Archive of Our Own ^beta

The shadows have been Azriel’s steady acquaintances for months.

At first, he thought he was losing his mind.

He was terrified to mention it to his mother or risk setting off her nerves, already so frail during their sparse visits.

But now, Azriel knows these shadows are real. And they’re his friends.

They’ve transported him to an idyllic riverside, lush with thick, green grass that feels at once like seaweed on his bare feet and occasionally like saw teeth when he drags his skin against them backwards. The sensation has left him marching in place in wonderment, bending over to further investigate with his fingertips.

Azriel has seen grass before. Of course he has.

Right?

The shadows tickle along his cheeks along with his overgrown hair that's begun to curl at the ends.

They assure him he’s seen grass, touched it even, it’s just a different kind here.

Where is here?

They don’t answer — for his safety.

Azriel sucks in a deep breath. Safety is his cell. If he’s away for long, if they discover his absence —

We’ll bring you back when it’s time, young master.

He settles, trusting his friends. It’s possible he shouldn’t, they could be nefarious creatures trying to get him into trouble, but in a world where the visits with his mother have been the only glimpse of kindness, of freedom, Azriel decides it's worth the risk.

Stepping out of the shade of the great weeping branches of the tree he’s arrived under the cover of seems daunting. The sunlight is filtered through cotton trees on the banks of the sparkling river with its iridescent waters so clear, Azriel believes if he gets close enough he could see every rock shining through its depths.

But it’s still so bright.

A shadow twirls around his fingertip, grabbing his attention, and pointing him towards a bundle tucked against the tree’s trunk.

Someone’s fishing tackle.

Azriel enjoys the tales of adventures his mother leaves him with, especially when the young fae featured do such useful yet enjoyable sounding tasks as fishing. A skill, a hobby, something to be enjoyed while also enjoying the labors of later.

Azriel could be a fisher, yes.

He picks up the hand line with a hook attached at the end and an ebb and flow of darkness reveals a dirt filled cup. Within the dirt, worms wiggle.

Bait for the hook. Right, he’s heard about this. Fish won’t simply bite a shining piece of metal.

The squirming worm is difficult to secure on the hook, but he feels satisfied enough once he’s twisted and contorted the writhing creature in what he has to assume is a tantalizing meal for a fish. Not wanting to risk his vision out of the shade, he goes about trying to cast the line from his current spot.

That quickly proves to be a fool’s errand.

Azriel keeps his face carefully neutral, he won’t crack even if no one is watching, and swallows down the frustration of his inability to do this activity that sounds so natural to the younglings in his mother’s stories. The line keeps catching on the branches, on the fallen branches in the waters below.

His friends whisper to step out of the shade.

Azriel swallows thickly.

“What if someone sees me?”

A creature of stones, chains, darkness. His brown skin is unnaturally pale, his wings are gangly and roughly unkempt where he keeps them closely tucked into his back. If he saw his reflection in the water, Azriel is sure his father’s hazel eyes would stare back at him in his gaunt face, hollow and emotionless.

As he likes to keep them.

It’s safer that way.

Safe, this place is safe.

Against the gnawing anxiety in his gut, Azriel steps out into the filtered sunlight on the river bank’s edge.

He winces and lifts a hand to shade his eyes.

The air smells like honeysuckle and woodsmoke. Birds chirp pleasantly in the trees and a cooling breeze keeps the air comfortable.

When he adjusts to the lighting, several slow, blinking minutes later, Azriel shuffles as close as possible to the bank’s edge to peer into the sparkling waters. It’s much deeper than he’d imagined now that the sunlight is piercing through the river, illuminating the green and silty white currents until the rocky riverbed.

It looks lovely to swim in. If only he knew how to swim.

But for now, he’s set his mind to learning how to fish. He can’t waste his chance, this may be his only opportunity.

Over and over until his shoulder is aching, his lower back sore with maintaining what his shadows whisper is the proper form for fishing, Azriel feels a glimmer of hope when he finally feels a tug on his line.

The tug quickly turns into a yank.

The yank quickly steals the line right from his hands.

“No!” Azriel calls, cursing his weakness as the line slaps into the water.

No fish. Azriel stares down at his hands, immersed in his failure and missed opportunity, until he hears slapping of water and tromping of the ground.

Oh no! No no, he can’t be caught.

Why have his friends abandoned him —

“Hey! You, kid!”

Azriel stands his ground, although his insides shrivel and all he wants to do is run. He turns to face the voice.

And feels his mouth drop open in surprise.

A girl.

With shining red hair like autumn leaves and round teal eyes that are so big he swears they’re swallowing him up. She’s skinny and taller than him and she must be part High Fae because her ears are pointed and she’s the most beautiful thing Azriel has ever seen.

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

Azriel nods, dumbfounded.

The girl jabs a finger at him — which, he realizes, has his hook jammed through it.

“You need to pay attention where you’re fishing, you could have taken my eye out,” she reprimands and she doesn’t stop approaching until she’s standing right in front of him.

Azriel is frozen in place. His eyes dart between the girl’s pale face that shimmers from water and some inner magnificence and the hook in her finger.

“I-I’m sorry.” He tries to clear his throat, voice scratchy with disuse. He doesn’t actually have to speak out loud for his shadows to understand him.

His shadows.

Azriel glances around and finds them dancing around the long, wispy shadow this girl who has climbed out of the river is throwing over the green grass of the river bank.

Something shifts in the girl’s face. Instead of anger, she looks curiously over Azriel, saucer eyes landing on his wings. “You aren’t from around here.”

“No. I’m not.”

“Alright, well,” she crosses her arms over her chest in a huff, aside from the skewered finger she leaves hanging out. “I’ll give you a free pass, then. You’re lucky it was me you snagged and not my sister. She would have bitten your head off.”

Azriel doesn’t want to consider that. He’d thought he could handle having voices raised against him, but coming from the mouth of a walking angel …

“But since I’m nice, I’m just going to have you get the hook out. Got it?”

“Get the hook out?”

The girl wiggles her injured finger, scrunching her freckle dusted nose. “Yeah. I … I don’t care for the sight of blood, and this is set pretty deep.”

“I … Alright.”

Azriel’s hands shake, and his heart is beating frantically in his chest.

The girl narrows her gaze on him. “I’m Gwyn, by the way.”

Tell her your name, the shadows urge, dancing and giggling around her.

“Azriel.”

“Azriel? Nice. So, think you can pull the hook out?”

He nods and holds his own hands out, waiting for her to place her finger into his grasp. He tries not to flinch as their skin touches. His mother has been working with him, trying to gentle him to contact, but his brothers seemed determined to undo her work after every work.

But he is capable of treating his own wounds, even giving himself stitches. So, he can help this girl he’s hurt.

“Truth be told, Azriel, I’ve been watching you try and fish for a while now,” Gwyn chatters, looking up at the trees. “You’re really bad at it.”

Azriel nods and makes sure he doesn’t look as sullen as he feels over the factual statement. Then he blushes at the realization she’s been watching him. How embarrassing. 

“My mom is a natural when it comes to catching fish, but I do alright. I like to use a fishing line better than my own hands; fish are so slimy — what are you waiting for?”

“I … It’s going to hurt.” Azriel looks up at her from beneath his lashes. Despite being taller than him, his hands seem so much bigger than her delicate one. When he thinks of the force he’ll need to use to get the hook out … It feels wrong. Like crushing a butterfly.

Gwyn nods. “Probably. I’ll shut my eyes. Do it, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Azriel?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t … make fun of me, if I cry? It’s just a natural reaction, that’s all.”

“Alright.”

Gwyn takes a few breaths through her nose and then shuts her eyes tight. She grits her teeth. “Alright, go!”

Azriel is worried he might cry as he pushes the hook back and then down to slip the barb back into her skin and then twists and yanks the metal back out. The painful whimper that pushes through Gwyn’s lips from the back of her throat hurts him. 

All of this over a silly activity like fishing. Something he’ll never get to do again.

We must return, young master.

Azriel’s heart clenches. He presses his fingertip down on Gwyn’s, trying to stop the fat drops of blood gathering at the exit point of the hook.

“Again, I’m so sorry. Don’t look.”

Gwyn stomps back and forth. There’re tears gathered on her lashes. “Ouch! Wow! I knew it would hurt but …”

The shadows tug at Azriel.

“I-I have to go —”

“Wait!” Gwyn shoots her eyes back open. “You have to go?”

Azriel nods his head urgently.

“You can’t just abandon me in my time of need!” She waves her bloody finger in his face.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, taking one shaking step back. The shadows are starting to swarm around him and he can feel the anticipation of their magic ready to envelop him. Still new, still unfamiliar, yet it already feels like a part of him.

She doesn’t seem bothered by the dark, writhing presence of the shadows. She lurches forward to grasp his hands and a furious blush has crept up her neck and to her cheeks.

“Wait, Azriel — I, I let the hook snag me. I was looking for an excuse to — well …” Instead of trying to find the words, she presses forward.

Her lips press against his and Azriel’s eyes widen impossibly. He lets the emotion roll across his face, forgetting all of his carefully trained restraints. His lips tingle at the chaste contact, his blood rushes with heat and his ears heat to ten times their normal temperature.

What is this beautiful girl doing, kissing him?

Gwyn pulls away, hand shooting up to cover her mouth as giggles begin to roll out. “Sorry! Sorry! That was — I read it in a back, and it sounded so romantic, but you’re a stranger and — well, you’re Azriel, but —”

Azriel’s fingertips raise to his lips, and he continues to blink owlishly. Dumfounded.

“You … kissed me.”

Gwyn nods and drops her hands to spill her overflowing laughter openly in the space between them. Giddy. 

“I hope I see you again, Azriel!”

The cool embrace of the shadows begins to take him away, but Azriel gives a small, shy wave before the idyllic scene is gone and he’s left with nothing but sunshine in his hair and a berry sweet taste on his lips.

Azriel hopes to see Gwyn again, too.