, it froze, and to both their amazement, crumbled suddenly into a heap of bones and cloth.
“Looks like I’ve come just in time.” A willowy figure in a long, dark cloak, a dusky silhouette against the swiftly dispersing dust, came strolling through the wreckage.
“Sethan?” Kairn’s arm went slack, the tip of the sword grazing the dirt. “Sethan!” Sham shot him a nervous look as he squeezed him tighter.
Sethan’s eyes slid to the boy. A smile spread across his lips and Kairn clutched him closer still. “Hello, Shamino.”
I need to hear you say
I love you, I’ve loved you all along
And I forgive you for being away for far too long
_____- Nickelback “Far Away”
“Would you look at me?” Lyssa dug her teeth into her lip and her nails into her arm as she stared at the back of his head and tears welled in her eyes. She sniffed and swallowed hard. “It’s the least you could do.”
Tension rippled up Rune’s form. His hands clenched and unwound. He spun round, fury in his eyes. “The least I could do?” he said. “The least I could do? Sixteen years, Lyssa. What’s the least you could do?” He was shaking.
Lyssa threw her hands up to his cheeks, pulled herself to him, and kissed him with all the force she could bring.
Devoted to you, devoted to this,
I stumble and I crumble beneath the weight I bear
I'm struggling through, I'm struggling with my innocence
_____- Axium “On the Floor”
“This isn’t going to hurt him, is it?” Kairn’s grip on Sham’s arm tightened as he caught Sethan’s eye. “Because if you hurt him I’ll-"
Sethan laughed. “You’ll what?” He gave the boy’s other arm a gentle tug in the opposite direction. Sham just looked nervously from one man to the other.
“Don’t make me,” said Kairn.
Sethan tipped his head and offered him one of his slick smiles. “Relax,” he said. “He’ll be fine.” He turned to Shamino. “Ready, son?”
Sham gave a numb bob of his head, the most movement he’d made since they’d entered the temple.
His throat too tight for words, Kairn let him go.
You know how hard it can be to keep believing in me
When everything and everyone becomes my enemy and when
There's nothing more you can do I'm gonna blame it on you
_____- Emilie Autumn “Opheliac”
“Are you awake?”
Sethan pried open an eye to a green tinted world that centered on a leering Reida intent on dragging her fingers over his cheeks.
“My pretty, pretty little goddess,” she purred, all teeth and eyes. “I could just eat you.”
Even as he lay flat on his belly, the world swam, a dizzying haze of ever moving shadows and light, He fought to lift his chin from the floor and thought his skull might crack as he did so.
“You know,” Reida went on, “I think I might.” Her hand on his face made his skin crawl, like hordes of tiny spiders creeping into every pore with every brush of her fingers.
“Would you like that?” she said. He wanted to vomit. “Oh, the fun we could have.” He could feel the bile inching its way up his throat.
“You never let me near you when you were Sethan.”
Sethan jerked his head up off the rug. A thunderous crack sounded between his ears and splintered into peals of laughter like bells, while a wave of emerald engulfed the room. He opened his mouth and found it dry, his voice rasping. “I am Seth-” He pulled a hand, heavy as lead yet buzzing with the sense that it was completely immaterial, and forced it to the mark on his hip. It came away wet with blood. “You…you idiot! What have you done?”
With another deafening clap, the world went green, then black, this time to the upending of his stomach and the bitter echo of Reida’s laughter.
For we don't realize our faith in the prize
Unless it's been somehow elusive
How swiftly we choose it, the sacred simplicity
Of you at my side
_____- Vienna Teng “Eric’s Song”
Kairn stopped at the edge of the slope that led to the water, one hand softly tapping his fishing rod against the palm of the other. Sethan was nestled among the rocks a ways down, shoulders hunched, long dark curls shot with silver cast across his back, his own fishing pole clutched in his hands.
“I thought I’d find you here,” said Kairn.
Sethan looked up with that crooked half-smile of his. “You did, did you?”
“Just like when we were kids,” said Kairn, with a nod to the lake. “The willow tree and everything,” he added, leaning a hand up against the bark.
“This place isn’t a thing like Lirander’s pond.” Sethan’s lure jerked in the water. The line went taught. He hauled the line in, a slender silver fish thrashing on the hook.
Kairn laughed. “No,” he said. “I suppose it’s not. You’re actually catching things here.”
Sethan shot him a dark look as he pulled the fish from the end of his line.
and Blueberry Yogurt #24. Hold My Hand
with Hot Fudge, Caramel, Malt, and a Brownie
Story : knights & necromancers
Rating : PG
Timeframe : 1240's all the way through 80's
Word Count : 5068
Malt Prompt : Bingo : drunken hookups + trading places + don't stop believing + girls just wanna have fun + can you not?!
I absolutely loved the pocky chain to music that Sara did last week and I felt the need to copy. But I ditched the pocky, and my music list is hand picked rather than shuffled. I tried to cover most of the relationships in the story and there are spoilers like WOW throughout.
Strange how you know inside me
I measure the time and I stand amazed
Strange how I know inside you
My hand is outstretched toward the damp of the haze
_____- Vienna Teng “Eric’s Song”
Sethan stopped, hands on his hips, to regard the shaggy back of Kairn’s head a few feet further down the bank.
“I thought I’d find you here,” he said.
With a meek “Oh?” Kairn turned his head, and Sethan caught the ring of purple around his swollen eye.
“Lucky for you I know you better than Kinu does.”
Kairn shot him what might have passed for half a smile and went back to his task, plucking a fat pink worm from his cup and tossing it into the lake. Both boys watched in silence as the wriggling worm hit the water, sending out little ripples as it sank below the surface.
“You know,” said Sethan, as the mouth of a fish crested the spot where the worm had been. “You might catch more fish if you put the worms on a hook.”
Kairn followed his gaze to the pole that lay untouched on the ground and sort of shrugged. Then he tossed another worm after the first. “I didn’t feel like hurting them.”
The fish or the worms, Sethan wondered. “You mind if I join you?” he asked instead.
“Sure,” said Kairn, and there was that weak smile again as he patted the grass beside him. “You never manage to catch anything anyway.”
You know the games I play and the words I say
When I want my own way
_____- Emilie Autumn “Opheliac”
Blood curdling scream in 3...2...1...
Posted outside the door, Reida held her breath until, right on cue, there was a shriek from within.
“Are you alright?” said Kairn, amidst the flurry of tears and thrashing blankets.
“Alright? Why would I be alright?” came the reply, the girl’s voice cracking as it rose ever higher.
“Abby!”
Reida snickered at the approaching stomps. The door flew open and the girl swept past, too caught up in her own hysterics to even see Reida lounging against the wall.
“Abby, please!” Kairn’s hand caught the door as it swung in. He rounded on Reida with a glare and his fingers tightened against the wood. “You.”
Reida smirked at the sheet clutched around his waist. “You know,” she said, “I could do something about that if you like.”
Is this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment’s pleasure
_____- Carole King “Will You Love Me Tomorrow”
Unable to get back to sleep, Ski found herself tracing ribs in the moonlight. The body pressed to hers heaved suddenly with a soft “mmm.” She held her breath, her finger halfway across Rune’s chest. He shifted, sniffed, and gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze before he went back to snoring and she permitted herself to breathe again.
She spread her hand and dragged her palm down over his belly and up around his shoulder and squinted at the clock on the wall.
Somewhere past three. He was hers for a few more hours still. Closing her eyes, she nuzzled her way up under his cheek, smiling as he greeted her with another peaceful sigh.
Too late two choices to stay or to leave
Mine was so easy to uncover, he'd already left with the other
_____- Sara Bareilles “Between the Lines”
The sparring ring seemed as good a place as any to corner Ski. “Will you please tell me just what is eating at you already?” said Ilya as she picked a wooden blade from the rack.
Ski raised one blonde brow before scanning the weapons to choose one of her own. “Why would something be amiss with me?” She pulled a sword from its slot, tossed it up in the air and caught it with a casual snap of her wrist.
”Oh please,” said Ilya as they stalked into the ring. “If you were any more tense I should expect you would start setting things on fire as well.”
“I am not-” Ski eyed the white knuckled grip she had on her sword and shut her mouth.
The two started slowly to circle, weapons poised.
“It’s Lyssa, isn’t it?” said Ilya. She made the first strike, which Ski easily deflected. “I can imagine it must be stressful having your sister under your command.“ Ski countered and Ilya danced out of the way. “Especially given the way Lyssa carries herself, charging into fights, drinking half the night.” Their blades clacked together as Ilya advanced again. “I swear she spends more time than anything simply ogling Rune. Why, anytime you are in the room with the two of them- But of course! That’s it! Your sister is trying to take your man, and you-”
“My what?”
Just about to swing again, Ilya faultered. Her blade leveled before her, Ski held her with a dark look.
“Spare me,” said Ilya, recovering her step. “Everyone knows you have…had feelings for Rune.”
Ski smacked her blade aside with a force that sent her staggering backward. “Everyone knows I have more sense than to have feelings for anyone.”
“Of course.” Ilya frowned at her smarting hand. “I had forgotten that you were above such things.”
There was a fire in Ski now, and she advanced with another blow and another. “If Lyssa wishes to throw herself at yet another man, that is certainly nothing new for me,“ she said, driving Ilya back. “And if Rune is fool enough to fall for such a display, I suppose that is his own problem.”
“Yes, clearly it bothers you not in the least.”
“Clearly.”
Ilya’s foot fell out of the circle, and she sighed. “You win,” she said. “The match, anyway.”
You say don't act like a child
But what if it’s a father I need?
Its not like you don't know what you got yourself into
Dont tell me I'm the one who’s nieve
_____- Allison Iraheta “Scars”
“You don’t have to hold me so tightly.” Lyssa found herself addressing an armpit.
As if to spite her, Rune gave her another squeeze and she laughed.
“I want to make sure I can remember what it feels like.”
His hands slid to her shoulders and Lyssa pried her face out of his chest to raise a brow at him.
“For when you get yourself killed,” he said, in that tone he always had for jokes that weren’t really jokes.
Lyssa worked a hand free and used it to smack him on the arm. “That’s not funny,” she said.
“Neither was jumping off that roof,” he said, and all the would be humor was gone from his voice. “You need to be more careful.”
Lyssa rolled her eyes. “I have a god on my side. I don’t need-”
“Fire, Lyss.” Rune’s hands tightened on her shoulders, and she could see the tension in his jaw. “You have fire. What are you going to do, break your fall with a bunch of sparks?”
“No, see the cart that was parked along the wall took care of that.”
He sighed so heavily it all but erupted from him.
“What about kissing me?” She wriggled in his grasp until she had her arms looped up around the back of his neck. “You’re not going to want to forget what that’s like, are you?”
There's such a fooled heart beatin' so fast
In search of new dreams, a love that will last
Within your heart
I'll place the moon within your heart
_____- David Bowie "As the World Falls Down"
With a flick of his wrist, Sethan sent the bits of silk fluttering above them like a flurry of butterflies, flapping their false wings as they zipped this way and that. Pressed to his side, Shasa giggled as a tuft of yellow dipped down and swirled past her nose.
“They’re beautiful,” she said.
His arm pinned beneath her as they lay flat in the grass, Sethan gave her shoulders a squeeze. “Not as beautiful as you,” he said, and he wanted to gag. Did people really fall for such drivel?
Apparently they did, because his efforts earned him another giggle and a playful pat on the chest, and for a moment, Sethan wished he could sink into the ground.
Meet me beneath my balcony and say
No one but you could ever fill my night
Be the sunlight in my every day
_____- Emilie Autumn "Juliet"
“No one is looking,” said Tristan, as Ski craned her neck for another peek over his shoulder. They were behind the stables, all but pressed against the wall. That anyone should come that way was all but absurd, but still…
She settled back down, blushing as she met the big brown eyes and sheepish grin aimed her way. “Somehow I cannot shake the feeling.”
Tristan’s smile took on a bit more force as his hand slid up along the swell of her hip. “And you know what feeling I can’t shake?”
“We shouldn’t,” said Ski, but she could feel her pulse quicken as his fingers toyed with the hem of her blouse.
“I told you, no one is looking.” She bit her lip as his palm met the base of her ribs.
“That no one sees it does not make it right,” she said, with a hand to his arm.
“And just what makes it so wrong?”
Those eyes were too much. Her hand left its cautionary stance, sliding up around his neck instead to pull him in. “Not a thing,” she said before their lips met.
True friends stab you in the front; you've got my throat
And all I know is on the floor
_____- Axium "On the Floor"
“Do you want to hold him?” Rune settled himself on the stoop beside him, whimpering bundle clutched against his chest.
“I…I’ll pass,” said Kairn.
The baby let out a squeaky sigh, and Rune ran one long, spindly hand around his tiny head. “I think he’s going to need you,” he said, his eyes never leaving the boy.
“It’s just… It’s hard to even look at him. I mean, Shasa…” Putting words to it was like a rock in his stomach. It felt so petty, being angry at a baby. It was Sethan he really wanted to hurt. “He looks just like his father. If he‘d never used her like he did, she‘d still…”
“You know,” said Rune, with another soft stroke of the infant’s head that brought on a sort of content burble, “loving the boy doesn’t mean you condone your sister’s death.”
Kairn started to open his mouth to say that wasn’t at all what he felt, that such an idea was ridiculous, but it stuck in his throat.
Rune was staring at him now, all solemn and concerned. “Trust me, he’ll make more than enough guilt for himself. Just…hold him?”
The bundle was coming his way before he could even consider looking for a different sort of protest. All his sputtering died as he found himself gazing into the softest pair of big blue eyes he’d ever seen.
Life on the moon couldn’t be any stranger
Life on the moon wouldn’t feel as far away.
_____- David Cook "Life on the Moon
“You know,” said Tristan, tucking Sethan’s pawn into his palm, “this is definitely not something I ever would have thought I’d be doing.”
The scratching of quill on paper from above stopped as Reida peered over the edge of the desk at them. “What are the two of you up to anyway?”
“Chess,” said Sethan. With a grin at her, he put a finger to one of the spaces on the board on the floor and its wooden occupant hopped and wobbled into the square before it.
Reida snorted. “Good to see you’re teaching him useful skills.”
Sethan shrugged. “Magic is magic,” he said.
Tristan curled an arm around the leg of the desk to lean back and smirk up at her. “I could,” he said, “arrange it so that your chair and your backside occupied different corners of the manor. Would that be more impressive?”
Reida’s eyes narrowed. “And I could arrange it so you wake up to pincers tomorrow.”
I’m ever swiftly moving, trying to escape this desire
the yearning to be near you I do what I have to do
but I have the sense to recognize that I don't know how to let you go
_____-Sarah MacLachlan “Do What You Have to Do”
“Any work?” Lyssa’s coins hit the bar before her rear hit the stool, and Otto was shoving a pint her way before her cloak was off.
“The usual,” said Otto. “Couple of wagons looking to make for the pass. You know the deal, keep the rocs off the horses.”
Lyssa took a gulp, thumped her mug down on the bar, and swept a hand across her lips. “I’d thought I heard the crown was buying swords for their little counterstrike in Rayurn.”
Otto laughed as he sent another mug sailing down the bar, where a thick, mail covered hand caught it and sent a coin flying back at him. “Trust me, stick to the caravans. They pay, and your kid‘ll see you home again. No one with any sense wants any part of cleaning up that mess.”
Lyssa grinned at him over the rim of her drink. “Who says I have any sense?”
“Haven’t you heard?” the hulking, hairy form on the stool beside her addressed the barkeep with an emphatic wave of his own mug. “Army won’t be needed against the demons much longer. They say there’s a fellow, goes round wiping out ten, twenty of ‘em at a pop. Don’ take him more than a look.”
Lyssa gagged on her beer, and both men turned to look at her. She waved them off as she found her breath. Her mug met the counter with a violent splash. “When does the next wagon leave?”
So, you don’t have to worry, worry,
mamotte agetai anata o kurushimeru subete no koto kara
(translation : because I want to protect you from everything that might hurt you)
_____-Yumi Matsutoya - “Mamotte Agetai”
“Uncle Kairn, look!” Kairn turned to find Sham running towards him, a sheet of paper brandished between his outstretched hands.
“Just like the one over the door,” the boy said proudly, as he came pattering to a halt in front of him.
Kairn plucked the page from his hands and his jaw fell. Rendered on it was a perfect air form.
Sham puffed up even more at his uncle’s reaction. “Pretty good, huh?”
“It is.”
Sham scrunched up his face for a moment then cocked his head. “So, Uncle Kairn, why do you put those over the door?’
Kairn stared at the page a moment. “I…um, well, they’re pretty, aren’t they?’
“Sure,” said Sham. “Can we hang mine in the kitchen?”
“Sure,” said Kairn, ruffling the boy’s hair.
The earth that is the space between, I’d banish
it from under me…to get to you
_____- Sara Bareilles “One Sweet Love”
Hunched over the table, mouth open, as she was about to ask Sethan about what appeared to be a water form that he was working on at the moment, Reida stopped, her fingers stalled mid drum on the wood, to gape at the man on the cot across the room.
“What,” she said, with a nod at Tristan, who had his arm thrown out around the empty air beside him and a big dopey grin on his sleeping face, “is he doing?”
“What?” Sethan raised his head from his drawing and followed her gaze. “Oh that?” he said, as Tristan shifted and one of his big hands gave the air an awkward squeeze. “He’s busy fondling his wife. He does that sometimes.”
Sethan turned back to his half finished form. Still fixated on Tristan’s antics, Reida laughed. “Well,” she said, “I suppose at least one of us is getting some anyway.”
The one who gifts you, the one who lifts you
She's the angel in your eyes
The one who stayed there so unafraid there
All through innocence's demise
_____- Angela Aki “Surrender”
“Aunt Kari!” the girl squeaked. “That was my horse!”
“Oh?” said Ski, putting the bench back down. “And this?” she asked of the heavy branch that had been propped against it.
“My sword,” said Mara, as if only a fool would ask such a question. She snatched it up and threw her leg over the bench. “I’m riding out with Lady Lathayen’s host. Take that, Imperial scum!”
Ski edged back a pace at the sudden mad flailing of the branch. “Hold a moment!” she said as it swept past her nose.
Mara’s little face fell as she lowered the branch. “You don’t like it when I play knights, do you?”
“No, no. It is simply that, well, there is a right way and a wrong way to do everything, you see.”
“Oh?”
Ski sighed. “I suppose you shall have to learn sooner or later at any rate. It may as well be sooner.
“Where are you going?”
“To fetch some proper training swords.”
Do I need you? Yes and no
Do I want you? Maybe so
You're getting warm, you're getting warm, you're getting warmer, oh
_____- Emilie Autumn “Misery Loves Company”
Flipping the chalk from hand to hand, Rune waited as Reida leaned in, on hands and knees, to inspect the form.
“Nice,” she said. She cocked her head up at him with a frown and a wrinkle of her nose. “You’re sure you’ve never done this before?”
“Not sigils, no,” said Rune, an itch creeping into the back of his neck. “But I’ve had a lifetime of sketching.”
With a sniff and a shake of her head, she crawled back out of the way. “Another artist,” she grumbled. “Well, it helps, it seems. Now-”
“What’s that?” he asked, as she produced a battered lump of grey from the same sack that had held the chalk.
“For the spell,” said Reida, laying it across the center of the form.
“But it’s a water form,” he said, and his hand had found its way down under his collar. “And that…looks like a hunk of steel.”
Reida rolled her eyes and cocked her head at him again, this time with a toothy grin that made him rub all the harder at his spine. “You think when the ancients named the gods they actually knew what their powers were?”
She put her hands to the mark he‘d just drawn and the steel began to bubble.
“Holy mother…” The metal quickly dissolved into a puddle of silvery ooze.
Reida laughed. Before he could make a move to stop her, she’d stuck her hand in it. Like it was so much muddy water, it swirled slowly around her fingers. “It’s not hot,” she said, still grinning.
“You did that with just a few lines?”
“Yup.” She lifted her hand and spread her fingers and trails of grey rolled off their tips into the pool below.
Rune made a timid reach for the liquefied metal, bracing himself before he touched it for the burn. His finger hit the surface and the steel rippled around it, cool and smooth as if it were water. “And that’s all demons really are? A few lines and some bones?”
Reida shrugged. “Well...more or less.”
He dragged his finger through the puddle, watching it shift and flow, marveling at the impossibility. “So with these forms I can mimic the powers of the others.”
“To a degree.”
“Right.” He pulled his hand from the metal and curled it around her wrist. Flipping her hand over, he gave the sigil marked in henna on her palm a nod. “So just how well do you copy mine?”
Now that you're here it's not the same situation
Suddenly I don't remember the rules anymore
_____- Billy Joel "This Night"
“Lemme in.” She was slumped against the door frame, leering up at him with a glassy, slack jawed gaze.
Kairn’s grip tightened on the inside of the same frame “You’re not supposed to be here,” he said with as much resolve as he could muster.
“Couldn’t help it.” She broke off with a loud hiccup, sliding even further down the wall. “Needed to see you.”
“You’ve been drinking.”
Lyssa snorted and pulled herself back upright so their faces were level. “When haven’t I been drinking?” She laughed and he could smell the gin on her breath. “Come on,” she said, playfully dragging a finger over his chest, “just for tonight?”
“Lyssa…”
She made a clumsy swipe at his lips with her own, the familiar sense of her heat washing over him with her touch. She laughed as she pulled away and he sighed.
“Come in.”
“Knew you’d see it my way,” she said, as he stepped aside and she pushed past into the house.
“I’m not about to let you spend the night on my stoop.”
“Course not.” The door snapped shut behind them and he found himself trapped in the entryway with her warmth and the smell of liquor. “How sweet.” Her hand slid down and curled itself around his backside.
“You’re not spending it in my bed either.”
Lyssa gave him a squeeze and a drunken giggle. “Right,” she said before sauntering into the kitchen.
Every single day, every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay
I'll be watching you
_____- The Police "Every Breath You Take"
“So what does the brat call her?” said Reida. “Mommy? Or is that what you call her?”
Kairn paused, knife in the middle of a swipe over the potato in his hand, to glare at the woman curled along the window frame and wonder when exactly it was that he invited her to invade his kitchen. “You know,” he said, “if you weren’t so busy sticking your nose in my love life, you might have time for one of your own.”
Reida reached in and plucked another potato off the counter. “Who says I don’t have a love life?” She scraped the peel off with a deft twirl of her own knife.
“Right,” said Kairn, shaking his head as he went back to peeling as well. “Who’s suicidal enough to get between the sheets with you?”
“Oh,” said Reida, her blade still flicking this way and that. “Tall fellow. Blonde. Corpse thin. Perfectly sweet guy if you don’t pay too much heed to the voice in the head, but that’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before.”
Kairn’s knife clattered into the sink and he stared at her, open-mouthed. “You’re not…”
Up on her perch, Reida was grinning like a mad thing. “You would not believe the things that man can do…” She stopped, turned, and cocked her head at him with her best approximation of concern. “Or has your woman tried to teach you a few of them?”
“You’re making this up.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” she said, smirking again. She waved the tip of the knife his way. “I am making you squirm though, so it’s worth it either way.”
Kairn reached under the sink for the weapon he knew Lyssa left there. A foolish gesture, he knew, but maybe it would get the point acorss. “Alright,” he said, the hilt of the sword clutched in both hands, “you can get out of my kitchen now.”
Reida laughed. “Oh how sweet,” she said. “She’s trying to help you protect yourself. What about the spells I’ve left all up and down your street?” She leaned in the window, bracing herself with a hand on the counter. “Do I get any thanks for that? I’m thinking a kiss maybe.”
“Out!” said Kairn, knuckles tightening on the sword.
“I’ll just cash that in next time then, shall I?”
“Out!”
And you stand beside me, a shadow of myself
And I feel hollow, and I can't swallow
No, it's not fair, Nobody ever told me it would be this hard
_____- Axium “Leave Behind”
“You look very nice.”
Mara swore she could hear the lump in her mother’s throat. “You don’t approve.” She slid her hands down her ribs, as if there were any wrinkles left in her new uniform to smooth. “I heard you fighting with Aunt Kari last night. Every word of it.”
Mother opened her mouth, then bit her tongue with a sigh. Mara felt a sting creep into her eyes.
“This is your doing, you know,” she said, and her own voice was growing thick. “You spent my whole childhood filling my head with…with these stories of honor and glory.” Her lip was shaking, her hands clenched and released at her hips. Mother didn’t make a move. “And…and I would think you of all people should be proud right now.”
Mother closed her eyes and drew a breath. She was going to offer up some phony apology like she always did when Aunt Kari caught her drinking. Mara swore she wasn’t going to buy it, and more importantly, she wasn’t going to cry, not today. And then she opened her eyes, her hand outstretched, all full of concern. “Mara, I am. I’m very, very proud of you.”
Mara pulled away from the hand that sought her arm. Too close to letting loose the tears, she gave in to anger instead. “You could act like it now and then,” she snapped. “You could act like you gave a damn about anything but yourself.” That hit home. Mother dropped her hand and her jaw. But somehow it didn’t feel like a victory. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a ceremony to attend.”
You try to draw me in but still deny the net
You’re clinging to what I have left
While I forget in my exile
_____- Heather Dale "Exile"
Ski leaned her elbows on the rail, her gaze on the gardens below rather than the man beside her as he did the same.
“I am not asking you to love me,” Dalton said, flatly. “I am scarcely asking you to tolerate me.”
“No, not at all.” She tried to keep her tone as even as his, but her throat felt thick. She focused on the patch of honeysuckle that ran its way around the giant sycamore and tried to will away the bitterness on her tongue “You simply ask me to marry you. That is, of course, a different thing entirely.”
“For show only,” said Dalton. “You keep your ghost, and I will keep mine.”
“And your mistress.”
“Well…”
With a sigh, she pushed herself back from the edge. “A lovely arrangement for all, I am sure,” she said, pacing the length of the balcony. Uncertain what else to occupy her hands with, she twisted them in her skirts.
Dalton turned from the rail as well, his arms folded across his chest and his face drawn as his eyes followed her path back and forth. “Masakari, I need you to keep your seat, and this is the one way I can think of that will ensure it. You are the only person who truly knows what we are up against.”
She stopped, mid-stride, to turn on him. The cotton wound between her fingers felt more real than any of the rest of the scene. “And no one is listening to me,” she said. “Your own sister-”
“Cannot speak out the same way against my wife as she does her cousin,” he said. There was the slightest softening to his features as he added, “Please.”
Ski drew herself up with a sharp breath. “You know,” she said, “Kinari has already offered me a fine position.”
Dalton’s brows knit and his arms tightened themselves against his front. “Kinari means to ruin you. Her hands are as dirty as my brother’s.”
Something always brings me back to you
It never takes too long
_____- Sara Bareilles “Gravity”
The sightless eyes of its enormous skull leveled at them, the demon tensed, ready to spring. Kairn pulled Shamino close with one hand while the other fumbled with the blade sheathed at his hip.
The demon leapt, silken tentacles flapping around its head in a flurry of color as it charged. It opened its jaws wide, baring rows of jagged teeth. Sword drawn, Kairn braced himself, Shamino trembling against his side.
The monster lurched, it froze, and to both their amazement, crumbled suddenly into a heap of bones and cloth.
“Looks like I’ve come just in time.” A willowy figure in a long, dark cloak, a dusky silhouette against the swiftly dispersing dust, came strolling through the wreckage.
“Sethan?” Kairn’s arm went slack, the tip of the sword grazing the dirt. “Sethan!” Sham shot him a nervous look as he squeezed him tighter.
Sethan’s eyes slid to the boy. A smile spread across his lips and Kairn clutched him closer still. “Hello, Shamino.”
I need to hear you say
I love you, I’ve loved you all along
And I forgive you for being away for far too long
_____- Nickelback “Far Away”
“Would you look at me?” Lyssa dug her teeth into her lip and her nails into her arm as she stared at the back of his head and tears welled in her eyes. She sniffed and swallowed hard. “It’s the least you could do.”
Tension rippled up Rune’s form. His hands clenched and unwound. He spun round, fury in his eyes. “The least I could do?” he said. “The least I could do? Sixteen years, Lyssa. What’s the least you could do?” He was shaking.
Lyssa threw her hands up to his cheeks, pulled herself to him, and kissed him with all the force she could bring.
Devoted to you, devoted to this,
I stumble and I crumble beneath the weight I bear
I'm struggling through, I'm struggling with my innocence
_____- Axium “On the Floor”
“This isn’t going to hurt him, is it?” Kairn’s grip on Sham’s arm tightened as he caught Sethan’s eye. “Because if you hurt him I’ll-"
Sethan laughed. “You’ll what?” He gave the boy’s other arm a gentle tug in the opposite direction. Sham just looked nervously from one man to the other.
“Don’t make me,” said Kairn.
Sethan tipped his head and offered him one of his slick smiles. “Relax,” he said. “He’ll be fine.” He turned to Shamino. “Ready, son?”
Sham gave a numb bob of his head, the most movement he’d made since they’d entered the temple.
His throat too tight for words, Kairn let him go.
You know how hard it can be to keep believing in me
When everything and everyone becomes my enemy and when
There's nothing more you can do I'm gonna blame it on you
_____- Emilie Autumn “Opheliac”
“Are you awake?”
Sethan pried open an eye to a green tinted world that centered on a leering Reida intent on dragging her fingers over his cheeks.
“My pretty, pretty little goddess,” she purred, all teeth and eyes. “I could just eat you.”
Even as he lay flat on his belly, the world swam, a dizzying haze of ever moving shadows and light, He fought to lift his chin from the floor and thought his skull might crack as he did so.
“You know,” Reida went on, “I think I might.” Her hand on his face made his skin crawl, like hordes of tiny spiders creeping into every pore with every brush of her fingers.
“Would you like that?” she said. He wanted to vomit. “Oh, the fun we could have.” He could feel the bile inching its way up his throat.
“You never let me near you when you were Sethan.”
Sethan jerked his head up off the rug. A thunderous crack sounded between his ears and splintered into peals of laughter like bells, while a wave of emerald engulfed the room. He opened his mouth and found it dry, his voice rasping. “I am Seth-” He pulled a hand, heavy as lead yet buzzing with the sense that it was completely immaterial, and forced it to the mark on his hip. It came away wet with blood. “You…you idiot! What have you done?”
With another deafening clap, the world went green, then black, this time to the upending of his stomach and the bitter echo of Reida’s laughter.
For we don't realize our faith in the prize
Unless it's been somehow elusive
How swiftly we choose it, the sacred simplicity
Of you at my side
_____- Vienna Teng “Eric’s Song”
Kairn stopped at the edge of the slope that led to the water, one hand softly tapping his fishing rod against the palm of the other. Sethan was nestled among the rocks a ways down, shoulders hunched, long dark curls shot with silver cast across his back, his own fishing pole clutched in his hands.
“I thought I’d find you here,” said Kairn.
Sethan looked up with that crooked half-smile of his. “You did, did you?”
“Just like when we were kids,” said Kairn, with a nod to the lake. “The willow tree and everything,” he added, leaning a hand up against the bark.
“This place isn’t a thing like Lirander’s pond.” Sethan’s lure jerked in the water. The line went taught. He hauled the line in, a slender silver fish thrashing on the hook.
Kairn laughed. “No,” he said. “I suppose it’s not. You’re actually catching things here.”
Sethan shot him a dark look as he pulled the fish from the end of his line.