there’s a constant murmur of gossip whispering through the stone halls, revealing the underlying concerns of citizens not quite calmed by the royals in the wake of the screaming. it didn’t help that no one, absolutely no one, had control over their powers anymore. bursts of flame, sudden floods, earthquakes, and windstorms had become too popular as of late. the thauma was unpredictable, running wild under even an experienced user’s touch.
a low member of the merchant class was whispering to a confidante near by, not realizing the echo of even the softest whispers in the great halls.
“I don’t know Sybil, don’t you think it’s awfully convenient this happened after we were summoned here?”
“Hush Anders, if the spies hear you…”
A pair of deep green eyes watched the pair with keen interest, despite the look of sheer boredom stuck to his face. He didn’t quite catch the last part as a concerned Sybil ushered her co-conspirator down the hall. Pyr shrugged against the stone wall he leaned against, half amused and half-annoyed he’d missed out of the juicier half of their conversation. all the lower members of the court were like that—easily scattered, easily scared. and so fucking boring. there was no zest, no fight in them. life at court had beaten it out of them.
he’d get a good brawl going one minute and just when it would start to really catch his attention, his opponent’s resolve would melt into apologies and cries for mercy. it’d gotten so bad, pyr had given up on his hobby for watching underlings scurry about and hanging on to the rare pieces of gossip he could find. it was maddening. if the damned matriarch would just fucking release his court, he could go with them, find adventure and glory in the wilds, but she kept her leashes tight.
the stone was cool against his hot skin, reminding him that winter still raged outside the cavern hall. he usually liked winter, the cold kept the fevers of his fires at bay, but without thauma to rely on, he didn’t trust exploring what little land he was allowed to venture to.
he was too pretty to die of frost bite.
'shit, shit, shit.' a constable - they'd made her a
constable, as if she had any right to the rank. as if she'd been in training longer than a handful of months - and then they set her loose on the cordillera like she could help control the madness.
nothing was controlling the madness this afternoon. spikes of thauma use flash in the corners of her vision and she grits her teeth, laying her ears flat to her narrow skull, and does her best to murmur comforting things. a touch of her nose to a shoulder, a promise that things will be well if they only
be still. but it is hard to convince them and they bare teeth, daring to snap fangs and wield their unpredictable powers, only to recoil in horror a moment later when the flash of the royal insignia on her necklace is finally seen through the plush coat.
she's exhausted of it - of all of it.
when she's released for a scant few hours of rest, she hurries away, half-delirious in her weariness and hunger. her throat is hoarse as strata side-steps wolves clustered together in the halls, hiding from the bite of wintertide and seeking some kind of comfort amongst the high court. as if they had even an inkling of what the hell was happening. the thought crosses her mind without hesitation and she heaves a frustrated sigh, sweeping a hands across her face as she walks.
and she doesn't see him as a result.
the scent of
Pyr hits her like an ton of stone and she goes rigid.
green meets green before she can consider ducking away and lysistrata forces her muscles to relax - bit by little bit - so that she can face him looking just a little less like she's terrified to see him
she is and that he's a welcome sight
it hurts.
"
pyr." she says by way of greeting, the corner of one mouth of her mouth twisting up into a smile ( it's bittersweet and her chest tightens ). she regrets how they parted - she regrets that
she left the dawn court... but the family had departed for the high court and she had little choice but to follow.
it doesn't mean it hurts any less.
that it ( probably ) hurt
him any less.
she wonders if he hates her. and she swallows at that, clearing her dry throat and shaking herself just a little. "
it's good to see you." she admits, jaw tilting slightly to one side as her gaze relentlessly searches his face, looking for some sign.
pretending I won’t be lost without you, Usually he loves surprises—he likes the chaos of a random burst of joy, even if it’s bittersweet—but this has to be a fucking joke. And he’s not laughing. The moment he sees her, it’s a flip in his stomach and then a drop into the cold realization she had
chose the bitch queen and all her insufferable spawn. She’d chose the side that kept the leash so goddamn tight around his neck, he sometimes worried he might hang on it. His eyes are wide as they stare at that insignia on her neck. It feels like hours have passed before he can find himself dragging his eyes away, to her face, and the way she’s still smiling at him despite it all.
He does not want to relive this, the fact that she left him. She left him right when he needed her most and now she’s a constable for the high court. It’s not fair. He should be enraged (and part of him is) but he’s just sinking into himself like quicksand, letting his feelings drown him. She has been his only friend in the cultivated hell his father had made for him (and he’s loved her since they were kids, he used to think).
It takes him a moment to shake off the surprise and to sink further into that cocky composure of bitter smirks and hard eyes. It’s easier than falling apart.
”“Lysistrata.” it feels wrong to use her full name. It doesn’t suit them.
”or should I say constable?” he spits the title like an insult. An insult to him, to her, to his remaining family.
He wants to tell her what her matriarch has done to him, to his court, to his life, but the words never come. They remain clenched between his teeth.
”Yeah, it’s good to see you, too.” it’s a flat admission, his voice carefully neutral to hide the hurt that flares amber in his dark eyes. She’s not his to have and it’s no use drowning in a hurt that’s not entirely his to feel.
lost without you
he's so still that strata, herself, mirrors him for a moment. she holds her breath, mind whirring as she tries to figure out if this is some sort of new, strange effect - paralysis - of the eclipse. but, no. pyr is still breathing, blinking, and she can feel a sort of tremble start in her legs and work their way up. by the time his eyes meet hers again, she's exhaled sharply, the realization that this is not going to be a nice meeting welling up in her chest. a paw lifts to cover the crest of the iokheaira house as if it will somehow make it less true. she opens her mouth - to explain? to protest? she's not sure - but instead simply snaps her mouth closed before she can. how many times has she explained? how many times has she tried?
watching him go from pyr to the cocky prince is almost more of a gutpunch that her full name on his tongue.
a hiss of breath slides through clenched teeth and her ears press further to her skull. the corners of her eyes tighten and she manages to keep the frail smile on her lips ( though it's shadowed, now; fake ) through sheer willpower. "whatever is preferable to you, prince mourning." she thrusts it back at him, the insult - she knows he chafed against the label for many a year, lashing out against his father and the court created. she'd been there; she'd lived it. and she would like to think that this will hurt him as much as the weaponized words hurt her.
he tries, then, perhaps. the listless words he parrots back at her. did he mean them? or were they merely the habit of a prince raised to toss about niceties?
lysistrata should have let it go - should have walked past him to throw herself into her meager chambers and sleep away the exhaustion that drags at her shoulders. that pushes her form earthward and shadows the underside of her eyes. "don't lie to me." she says, then, her face hardening. "you never have before. don't start now. i deserve that much." there's no bite to the words - but there is heat. they're weary despite the bite and she scoffs, turning her head away. "i never lied to you."
i hate what she takes, but I love what she gives me, he watches, wearing that same mask, as she opens her mouth to explain it to remind him that high matriarch is good and graciously kind. He doesn’t want to hear either one. It’s hard enough standing here, watching whatever they used to have (friendship, childhood fascination) tear itself apart. The cold eyes find the exhaustion clinging to her in the dark bags under her eyes and the way she stands, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t ease this tumble into the darkest parts of him.
She gives as good as she gets and throws his title in his face. It hits right where it hurts, in his heart; right where all the memories of his father hid. The smirk doesn’t falter, but his skin heats against his will, the fires in his blood suddenly stirring in the face of his hidden hurts, and sparks dance against the rune flowing haphazardly on his shoulder. he should rein it in before the heat bursts out of him and the thauma chooses chaos over control, but he’s not focused on himself. His eyes are on hers,
”knew I’d get you to say my name the way the others do.” His voice is all silk and suggestive charm. A pretty lie. He never found the courtiers of the high court interesting enough. They were too soft. an eyebrow raises in challenge, waiting for more barbs.
If he has to hurt, so does she.
Finally he pushes off the stone wall, immediately missing the cool touch. It had kept him grounded, but who needed to be grounded when you want to let yourself drown.
”is that what you think I am?” his heartbeat rages as sparks dance around him.
”I’m sure the matriarch will applaud you for such thinking,” he hisses.
”she’d love to be rid of me. Maybe you’d get promoted for it too.”
He should stop. She doesn’t deserve this. She
never deserved this side of him, but he’s so angry. He’s so fucking
angry about it all. That he’s still somehow the head of a court that barely likes him, that he’s stuck in this fucking court that suffocated him with its frills and gossip, and that he can’t leave. He’s stuck here. Leashed like a wild dog. She doesn’t deserve the brunt of his anger, but she wear that damn badge and he swears he could combust at that alone.
Lysistrata
a rune flashes, the sparks of a growing flame dances, and strata's eyes burn with it. irreverence in every line of her body, from the square of her shoulders to the tilt of her jaw. she can feel static playing down her spine, zapping harder than she means it to, and she swallows against the frustration. 'thauma's not working,' she reminds herself. 'or at least not right.' and much as she'd like to throw a ball of light right into his dark, princely face - she smothers the desire.
but that doesn't mean her tongue can't slice.
his comment jerks her straight, spine going ramrod, and there's an explosion of hurt in her eyes. the shock is naked on her face but she doesn't let it stay, forces it into a look of something close to derision. "i didn't know you were so easily satiated." her voice comes out level and drawling, kudos for her. even as her muscles scream from the tension she manages to sound indifferent. even if every thought she was flashes across her face before she fully feels it.
sparks skitter closer as he shoves towards her, encroaching into her space. one shoots close enough that it lands on her white paw and she jerks it back when it singes. she hisses between her teeth, looking up angrily at him. he presses close and she very nearly gives the ground to him - starts to shift back onto her haunches. but something inside her snaps with a sound she thinks echoes around her and, instead, she shoves back at him. strata's ears thrust up, her lips pulling back to bare fangs. "i don't care about promotions!" it's a harsh shout that echoes back at her from the walls of the cordillera and there's a distant oh! of surprise. she gnashes her fangs together, biting the side of her tongue, and she pushes hard into the earth. "allmother's sake, pyr." she snarls, her hackles rising and shoving even closer into his space if he doesn't move - going nose-to-nose if she can.
"do you think this was my choice? this was my plan?" she snaps her jaws, clacking her teeth together. "i've told you a thousand times." but he doesn't care - he's made that clear.
why do I do this? pick you up & put you down and put you through this deep down, he knows this is stupid. he knows this talk is goddamn futile, but here he is digging his grave word by word. she may have told him
why a thousand times, but it didn’t break his heart any less. he had needed her and she chose family over him.
fuck. He still needed her. Constantly. He needed her to tell him what he should do in the face of what little dawn court remained. And he needed her to tell him that he wasn’t the reason they left, to soothe that fear so many had abandoned the court after his father’s death; that they, she, had never saw potential in him. That old hurt is screaming in the back of his mind, drowning out the little voice telling him to apologize.
He chooses the destructive choice instead. If he’s already this deep, this far down in his own hell, he might as well commit. A sharp-tooth smile widens at her comment (even when it burns).
”you wouldn’t know, Lys. Would you?”
The rune on his shoulder stutters and flares. The sparks growing too hot before he tried to stop them. It feels less like wildfires in his blood and more like lava, the magic wild and unwilling to be tamed. It takes longer than it should, but he was the idiot who had tried to test the new rule that thauma wasn’t working right. His skin is too hot, steaming in the cold, but his eyes remain hard where he and the constable are glaring at each other.
”you can explain it as many times as you want,” comes the grumble.
”it’s no less a betrayal.”
He jerks his head away from her, from their stupid argument, and that goddamn badge. His skin is burning and his heart hammering in his chest (from the argument, the thauma, or
her, he doesn’t know.)
”Bye, Constable.” And he’s ducking out a the cavern opening to find some snow to fall into.
love somebody
falling, screaming "i choose you. i choose you." // his teeth flash broad and her eyes narrow - she knows whatever comes out of that dark maw will be ugly ( and you'll deserve it, her brain insists; you did this.). even so, she winces when they lash out at her, caught somewhere between disgust and surprise. but she feels her own lips moving even as her pale gaze turns colder, all pine forest in the bite of wintertide. "my needs aren't so easily hit." and though she says it like she knows - like someone knows, all purrs and smirks - there's a chasm opening in her heart.
he had been the one who was meant to know, she thinks.
and she was the one he was meant to find, not some high court whore.
she chomps, a horse against a bit too tight in her mouth, regretting the snap even as it leaves her tongue.
pyr claims it's no less a betrayal and she bristles, ready to fight again. ready to square up at this like she has at everything else... but she deflates. her muscles go weak and her shoulders slump and her ears tip back to her skull. her eyes close and she sighs, head slinging low and nose pointed at the ground. what the fuck did he want her to say? she couldn't apologize, he'd never let her; she couldn't come back, he would sooner spit on her offer. lysistrata has never felt so awkward and lost around him - this fiery boy she grew up alongside. they had stood on the same side for so long, two wiry kids poised to fight the world.
and then the law house had migrated to his most loathed enemy.
and she went with them.
and then they had, mostly, died.
and now she is alone, caught in this strange, royal court but unable to damn her family's choices; unable to abandon what they'd expect of her for what he expects of her.
she shakes her head, miserable and tired and wanting nothing more than to find her empty, soulless room in the barracks and sleep for hours ( even as she knows the other constables will be banging at her door in less than a few for her to take a shift again. all because of this inane event the matriarch was putting on ).
the heat of him leaves abruptly and her eyes flash open, unfocused at first, to find him lurching away. bye, constable he quips and she stumbles a step forward. her arm reaches out, fingers wanting, and his name on her lips "pyr-!" but he's gone off. to fight, no doubt; or perhaps, if he's to be believed, to find some kind of brief respite in the arms of a stranger.
neither option soothes her thoughts.
frustrated, she grinds out a growl and jerks away from where he'd been going, storming down the rocky halls to find her stupid room to hide in.