The Cure - Round 3

[Beqanna Fairy]

They make the trek down, some lost to reality, others lost to pain, but the heart of Beqanna lead them to her for whatever the reason. Sometimes family is enough to call a place home, sometimes the land herself steals your heart, but in the end, does the reason really matter? They are here, and they bleed for their home, they risk death for their home, some may yet die for their home. She has given them everything she can give and now, she asks for everything in return.

The heart pulses a little more brightly, but it’s not the reaction you might expect. Blood magic is powerful, and you may have hoped for an explosion, may have hoped to see the magic pour from the mountain like a volcano and blanket Beqanna in a cure. Sadly, nothing so grand happens. Instead, a small vial floats to each of them, silver liquid glistening in the glass. It is enough to cure just one.

Before them, the shimmering fire and heat turns glassy and reflective and for a moment, they see themselves. Then the images shift, showing them Beqanna, showing them whoever their own hearts care for most. There is nothing but truth in the image, and the truth is painful. Beqanna is dying, and so are her residents. There is enough in that vial for one cure, and there is a choice to make. Save themselves, or save the one they most love. The mirror-like fire before them opens up, turning itself into a portal. The choice is theirs.

Somewhere, even the hardest of the faeries hearts break. They don’t want to ask this, but they must, because even more powerful than blood is sacrifice. It is the last ingredient, and it is the hardest.

***

Quest Details
- Detail your characters decision – they must cure themselves or their loved one. You can use a made up character or get permission from the player to powerplay a loved one for this post (please include such permission in an OOC note of your post).
- Responses are due Wednesday, May 1st at 9am EST

[Kagerus]

Kagerus

{ and in my dreams I've kissed your lips a thousand times }

The moonsilver liquid pulsates around the blood streaming from my lips. The vibration tickles some, not magically by any means; lifting my nose, my tongue runs to taste of the heart. The pulsations continue. Blinking wearily (and not knowing nor caring what is real or dream), I move to lift my head to its proper position - the sight of the vial stops me.

A decision.

From the pool, the heart, a fire erupts (or perhaps I simply hadn't noticed it before). Its gleaming flames reflect my own image momentarily, offering me a chance to witness my own destruction as it happens in real time. Pitiful. Again that sound of laughter gurgles from somewhere in my throat. My once-proud antlers have begun to bleed, infection setting in; my once beautiful heritage marks turn black with sweat, along with the white and bay of my overo colouring. I daren't meet my own eyes as I blink into the mirror. Dust I shall remain, regardless of where I came from or where I will go.

The image shifts.

A sacrifice.

"Solace!" The confession of love spills from my lips like the blood from my veins the moment I recognize her milk and honey image. I can't read her facial expression from behind the film of tears which has spontaneously gathered before the nutmeg of my iris, a fact to my detriment. Without hesitation (and knowing full well what the consequences will be, though I cannot explain how I acquired this knowledge), I plunge through the opening portal, singing the fur off my sides in my haste to get to her.

It is quiet, on this side.

The blackness if velveteen, as soft as I left it this morn when the faerie came to claw me from my wife's side. For a moment I can almost convince myself that nothing at all has happened, that I had accidentally put us through a terrible nightmare but that now our sweet dreams can continue. A couple things convince me otherwise though, as I step to embrace my queen; first, the sound of the portal yet open behind me, revealing the magnificence of Beqanna's heart; second, the sensation of blood slowly trailing down my face and up my trachea; and third, the now-clear sight of Solace's expression.

"You need to drink it, Kagerus." Her voice is shaky, her crystalline blue eyes fractured beyond repair. "Our children need you, and I am not yet strong enough to return to the land of the living. Without you I would die, anyway. Please. Please, please listen to me."

My head shakes. A smile lilts my lips. Her words make their way to my brain but said organ malfunctions; rational and logic hold no value therein. Before me I see my raison d'etre, my joie de vivre, my everything. It does not matter now whether this interaction is a trick of the mountain's fickle magic; even for an illusion of Solace I would die, heedless of the consequences, pledged since the first day of our union to the continuance of her and her alone.

I sacrificed my beauty for her immortality. I sacrificed my kingdom for her health. And in turn, I will sacrifice my life, even if it means that there is only a possibility of hers continuing.

"Drink," I murmur, withers trembling as the plague pulls at the strings of my being, toying with me as it cuts one by one, a game. The vial floats to Solace, obedient to the one who retrieved it. "I have loved you since before my birth, and I will continue to love you even past death." She argues passionately, voice rising tantamount to that of the shriek of the storm-blown wind. My kiss to her cheek is that of a summer's breeze, reminding her of our many happy days together, reminding her that my life has always been an act of service unto her.

Eventually, her sobbing subsides enough to accommodate her quick, dagger-twisting sip of the cure.

Peace rolls over my ruined body as the silver liquid trails down her throat. Whether by way of dream or by way of death, the surrounding blackness closes in; the last words I hear are those of eternal love, and though I cannot move my lips to form a response, I know that she will never forget my love for her.

Goodbye, Solace.

Editing exclusively to say that I have permission from Lavender to powerplay Solace

[Eurwen]

Eurwen

the secret of walking on water
is knowing where the rocks lie

They’re passed out and wary, all adding their ingredients and blood…

and nothing happens.

Had she expected something? Admittedly, yes. There had been a call. There had been an ice task so hard it hadn’t left even her father unscathed. There had been another call and she, foolish girl, had gone. There had been a task including monsters and rocks but she’d brought pebbles with her cousins. There had been yet another call, she might not have heard it then, and flowers had been gathered - she didn’t know what had been endured to get them, but very probably it had cost the participants something. There had been one more call, and her brother had nearly drowned in both water and then sand, to collect the shells.

There had been a call and she had climbed the mountain. There had been an earthquake, she lost her control, the mountain had split, they had all but tumbled down to get here.

And what did they get?

A small vial, a cure for only one.

She stares at it in disbelief for a long time. She barely misses the new task that is given, expecting the cure inside the vial to somehow multiply, or to be stronger; maybe if she pours it into the river, everyone who drinks from it will be cured? In her feverish dreams, it doesn’t feel like such a bad idea for a moment.

But the mirror shows her another and she knows she cannot risk diluting the cure and help no-one in the end. Between all the dying horses of the mirror visions, she finds her little brother. The one she has babysat for numerous days, who is growing up to be a handsome strong lad… if he wasn’t coughing all the time, and who knows what else the plague does to him. If the sickness grows worse - it shall, it shall - he’ll be dying, and he’ll lose whatever strength there is in growing up - he will, he will - and he will never reach his full potential.

But she won’t either, at this rate.

Swaying on her legs, still at the heart of Beqanna, she contemplates the flask she’s been given - the cure she came for - and it makes her hesitate, not unlike the icy mirror image of herself atop the mountain, the one in the glacier. If she took it for herself, she might be one of the few strong and healthy horses around: she could become what she hoped to be. A strong leader. She would be able to help, able to guide, able to fight.

But it only takes a moment. If she took this vial now, whatever future leadership she might have gained would be based on the betrayal of another. Even if she and Beqanna are nearly whole now - she’s not, she’s not important enough for that - she couldn’t be sure if taking the cure would help enough people.

The only certainty that she has it to help one.

And she makes a decision. Delirious, trembling with fatigue and blood loss, she steps through the portal.

”Aodhán.” Her voice is a rough whisper, hoarse from coughing that she no longer has the energy for. ”We’re making the cure, but we need someone to test it. It can't be me, since I made it." She shows him the vial. "I thought you should have the first sip. See if it works.”

He doesn’t need to know that there is no more, she thinks. He might not take it if he knew.

That’s what makes him worthy. Better than her, because she had been tempted and he would probably not have hesitated.

Besides, hadn’t she already concluded earlier that she was not worth saving? Hadn't her mirror image been right all along?

She watches him swallow it, and her legs give. She looks up to him, eyes glazed, but with a smile, her connection to the ground below finally returning, but like in the place below the mountain, there's something strange about the magic. Where does she end, where does Beqanna begin?

That doesn’t really matter now, does it?

[litotes]

Her guiding hand beckons him. The dreamweaver wraps her long piano-player fingers around his head. She is humming so sweetly as her porcelain skin gleams beneath the blooming light of Beqanna’s heart. Those smooth palms cup his lion’s face, pick up that heavy head and place it soothingly upon her tucked-knee lap. Cooing floats slowly into his ears, accompanied by a trail of the faintest gold glimmers. Each little sparkle finds a home on his skull.

Warm, baby pink lips press kindly to his forehead. The woman places her mouth to his ear: You cannot stay here.

------

Litotes’ eyes flicker open just as they did when he began his journey. Sweat coats his body and blood pools around his head. He is warm and whole for a moment, despite the gruesome appearance of his body. Remnants of his angel linger in the corners of his mind, like the last bits of snow beneath a brilliant sun. The glitter that had fluttered from her lips moments ago are little stars upon his face.

For a second, he is a man, wiry muscles on bare arms struggling to lift his body. The magic shifts back and forth between visions: a man screaming as he rises, a lion-horse groaning on his knees. Neither knows the other exists, but their struggle is universal; it is sacrifice, it is meaning, it is absolute and unequivocal death of self.

Why is this what all gods ask of their people?

The pounding of his heart is so loud in his ears he thinks his chest may explode with the force of it. Litotes finally struggles to his feet, wincing at the crack of his knees and the unnatural bend of feet that do not belong to their legs.

Pinpricks of silver light reflect in the pupils of his eyes. They grow into silver disks as the vial draws closer. The cremello blinks several times, then his mouth goes dry. The cure lingers before his eyes for a moment more, then drifts to the center of his chest. The carved out “2” has caked layers of blood over his breast, yet the vial rests there as if it knows that substance is its most important ingredient.

As the fire begins to change, Lie’s breath catches in his throat. He holds that air between his mouth and his lungs, the dizzying feeling somehow grounding him as the magic continues to show him the extent of its power.

A mirror forms after a few seconds. The reflection he sees is one of a monster. Blood turns one half of his face entirely black and red. A long gash still oozes crimson across his skull. Lion ears twitch and twitch upon his head, paying no heed to Litotes’ pleads to quit their unnerving movements. He knows what is to come next - it sits at the very bottom of his stomach and sends poison through every fiber of his being. I cannot do this, he thinks.

The failure sits like a boulder upon his back for the reflection before him is an exact replica of the creature he has become. Mottled, gruesome, bloody with rage and revenge: the magic wants him to know.

Neglectful -
cold -
unforgiving -

arrogant.

Litotes’ mirror remains the same.

At first, he thinks it is just bile on the back of his tongue, then bloody vomit suddenly spews from his mouth. His maw is coated in the sick taste of his insides and the damning reality before him.

Kensa, I failed you. I failed you and every single one of our children.

A jaunting whoosh draws his tear-streaked face upward. The mirror is no longer a mirror but a portal. Though their lives are not as parallel as they will be in the future, his heart swells at the sight of her. Sunlight dapples her gold and chestnut, her hide gleaming and shimmering and begging him to come closer. The stallion gulps before stepping through, pained tears still streaming down his face.

“Litotes?” her voice is as silky as ever, even in her concern and confusion. The plague delivers its final blow, forcing his legs to waver and mouth to dangle with wracking coughs.

“Kensa,” he manages, though she is already trying to help him, “stop - please, I don’t think - I - have much time.” She rears back, first fury, then fear passing through her gaze.

“What are you talking about?” Her voice is cold.

“You have to take this,” he mutters through the blood flowing far too freely from his mouth. The cure floats forward, bobbing up and down directly between them. He can see the pursing of her lips through a fever-stricken haze - see the argument in her eyes. Lie musters his last remnants of strength. “Nothing you say will change my mind. I cannot live with more regret. You have to drink it, Kensa. Please.” He heaves after forcing such clear words out, head drooping so low his muzzle grazes the ground.

When she takes it, he feels the muscles in his body waver. They beg him to collapse, but one last touch of Kensa’s face to his keeps him standing for a few moments more. Whatever she says does not reach his ears.

He tucks his fevered cheek to hers and whispers, “I love you.” Litotes folds in on himself for what he believes to be the last time.

---

permission from lyr to powerplay kensa

[sochi]

Sochi

darling, you're wild-eyed, empty, and tongue-tied
maybe you need me or maybe you don't

Perhaps it was always meant to come down to this.

Perhaps it was the final curve of her arc—the final twist in her story. She who was once young and naive, and then thrust into the heart of darkness when Carnage crooked his finger. She who battled her own nature to only embrace it with fangs sinking into the throat of the plague. She who learned to love herself, to protect herself, to put herself first—and then to learn vulnerability in the form of a family.

To play a part in bringing the plague to Beqanna.

To take the first drink of setting it free.

Now, to sacrifice herself in leashing it once more.

Were she to have a poetic mind, she may understand the balance in all things. She may understand that to take means that she will need to give later. That to spill the blood of others means hers must be spilled.

She accepts it, in as much as she can accept anything in this state of delusion.

She does not even act surprised when the heart pulses, when the vial rises, when the vision in front of her begins to change. Her face remains steely, the blood pooling and congealing on her tattooed chest. Her silvery eyes are mercurial and stormy and steadfast all at once, her chin lifted in pride and acceptance.

So today is the day that she dies.

Perhaps it was always meant to be this way.

She doesn’t fight it, and she doesn’t even mourn—not really. A mother’s heart can only know one thing and that is to protect that which she has made. The only regret she truly has is that she does not have two vials—that she cannot protect Castile, as well—but she knows the dragon stallion is more than capable of taking care of himself. In this, they would be one-minded. Protect their daughter before all else.

So she doesn’t hesitate when it comes time to make her choice. She just steps forward, ignoring the pain in her chest and the blood spilling down her legs. She moves forward into the portal and blinks into the light of Loess. For a second, she angles her head back toward the Mountain, to the strange magic that begins to pulse around it, but time is one thing that she does not possess in excess.

Sochi is strong, but even she knows that the disease is moving through her quickly now.

She can feel the weakness in her limbs—the cough in her lungs.

Speed does not come easily to her, but she moves as quickly as she can—her tigress form still locked away from her. Her lips are crimson, her neck darkened with sweat, when she finally finds her daughter. It would be easy, in this final moment, to collapse into her, to press kisses into her face, to say all of the sweet things a mother should say—but even now, Sochi has her pride. Even now, she knows that this is a lesson to be learned for her draconic daughter: to have strength, to have courage, even before this.

“Reia,” her husky voice has more of a husk than usual, the normal rasp turning rusty on the edges. “I do not have much time.” She swallows, feeling the burn in her throat, the sting at the corner of her mouth. She studies her daughter’s face, at the lines that are at once an echo of herself and the girl’s father.

“The days ahead will not be easy,” the vial begins to float forward and Sochi nearly breaks at the thought of cursing her daughter with the same hand that she saves her. “But the people of Beqanna will need souls like you. They will need leaders. They will look to the strong to protect the weak, to keep the natural order.” It is the lesson she has always taught her daughter; that natural balance of strength in the predator.

“I know that you will do me proud.”

It is the closest she can get to all of the emotions storming in her chest, but despite the thundering of her heart—is this what it means to feel?—her face remains stern, as smooth as river stone.

“Drink.”

Her daughter doesn’t fight it. Perhaps she knows that her mother would not ask such a thing were it not important. Perhaps she can sense that Sochi is asking her to save Beqanna, even as she saves her. Perhaps she simply holds close to a sense of self-preservation. It doesn’t matter because the cure slides down the girl’s throat and Sochi can only nod, finally taking a step forward to press a kiss to the girl’s poll.

“I love you, my dragon girl,” her raspy voice is thick and her lips leave a slash of red. “If you see your father,” she pauses, swallows, “if you see your father, tell him that I loved him too.”

It is easier, this way, to admit such feelings when she can feel death on her doorstep.

And still, she trembles when she feels the darkness come.

And, for the first time, she fears for what she is to lose.

playing the slow rooms, howling at half moons
if you are a Queen then, honey, I am a wolf

Permission from Aeris to powerplay Reia via Discord PM!

[Ten]

For one brief, pure moment, he feels an impossible sense of accomplishment. As the heart accepts his gift, pulsing so vibrantly in response, he feels as though his short, insignificant life might have meant something here. And for a boy like Ten, that is perhaps the most important thing in the world.

Because what is life if one does not do something incredible with it?

Still, he is not quite certain what to expect in the heavy moment following. Young and naive he might be, but if there is anything Ten had come to learn in his short existence, it is that one should always expect the unexpected. Or maybe it is simply that his life has been so odd, the unusual and unexpected is far more the norm than the exception for him. So it is not surprise he feels when the small glass vial rises from the heart, but rather an overwhelming sense of curiosity and a heartfelt sense of wonder.

As the impossible heat of the heart hardens, the bright glow turning reflective, he steps closer, eyes widening as he peers into the surface. For a moment, only his face gazes back at him, pale champagne haloed by wild silver locks. It is both familiar and foreign, for while he knows it is his, he has rarely taken opportunity to seek out his own reflection. But as the image begins the ripple and shift, those idle thoughts trail off as his eager mind latches on to the hazy images that begin to form.

Ten, for all that he has lived an odd life, has also spent the vast majority of it in relative seclusion. He has known only his parents, and mostly his mother. Her face is there, of course, staring so sweetly into the distance, kind and so terribly forgetful. She might have raised him, but she had always been an absent mother. Truthfully, he had often found himself caring for her more than she had for him. Still, he loves her, because she is his mother, and she is all he has truly known.

But Giohde would never hold his heart in the same way the places she or father had taken him to. He had grown up quite sheltered, and thus, loneliness had often been a bosom companion of his. And in the hollow such pervasive loneliness had carved, a subtly encompassing love for the wondrous and beautiful and so incredibly soulful lands he has seen had slowly seeped. All of this in such a way that he could imagine no better sacrifice than the one he makes now for Beqanna.

Because seeing her heart, so vibrant and alive, had convinced him in a way nothing else ever could that she lives. That she understands. And that she loves.

For you see, it is not only his mother he sees in that reflective surface, but his home. All of it. The illness that has invaded. The sickness and death. Most might see only the horses, wracked with fever and rattling with cough. But he sees more. He sees the trees with blackness slowly creeping up the trunks. He sees the grass withering from green to brown. He sees the flowers as they shed their petals, unable to hold their colorful heads high beneath the heartless hand of disease. Unleashed by greed. Battled only by unconditional love.

He understands then. Understands that is what she truly needs. Unconditional love. And he has never felt there might be anything or anyone so worthy as the incredible being before him.

And so when he is given that choice, it really is no choice at all. As she uses what might she has left to open that portal for him, to give him the opportunity to save himself or those he loves most, he knows he would sacrifice anything and everything, if only she might live. It’s foolish perhaps, to believe a cure she crafted might save her, but then, it is well established what a naive and foolish boy Ten can be. But to his fervently youthful mind, if this can save what he loves, than surely it can save her.

And so he gives it back to her, refusing the portal in favor of stepping closer to that magnetic heat. Unstoppering the small vial, he allows that life-giving liquid to spill out onto Beqanna’s heart.

TEN

[wonder]

Wonder

She is startled by this vision of herself, by the sad, sorry face that stares back at her from the surface of the shimmering fire. That girl wears worry in eyes the shade of warm, clear oceans. She wears antlers too big for her head, and so she sags wearily, letting the tines stained rust-red from blood fall so they seem to be pointed at the reflection itself. She has bone on her face, but it is not bright and it is not beautiful - it is stretched so far she can hardly see a hint of the chestnut beneath it. A hint of her identity, her face, beneath it. This girl looks already dead and lost, like she’s climbed from a grave only to find she wishes she hadn’t.

There will be nothing left in this world.

She knows because the vision switches from her own broken face to the faces of her family, her friends, those she has never met but would love all the same. It shows her the world she knows, but it doesn’t seem familiar anymore. It is dark and it is dying, and it is broken. The black cloud hangs like dense fog so thick that even the sun can’t hardly find its way through. The grass is dead and churned, mud and bone and carcass. She thinks even the trees are sick, if not from the plague itself, then from the way the sun can no longer touch their branches, breathe life into leaves that have since crumpled and caved and turned as rust as the blood on her brow.

It is a reality that makes her cry, but she doesn’t notice it until the tears have already mixed with the blood on her face to sting her eyes and leave strange tracks down her cheeks. Doesn’t noticed until her throat aches with the need to sob aloud and mourn the loss of something so beautiful.

The loss of everything she has ever known.

She wills it to show her their faces again - her mother and her father, her brother, her sisters - because she understands what it is they ask of her now. That there is a cure in the twinkling vial that hovers beside her, but that there is only enough for one. Her first thought is all reflex, all impulse, and she wants to give it to her brother, her beautiful twin. The heart she grew beside even before they came to exist in this world.

But -

A second passes, and another, until there is a whole strand of time gone and lost where impulse fades and her heart flares wary in her chest. Brigade would hate her for that choice, she is sure of it, just as she would resent him if he made that choice for her. There is nothing but pain in watching those you love most fade and die around you, nothing but fear when even the world you’ve always known is changing and dying too. To give it to him, this cure, his life, would mean to condemn him to a future no less bleak than the world is now. He could live, but he would be alone in the carcass of a world with nothing left to give him.  

For the same reason, she recoils from the notion of giving it to her mother or her father who would surely prefer death over the pain of watching their children suffer and die while they remained untouched - or to one her sisters still so little, so young, too small for a world so big and bad without someone there to keep them safe. And what’s more is that the more she thinks of who might want this cure, the less certain she is that anyone would want this choice made for them. The less certain she is that she should make this choice for anyone.

It would be different if there were more vials, more cure, more of a chance to rebuild in a dying, broken world. But all she sees when she peers at the fire-glass shimmer is a world that feels like some kind of nightmarish hellscape - and she knows, deep in her aching, wounded heart, that the only one she can give the cure to is herself.

There is no irony lost on her as she thinks of the girl that will forever haunt her days and dreams. A girl sick and dying, left behind on a quest because Wonder thought it was the right decision. It hadn’t been, though. The girl had died before Wonder could come back to help her, to find a way to heal her. But it had felt so right in the moment when she made the choice. Would this decision be like that one? Right, until she made it, and then so, so wrong?

But in her heart she feels there is no good choice to make here, no easy choice. There is no part of her that wants to take a cure if it could help someone else, no part of her that wants to watch everyone she loves suffer and die if there is something she could have done for one of them. Just one, though. She closes her eyes and bows her head, cries until her throat aches with it and her eyes burn, because when they are gone she will have to live with this choice, just like she has to live with the ghost of last one she made. It will be the only company she has in a world where trees stand like bare skeletons and the only voices are the ones in her memories until the day she grows old and dies.

But she will give all of herself to them. To helping them and loving them and finding ways to heal whatever brokenness she can - and she will never breathe a word of this choice to any of them for fear that this is not the decision she should have made, for fear that they will look at her with wounded eyes and wonder how she could ever be so selfish. How she could have this cure and not give it to one of them.

But in her heart, in a place so marked with the dark, so mutilated with scars, she knows this is the only choice to make. So she drinks until it is gone, until there are no tears left in her eyes, until that soft teal color is raw and wet and ruined.

And then -

In one final effort, she turns to the heart of the world she loves, the world they all so desperately need. A world so abused that it is in its death throes and not even the fairies can hold the inevitable at bay - and with a whisper she closes her eyes again, bows that strange, antlered brow, and whispers, “Take my heart.” Because she has been made whole again, because she can feel the cure like liquid sunshine in her veins. Because if it will help, she would give it gladly.

i am brambles but i am tangled in your love

[Nocturne]

He was right. Beqanna didn’t need all of his blood. Instead, she took what he freely offered and gave him a small vial in exchange, shimmering silver liquid that gleamed in the light of her magic fire. Fire that shifted and solidified into something new, its light claiming his image and reflecting it back at him. He stared into the mirror-like surface for a long moment, studying himself in a way he’d never been able to before. Weary silver eyes that almost matched the glistening liquid cure stared back at him, just the faintest hint of hope kindling in their depths. Blood still saturated his moonlight pale coat, painted unnatural sunset hues in the flickering magical firelight. The boy who watched him from the depths of the fire was almost a stranger, his young body hardened and scarred by one trial after another, all in the name of a cure.

All in the name of saving a world that didn’t even know his name.
But it was such a small vial.

The image shifted, his reflection fading as the fire showed him Beqanna suffering and dying at the hands of the plague he’d fought so hard to defeat. A few familiar faces, fellow questers he’d encountered in passing, a brief flickering glimpse of Ember’s red and black, but it was a stranger’s face the image settled on. A stranger curled up on the ground and staring up at the moon shining down on his broad, scarred face. A face Nocturne was sure he’d never seen before, so why did his breath catch in his throat? Why did his heart leap inside his chest?

Something inside him just knew, his heart screaming inside him that he was looking at the home he’d never known, scars that all but matched his own tracing lines in ebony skin he could almost see had once been pale as moonlight just like his. A magnificent, stark white forelock fell over that scarred face, his mane spilling down his neck in riotous tangles that Nocturne somehow knew the shape of all the way down to his bones. He could bury his face in that mane and breathe in the scent of home, if he could only reach. Broad shoulders heavy with muscle, shaped just right for him to curl into. His skin ached for an embrace he’d never felt before, seared into his DNA, crying out in every cell of his body leaving him shaking as tears welled up in his eyes because oh!

“Dad?”

Mine! The truth screamed in his veins, making the air in his lungs vibrate, making his whole body quake with yearning all the way down to his soul. Home. God, he could almost feel what it would be like, to be held. To be loved, beyond the faintest shadow of doubt. For once in his life, to be wanted. One look from mismatched eyes brushed silver and gold, he could live forever on one look, please, just look at me!

The vial floated between them, and he saw beyond the way his heart stuttered and raced in his chest, saw the sickness plaguing his father in the dullness of his dark coat, the blood dripping from flared nostrils, the way his great chest heaved as he coughed. And Nocturne’s heart fell. He could live forever on one look, and watch his father die for want of a sip of silver magic. Or…

Or he could save his father’s life, and die wrapped up in the home he’d never known.

The moment he understood, the fire opened into a doorway before him, the image turning solid, turning real. Nocturne drew a shaky breath and stepped forward on trembling feet, wide silver eyes brimming with tears. He took the vial in his mouth, so careful, so gentle, what good could he do if he broke it? As he stepped through the ring of fire, his father’s head turned slowly, brow furrowed, eyes still staring up at the moon for a moment longer.

Nocturne could feel it too, the way the moon tugged on the man, the gravity between them defying laws of physics as though his father were immeasurably larger than his body could hold, but only for the moon. He could feel the quiet yearning, the ache of ancient sorrow, of old wounds that still scarred far deeper than his skin. Unfocused eyes hazy from fever finally tore free of the moon’s hold and settled on him, and the stranger’s familiar brow furrowed deeper.


“Do I know you?”

His voice was darkness and moonlight, gravel and melodies crooned in the dead of night, and it shivered through Nocturne’s blood, danced along his skin like a quiet touch. Nocturne shook his head and stepped closer, a tear trickling out of the corner of one eye and trailing slowly down his cheek. No, his father didn’t know him, had never even dreamed of him, had no clue he so much as existed. But Nocturne knew; maybe his father could feel it too? The way his bones thrummed with conviction, with certainty that drove him forward one shaky step at a time. He reached his father’s side and lowered his head to offer the vial of shimmering silver. He set it carefully at his father’s feet. “No,” he answered softly, shaking his head again. “I’m just a dream. Drink this, okay? It’ll make you feel better.”

His father frowned up at him, narrowing eyes that struggled to focus on Nocturne’s pale form so bright in the moonlight. “You look…” He shook his head, blinking hard, dragging in a raspy breath that rattled in his lungs like death. “Like me. When I was...small.” Nocturne could see him struggle for words, the sickness stealing coherence from him, burning his mind with fever and snatching the breath from his lungs. “You’re hurt, do--”

“I’m just a dream,” Nocturne said softly, “don’t worry about it. Just drink, I promise you’ll feel better.” No sense in telling him what his heart so desperately longed to shout, to scream, to whisper with shaking breath. It would be selfish, it would be cruel. Still, Nocturne couldn’t help but lower himself to the ground at his father’s side, curl up into his sturdy strength as the stubborn man finally listened and drank the cure. As soon as his moonlight skin touched scarred ebony, silent tears started falling in earnest, shaking his body as he curled tighter into his father’s side.

“Hush, little dream boy, I’ve got you,” his father crooned, tucking him closer, wrapping himself around Nocturne’s much smaller body. “‘s all right. Rest now, there’s a good boy.” Darkness and moonlight washed over him, and Nocturne closed his eyes. For the first time in his life, he was home. It didn’t matter if it was the last time too. As his father held him close, Nocturne knew part of him could live forever on just that one look, just that one embrace. Maybe...maybe instead of darkness, he could be the moon. Maybe when the plague stole his breath and stopped his heart, chased the last of the light from his silver eyes, he could let the moon take him high into the sky, and his dad could stare up at him with love and longing in mismatched eyes, never quite knowing why it made his heart ache all the brighter.

It would be okay, to be the moon. If his dad looked up at him like that, maybe it could be okay.

As his breath grew more labored and his awareness faded slowly, he listened to the sound of darkness and moonlight, gravel and melodies crooned in the dead of night, singing him the song of an old jungle lullabye. Lips brushed his forelock off his forehead and pressed a soft kiss to the center, a rest in his haunting night song, and as his father’s voice picked it up again, Nocturne hoped it was a song he sang to the moon too.

((Using the cure to save the father he never met, Drow, who I play. So, you know, okayed by me.))