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callum watches the red liquid slosh in rayla’s offered glass and shies away. “uh— sorry, humans don’t drink—“
rayla’s eyes narrow, the purple lines down her cheeks interrupted by the harsh twisting of her face. “humans don’t drink what?”
callum swallows, pointedly not meeting ezran’s gaze. “blood, humans don’t drink blood.”
neither do elves, apparently, despite the rumors. rayla raves in the way she always does as she corrects callum’s bigoted beliefs, managing to pass quite a bit of time just seething, before sighing and sitting down on the closest sturdy log.
“it’s humans that created the blood-drinkers, you know,” she says, picking up a stick and drawing lines in the sandy dirt. “your dark mages saw us moonshadow elves as the biggest threat from xadia, save for the dragons, so they tried to manufacture some from their own ideas of what we are.”
in the dirt, slowly coming together, is a stick figure with fangs too big for its lopsided head. there are vaguely bat-like wings extending from the arms. “the vampires came from the idea that we leech off of our enemies, which i can assure you is not the case.”
ezran nods, bait in his arms. “oh yeah! and werewolves are the whole moon thing!”
“yeah, the whole moon thing,” rayla scoffs, “the speed and strength aspect, too. vampires got the stealth and longevity though, i think.”
callum nods. “that and some extra, but you got the most of it.”
(when callum is eleven, he learns how to die quietly.
it’s not hard. not a hard decision or a hard death. there’s a man in his room with a scar running through his left eye up to his brow, hair braided back, sword in hand glowing with a force that reminds callum of aunt amaya and the border.
“prince ezran,” says the man, gravel in his throat, and callum doesn’t correct him.
dead bodies are cold, lifeless things. they are husks of what used to be people. callum remembers stories of the katolis of Before, when winters froze mounds of corpses left to the ice until spring came along to melt and disfigure them.
callum doesn’t remember what it is to be dead— he’d probably be a lot more fucked up if he did, honestly. his nightmares are instead of barbed wire garrotes, men with gruesome smiles, ezran taking his place.
when he wakes up, a nightmare is all he thinks it is.)
the banther lodge is empty when they arrive. rayla scales the walls like a pro, jumping onto the roof and through the window. callum, now that he’s not preoccupied with fear and anxiety, is suitably impressed. rayla is a horror story callum never thought he would meet in his lifetime, and it still feels vaguely fantastical to watch her.
unfortunately, because all of callum’s plans inevitably turn to shit, half an army shows up right as rayla slips inside. oops.
a long time ago, callum might have even been happy to see the general that’s leading the crowd. instead, callum hides in the woods with the egg as ezran runs in front of the lodge on his own. “aunt amaya! hey!”
callum can’t see her response, but ezran isn’t proficient enough at sign yet for that to be an issue. the lieutenant translates: “where’s your brother? the king sent us word that we’d meet the both of you here.”
“he’s, uh—“ ezran looks around the soldiers into the bushes where callum is crouched with his arms in an X. “—somewhere else! yeah, somewhere else. let’s go there!”
clearly, aunt amaya doesn’t buy it, as she breaks down the doors to the lodge with one kick. it’s impressive in the same way viren is, awesome and terrifying in equal measure.
then callum remembers rayla. he’s glad for ezran being nowhere close enough to hear what comes out of his mouth.
he’s waiting for what feels like far too long when rayla and ezran come sprinting out of the carefully reattached doors, amaya and her men at their heels.
“fuck,” callum says, loud enough that the soldiers standing guard outside startle.
“callum!” ezran yells, too busy running for rayla’s life to comment on his language.
“coming!” callum calls back, and books it.
aunt amaya ends up cornering the four of them anyway, and it’s all callum can do not to meet her eyes as she signs: come towards me, i’ll kill the elf.
this is what callum knows about aunt amaya: she loves her sister’s children with the same ferocity that she loved sarai herself. she would never do anything to hurt them. aunt amaya also leads the military force with the most prejudice against magic, even and almost especially human magic. she kills monsters and it doesn’t feel like murder. callum— though granted the protection of being sarai’s child— is enough of a monster to rate.
this is what callum signs back: let us go, or we’ll kill ezran and drink his blood.
“what’s he saying?” rayla hisses,
hand over her mouth. callum nods back at his brother, not taking his eyes off of his aunt. ezran translates, voice a few tones louder than callum prefers.
there’s a second where rayla processes that, and callum tries not to wince at the wounded noise she makes before she thinks to ask: “both?”
it doesn’t work quite as he wants it, and rayla has to take up the torch with a blade to ezran’s neck, but it does work.
rayla gives him the silent treatment as soon as she knows they’re safe, sitting in the back of the boat looking hurt and confused, holding her tongue until long since the crown prince has conked out. she lifts up her head to meet his eyes. “you said i’d kill ezran and drink his blood.”
callum shrugs through the anxiety building under his skin. “yeah, i thought she’d leave us alone if i did.”
rayla glares at him, because though it was one of callum’s better plans, it still wasn’t a good one. she shakes her head, “no, you said we’d kill him. explain.”
callum closes his eyes, bracing for the fallout. “okay, i will.”
(viren peers into a two-sided mirror and finds a creature made from all the beauty of the night sky. they’re an elf, though not any kind of elf viren has ever seen before.
the first time performing the ritual the elf leads him through, viren stops just before it can finish. he is the high mage of katolis, unofficial acting regent, and he has no business bending to the whims of an elf he sees through the glass of a magic mirror.
then he gets caught in his treason, calling for a meeting of the five kingdoms with the use of the late king’s seal. the guards are searching relentlessly through the palace viren should be ruling, and he has nothing left to lose.
he picks up the larva that emerged from elf’s mouth and reluctantly lets it climb its way up to his ear. with the gross sensation of insects crawling on him, this is already looking to be a bad idea. then the elf opens their mouth.
it’s a voice that shakes him to his core, traps him in the beauty of it. “let your disguise drop, cecidit , for we are the same.”
viren does ).
callum recites the one spell he was ever formally taught, slashing his hand through the air: “eximo.”
he loses a few inches instantly, gains fat to soften his face; his eyes turn black and stay that way, his hair frosts over and his veins darken beneath his skin. when he opens his mouth, it’s full of needle-teeth, rows upon rows like a leech.
“four years ago, i was killed by an assassin who was after my brother,” callum says, and rayla’s eyes dart down to her wrist. “the high mage, viren, decided he could fix me when no conventional medicine could. so long as i’m fed, i’m essentially human, but it still upsets ezran and the people to see it.”
“you’re a monster,” rayla breathes.
“that’s rich coming from you, miss moonshadow elf.”
rayla presses forward, rising to her feet, and this time it’s callum flinching backwards. “yeah, but at least i’m not living only by the grace of dark magic and someone else’s life.”
callum throws his arms up, hissing under his breath for ezran’s sake. “you’re a fucking assassin! just because you can’t do your job, doesn’t mean it’s that much better.”
“fuck off, asshole,” rayla growls. “i should steal the egg right now, kill you in the name of xadia and righting the wrong of the human magic that created you.”
callum bites his lip, and when it bleeds it stains his teeth black. “will you?”
rayla breathes deep, loosens her fists where they’re white-knuckled around her shape-changing weapons. “i don’t know.”
not too long after, when they’ve already fallen into an uncertain silence only filled by startling when the other moves too fast, rayla breaks it again. “what happens if you don’t eat?”
it’s as much a truce as anything. callum watches the oar as he moves it through the water. “have you ever met another vampire besides me?”
“no, but i’ve heard stories,” she whispers. “runaan says they’re rare to find far from the mage or sire that made them, and if they’re far enough away that a xadian patrol finds them, then they’re twice as dangerous.”
callum nods. “as far as i know it, i'm only sane so long as i feed. every day i go hungry is a day that i lose my humanity.”
rayla nods minutely. it’s an acknowledgement of threat level, really. if rayla is to kill him now, callum will be helpless to stop her. if she delays her assault to the point where he actually becomes monstrous, it won’t be nearly so easy.
rayla can lob his head off and throw him over the side of the boat with the same effort callum uses to breathe. instead, she side-eyes him, something deceptively bright twinkling in her eyes. “so, wings and creepy ninja powers?”
he laughs, cracking whole and honest in the still night air. “i have no clue where you got the wings from, rayla.”
(viren’s butterflies work wonders, and for that reason is he glad that the mirror isn’t reflective. he knows anyway, what he looks like underneath: his eyes are black like the blood running beneath his skin, inky and dead. his white hair and streaked skin can be attributed to simply being the toll of dark magic, but his teeth and claws cannot.
“what do you mean, the same?” viren asks, curiosity overcoming his awe.
“we draw our power from the same nightfall, cecidit,” the elf croons. “when there is no sun, only moon and stars. when the sky is drenched in red. we are brethren, allies by fate.”
a blood moon is what it’s called, in layman’s terms, or even a lunar eclipse. viren has no clue what it means for him besides the name, but he’s also never let himself be anything less than human on those nights. he’s not sure how much he buys the allies - by-fate thing, but it’s hard to focus when the map of the sky is moving across the elf’s chest, constellations traveling along their collarbone and down their neck.
“tell me your name,” viren demands— barely, his voice determined to stay lost so long as he’s trapped by the elf’s gaze.
“my name is not important—“
“bullshit. tell me your name or this stops now.” that’s bullshit in itself. viren has no grounds to dictate the terms of anything, no hill to die on. the elf seems to be aware of that, by the knowing smirk he receives, but indulges him anyway.
“aaravos , cecidit, but you may call me patrem.” )
rayla leads the tracker through the forest, cursing her role as the only capable melee fighter in their motley crew. she needs to get him well away from the boys before she can engage— but what then? can she kill him if it comes down to that? she’s down one working hand, and she’s not sure she has the mettle to take a life should the opportunity present itself.
the hunter’s weapon flies out and swipes her ankle, sending her falling from the tree she’s perched on. she can think of a hundred ways she would have caught herself had she both hands. the tracker, ignorant of her handicap, seems a mile too pleased with himself. maybe she does have the will to kill him, actually, or at least heavily maim.
“general amaya ordered me to track you monsters and protect prince ezran,” he announces, totally unprompted. what is it with humans and announcing things? it’s like they get off on it.
“fuck off,” rayla declares, in her own five-star human impression, and sends him tumbling into a ditch with her good hand. monsters . until the blood runs out, callum is just a lad with arms the same diameter as the wide end of an acorn, and rayla is just a elf who chose the wrong occupation. she just hopes she’ll have the resolve to do what needs to be done once callum’s run himself dry.
( aaravos. viren’s read that name before, countless times discounted. when he opens his books the words bleed from the pages into something unrecognizable, and the memories viren does have are slipping away.
viren bursts back into the cell, storming past the ginger idiot he’s strung up on the wall to yell at an unresponsive mirror.
aaravos taps his ear, smiling like one would at a young child. viren pouts, avoids a tantrum, and brings the larva from the jar to his ear.
“ cecidit , why do you thirst to know so much about one you already know in your core?” aaravos brings a hand to the star on his chest, beautiful like the rest of him. “i am your blood, your brethren, your servant. you need not wonder of the intentions of your reflection—“
“you’re not my reflection,” viren cuts him off, though there is some truth to his words. he can feel aaravos in his bones, in his mechanically beating heart. there’s puppet strings tying knots through viren’s joints, but they fit into holes already drilled. it feels less like a foreign power imposing its will and more like a presence that’s been there all along. regardless, it’s too natural for viren to attack and break it.
viren ignores that development with as much grace as possible for a man who is in panic mode. “how do i know i can trust you?”
“you shouldn’t, cecidit, ” aaravos says. “just as you shouldn’t trust yourself.”
whatever bullshit that is, it’s ignored. elves are known for going above and beyond in speaking around the truth and being too vague to be of any use. however, if he can manage to get a straight answer at all— “you keep calling me cecidit , fallen. and you say to call you patrem, like i would my sire if i had one.”
“i do, yes.”
viren wants to punch the mirror where aaravos smiles back at him. “don’t tell me you’re really so difficult as to make me ask.”
aaravos laughs, it’s dark and full and almost tangible with the decadence of his voice. “we’ll be here awhile.”)
callum tries to hand her the egg, and as precious and important as that egg is, rayla still fails to catch it. his eyes narrow, something dark flashing within them even with the illusion on, and he dives in afterwards.
“callum!” ezran yells, and scrambles over to the hole in the ice left behind. he looks about ready to jump in after, but rayla keeps a hand on ezran’s collar, holding him back.
“he can handle it, he’ll find the egg.” or so she hopes. ezran bites his lip and nods, despite the worry he’s painted in.
they wait, and callum doesn’t come back. ezran sobs, a hand over his mouth.
“fuck,” rayla whispers, for all she’s been censoring herself for ezran’s sake. she’s killed them— both callum and the dragon prince. how did she ever think she could carry through with the former?
rayla moves her hand from ezran’s collar to his shoulder— light as air, expecting him to slap it away. “i really thought he could do it, ezran. i’m sorry.”
ezran shakes his head, leaning back into her touch. it’s startling how ezran trusts her; the second time she’s killed his family now, failing to stop runaan and failing to catch the egg, and still he lets her close. she won’t let him down again.
then: a tapping against the ice.
“callum!” ezran yells again, sliding over to the transparent patch where his brother is. rayla follows, breaking through with her blades and dragging him out along with the egg— muted colors and all.
the egg isn’t the only discoloration. callum is sopping wet, hair more gray than the white rayla knows it is, and when his wide and helpless eyes meet her own, they’re pitch black.
“guys, i—“ callum looks to ezran, countless apologies written in the tension between them. “i don’t think i need to breathe anymore.”
(aaravos sighs, somehow beautiful even in that. “i won’t say i am so important as to be your sire—though you claim to have none of your own?”
“i made myself,” viren allows, but nothing more than that. he’s reluctant to speak of the event: gravely injured and just barely conscious, sarai’s cooling body laying beside him, the sight of his own organs airing— it isn’t something he likes to remember.
aaravos raises his palms in a peace offering— though still not managing to look completely sincere— before continuing. “i’m not your sire, but i’m patrem to all my cedidit — or vampires, as humans have taken to calling you.”
“you’re the one who invented the spell, you mean,” viren infers.
“something like that.”
“i had been led to believe that humans created vampires for want of a rival to moonshadow elf assassins.”
aaravos laughs, not particularly long or even honest. “human magic tends towards such hubris, but no. vampires as humans know them are the bastardized products of my spell done wrong to reach those means. however, you are not a vampire as humans know them.”
ignoring that insult for all that it grates him: “why then? why am i fallen instead?”
“oh, cecidit . because you managed to do it right .”)
ezran is ecstatic to meet the prince— finally! after all those fragments of thought from the egg, he gets to meet the friend he’s always known he’ll have. the prince seems just as ready to meet him, judging by the barrage of thoughts and information he assaults ezran with.
“you already know your name?” ezran gasps. azymondias . his friend is so cool. he can’t say that whole thing all the time though, so they agree to shorten it for convenience.
zym, after introducing himself to rayla and blink, tilts his head up at callum and speaks in the only way he knows how: safe?
ezran takes callum in for what he is now that he’s stopped using the illusion. boney in a way that seems to just get sharper as the days go by; black veins popping out against pale skin; inky eyes and white hair that would be frightening on anyone else; long black nails steadily growing into claws; needle teeth that pop out from between pale lips, just this side of hard-to-hide.
“yeah, zym,” ezran encourages, wearing his best no-i-did-not-just-steal-your-jelly-tart smile. he’s not sure if he just lied or not.
(“is that what this is?” viren asks. “this control over me?”
aaravos’s eyes widen. “the control?”
“don’t pretend like you don’t know,” he seethes from between his countless hypodermic teeth. “i can feel it even now, and you’re trapped in a mirror who knows how far away.”
“even now?” aaravos repeats, and if viren didn’t know better than to trust the act, he’d figure that he’d managed something impossible. “you really are remarkable, cecidit.”
viren refrains from rolling his eyes, but barely. it’s not the best look on him, after all. “for what?”
“the way the spell works when i cast it— it can’t be easily replicated by anyone else. if not performed perfectly, there’s a failsafe, a kind of insanity that sets in alongside bloodlust. not only does it incite the creature to kill their creator, but it also kills the creature themselves.”
viren has never let himself go hungry, even out of curiosity, and is currently glad for it. “so?”
“you performed it perfectly,” aavaoros says, wearing a sick sort of grin. this is not the type of mirror viren usually sees it in.
aavoros lifts his hand, and the puppet strings move with it. viren feels his palm make contact with the glass of the mirror just as aaravos’s does, and is helpless to stop it.
“maybe i really am your patrem after all.”)
callum winces when he sees claudia and soren, and for all that they’re two of his closest friends, they flinch back too.
“ callum ,” claudia exhales, voice scratching deep through gravel.
soren scratches his chin. “you’ve got a bit of something, uh—”
“everywhere?” callum offers.
soren nods, snapping like the synapses in his brain would if they’d ever met each other. “yeah, that.”
they agree to a temporary ceasefire, for all that rayla is vehemently against it. even the moon mage looks reluctant to let them stay— she was reluctant to even look at callum at first, so he takes that with a grain of salt.
“callum, i know you trust them, but—“ she sighs, brings her hand to her face and drags it through to her hair. “they’re lying to you, i promise.”
“how are they lying, rayla?” he leans forward, icy brows drawn together. “seriously, i’d love to know. what insane insider info do you have on them that proves you’re right?”
“i—“ rayla closes her mouth, eyes pointed down. “i just know, okay? can you trust me too?”
callum relaxes his shoulders, leans his head back towards the ceiling. “i’ve known them for years, rayla. they’ve been there for me since before i died. how long have i known you? a couple days? a week? and you’ve already threatened to kill me. just let us rest for a bit more and we’ll go, okay?”
“fine,” rayla says, drawing her knees close to her chest and wrapping her arms around them before tucking her chin into the space between her legs.
callum, expert detective, determines that’s a lie. he can also sense it almost, the true feelings saturating the air like rain clouds. huh. he’s ignoring that new development for the betterment of his own day, let rayla stew on his words. for all that they’re friends, soren and claudia are family.
later, claudia pulls him aside, quite literally dragging him by the shoulder with nails that are supposed to hurt when they dig into his skin. “how long has it been?”
callum is probably supposed to ask what it is, but for the sake of the worry lines on claudia’s face, he won’t do her that injustice. “since way before we left, maybe a month. your dad was supposed to give me a refill the day we took off.”
claudia groans, spinning around and clutching her ears. “oh god, that’s the worst.” she stops to face him, palms pointed forward framing her face. “okay, you need to eat. we don’t know what happens to you if you don’t.”
“that’s not entirely true,” he points out. “we do know every other starving vampire turns into a feral monster.”
“not helping, callum!”
“sorry.”
claudia taps the tip of her nose furiously, not the way she does when she has an idea, but the way she does when she’s trying to summon one by gently breaking her own face. “we need, uh, blood. enough blood to bring oxygen to your brain. fuck.”
“claudia!” callum gasps, bringing his palm flat to his chest.
“ezran isn’t here!” she hisses. “or at least in earshot, anyway. and this is serious business. you’re like, eternally eleven, don’t lecture me.”
“i’m almost fifteen.”
claudia smooshes his face between her hands, eyes wide. “your brain’s already started losing oxygen! you can’t even remember your own age!”
maybe he should’ve stayed dead.
(viren wrenches his hand from the two-way mirror with all his might, managing to stumble backward a few feet when it comes free. “what the hell is this?”
it’s damning and still somehow lyrical when aaravos replies. “sires have a certain amount of power over those they turn, and as i am the originator of the spell— performed properly, of course, i have that same power over you.”
“then why—“ viren cuts himself off. “i have progeny, as a vampire. if this is true, why do i not have this same control?”
aaravos leans forward, so all the stars lining his eyes are magnified by the distance. “how did you create them? by spell or by blood?”
viren blinks, having not even known of the latter. it’s jarring, not knowing stuff. he’s usually the one with all the cards, and right now he has maybe four in a really shitty hand. “by spell, of course.”
“of course,” aaravos echoes, and leans back. “well, if you did it right both times, that should mean that i am their patrem also. let me meet them, would you?”)
claudia’s plan is this: make a magical substitute for a whole human body’s worth of blood before callum gets driven insane by the starvation.
“this is totally gonna work,” she says, the master speech-person, inspiring confidence from the masses. “you know, as soon as i figure out how to make a blood substitute at all.”
“this is a terrible idea,” soren translates, tapping his foot on the floor by the bed he’s sitting on, “and we should probably just go kill a person instead.”
“soren!”
“what? i didn’t say it had to be a good person!”
“still murder!” claudia slumps. “this was never going to work, was it?”
“nah,” soren opines, ever the comfort. “we’re just gonna have to watch callum and see what happens, i guess.”
claudia moves to sit down next to him, soren putting a hand on her back as she rests her elbows on her knees and puts her face in her hands. “he’s like our little brother, soren! i don't want to have to put him down like an animal if he starts acting crazy!”
soren removes his hand. “don’t talk like you’d be the one doing it.” he’s right, of course. claudia will be standing by while soren is sent in with iron, out to spill the blood of the boy they grew up with. claudia would be helping from the sidelines, but second string to the actual act— soren has killed before, and claudia has always been too weak to. “but it seems kind of stupid to me anyway. can’t we just give him a little bit of blood a day to keep him satisfied?”
claudia blinks up at him. taps her nose. “holy shit soren, i think you just had a good idea.”
(“he’s not in, presently,” viren coughs into his fist— a habit he should break in front of those in the know, seeing as vampires don’t get sick. “that’s part of my problem, you see. i want the princes, of which he is one of, safe. i also want the crown that they stand as obstacles to.”
aaravos nods. “i see. i will find him on my own then. there should be a way to help you both, or for you both to help me.”
“why?” viren asks. why would aaravos wish to help, and why would viren ever help in return?
“because you are my cecidit ,” aaravos explains. “we will always have a bond— whether that is simply servant and master, familial, or something more is up to you. but i have been alone for a long time, viren.” )
soren’s great idea of the millennia aside, they’re still there to bring the princes home (or in his case, to make sure they never see home again), so their priorities take effect.
soren follows the elf as she leads him through the forest, jumping between trees in a way he has no hope of reaching. killing an elf is great in theory, giving you enormous bragging rights and presumably none of the usual nightmares that come after a kill. an elf is a guiltless slaughter, being nothing more than a monster, and soldiers will even receive bonuses after slaying them. unfortunately, they’re also fucking hard to catch.
checking to see that ezran is out of earshot— soren is supposed to be brutally murdering him too, so he should really condition himself out of caring— he does his best to get his troubles off his chest: “fuck you! out here wearing my grandma’s ass hair on your head, can’t even face me like a fucking soldier! what kinda badass elite assassin are you supposed to be?”
the elf squats low on her branch— still too high for him to reach, damnit. “your grandma’s ass hair is smooth and conditioned. also, as you said, assassin not soldier. maybe i’m just leading you out here to kill you quietly, eh?”
soren scoffs. “nah, i heard about the dude on patrol, and i don’t think you could. i don’t think you’ve even killed anybody yet.”
the elf makes a sound like one of the chicken sacrifices claudia has him wrangle up for her spells. “of course i’ve killed! i’m a serial murderer, a homicide extraordinaire, if you will.”
soren squints, swinging his sword up to block the sun. “nah, you’re totally a murder virgin. a murgin.”
“that’s so not a word.”
“it was at camp!”
the elf leans forwards on her right knee, head tilted downwards. “you’ve a camp for learning about murder?”
“i, uh—“ soren shrugs. “yeah, i guess? it’s part of knight school. elves don’t?”
“i was homeschooled, so i wouldn’t know, but i really doubt it.” the elf cringes, frowning at whatever mental images she’s conjured. “humans are so weird.”
“fuck off!” soren sympathizes, and throws a rock at her face.
the elf dodges, jumping to another branch with ease that he envies. it’s probably inborn elf leg magic, which is totally cheating. “good talk!” she yells back, and the chase is on.
in the end, the princes claudia is subduing are magical moon illusions, and the real princes are riding around on a giant magic bird thing. soren hates life.
the elf jumps on the bird things’s back behind the princes, and they fly away into the sunset. they might’ve had the dragon at least, except the bag was full of moths instead and life hates soren.
“oh yeah,” he remembers. “we never told callum about that blood idea thing i had!”
claudia buries her face in her hands. “we’re all going to die.”
then the hunter shows up. maybe life just hates everyone? it’s a win for him though, so he’ll take what he can get.
(callum dreams of stars and blood.
“who are you?” he asks, and even though no words come out they are heard.
“aaravos,” the strange elf answers, not a kind callum’s ever seen before. he’d be similar to rayla if not for the skin— and the horns, and the everything— but he’s still closer to a moonshadow elf than anything else callum can manage to think up. “do you want to learn a spell?”
callum knows this is a dream— blood cannot make a stable space like it does here, bookshelves and chairs and mirrors made by everflowing red. it is that comfort that allows him this: “yeah, sure, why not?”)
the first thing zym loves about the boat: he now knows what a boat is! and what an ocean looks like!
the second thing zym loves about the boat: the talking bird and unseeing captain. zym has never been allowed to meet anyone outside of their group, the moon mage, the wolf girl, and the badmagic falsesmiles siblings that are hunting them, so this is exciting!
he nudges ezran’s calf, him being the only one who can understand when he asks: why is this captain trustworthy when no one else is?
ezran frowns, lifts zym to his lap, and projects more than whispers the answer: because he can’t see you to freak out at you, can’t see rayla to think her an enemy, and can’t see callum to think him a monster.
what a sacrifice it must be then, for ezran not to run up to every townsperson he sees and immediately befriend them. it’s hard for zym to hold himself back, and it’s his own safety on the line.
ezran snorts, and says more than projects: “nah, zym, i’m a prince! if people saw me, that’d be a big deal. and i’m fine with just you guys as friends, we’re like family, at this point.”
zym doesn’t know what family is besides the impressions he learns from ezran’s thoughts, but the warm feelings of safety and comfort match up. there’s not really a mom or a dad, but there is an elf, a vampire, a dragon, an animal-whisperer, and a glow toad— they’re probably not missing much.
when they dock, it’s midway through a storm that zym can feel in his blood, and callum sets out with him on his shoulders to feel it in his own.
zym wants to whisper the sky’s secrets like he would to ezran, but callum can’t hear him, and even if he could he would never understand. the sky is to zym like existing is to everything ever. he can’t explain it even to one who speaks in the same tongue.
callum sits on a roof with him, high and dangerous, and zym is both nervous and excited. this is his first real storm, and he knows that it’s showing off just for him. then, maybe more because of callum’s unfortunate placement than the over enthusiastic weather, they both get hit.
zym bounces back, taking the new lightning power for what it is: a gift. callum looks like he stops working for a minute, body still in a way that even the storm cries out about, and zym is very close to worried before callum wakes.
“it’s okay, zym,” he groans, the damage from the blast already fixing itself until the ash and burn is gone like it was never there at all. “i’m okay, just dumb.”
zym watches callum’s ears change shape to point at the ends. he really doubts the first part.
(the stars on his skin reflecting against the bloody floor of the room, the elf grins and continues. “the spell is to speed along the process—“
“process of what?” callum cuts him off.
“the one you’re going through right now, cecidit.” callum doesn’t know what that means, but he says it the same way harrow used to say callum. “the process of expelling humanity.”)
they come across a felled dragon, and the will to save her from the inevitable wrath of the humans fills rayla up to her pores. she doesn’t know what happened to runaan, to the rest of her team. she can’t save them now even if she abandons her mission to travel back to katolis, and even then they won’t thank her for it. what she can do is save this dragon.
“we can’t risk it. we’ve helped her some, but she’ll have to do the rest on her own,” callum says, every bit the monster rayla expects him to be. it’s never more pronounced as it is now, the heartlessness in his words going well with his unfeeling black eyes.
except ezran, who is the single most compassionate soul rayla has ever met, and who rayla has sworn to never let down again, agrees. they leave the dragon to her fate, no matter how deeply it poisons rayla to do so.
“i’m going back,” she announces, after everyone is safely hidden away in the cave. “i need to help her. if i don’t come back, i trust you to bring zym home to xadia by yourselves—“
callum raises a clawed hand, cutting her off. “there’s no way in hell we’re doing this without you, rayla. i’m going to go with you, and we’re both going to come back, okay?”
rayla blinks and callum is already gathering his stuff and putting it back into his bag. “uh, no offense, but you’re currently useless in combat.”
callum swings his bag over his shoulder. “i’m a vampire, right? i’m at least a distraction from the enemy number one: elves shit. also i think i know a spell that can help, if it comes to that.”
“a spell? but you don’t have a primal stone anymore.”
“uh, yeah, but i had a dream and i learned something cool? it’ll probably work.”
“that’s like, the least believable thing you’ve ever said.” this is coming from a person who has heard callum say good things about humans, so.
callum puts a hand on her shoulder, and rayla has no choice but to meet his eyes. where she‘s sure she’ll see solid black, she instead finds flecks of white and gold, small like faraway stars. “just trust me, alright?”
she swallows. “yeah, sure.”
(viren knows the biggest mistake in magic is to let it get outside of your own control. you need to keep it contained; a swirling ball of lighting between your fingers, but never a storm. with aaravos in front of him, with his body no longer his own, he feels like a man drowning in a hurricane.
aaravos reaches out and viren can feel it in that it takes from him. a dragging sensation that leaves viren disoriented. “callum, is he?”
for once, viren is glad his children are far from him. he’s always been a servant— he should’ve known better than to believe he will ever be otherwise— but this is a new and unpredictable master. viren doesn’t know what aaravos will have him do, what atrocities he will commit between the cracks of the mask of viren’s own goals.
viren pardons himself his desperation, for he’s already lost his dignity and power in their relationship. “can we just get back to helping me?”
“of course, cecidit.” it’s how harrow used to say viren , predating his ex-wife and sarai both).
claudia doesn’t know just where they came from, but callum and the elf are standing in between the humans and the dragon, and claudia is left to wonder just when her best friend picked the other side.
the elf brandishes her multifaceted blades, staring the soldiers down as if she can take all of them down one by one. “i won’t let you hurt her.”
claudia rolls her eyes. xadians have a special brand of hypocrisy, valuing life above all else, but only when it applies to the lives of their own. “oh? and what about the humans that she hurt? you’ve got anything to say about them?
“it's just a useless cycle of violence,” the elf defends. “this doesn’t help anyone.” it’s such a callum statement that it turns claudia’s stomach.
“you’re literally a fucking assassin! your people killed the king and tried to kill ezran with your eye for an eye rhetoric. i’m not taking this fucking bullshit from you.”
callum steps forward, almost between them. “rayla’s right—“
“up yours, callum,” soren says, sword at the ready. “when’d you decide to throw humanity to the dogs, huh? are we just food to you now?”
even claudia winces at that. callum’s face sans-illusion is hard to read— black eyes with nothing in them, mouth stiff with the sheer amount of teeth in it, no blood to spare to bring even a blush to his face— but she has no trouble reading the betrayal on it now.
callum closes his eyes and straightens up, body set with purpose. “yeah, actually.”
before claudia can even begin to process that, he paints the air with his fingertips, a rune wholly unfamiliar to her. it expands and wraps around him, tattooing his skin with the shape: a star, or something vaguely like one, hiding inside a circle like a moon. “interficias me.”
(viren does as instructed, aaravos a strong presence in his mind even without the larva. he doubts he’ll ever truly be rid of the elf, and said devil seems to gain prominence just to prove the truth of that thought.
“give them a reason to be afraid,” aaravos says, and viren does. he sends his conjured assassins to every kingdom, forcing them to feel the same fear as katolis has been feeling since harrow’s death.
viren doesn’t bother with his butterflies. harrow isn’t alive to worry about the state of his soul, and aaravos seems to enjoy the sight of the inhumanity of it. the sin of dark magic is reflected on his body, even over the vampirism. at this point, there’s no one left to care.
there is no silver lining is his situation, a fugitive in his own home and an unwilling servant to an unknown power. if there was, however, it would be the sight of the guards faces when they see him for who he is.
he almost makes it out, is the sad part. viren gives in to himself and to aaravos, throwing men across the room and turning them to dust with the power he pulls from the elf. he bites and claws at whoever gets too close, submitting to the monster he created. it’s brilliant for all the time it lasts, but in the end even his great power is contained.
he’s being read his rights when aaravos fades, always abandoned when he needs help the most: “trust in me, cecidit, i care for my own.”
it’s not a comfort in any sense of the word. if they decide to hang him, viren will have gotten off easy.)
rayla doesn’t know what she was expecting when callum described the spell, but clearly not this.
“huh,” she says, almost to herself. “vampires really can have wings.”
wings that can be used to chop off soldier’s heads apparently. she’s still refusing to process that part.
in order, the sequence of events still doesn’t make sense. callum cast a spell he learned from a dream, and drained the last vestiges of human blood from his veins. in doing so, he triggered a transformation so fast it was hard to watch: bones breaking and growing to form wings extending from his arm, teeth growing to the point where his mouth can’t close around them, revealing a wound around his throat that’s long since scarred.
it wasn’t half over when the first man fell before him. it was just barely done when soren fell to the dragon, freed by callum ripping the chains apart with his bare hands.
rayla’s glad for ezran’s absence above everything else. “ shit shit shit . callum?”
crouching next to her, half-dead soldier in his arms, callum lifts his bloody mouth from the artery it was latched onto. “yeah?”
she tries not to cringe. for all that rayla’s been trying not to consider callum a monster and visa versa, there’s no other word for him now. “you can release the spell now.”
callum’s head cocks in such a way that it rolls slow on his shoulders, loudly cracking bones on his neck. she flinches. “why would i?”
rayla knows she can beat callum in a fight. callum has barely enough meat on him to be a skeleton, let alone a threat. it’s just that this isn’t callum as she knows him, and she understands her duty now.
elves are born soldiers of xadia, they breathe magic instead of air, they live by the grace of greater magic and greater beings. when rayla came into this world, it was with the assurance of death at the hands of xadia’s enemies, and she has never imagined what it would be to be old.
this callum, covered in blood and skin stretched to the point of breaking around new and leathery wings, is as much an enemy of xadia as the soldier who felled the dragon king. if rayla doesn’t kill her friend, she’s dead as any deserter, undeserving of the magic that keeps her alive.
rayla draws her blades, and callum’s head snaps back straight, eyes narrowing, teeth bared. she’s seen actual murder less final than his decision to make her prey.
one last time, for the boy dressed as a monster: “please, callum. for ezran.”
nostrils flare despite the lack of need. long, pale eyelashes brush against moonstone skin. rayla stands about two feet away from a demon who she considers it a pleasure to know, and doesn’t hesitate when he holds out his hand.
she pulls the leather off of her wrist and offers her arm for the slaughter. claws grip tight her skin like a reminder of broken promises, quickly lifted to callum’s mouth.
“just enough to be a person again,” rayla warns.
callum smiles up at her— it might just be his teeth, preparing to bite, but she’ll take whatever comfort she can get. it hurts more than she expects.
(“what’s the point of a magic mirror elf if we’re both fucking imprisoned,” viren mutters. aaravos can hear him if he wants, at this point he doesn’t care if sarai crosses the veil and hears what mistakes he’s making with his borrowed time. his best bet turned out to still be a shit one.
“patience, cecidit.” oh yeah, that fucking bug is literally in his head now. viren really wants to say this is the grossest sensation he’s ever experienced. he really, really wants to.
instead, viren scoffs, missing the haughty weight of it from back when he wasn’t chained up in a cell. golden days, those. “what the fuck am i waiting for, the gallows?”
aaravos laughs again. viren is proud to say he’s becoming desensitized to the sex appeal of it so long as it’s serving to be evasive and annoying as hell. “you can speak in your mind, ce—“
“no, i’m fine like this.” viren raises his volume. he’s channeling soren’s default tone, which may or may not be overkill judging by the echo against the stone. no fucking way is he allowing aaravos more access to his thoughts than what he already undoubtedly has his hands on.
that laugh again, fuck his ever-shortening life. “if you say so.”
at least his kids are alright.)
claudia has seen a lot of plays for how little she enjoys sitting still. there’s something about the acting that’s always impressed her— no matter how much damage to her soul she incurs, the drop in her heart at simulated tragedy always reminds her that she has one.
she’s always thought that death scenes were understated and overdone. on a script, she only has to read that they die and she gets the gist of it. the reactions of the cast are similarly unmoving, and she’s yet to be caught crying at them. she’s never known death so intimately before as to have the ethos to critique her favorite actors, and now she knows that her standards are simply too high. there is no artist in heaven or earth who can replicate her screams.
soren isn’t moving. soren was thrown by a beast claudia was supposed to have killed, and his body sounded like a lightning when it cracked. soren isn’t going to move ever again.
her hands come around her brother’s throat, something of a chokehold before she can remember enough to find an artery and press her fingers against it. it’s there, and fuck if that isn’t the only thing she’ll ever care about again.
the doctors tell her that soren will never walk again, but what the fuck do they know. claudia trades life for lights she can get from curling fixtures without much remorse. she’ll burn katolis to get soren on his feet, and it will be a privilege.
“you know,” she says, after soren’s particularly shit attempt at poetry. she takes back her earlier statement about the only thing she’ll ever care about, replacing it with soren’s livelihood. “you don’t technically need a pulse.”
she moves closer into view so soren can suspiciously eye her properly— she doesn’t feel right without it. she’s close enough to see every emotion he goes through before he gives up, the tension fading from his face to join the rest of his body in a useless heap. it’s a good thing too, because she doesn’t have to move far to slit his throat.
maybe if she does this right, he won’t want to eat her when he wakes up.