Archive of Our Own ^beta

Waking up from getting knocked out in the heat of battle, unfortunately, never got any easier.

With the plink of a bejeweled ring bouncing off her forehead and into the murky water she had fallen in,Antiope Jones rocketed into consciousness. She jackknifed upright, every sense on high alert, adrenaline a heady thrum through her veins.

She was soaked through, but after trekking through swampy wetlands, she’d given up hope of ever feeling dry clothes against her skin again. Prestidigitation could only do so much against actively hostile humidity. Her bow was still clutched in her right hand, and she could feel the weight—much lightened by the many arrows she’d fired off trying to avoid going down in the first place—of her quiver at her hip. Her left hand was entwined with something soft and still and familiar. And since it wasn’t trying to kill her at the moment, she’d investigate later.

A quick scan of the stone chamber, strangely hollow and unimpeded upon by the aggressive plant life outside, showed that for the first time in more than a week, nothing, actually, was trying to kill anyone.

They’d been plagued by everything a swampy pit of muck and misery could throw at them. Stinging, energy-sapping insects and flora with too much of a mind of their own and ominous shadows flitting through murky water. Yet through it all, seven heroic GED holders had wound their way deep into the gloom lurking at the heart of the Swamp of Ruin to finally arrive at what could only be described as a stone chapel, long abandoned and eerily intact in the face of the Swamp’s primordial battle between growth—assassin vines and pitcher plants sized to digest far more than flies and vast banyan trees that had first sprouted before the continents settled—and decay—deep, deceptively still water and molds that could grow on moving targets and roaming eddies of noxious gases.

To her unending chagrin, Antiope’s ranger skills—which had seriously leveled up in the years since they’d gone pro—had only rendered the journey an absolute slog. It was an improvement upon completely impossible, but that Jones over-achieving never went down easy. Not even Yelle’s preternatural chill had made a headway in communicating with the local plants and wildlife.

It was almost like the swamp knew what they were there for and was doing its very best to spit them back out into the ruddy dust of the Wastes before they could get it.

The Seven, of course, were nothing if not monumentally stubborn. They saw a giant, possibly-sentient swamp that wanted them out, and they resolved to tell that swamp to go fuck itself in the strongest possible terms.

Spite-based resolution, unfortunately, did not magically make for an easy journey. The horses were no help, terrain too uneven and close to let them pass, leaving the party to make their way on foot. Every night, they crammed into Leomund’s Tiny Hut for a thoroughly unrestful long rest. There was mud in places that no one (aside from Penny, at least) wanted to talk about.

But no one had considered turning back.

See? Stubborn.

The fact that they were in pursuit of an ensorcelled cache all but lost to time certainly played a part, too.

Was it entirely possible that the shady loner they’d met in a shadier roadhouse at the ass-end of the Red Wastes had been spouting pure bullshit when he spun a tale about a treasure so dear that the fey who had secreted it away in the ever-shifting depths of the Swamp of Ruin had died rather than give it up? Of course.

Had they immediately, and without need for textual confirmation, decided to go searching for that treasure? One hundred percent.

After all, who wouldn’t jump on even the slimmest sliver of a chance to unearth legendary, fey treasure?

Now that Antiope knew just how much algae could get into and refuse to leave her sports bra, she might just switch to the minority opinion. 

The opposition she and her six best friends had met as soon as they’d crossed the threshold of the chapel, seven sets of feet setting off a riot of ripples in the mirror of water covering the floor, probably should’ve played into her calculations more. The Guard Drake—ancient and absolutely cranky about it—curled around a wooden chest at the altar, would have been bad enough. An actual fucking Hydra erupting from the much-much-deeper-than-anyone-had-anticipated water was just unfair.

But no, it was really mostly the algae. Antiope was a monster slayer, after all. It was right there in the job description. Even if the monsters sometimes briefly slayed her first.

Satisfied that her friends weren’t currently in mortal peril—or wouldn’t be shortly since that soft, still thing in her hand was Sam’s own, fingers curled together in a way she would never allow while awake and alert—Antiope let calm wash over her.

Well, as much calm as she could get with her party around.

“I’m just saying,” Ostentatia enunciated, gems glinting in the flickering firelight put out by her hammer as she worked more magic to heal Sam, “we should have 2-factoid authentification or whatever for picking quests.” Her eyes flicked to Antiope, and her head tilted in flat skepticism, as close as she got to displaying outward concern. “You good?”

Beside them, a gold ring skittering off her nose, Sam rejoined the land of the living with merely a shaky gasp.

Something in Antiope settled as Sam pushed herself up, aqueous hair flowing out of disarray into its customary swirls and eddies. She’d fallen onto her front, and she had to twist to get line of sight on the rest of the Seven. Another shaky breath left her when all five of their friends proved to be mostly unscathed.

Their hands were still, somehow, clasped together.

Antiope gave a sharp nod. It wasn’t weird she wasn’t saying anything. Not at all. It would be weirder to say something, with the big knot in her throat which would make any words out of her mouth hoarse and strangled.

Maybe Yelle had a point. What even are hands?

Across the chapel, from somewhere near the ceiling, Penny’s voice rang out. “Ostentatia!” With the faint rush of displaced air, Penny appeared on the altar beside them, quivering with excitement. The odds on whether she’d Misty Stepped over or just moved that fast were about even. “Are you finally ready to hear about the quest vetting protocol I’ve developed? It’s actually sixteen steps, not two, but—”

Flatly, Ostentatia pronounced, “No.”

Penny drooped for just a second, but she perked back up as Katja, Zelda, and Yelle clambered up out of the shin-deep water to the ankle-deep pool covering the chapel’s altar.

“Guys, c’mon,” Penny begged, bright eyes twinkling up at them. She was about half a step away from clasping her hands beneath her chin and pouting to get her way. If she didn’t have such a track record of success with it, it would’ve been funnier.

Antiope, feeling a headache coming on, nipped it right in the bud. “Can we leave quest-selection mechanics for a time when we are not more mud than person?”

“The mud is a vital resource,” Yelle pointed out, rubbing a splotch onto her cheek with a grin. “Chock full of minerals to revitalize and nourish.”

“Maybe if it didn’t smell like ass,” Sam sniffed.

Yelle shrugged. “Every benefit has to have its drawbacks. Just part of the balance of life.”

“Um,” Zelda broke in, before they could devolve further off track, though she still quailed a bit when six faces swung to her. Cringing because she couldn’t hide behind her bangs (mud having fixed it into a wildly adorable cowlick), she still plowed forward. “Shouldn’t we, um. Check on the treasure? Antiope and Sam got it open while we were fighting, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Mr. Too Many Heads did not like that,” Antiope recalled, those last few moments before his acid loogie took her out returning to her.

Honestly, the why of the sequence of events that led to her and Sam lifting the lid of the wooden chest, carvings so old they’d gone soft and blurry, as the rest of the party fought for their lives was still beyond her. It was like they’d heeded some inner command. One that had them reaching in and drawing out—

Huh.

Her memory after losing consciousness wasn’t usually so spotty. Well, only one way to fill in the gaps.

She and Sam clambered to their feet (and finally had to release their hold on the other’s hand) and trailed after their friends to the open chest.

A ring of seven faces peered down into the wooden box.

Even in the low, gloomy light, there was no denying the truth.

“It’s empty,” Katja observed, dark brows furrowed.

That wasn’t precisely accurate. A few dried flowers, somehow fragrant still, littered the floor of the chest. Unless they were made up of pure mithral, they were hardly the stuff of fabled treasure.

Penny, already closest to the chest, crouched down to inspect it from even closer. Quick, clever hands ran over each side, the bottom, and the lid. Her lips pursed as each pass turned up nothing. No hidden compartments or false walls or disguised latches. It took her about five more minutes of frantic searching to admit there wasn’t anything to be found. Not to be defeated, she expanded her investigation, circling around the altar.

Used to her antics, the rest of the party floundered for explanation on their own.

“I mean, maybe this is stupid, but…” Zelda trailed off, frowning, but she started back up again under her own power. “Well, maybe some other party already got here first?”

Sam nodded encouragingly, earning a shy grin from Zelda and a bloom of warmth in Antiope’s chest. “Totally. Who knows how long that sketchy loser in the Wastes has been peddling that story he told us?”

“Who would come anywhere horses can’t go, though?” Katja mumbled. “This has been the worst week of my life.”

“We were trapped in crystals for nearly a year!” Antiope burst, hands flailing to properly convey her exasperation. It took knocking Yelle’s hat off her head to get her to take a breath. Okay, maybe she hadn’t burned off all that excess adrenaline that should’ve gone to finishing the fight. “Sorry! But, my point stands.”

Katja shrugged, too used to a keyed-up Antiope to take any offense. “I said what I said.”

Antiope’s hands spread in front of her again, prepared for another round of erratic gesturing, but then there was a weight on her left shoulder and tiny hands grabbing her wrist.

Draped over Antiope’s back, arms stretched out as long as they could go to make the grab she needed, Penny demanded, “What’s this?”

“My hand? Do you need to be on top of me?”

“Did you get into my stash?” Yelle asked. “I wouldn’t say this is the best environment for your first trip, but if you felt the call, then I am here to guide you safely to the end of your voyage.”

Penny jerked, and Antiope had to rock with her to maintain their balance. “What? No. No! And I’ve been high, like, soo many times.” Then, to further deflect from her totally real drug experiences, she executed a needlessly complex maneuver off of Antiope to land neatly on the empty treasure chest. As Katja gave her a polite round of applause, Penny snatched up another hand from the circle.

Sam’s.

The hand that Antiope had woken up holding.

A hand that, now that she was looking at it, was slightly different than it had been before the fight. Which she only knew because Antiope studied the hands of everyone in her party, for moments just like this, of course. Of course.

Nestled at the base of the ring finger was, appropriately enough, a ring.

Antiope’s eyes tracked back to her own hand to find a matching band adorning the same finger.

In a flash, she glanced up and met Sam’s storm gray gaze, saw the confusion and wariness and dawning suspicion swirling there. And maybe a spark of something else, just the barest flicker, but enough to set thunder a-rumbling.

Penny, oblivious to all of this, whirled on Ostentatia, thrusting both hands in her possession up to the cleric’s face.

“Since when,” she demanded, “does your spell jewelry last after the healing’s complete? I wanna wear my Healing Word rings! Not that I get that many since I don’t get hit that often because being a rogue is the best.”

Ostentatia, having rocked back on her heels so she could examine the jewelry in question without going crosseyed, looked entirely affronted. "I didn't put those there."

To be fair, the bands wrapped around their fingers were decidedly not Ostentatia's style. Simple silver, polished to a muted glow. Not a chip of even a semi-precious gem to be seen.

“Oh,” Penny said, retracting Antiope and Sam’s hands but not giving up her grip on them. She studied the rings for a long moment. “Then where did they come from? They feel magical. Like really magical.”

Antiope couldn’t disagree, and the rest of the Seven, with varying degrees of certainty, nodded along. Without spells being flung around or magical attacks hurtling in their direction, it was easier to tap into the dual thrum of arcane energy throbbing from the bands. Thankfully, it didn’t feel antagonistic. Antiope could hardly feel the thrum unless she really concentrated, like it didn’t particularly want to be noticed.

Which, in all likelihood meant it was dangerous as fuck.

“Okay, I think that’s enough of wearing the weird, magic rings,” Antiope announced, reaching around Penny to pull it off.

Only, it wouldn’t budge.

Across the circle, Sam watched Antiope yank and tug, though she made no move to subject her own ring finger to the same treatment. Instead, she flicked her own ring with her thumb, demonstrating that it spun easily around.

She rolled her eyes when Antiope, panic mounting with every word, demanded she try and take hers off. Before she could make some snarky comment about Antiope’s sausage fingers, though, she frowned.

Her ring was stuck, too.

In the resulting uproar from all seven friends, it was decided that Ostentatia would cast Legend Lore to see what they were dealing with.

“You are so lucky I had this prepared,” she grumbled, hefting Dawnforger in her hands and rearing back like she was ready to smite the rings from existence only to bring it down with unusual tenderness.

As soon as the mithral of Dawnforger connected with the silver bands, that low, harmonic thrum crested and blew out, blasting air and light out from the circle. Everyone flinched and covered their eyes, bracing for something ancient and angry to come down on them. As their vision cleared, though, everything within the chapel was as it had been, except for Ostentatia. Her eyes were lit with the flames of Logran’s forge as she stared, unseeing into the distance.

“Uhh,” Zelda bleated, eyes darting between Sam, Antiope, and Ostentatia so quickly that she was in danger of making herself dizzy. “Do we—?”

Yelle frowned, taking in the scene. “I think this is something that has to run its course.”

Antiope gave her hand a futile tug, but her ring may as well have fused to the head of the Wallace family hammer. She could feel Sam giving her own test, skin brushing against skin.

With their hands this close once more, hazy memories were beginning to filter back.

Opening the chest with Sam and being greeted by the sight of two rings lying forlornly on the bare wood. Attracting the attention of the Hydra, all six of its heads pissed that the treasure it had been guarding for centuries was no longer hidden from the world. Heeding the sweet voice in her mind telling her to put one of the rings on. To cherish it. Kicking two Hydra-head asses only to get sniped by a third. Hearing Sam’s scream as Antiope crumpled to the ground. Feeling a warm hand grasp hers with the barely contained fury of a hurricane just before the dark took over.

But then, before Ostentatia’s Healing Word took root but not quite in the dark of incapacitation either—

That same sweet voice sighing with contentment.

Ah. At long last. You two will carry our legacy quite well.

Antiope was a little too frazzled to keep any of these recollections to herself, Sam filling in as she felt necessary. Which was surprisingly little. For someone who loved to run her mouth, no matter how much trouble it might win her, Sam Nightingale was uncharacteristically mum.

Until, at least, Katja asked the question of the hour.

“But what does that even mean?”

Sam and Antiope’s eyes met, their hands practically twined together, just as they had been in that hazy, in-between place with the jubilant voice and the chapel as it must have been centuries and centuries ago. When two impossibly powerful creatures had stood upon a hallowed altar, a ring forged by arcane power—nothing stronger than chosen loyalty and devotion—on each outstretched hand. The echoes of which had rippled across time to snare two unsuspecting adventurers.

“Well,” Sam ventured, drawing out the word like that might make the confession easier to spit out.

Instead, it gave someone else the opportunity to drop that bomb.

“Did you two get fucking married?” Ostentatia screeched, taking no time at all to readjust to the real world. The fire in her eyes was no longer divine, but it didn’t burn any cooler.

There was a single beat of silence where Antiope and Sam only had to look at one another to reach the same conclusion.

Trying to ease their friends into it, Antiope said, “Funny story—”

“Yes.”

The reaction was immediate. No breath of quiet understanding. Just full pandemonium.

Antiope was not looking forward to the headache the sheer volume of screaming—shocked and confused and even weirdly excited—was going to net her, but she couldn’t imagine it any other way.

There wasn’t any problem that Antiope Jones couldn’t face down when she had her six best friends on her side.

Well. Her five best friends and her wife.

Oof. That was going to take some getting used to.

But that was okay. As they all knew, as deep in their bones as any knowledge could settle, the Seven were in this for the long haul.

O