Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Elliot sat up with a start, bolt upright like a sleeper agent that had just been activated. Unfortunately, this meant he smacked his head into a wooden beam.

“Shit! Ow!” He grumbled, pressing a palm against his throbbing forehead and squinting in betrayal at the beam. It creaked apologetically, but his trust in it had been lost forever.

Ducking under the beam, he realised he had no idea where he was. The room around him could generously be advertised as ‘rustic’ and ‘homey’ to a bigger fool than he, but appeared, more than anything, to be a shack in the middle of the woods.

When he opened the only door, he found himself in the middle of the woods.

“Great,” he grumbled, wrapping his arms around his chest. “Either I’ve been abducted by a crazed serial killer, or someone’s drugged me and taken me camping.”

After a brief glance out at the woods determined them to be altogether meh, Elliot closed the door. At least inside, he could pretend this was some sort of retreat for those with too much money and too little sense.

The shack was maybe ten square metres, with precious little decoration to make up for the embarrassment of nature making its way through the floorboards. An ersatz bed – the one he had woken up on – had been shoved into the corner, though with the size of the place it was taking up a decent amount of the floor. The mattress appeared to be stuffed with straw, leaving Elliot with the creeping dread that a wolf was about to arrive and huff and puff the place down. Which would, quite possibly, be an improvement.

Beside the bed were a pair of trainers that appeared to have lost a fight with a forest. Or several. Elliot shoved his feet into them and realised they were probably his when a blister on his left ankle matched up with a loose part of the heel.

A quick once-over confirmed that he was otherwise clothed, which he probably should have checked before potentially showing his tackle to every fox in the local area. The hoodie was familiar, but tighter across the shoulders than he remembered. Also, covered in blood.

He patted his chest cautiously, afraid of removing the hoodie in case it turned out to be load-bearing. When his tentative examination found no signs of injury, he stripped the hoodie and shirt beneath to check further.

Elliot’s bare skin was less pale than he’d expected, taught across something he was beginning to suspect was muscle. “Kidnapped by some sort of exercise cult” moved up his list of contingencies. However, he was uninjured. That left another, horrifying possibility.

“Oh, God,” Elliot said, “I’ve blacked out and killed someone. That’s why I don’t know where I am, that’s why I’m covered in blood, that’s why the beam is out to get me. It’s revenge!”

While his emotions set themselves on fire and started a merry Morris dance, Elliot’s rational brain turned his palms over. They were completely blood free, as were the gaps under his fingernails.

“Okay, my hands are literally clean,” he hummed, “and if I’d killed someone, I probably wouldn’t stop to Lady Macbeth my hands without getting rid of a giant, bloody piece of evidence. So maybe I didn’t kill someone. Although I am talking to myself, which can’t be a sign of anything good.”

The only other item in the shack was a leather satchel, the kind nerds wore to school. Or at least, nerds whose parents bought them leather satchels did. Elliot’s backpack was a free gift from Ladbroke’s. As he moved to touch it, Elliot paused.

“Okay,” he asked himself, “how likely is it that whatever’s happening is illegal? And how much of a possibility is it that getting my fingerprints on this bag is a bad idea?”

“Well,” replied his only option for rational dialogue, “Either that’s my bag, and I put it there, so my fingerprints are already on it, or someone else’s. If it’s someone else’s and they know I’m here, they could have put my prints on it while I slept. If they don’t know I’m here, I’ve already touched enough stuff to leave prints, regardless. So, fuck it?”

“Fuck it.”

On opening the bag, he found the embossed initials E.S. under the flap.

“Okay, so it’s mine.”

He proceeded to upend the satchel’s contents onto the floor.

The bag mostly contained books, which was a predictable delight. Alongside three tomes was a flimsy notebook with FIELD NOTES scrawled on the cover. He put that aside and examined the books.

The book titled ‘TROLL-HARPY DICTIONARY’ was bound in some sort of woven grass, its cover held shut with a loop of fabric. Tucked into the loop was a white-gold feather, which Elliot tucked behind his ear as he opened the volume. The pages were filled with dark scratchings, always a word in a script he didn’t know followed by phonetics.

“So, the Harpy for ‘nestmate’ is vul-oh-grr in Troll?” He paused. “That’s the Harpy for ‘nestmate’. I speak Harpy. Okay.”

Below this entry, his own hand had scribbled, ‘does this mean Harpy concept or is it Troll for family? Ask on next visit’. He closed the book and stared at the wall for a moment.

A leather-bound book with gilded pages, entitled ‘THE TRAVELS OF GREGORY SUNBORN’, had been signed by the author. A brief glance told Elliot it was mostly smut.

The final book was the heaviest and appeared to be some sort of explorer’s guide. A large section of it was an atlas dedicated to a land that appeared to have been made up.

“Okay,” Elliot said, returning the books to the satchel, “there appear to be two options. One, I’ve accidentally joined some sort of really immersive LARP, or two, I’m in a Narnia situation. Based on the footnotes in this atlas, I’m going to say it’s the latter. This is… well, I’m not exactly sure how to handle this, but I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Unable to fully process whatever was happening, Elliot examined the rest of his belongings. A few pens, some mechanical pencils, matches, and a leather pouch filled with water were pushed aside to be useful later. A stale biscuit wrapped in cloth was consumed immediately, precipitating the usefulness of the water. All that remained was a crumpled letter, a Swiss army knife, and a Dictaphone.

Never one to resist the sound of his own voice, Elliot pressed play.

“Tenth of August, two PM,” said the Dictaphone. It was Elliot’s voice, but confident in a way he was unfamiliar with. “Probably fifty Ks away, so another two days. Serene keeps killing things.”

“Very few,” replied a deep, feminine voice. “Only things that could constitute threats to the mission.”

“I hate it,” Elliot’s voice grumbled. “I want that on record.”

“It is.”

“You are incredible, but unbearably violent.”

“I think you bear it magnificently,” the unknown voice soothed.

“Perhaps.”

The Dictaphone clicked.

“Twelfth of August, nine AM. We camped out early last night, so still around twenty Ks to go. Taking the mountain pass would cut time, but there’s risk of wind and I don’t trust it. Better to take the wooded route, even if it’s southern. At least we’ll have cover from the sun.” These were things that Elliot barely understood, manly outdoor things, and he dubbed the voice on the tapes Rugged Elliot. “Serene’s off hunting right now, but I made her promise not to get into any fights.”

Click.

“Twelfth of August, four twenty-three PM. About three Ks out, but Serene got a call from Swift that there’s trouble in the Eastern territories. She’s going to take care of that-”

“Not if you’re in danger,” the feminine voice replied. “I won’t leave you alone, Elliot.”

“I know,” Rugged Elliot said. “So, as I was saying, I’m not going any further until you come back. Which means I’ll be perfectly safe, and you don’t have to babysit me.”

“It could be weeks.”

“Eh, I’ll use the time to read.”

“You only have three books.” Elliot laughed. Whoever Serene was, she knew him well.

“Then I’ll write some. Don’t worry about me.”

“If I’m more than a week, I’ll tell Luke to come and find you.”

Rugged Elliot groaned. “Oh, come on, we don’t have to go running to him. He’s busy, absurdly so.”

“Elliot,” Serene said in a warning tone. “I will tell him.”

“Ugh, fine. I love you.”

“I love you,” Serene replied, soft and warm. There was a sound like a hug. Elliot bit his lip.

Click.

“Thirteenth of August, ten thirty AM. I’m about five hundred metres away, but I have to leave the Dictaphone here, so it doesn’t get broken. Paper notes only from this point.”

Elliot leaned back. “Rugged Elliot, I believe you have fucked over us both.”

After a moment’s frustrated groaning, Elliot moved to the letter. It had been sealed with wax, the crumbs of which now lay on the floor after being tipped out of the satchel.

Elliot –

Yeah, yeah, asshole.

“Ah, another fan,” Elliot mused.

I have a thesaurus, you know. And even if I didn’t, I can always tell when you’re insulting me. It’s a sixth sense at this point. I was just trying it out, anyway – there’s no need to be a dick about it. (What am I saying? It’s you we’re talking about.)

If Serene thinks it’s safe, I trust her as much as always. If you’ve lied about Serene approving to get me to agree, I trust you as much as always. Which is not at all. Do not get hurt, do not get captured, do not get married to someone else. Please, for my health.

If anything goes wrong, I’ll be at the outpost in Weatherrock until September. Come and get me. (Seriously, Elliot. Anything.) If, by some Schafer miracle, you are already hurt, captured, or married, and I am speaking to your captor/spouse: keep him. And my deepest sympathies.

Luke

Elliot sighed. It was nice to think somebody – two somebodies – knew him so well.

Finally, he opened the notebook.

He was met with pages of minute script, poor sketches and incomprehensible figures. The dates at the top told him the book had been in use for about a month, and the only names he recognised were Luke and Serene. And ‘recognised’ was something of a stretch even then. On flipping forward, he sighed bodily.

“Of course.”

The last completed page was covered in blood. Evidently, when the ghastly piñata had drenched his hoodie, the book had been open. Flipping back, he found nothing more specific on what he had been looking for or what it might have done to him.

Elliot laid in the middle of the floor and groaned. After a reasonable wallow, he reached for the atlas.

“Well, Weatherrock Outpost it is. Look out, Luke Whatever-Your-Name-Is.”

Chapter Text

Weatherrock Outpost was around 20 kilometres north of where Elliot thought he was. Serene and Rugged Elliot had used sticky tabs to chart their journey in the atlas, but there were no notes from after Serene left. Besides, Elliot wasn’t actually sure how long ago that had been, and whether he had moved (or been moved) afterwards. But this was apparently his only lead on regaining his memories, so he decided the risk was worth taking.

When he started walking, satchel slung over his shoulder, Elliot found himself making better time than expected. Evidently, Rugged Elliot had been building up his endurance, for which Squishy Indoor Elliot was grateful. The apparent cost, however, was that after two hours of walking, Elliot was hungry. After three, he was starving, and when, around four hours after he started up, Elliot finally caught sight of the outpost, he was murderous.

The place was less than glamourous, mostly wooden cabins and the fancy tents with rooms that posh people camped in. A stone tower at the centre of the outpost was the closest thing to interesting, and it was not a short jump.

Elliot squinted against the afternoon sun at the top of the tower, where something glinted gold. As he strained to see it, there was sudden movement.

The gold shape dropped from the tower so quickly it blurred, arcing forward as it neared the ground and darting in Elliot’s direction. As it approached, Elliot realised it was an angel.

A young man with tousled blond hair – not messy, tousled – and golden wings soared towards him, determination in the set of his finely-carved brow. He landed neatly and grinned – perfect, white teeth gleaming against soft lips. Elliot hated him immediately.

“You’re here,” the angel said, breathlessly. Then his face fell. “Shit, Elliot, what happened?”

His hand cupped Elliot’s shoulder as he pressed closer, panic in his eyes.

Oh, the blood.

“Oh, the blood.” Elliot cursed his miserable existence. “It’s not mine. Or at least, not recently. I imagine it would have clotted, though, so yes. Probably not mine. On balance.”

The angel visibly relaxed, wings folding away as his smile returned.

“Okay, you’re fine. Why are you here?”

“I’m looking for someone called Luke,” Elliot said.

The angel laughed, throwing an arm around Elliot’s shoulder and guiding him towards the camp. “Well, I can probably find time in my schedule. But I am pretty busy, what with my promotion and all.” He looked at Elliot expectantly.

“Uh… well done?”

The angel – Luke? – rolled his eyes. “Right, I’m part of the ‘military-indoostrial complex’ or whatever.”

“Industrial,” Elliot corrected automatically.

“Regardless,” Luke said, waving to a man wearing leggings and armour as they passed. “I’m actually going to be helping out with, like, people. Training, organising shifts, teaching the troops diplomacy…”

“Good,” Elliot said, baffled at what he could have been doing before. Surely it couldn't just have been hitting things with sticks. “As you should be.”

Luke threw his hands up in the air and scoffed. “I despair of you, Elliot. I really do. C’mon.”

Catching Elliot by the hand, Luke dragged him into a posh tent. Inside was a bed, a desk – which Elliot really didn’t understand – and a few trunks. Luke beelined to the bed and sat down. Elliot did nothing. Luke gave him a meaningful look, which Elliot took to mean he was supposed to sit down. Seeing no places to sit other than the bed (occupied by Luke) he jumped up onto the desk. A frown flickered across Luke’s face momentarily, swiftly replaced with warm concern.

“Elliot, you know I’m glad to see you, but what’s happening? You wouldn’t just show up here without a reason.” Elliot didn’t know why, but he thought Luke sounded sad at that last part.

Now came the difficult part. Why had he come? Because Luke was the only person whose location he knew. Because Serene – who sounded like the superior team member – was unavailable. He sighed.

“My, uh, mission?” Luke nodded. “It’s been… put off.”

“What? You’ve been talking about it for months! It’s all your letters have been talking about! Well, that and making fun of me.”

“There’s a lot to make fun of,” Elliot replied. There was not, and Luke appeared to know it, because his smile brightened.

“Seriously, Elliot. Why would you put off the trip?”

“Serene got a letter. From…” God, what was the name? “Swift.”

Luke stiffened. “She did? What was it?”

“Uh… trouble in the West? Wait, maybe East.”

“Gods, Elliot,” Luke grumbled. “Those are very different places, you know?”

“She didn’t tell me much about it!” Elliot shot back. This could have been a lie, but he didn’t really care. “I just know she left on the twelfth.”

Luke sighed. “Okay, so she’s only been gone three days.” Meaning today was the fifteenth. Elliot hoped it was still August, but doubted that he could find a subtle way to ask. “Do you know how long she’ll be?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Well, she didn’t write to me,” Luke huffed.

“Are you seriously getting stroppy? It’s been three days! We live in a fantasy wonderland, it’s impressive we have a postal system at all.”

“I’m her swordsister,” Luke grumbled, but he seemed to be soothed by Elliot’s brilliant logic. “We’re not supposed to ride into battle alone.”

“She’s not alone,” Elliot said, hoping the context for ‘swordsister’ would arise organically. “She’s with Swift.” Whoever that was.

“I know,” Luke agreed. “I just hate not being there to look after her.” He met Elliot’s eyes. “It’s the same thing I feel when you go on your trips without me.”

The world warmed up a few degrees.

“Oh, well… D’you want to come on my mission with me?” Retracing his steps was currently his only lead in finding out what happened to his memories.

Luke lit up, then slumped down. “Elliot, I have responsibilities. You know that.”

Elliot didn’t, but he shrugged. “Okay. Then I’ll wait here.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed. “No, you won’t. You’ll leave the moment I take my eyes off you.”

Elliot grinned despite himself. “Aw, you know me so well.” Luke had the worn-down expression of a canyon after a million years of water. “So, are you coming?”

Luke fell back onto the bed. “What do you think, Elliot?” The tone of frustrated acquiescence was familiar enough for Elliot to be confident offering Luke his hand, pulling him upright.

“Come on, then.”

Chapter Text

The excitement of starting off on an adventure to find… whatever he was looking for when he lost his memories was somewhat dampened by Luke’s insistence that, as a senior leader at the outpost, he had to tell them he was wandering off into the forest. Elliot took umbrage with calling the mission Rugged Elliot had planned so carefully ‘wandering off’. Luke was unbothered by said umbrage.

“I’ll be twenty minutes. You can pack my stuff up while I’m gone.”

“Ugh, fine.” Luke squeezed his shoulder in a half-hug as he passed, leaving Elliot in the tent alone.

For someone in a senior leadership role (which reminded Elliot a little too much of school) Luke’s tent was surprisingly spartan. Rifling through his trunks revealed weapons, armour, and little else. Elliot had started to pity the man when he came upon a stack of books hidden under a winter cloak.

Every book was short, printed in large typeface, and annotated in Elliot’s own hand. Skimming through a book on mermaids – mermaids! – he found the note: These are the ones we met in spring and gasped in delight. A volume on the military history of the Borderlands included such valuable insights as: See, loser? That’s how idiots get killed and: Note the use of words instead of heavy rocks.

He was leafing through the last book when two pieces of paper fell out. One was a photograph – him and Luke sitting on a window seat, evidently deep in debate. (Elliot assumed he was winning.) At their feet sat the most beautiful woman Elliot had ever seen, her dark tresses braided back to reveal pointed ears. She was rolling her eyes to the person behind the camera, head tipped back against the seat cushion to catch a beam of sunlight.

From this, Elliot took three vital pieces of information. First: this was likely Serene, and she appeared not to be human. Second: not only did the Dictaphone make it to this fantasy world, but evidently so had cameras. Third, and possibly most importantly: Elliot’s friends were absurdly attractive.

Tucking the photo back into the pages of the book it had fallen from, Elliot unfolded the other piece of paper.

My dearest troglodyte –

We’re going southwest to try and find the ruins. I’m anticipating a few days’ journey, but we aren’t setting out until Thursday, so if for some dumb reason you wanted to come and see us off, we’ll be here. If not, you can write. (Seriously, I believe in you!)

When I return, my reading list will be extensive – how can you know nothing about your own ancestors?! (The harpies, not the Sunborns. Although there are some very interesting records on that side, too.) Ask Celaeno to explain it to you. I’m sure she’ll be nice and use small words.

Well, that explained the wings.

The long and short of it is that early harpy religion featured magic as a practice, and if there is any truth to it whatsoever, I am absolutely 100% becoming a sexy witch. Wizard? Warlock? Remains to be seen. (Not the sexy part, that’s non-negotiable.) Serene is onboard, so I’m obviously making the smart choice. She made me write that because she doesn’t think you trust my judgement. She says you’re right not to, which is RUDE!!

Love to the family if you see them before we do. And, you know, the obvious. Don’t start any wars without me, loser.

- E.S.

Someone had carefully removed the seal, with no trace of wax left on the parchment. The letter itself was neatly creased, having been tucked into the very centre of the book. Elliot remembered the girls who, in Year Four, gathered daisies from the football pitch and pressed them in the class dictionaries. For weeks, anybody looking anything up would be scattered with dry petals. Eventually, if he remembered right, the teacher had told them off for making a mess and they’d moved on to braiding each other’s hair.

“Have you even made a start?”

Elliot jumped out of his skin, turning frantically to look at Luke, who had posted up against a tent-pole. To his surprise, there was no anger in Luke’s face, only good-natured irritation.

“I… was reading your books,” he admitted. Luke rolled his eyes.

“Haven’t you read them enough?”

“I’ve written in them,” Elliot said, trying not to let the question enter his voice. “But you haven’t.”

Luke shrugged bodily, muscles rippling under his gauzy shirt. Elliot fought back a shiver. “It feels weird, writing in a book. I know you have your journals, but still. Keep thinking someone’s gonna tell me off.”

Elliot raised an eyebrow.

“Someone other than you. Come on, give me a hand.” Luke dropped to his knees and handed Elliot a knapsack as he started rooting around in his weapons. Elliot sighed loftily before starting to shovel clothes into the bag.

“Are you alright for clothes?” Luke asked, comparing two swords that were equally awful. “I’ve got plenty if you need to borrow them.”

Elliot glanced between his body and Luke’s. “Not sure they’d fit.”

“Eh, you’re fine. Just wear a belt.” He passed Elliot a couple of shirts. “I don’t understand how you complain I’m disgusting after sparring, yet refuse to bring more than one change of clothes for a trip lasting weeks.”

“Are you saying I smell?” Elliot snipped. Luke cast him a sceptical glance, then rushed into Elliot’s personal space. He pressed his face to the approximate vicinity of Elliot’s armpit, taking an exaggerated sniff. Warm breath brushed over Elliot’s chest.

“You’re rank,” Luke announced, moving back to contemplating his various tools of murder. Elliot bit down on his tongue and prayed for divine retribution.

“Do you really need such extensive devices of violence for a quick little research trip?”

Luke looked up from the stack of weapons indignantly. “Elliot, I know you refuse to arm yourself, but there’s a reason we don’t let you do that alone. You can’t flirt your way out of everything, you know.”

“I can try,” Elliot replied, batting his eyelashes. Luke made a shoving gesture without any actual force in it, but the pink on his ears left Elliot feeling vindicated.

“Not wolves. Not bears.”

“Well, some bears,” Elliot winked. Luke didn’t appear to understand, only frowning and replying,

“Either way, I’m bringing some support.” He held up a bow and a sword. “Pick.”

“Bow and arrows,” Elliot decided, only partially because they were cooler. Luke nodded, stripping his shirt off over his head. Elliot ripped a pair of trousers in half. The bastard was glistening.

Luke held out an impatient hand and Elliot stalled for a moment before realising he was asking for a fresh shirt. He picked the one with the most coverage and turned away until Luke had finished and grabbed his pack.

“Alright, come on,” Luke said, catching Elliot by the elbow. Elliot stuffed a shirt into his satchel and let himself be dragged out into the camp.

“Lieutenant Sunborn,” an older man greeted. “Your presence will be missed.”

“I’ll be back as soon as I can, sir,” Luke said, back ramrod straight. Elliot regarded the man sceptically; he had an instinctive distrust of all authority figures, but especially those with shiny shoes. This man’s shoes were practically reflective. “I’m sure you’ll all be able to take care of things in my absence. This entire troop is highly competent.”

The man nodded, waving them off as they started off into the forest. Elliot risked looking stupid to ask,

“Who was that?”

“My commander.”

“What’s his name?” Luke paused, turning to smile at him.

“Oh, I have absolutely no idea.”

Chapter Text

Luke kept looking at him.

This was not technically cause for alarm, since Elliot was the only thing apart from trees for miles around. Despite this, every time he caught Luke watching him, a shiver ran through Elliot’s body.

They were making good time, moving faster than Elliot would have expected. Evidently Rugged Elliot had some sort of endurance training; he kept stopping to rest, only to realise he didn’t need to.

Unsurprisingly, Luke – a bronze statue who had just nipped down from his podium for a walk – was meeting and exceeding Elliot’s pace. Every so often and (frustratingly) without warning, he would shoot up into the sky, rocketing through the canopy to check their heading.

After the third such eruption, Elliot turned, arms folded. Luke glided – glid? glade? – down beside him, feathers glittering in the sun. Jerk.

“Must you keep doing that?” Elliot asked in his most withering tone.

Luke smiled, not withering at all, which was rude. “No. But it pisses you off.”

Elliot scowled. “It’s showy. All you’re doing is revealing our location to… potential predators.”

“Predators?” Luke laughed, and of course, the bastard had dimples. “Exactly what predators are you worried about? Leopards?”

Elliot didn’t know if Luke was mocking him or if there actually were leopards and he was too heroic to show any fear of them. He erred on the side of caution and simply replied, “It’s annoying.”

Luke rolled his eyes, leaning tauntingly into Elliot’s personal bubble. He stank of sweat and leather. A bolt of panic went through Elliot at the proximity, or possibly Luke’s half-smirk.

“Say that again,” he goaded. Elliot turned his face away, a lock of Luke’s hair brushing his cheek.

“You’re annoying.”

The forest floor fell out from beneath him. Elliot screamed, or at least tried. As soon as his mouth opened all his breath was knocked out of him by the force of movement. He grabbed at the only thing in his proximity, which was Luke’s arm. They broke the canopy and levelled out, slowing to coast gently over the trees.

“Correction,” Elliot panted, fighting the urge to smack Luke only out of fear that he might drop him. “You’re annoying and an asshole.”

Elliot met Luke’s eyes, which were surprisingly clouded over with some emotion that Elliot didn’t recognise but could identify as bad. Shit. Rugged Elliot probably loved this. This was probably prime rugged bonding, and Squishy Elliot was making it weird.

“Sorry,” he said, looking pointedly away from both the ground and Luke, both of which were making his stomach swoop. “I just-“ he spun his wheels for a moment before landing on “-haven’t eaten. You made me dizzy.”

“Oh,” Luke said, voice soft. “I’ll bring you down.”

“Wait.” Elliot forced himself to take a deep breath. “Give me a minute.”

“Of course,” Luke agreed, shifting his arm around Elliot’s waist. They hung there, suspended in space, the only sound the gentle beating of Luke’s wings. Elliot let himself go limp for the first time since he woke up in Fantasy Scout Camp and breathed.

The air was different. Not insanely so, barely even noticeable on first examination. He would have expected, had he considered it, for the air to be cleaner. After all, there presumably weren’t cars and factories polluting it to kingdom come like good Ol’ Blighty. But the thing he really noticed was how much fuller it was.

When he was eleven, Elliot’s class went on an overnight school trip to the Lake District. He’d expected not to go, because it cost nearly two hundred pounds, but his father was apparently eager enough to be rid of him that he coughed up. It was miserable, clambering up and down mountains while children who hated him bonded over trainers. He’d brought an MP3 player and listened the whole time, hiding the headphones under his hood.

But when they came down for the last time for the drive home, he suddenly realised how shallowly he’d been breathing the whole trip. Suddenly, the familiar air of Devon – lovely, flat Devon – felt richer, more oxygenated. He inhaled and his chest actually filled all the way up.

This was like that. Like he had never noticed how little breath he was getting until he finally inhaled properly and went dizzy.

Luke was holding him as loosely as possible without dropping him, arching his back to limit the contact of their bodies. God, Elliot was a dick.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, patting the arm around his chest in what he hoped was masculine comfort. “I’m on a weird wavelength today.”

“Yeah,” Luke hummed conspiratorially, “today.”

Elliot felt his lips curve up as he smacked Luke’s shoulder. “Asshole.”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Okay, take me down, Sunborn.”

Luke obliged, alighting gently, like he was a bluebird at Snow White’s window. The effect was somewhat marred by the masculine grunt he let out, rolling his shoulders exaggeratedly. He cast a sidelong look at Elliot.

“You’re quiet today. You’re never quiet.”

 “Rude.” But Luke was almost certainly right – Elliot couldn’t imagine he’d changed that much. The problem was that he had no idea what he normally talked about. “Like I said, weird wavelength. Why don’t you talk?” Luke had the appearance of somebody who didn’t usually get much of a word in edgewise – a familiar look for people in Elliot’s immediate vicinity.

“Oh, uh. Okay.” Luke was pink, which was fucking hilarious. More like Luke Sunburn. “We’ve, uh, started a new language training regime for the cadets.”

The next hours passed in an amicable haze of chatter. Despite his condition, Elliot actually had plenty of opinions on the new system of teaching cadets the local languages of their posting. Mainly, ‘why on Earth wasn’t that standard before?’, but Luke took it in good humour. He explained how the proposal (apparently suggested by Elliot six months ago, which explained why he approved of it) had been argued up the command ladder. A lot of passive voice was used, which got Elliot’s suspicions raised. He hadn’t assumed Luke was modest on first meeting him, but apparently there was more to him than met the eye.

Eventually the sun was getting low, the insects of the forest coming out in full force to consume Elliot’s blood (apparently harpies were immune, which somehow did not surprise Elliot). Luke shrugged off his pack and said,

“Alright, that’s as far as we’re getting tonight. Come on, we’ll camp here.”

Evidently, Rugged Elliot was not too dissimilar from his squishy counterpart, because Luke didn’t even bother to ask for his help setting up the tent. Instead, Elliot reclined on a rock and read the mermaid entry in the explorer’s guide. His past self evidently had opinions on the matter, because many of the pages were more ink than paper. By the time Luke had started the fire, Elliot was incredibly well-read on the language barrier between salt and freshwater mermaids, and on the fascinating tribe of oxbow mermaids who had been entirely cut off from the rest of their species for nearly two hundred years.

“Sausage and potato?” Luke asked with the familiar tone that suggested it was not the first time.

“Yeah, sure,” Elliot said. He had assumed it would be nothing but cereal bars from here on in, and Luke pulling out a frying pan was unreasonably exciting.

As the food cooked, Elliot filled Luke in on the fascinating theory positing the existence of giant, deep ocean mermaids. The idea made Elliot want to invent SCUBA for the sole purpose of investigating it.

“And if they do exist, they’d be totally cut off from society above water. Even the saltwater mermaids probably wouldn’t be in contact with them, because they can’t withstand the pressure down there. Imagine the cultural differences! God, I hope they’re real.”

Luke handed him a fork, possibly just to shut him up. They ate right out of the pan, burning their mouths on the food even as they shovelled it down. If there was one thing Elliot hadn’t expected, it was how ravenous a day’s walking made you.

Once the food was finished and the fire burning low, Elliot finally gave up on reading in the dim half-light and turned to the tent. The tent. Singular.

He glanced at Luke, who was watching the fire with disinterest. Evidently, this was par for the course, probably to avoid carrying unnecessary equipment. Elliot felt deliberately neutral about it.

“Think I’m going to go to sleep,” he suggested, trying to subtly determine whether this was out of his own character.

“Alright,” Luke said, standing up with a yawn. “Just let me put the fire out and I’ll be right in.”

Okay. That kind of made sense. No reason for Luke to sit up all night once Elliot was asleep.

Still felt kind of weird.

Elliot had already settled onto his bedroll when Luke entered. And started stripping.

He bit down on his lips hard to keep from saying something as Luke quickly undressed to his boxers. He dug his fingernails into his palms when he realised that was all Luke planned on sleeping in. Evidently, this was normal for them, because Luke (who he was starting to suspect was slightly shy) just laid down on his bedroll and went to sleep. Like, immediately. He was snoring within one minute. Elliot hated him.

He sighed.

“Well then.”

After another hour of staring at the tent roof, he finally joined Luke in sleep.

Chapter Text

When Elliot felt it, he paused. Luke, who had been doing some sort of manly ranger activity to his left, threw him a quizzical look over his shoulder.

“I’m itchy,” he said. Luke rolled his eyes.

“Okay, and did you need a full medical team, or will just a doctor do?”

“No, I mean, like, my brain.”

Concern bloomed on Luke’s face. “Right…”

“I think I’ve-” Elliot cut himself off. He had been about to say, ‘been here before’. But if he was right, Luke couldn’t know that he had been. Instead, he limply finished, “I think it’s here.”

Luke nodded, something in his bearing that Elliot hadn’t noticed relaxing coiling up in anticipation. Suddenly, he was stood on guard, back to Elliot as he prepared to draw his bow, arrows in hand.

“Right, okay. Totally proportional reaction to finding an archaeological site.” Luke ignored him, edging forwards until they reached a clearing.

The whole thing was coated in moss thick enough to form a duvet, but Elliot could still identify the shape of a henge beneath. It was larger than any he’d been to before, probably a hundred metres across. The bank was ringed with slim menhirs and three concentric timber circles sat within the ditch. Some sort of altar sat in the middle, and Elliot could imagine another version of himself rushing in to examine it without thinking. Well, Rugged Elliot was evidently an idiot, and Squishy Elliot decided instead to examine the outside carefully before crossing any magical memory thresholds.

Elliot walked over to the nearest menhir and examined it. The stone was pale, but not soft like limestone. An exploratory scratch with a nail left no mark, which was particularly interesting given the prolonged scars up the side, evidently ritualistic from their uneven, yet deliberate placement. Hooks were placed in a uniform spiral around the shaft, mostly empty. The single occupied spot on the pillar displayed what appeared to be a keychain.

Closer inspection revealed that the dark band holding the object up was elaborately braided from some sort of unevenly brown fibre. Elliot had never owned a friendship bracelet, but assumed the plaiting was similar. Feathers were tucked into the band at odd angles and the roughly hewn gemstone pendant glinted in the sunlight.

“Huh. I think I’ve seen one of those.”

Elliot startled, only kept from slamming his shoulder into Luke’s jaw by the man’s immediate reflexive jump into the air. Hovering a foot off the ground, he placed his hands on Elliot’s shoulders and leaned over his head.

“Celaeno has stuff like this in her nest. That’s hair,” he said, gesturing at the band, which Elliot dropped in disgust. Luke dove forward to catch it, knocking Elliot aside and casting him a critical look. “They’re good luck… or something. You’re never supposed to let them touch the ground.”

“Whose hair is that!?”

“Same person – or people – whose feathers they are. Looks like two adults and a fledgling,” he hazarded, brushing his thumb gently across the plumes. “See here? That’s a pinfeather.”

“Their first flight feathers.” Elliot felt like an idiot. At around six years old, harpy fledglings shed their downy childhood feathers and started the – apparently very uncomfortable – process of growing in their heavy-duty adolescent flight feathers. He had read that it was like if teething happened across your whole arms.

…No, he hadn’t. That wasn’t in any of the books he’d read since losing his memory. Weird.

“She’s got one with hers and my biological father’s,” Luke said, distant expression on his noble brow. “From when they first fledged. Apparently, it’s supposed to protect them or something.”

The wistful tone of his voice cut into Elliot like a knife.

“Right, let’s take a look, then,” he said with forced cheer, linking his arm with Luke’s and pulling him forward. Luke stopped to replace the talisman and walked with him.

They traced the outside of the henge before coming to one obelisk that held no talismans or hooks. Elliot examined it and noticed a wide, flat plane on the front, covered in moss.

He held out a hand. “Knife.”

Luke furnished him with one immediately. It was only when the transaction completed that they remembered, as one, that Luke was not supposed to have brought it.

Luke flushed and dropped his eyes from Elliot’s steely gaze. “I thought we could use it on… apples?”

Rolling his eyes, Elliot took to the careful task of prising the moss away from the pillar, passing it to Luke, who pocketed it for fire-starting. He was halfway through the task when he thought to wonder how he knew this specific moss species was flammable.

The moss peeled away to reveal a series of chicken-scratch marks. Well, harpy-scratch. He turned to Luke expectantly, only to see the exact same expectation reflected in Luke’s baby blues.

“Oh my God, you can’t read Harpy? This is wasted on you.”

“I’ve been trying!” Luke protested, turning pink. “I can write my name now.”

“Oh. Well, at least you’re trying. Guess not everyone can do languages.”

The resultant beam of pride and gratitude knocked all the breath out of Elliot’s lungs. Luke was flushed a deep red, his eyes glittering like sun on the ocean. Elliot stepped back just as Luke moved forward, and the expression shuttered instantly. He broke eye contact, turning back to the inscription coolly. Elliot worried he had dropped something fragile he hadn’t known he was holding.

“Right, okay. So, this says, um, it’s kind of poetic, but I think the gist is that these stones and – uh, trees? Wooden structures? – belong to this family.” He pointed out the name-scratch. “Can’t tell how it’s pronounced. And family might not be right, maybe it’s… community? Yeah, this community. And the people – well, harpies – from that community who walk – well, actually, harpy directions are kind of confusing because they work in three dimensions. I think it might be travel? It’s not fly, but ‘fly’ is very specific to a type of flying. Maybe it’s ‘hover’? Like, travel slowly by wing in the circle.”

Luke nodded. “Yeah, there are not enough words in English to describe flying.”

“Anyway, the people from that community who do that are going to be blessed by – yeah, I don’t know this word. This section suggests something suspended, but I don’t know what the suffix means.”

“Could it be those?” Luke gestured to the talismans hanging from the nearest obelisk.

“Shit, yeah, obviously. I am not on it today,” he said, smiling at Luke in hopes of mending whatever he had damaged. Luke smiled back and a knot in Elliot’s stomach loosened.

“So,” he continued, “they’ll be blessed – well, not ‘blessed’, because that has religious implications that aren’t really in this word. More kind of, I don’t know, ‘benefitted’?”

“Helped?”

“Yeah, helped, by the talismans on the inner wooden structures. Harpies who aren’t from that community can make offerings, but only at the stone pillars. Non-harpies are- oh, shit.”

“What?”

“Non-harpies who infringe on the circle will be cursed.”

Luke put a protective hand on Elliot’s shoulder. Too little, too late. “How?”

“Ugh, this is really poetic language. Something about love? Like, this-“ he gestured to a symbol- “means family, but in a kind of broad, non-relative sense. It’s basically a community, but there’s an element of like, affection? It’s really hard to explain.”

“I get it.” Luke’s face was pensive, an unfamiliar but good look on him. “Harpies don’t really have a typical family structure – blood relation doesn’t really matter. Your relationship to a person is based on context. Celaeno was nest-mates with my father, so it doesn’t matter to her whether they have the same parents. I think they do, but she doesn’t even know. It’s not a measure of family to them.”

He turned to Elliot, who felt frozen in place. Something warm tingled under his skin. “…Yeah.” He shook his head, turning back to the pillar. “Yeah. Anyway, it says something about losing your family? Not losing, but like, ‘not having’. It’s really hard to explain. And they have to earn them back, I think? It’s not exactly earn, more kind of… rewind? Like if there was a rope between you, you have to pull them towards you. Like this word, here? It means ‘embrace’. So like, hug them?”

Luke hummed consideringly. Elliot felt mildly sick.

“Okay, so you are not going in here. I’ll scope it out from the air.” He was off the ground before Elliot could respond. He dropped down onto the moss, watching numbly as Luke soared over the henge.

So, he was cursed by a harpy, and he didn’t even really know how. He had to pull people back to him. Who? The only family he had was his dad, and there weren’t going to be any tender embraces there. He’d left home at… seventeen? Eighteen? He couldn’t quite remember, but he recalled the last talk with his dad, and there was no love lost between them. No great animosity either, just kind of… nothing.

That raised another issue. He had left home as a teenager, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t one anymore. Something in his head told him he was twenty-five, which meant at least seven years were almost entirely gone from his memory, and there were big gaps in the years before that, too.

And he had absolutely no idea how to get them back.

Luke landed with a gentle thump. “It looks so cool from the air.”

Elliot seethed with jealousy. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, it’s hard to explain, but it’s kind of staggered? Like, they used the taller stuff to cast shadows on the smaller stuff, so there are parts that are almost totally shaded. Then there are parts that are deliberately raised up to catch the sun. It’s like a… the thing with the pieces from Rommy.”

A rush of affection told Elliot that he had deliberately encouraged Luke to mispronounce Rome. “Oh, mosaics?”

“Yeah!” Enthusiasm lit up Luke’s features. “It’s a map!”

“A. What.” Elliot grabbed Luke by the shirt.

“A map.” Luke showed absolutely no effect of the proximity, which irritated Elliot enough to squeeze tighter.

“Of. What?”

“Of the Borderlands! There’s these little glittery things, not gold but something like it, and they represent harpy settlements. Ours – I mean, Celaeno’s – is the biggest,” he informed him proudly.

“Take me.”

Luke flushed completely scarlet. “…I-“

“I want to see it.”

“Oh. Isn’t that dangerous?”

“It’s fine. The warning was for travelling within the circles, not above them.” And either way, there was no fear of getting double cursed. “Take me now.”

Still vermillion, Luke sighed, taking Elliot by the waist. With no warning, they were airborne.

Elliot was not proud of the shriek he let out, but it was completely overshadowed by the gasp when he saw what Luke had described.

A series of peaks and valleys had been arranged to mimic the topography of the Borderlands. Completely invisible from the ground, careful markings and different materials showed the rivers, forests, and plains. The menhirs were not in a circle, as he had assumed. On one side, three lined up parallel to mark the border wall between here and the place Elliot had come from. Luke was right – something golden, likely cubic zirconia, glinted at spots that coincided with the harpy settlements on Elliot’s maps. Some were unfamiliar, and others Elliot suspected had been abandoned since the human takeover. In the very centre of the henge was a large bloodstain.

“Hey, what’s that?” He directed Luke down towards it until he spotted it.

A huge geode lay on the ground, its purple crystals stained deep red. Beside it was a pool of congealing blood. Elliot noted the bloody footprints walking away from it and suspected they matched his trainers. Idiot.

“Looks like someone disturbed it,” Luke observed. “Celaeno has something similar in her nest, but it’s just in a normal bowl. I hate it, but they’re a warrior race and blood is really important to them.”

“What’s it for?” Elliot asked, not caring whether he should already know.

“Blessings. If you’re going to battle, or on a long journey, they daub you in the blood of your ancestors and their enemies.”

“Gross.”

Luke looked like he agreed. “It’s technically optional, but they really encourage it.”

“How is it still fresh?”

Luke paled. “Um, harpy spit has anticoagulant prop-“

“Oh, gross! Also, where’d you learn ‘anticoagulant’?”

“From your books.”

“You read my books?”

Luke pinked. “Some of them.”

Elliot squeezed his shoulder affectionately. Luke’s ears went red.

“Would you… do you want to ask my aunt about them?”

Elliot assumed he meant the harpy. “Yeah, this stuff is incredible. I was planning on sharing my research with her eventually, anyway.” He had surmised as much from the writings in his bag.

“Well… I’m signed off for another week. If…”

Elliot grinned. “Luke Sunborn, take me to your leader.”