Archive of Our Own ^beta

i. they say it’s what you make, I say it’s up to fate

or: meeting // genesis

And the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make a companion for him, a perfectly suited partner.” Genesis 2:18

Wicander isn’t sure what he expected from the demon summoned to be his Aspirant, but it certainly wasn’t Tyranny. Nothing about Tyranny could ever be described in the manner of “as expected”.

When the fateful day of their introduction arrives, he wakes up sweating, having spent an anxious night overthinking their first interaction today, of how to greet them and welcome them into the Creed best without being either too authoritative or too casual. He practiced too many different opening lines in his head overnight, cringing more at the idea of actually delivering each new one that comes to him. He doesn’t know why he’s overanalyzing his words this much already; all he knows is that he has a feeling he can’t escape that their upcoming meeting is going to be something truly important and momentous. He’s excited for it, certainly, but not without a great deal of nerves he chalks up to anticipation. It’s a big test of his ability as the scion of House Halovar to be assigned an Aspirant of his own and tasked to bring them to the Light. Still, the demons brought to the Creed so far have progressed quickly in their teachings and surely, surely, the new one will be just as willing and eager to learn and to overcome their baser instincts. As he adjusts his robes while striding down the grand hall of the Villa Aurora, he finds himself simply hoping that he’ll be a good teacher and make everyone proud.

Pulse more elevated than normal, he knocks on the heavy door to the Photarch’s chambers on the ground floor for study and worship. A moment later, it swings open slowly, revealing his grandmother’s wrinkled face beaming up at him. “There you are, Wicky! Oh, what an auspicious day. I can’t wait to see what your love for the Light can achieve for this poor little lost lamb. She’s certainly in need of the firm hand of a capable shepherd to guide her on her way to salvation.”

A smile crosses his face at his grandmother’s words. “I’m eager to begin the work, to teach and to lead by example as we bring her to the Light,” he says earnestly, taking her wizened hand in his as he gazes sincerely down into her eyes, no less sharp and alert than ever. “I promise I will make you proud.”

She reaches up to pinch his cheek, looking upon him fondly. “I know you will, dearie. Now come on in, she’s waiting for you.” She opens the door wider, urging him in.

He self-consciously straightens his robes and checks his posture before entering forward into the open, circular room made of white marble, accented by tall gold-framed arched panes of stained glass portraying classic liturgical scenes. When he was a child still too young to truly understand his religion, he used to sit silently on the spots of marble floor where they were bathed in the colorful light being reflected through by the windows and stare up at them in fascination while his grandmother worked at her desk, making up his own fantastical stories in his head about what was happening in the scenes and giggling about them later to his siblings and his mother. Zebani would roll her eyes, his brother would just babble along with baby talk, and his mother would smile gently before explaining the true stories as he sat in her warm lap, enraptured by the wondrous miracles she would tell him of.

Today, standing in the center of the chamber, right at the intersection of several concentric circles etched into the tile of the floor, is a demon, pink-skinned with a shock of white hair that falls to her shoulders, already dressed in the formal garb of the Creed. Layers and ruffles of white and seafoam green cover her frame. Upon his appearance, she cocks her head and stares at him without speaking. His pace falters as he approaches her until he stops a few feet away from her.

A loud bang makes him jump in place as he looks back over his shoulder to see the door having closed and the Photarch coming up to him to set an encouraging hand upon his elbow. “Well, go on then, Wick, introduce yourself.”

The demon standing in front of him gazes up at him with unsettling yellow eyes, and he swallows nervously, trying to forget all the horrible stories he’s ever heard about demons while sticking his hand out, praying that it’s not too obviously sweaty. “Lord Wicander Halovar, at your service. Also to be known as Your Radiance or Light Priest or Bearer of the Filament.” His hand remains extended for a few beats until he lets it fall awkwardly, electing to drop into a half-bow instead. With still no reaction from the demon, he prompts, “And your name is…?”

At that, the demon looks to his grandmother for approval before looking back at him. “Tyranny,” she declares, with just a hint of some kind of smirk on her lips.

He blinks. “Well, that’s certainly… striking.” Her voice wasn’t what he had expected. She sounds just like any other woman rather than sounding like she’d been summoned straight from Hell. Perhaps he’d assumed too much about demonkind based on his experience of Enmity thus far.

The pink demon bares her fanged teeth in a fiendish grin. “Striking. I like that. I intend to be!” His mouth runs dry with an instinctual panic response at the sight of her fangs, a little too sharp for comfort. Perhaps she can see his fear because her smile turns sickly sweet as she dips into a small and short curtsy before rising, her hands folded and devious eyes downcast with the appearance of piety. “In the service of the Light, of course, Your Radiance.”

“Well,” his grandmother smiles broadly and claps him on the shoulder with a surprising strength that belies her age. “Seems like you two will get along swimmingly. I’ll leave you to continue making introductions, ducky, I’ve got much work to attend to. Great things in store for the Creed’s public outreach programs and all that!”

Wick bows his head in deference, and she affectionately ruffles his carefully arranged curls before turning to Tyranny who, to his surprise, drops into a deeper bow as whatever mischief remained in her face is wiped away, leaving only a blank and vacant slate of an expression on her. “Good girl, Tyranny. Treat my boy well,” Photarch Yanessa Halovar says approvingly before sweeping away from them, closing the heavy door once more behind her.

Tyranny remains in her pious stance as Wick swallows nervously, trying to think of things to say to connect with her, until the sound of footsteps has finally faded away, at which point she abruptly springs back up and crosses her arms. Her head covering has come askew, and she huffs to blow her choppy white bangs out of her eyes with no small degree of irritation. Once clear, she narrows her yellow eyes at him. “So, you’re the great hope for the House of Halovar, huh? The shining face they present to the world?”

“I…” he clears his throat, nerves coming to the forefront with a suddenly self-conscious apprehension. “Yes, I suppose that would be me. I am the scion of my house, and it is my responsibility to represent my family and my faith with honor.”

She bleats out a laugh, eerily like a goat’s. “Good luck with that. I won’t help you there.”

“Nor would I expect you to, at least not now. It’s my duty to guide and instruct you in the ways of the Light and the teachings of the Candescent Creed. It’s a miracle that you’re here, come to be an Aspirant, a demon shown the power of the Light, and I hope to show you the value that can be found through true faith and goodness.” He smiles at her hesitantly, hoping she’ll see encouragement and the Light within him.

She huffs out smoke, pawing a hoof on the ground. He stares for a second before his face burns at what is surely rude behavior on his part, to gaze upon their differences. She doesn’t seem to care, but she does roll her eyes in a clear show of disrespect towards him that makes him bristle a little. “You don’t get it. I won’t help you in that, either. I don’t care to learn about your stupid Candy Creed or to be taught all the ways that you’re good and I’m evil. I have a life here now, and I intend to start living it. The best thing you could do for me is to stay out of my way and leave me alone.”

His jaw drops as he gapes at her. He’s never encountered resistance like this before, and it leaves him floundering. “Well, I’m… I’m sorry to hear that you feel that way, but you did agree to certain conditions when you came here, did you not? You agreed to be an Aspirant under my care, to stay by my side as I guide you through your journey of faith, and to protect the House of Halovar, observe the traditions of the Candescent Creed, and obey the bidding of your Light Priest, did you not? To protect, observe, and obey, as one might put it plainly.”

Her tail sweeps across the floor in a way that almost seems sulking. “I did,” she says through gritted teeth.

“Then no, I will not stay out of your way or leave you alone. You are my responsibility now, and I take that seriously, even if you don’t yet. I expect you to show up for lessons and attend prayer with me, and if I can’t trust you to remain alongside me, then I will have to be the one following you around. You won’t be rid of me that easily, Tyranny.” Wick boldly declares, feeling a bit of a heady rush as he lays out ground rules.

Her ears twitch as she glares at him with barely concealed resentment. “…Fine,” she grumbles, kicking her hoof against the floor again. “But don’t say I didn’t tell you so when I act like a demon. You might be able to take the demon out of hell, but you can’t take the hell out of the demon. Or something like that.”

Wick feels victorious inside, like he’s won a grand prize instead of simply her tepid acceptance of their circumstances. “Of course. Of course! You’re a demon, and I know that, and I wouldn’t expect you to change overnight. All lasting change happens slowly over time, and I look forward to seeing what changes happen within you as you come closer to the Light.” He smiles again at her, eager to impress.

The corner of her mouth twitches wryly, and he has the sudden and acute sense that he’s a part of some greater joke to her that he doesn’t know about. “Sure. Sounds good.”

He wrings his hands, brief triumph overcome by the surge of discomfort at being the butt of whatever ridicule exists in her demon brain. “Well, now that we’ve got that much sorted out, would you care to - ”

He’s rudely interpreted by Tyranny flipping him her fingers as she turns to leave. “Fuck you, Your Radiance!”

“Tyranny,” he sputters, frozen in disbelief, taken aback at her sudden and unprompted outburst of insolence. “Aspirant Tyranny!”

“Remember: demon!” she hollers out at him as she points at herself, having clip-clopped her way halfway to the door already.

Wick continues on, flustered and rambling. “Such language is improper and vulgar and serves only to dim the Light, as you will find out when we - ”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Tyranny bleats out another laugh, her eyes scrunched up and gleaming in apparent delight at his distress. “I’ll see you in church, I’m sure I’ll learn all about it then!” She wiggles her fingers back at him in a taunting wave before skipping out the door, leaving him stunned and speechless in his grandmother’s chambers, reeling a few steps backwards.

Wick feels as if he’s been struck by some great force of nature, left all charged up in the wake of her departure and veering off balance, and he knows then that his life has, without any true forethought or decision on his part, already been set into a new direction by their meeting.

ii. it’s woven in my soul, I need to let you go

or: changes // psalms

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. Psalm 32:8

Tyranny has been a unique kind of hellion, a challenge unlike any other that Wicander has encountered up to this point in his life. She’s loud and crass, shows little respect for his authority over her or for the verses he recites to her daily, and seems to actively take pleasure out of vexing him. He never sees her smile more than when she’s pulled a new stunt that’s gotten him all worked up, stumbling over his words in attempts to find the proper ones to scold her and get through to her.

And yet, she does stay by his side more often than not, regularly sitting through lessons and church services no matter how much she fidgets and complains her way through them, coming back to him the next day to do her best to poke holes through what she’s been taught. Those conversations are some of his favorites, no matter how frustrating it can be that she isn’t a true believer yet. No one else will engage with such spirited debate about the teachings of the Candescent Creed and the meaning of the Light with him — anyone else he’s encountered is already a believer or simply acquiesces to what he has to say because of his station. He’s never had to think so much about what his faith means to him and why and to defend it out loud. It leaves him invigorated anew with righteous belief every time, his mind pleasantly and properly exercised. And he can’t help but smile at the proof that Tyranny does listen to what she’s being taught and engage with it in her own way. She’s very bright, in an intellectual way if perhaps not in the way of the Light yet, but he sees endless potential within her, and it’s been a singular experience of a journey getting excited by any forward progress only to be hit by a new setback when she rebels, pushes away, or otherwise acts out.

Such as through the acts of Dimming seen during the events of tonight, when she was away from his side long enough at the annual Archanaud fundraiser and gala to drink profusely to the point of making a scene with many nobles and various others from the upper echelons of Dol-Makjar society, using such colorful language and particularly inventive phrases that his ears still feel like they’re ringing, and ultimately throwing up in a perhaps priceless vase to cap it all off with a flourish.

Wicander hasn’t encountered such public embarrassment as this in a long time, despite all of Tyranny’s best efforts, and he’s sure his face is flushed nearly as pink as his Aspirant’s skin as he makes several apologies around the main room of the night’s events to all persons affected by her behavior. He burns internally with shame, having failed to have brought his Aspirant fully to the Light by now and to have her so clearly display to the world that he lacks leadership skills and the ability to teach. 

The unsettling and emotionless eyes of the curator Bolaire’s mask slide over Wick as he makes his final apologies, feeling as if he’s slinking away with his tail between his legs, a poor excuse of a scion for his house as he escapes out the front door and joins a still drunken Tyranny half passed out in their carriage. 

They sit in tense silence for a large portion of the drive home, Tyranny facing away from him and towards the window. Wick clears his throat a few times, supposing that he’s probably supposed to talk to her here as her Light Priest, but without finding the right words to say, he awkwardly aborts each of his attempts. He just feels so exhausted and defeated by the way the night played out in one of their first big public outings together, and he doesn’t have the heart to admonish her right now after he already had to raise his voice at her in front of others, not when she’s curled up her body to look smaller than she is and he can hear the sounds of her sniffling occasionally. It makes his heart twinge, even as mad at her as he is. 

To his surprise and perhaps her own, it’s Tyranny who breaks the silence. 

“I’m sorry.”

Her voice is muffled and thick with some unreadable emotion that he can’t begin to decipher right now as his head swirls, taking in the sound of her uttering those words for the first time ever in their time together. It breaks through his anger at her and the situation of the night, leaving him in a bit of a state of shock.

He looks over at her, still turned away from him. “Oh,” he exhales dumbly. “I… Thank you for your apology. All can be forgiven in the Light,” he recites as if by rote, and perhaps he should leave it there, but curiosity gets the best of him and he tentatively pushes further. “Do you… do you want to talk about why you’re sorry or… what you’re sorry for?”

She sniffles again, curling up into an even tighter ball, shaking her head. 

He’s never seen her in this state before, so… vulnerable. His heart twinges again, harder to ignore with protective feelings. “Okay. That’s okay,” he says softly, tentatively reaching out to gently place a hand on her shoulder. She flinches for a second, and he nearly pulls away, regretting the choice to reach out, before she relaxes into his touch, and it’s as if he can see her making the conscious choice to do so, to fight an innate impulse that would drive her away from him. His soft heart crumbles the last of his thoughts that he ought to scold her right now for her behavior into dust.

“I don’t know why,” she says suddenly, as if in a rush to get the words out while she can. “I don’t know why I feel so sorry, and I don’t know why I acted out in the first place. Just… demon nature, I guess. And I thought it would be funny, and it really was for a while, and then… and then I saw your face. And it made me feel bad.” She turns towards him finally, looking at him accusatorially. “How did you make me feel bad? Did you get in my head?”

Wick squeezes her shoulder lightly, the warmth of her demonic skin burning into his palm even through her layers of clothing as he searches her eyes with his own, finding only the truth of her confusion and pain there. “I don’t know why my face made you feel bad. Maybe it’s just hard to look at,” he tries to joke.

Tyranny’s goat-like eyes narrow into slits. “You know that’s not true. Everyone calls you beautiful. And even if they don’t say it, they think it.”

Wick feels his face flush. “Well. I don’t know about all of that. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and all that the Light touches is beautiful.”

Tyranny snorts, a bit snotty with the tears still fresh on her face. “Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

He can sense her barriers rising back up, and he’s desperate to connect with her in some way before she shuts down on him. “What did… what did you see in my face that made you feel bad?”

A look of pain ripples across her face again. She opens her mouth to speak, then hesitates, eyes flickering over his face. He feels oddly exposed under her investigation. “You looked at me as if… you were disappointed. Like you thought I could be better and do better only to find out I couldn’t. Like you really… really believed in me. Like you actually had thought I could be… good.” Her voice breaks on the last word, as if it’s too much for her and physically pains her to get out. 

Wick’s chest aches. “I was disappointed,” he says quietly. “And I do think you can do better, and I do believe in you, and I do think you can be good. I think you already are, you just need more… practice at it,” he tries to finish delicately.

“You don’t get it. No amount of practice will ever…” he watches as she swallows her words, pivoting away from whatever she had been about to say. “You should just send me away. I mess everything up and only hurt y- the people around me, and I always make everything worse. I’m always going to be a demon. I don’t know why you even bother trying with me.” 

His gaze catches on the bright yellow of her eyes, shining and gleaming with still unshed tears. “I see the Light within you, Tyranny,” he says gently. “More than you give yourself credit for. There is good in you, and you have worth, and you were meant to be here. One evening doesn’t change that.”

Tyranny blinks, caught off guard by his sincerity, lips parting. She ducks her head for a moment before shaking her blunt white bangs back as she looks up at him. She cocks her head towards one shoulder, furrowing her brow slightly as she searches his face, trying to read him. A puff of smoke is exhaled from her nostrils as she lowers her gaze and swallows. “I don’t know how you believe that so strongly,” she says, low. “But… you make me want to believe it, too.”

He reaches out carefully to take her clawed, blackened hand and enfold it in his own, soft and pale. “That’s where all faith starts, Tyranny. Wanting to believe.”

He gazes at her, entreating her to really hear his words and take them in. She looks away and stares at his hand enveloping hers for a moment as her eyes water and soften around the edges, looking almost wounded, before she angrily wrenches away from him. 

“It’s stupid. It’s stupid! I’m stupid, and you’re stupid, and it’s all stupid.” She scrubs a frustrated hand across her face, rough and careless with its movement as if she wishes to wipe away any traces of genuine feeling and doesn’t care if she hurts herself in the process. 

He can’t help but feel a little hurt himself by her words, but he reminds himself that Tyranny is certainly the one hurting more right now, that she’s clearly undergoing some immense inner conflict that he might not even be able to begin to parse through. Who knows what a demon’s mind is like?

Well, he’d hoped that he was at least on the path to start understanding that so that he could better meet her where she’s at to shepherd her along the path of the Light. But he fears that however much progress he thought he had made towards understanding was clearly insufficient as he bears witness to this demon’s complex inner torment and feels woefully inadequate to help.

“I must confess that hurts me a little to hear,” Wick starts softly, trying to measure out his words. “But that’s alright. I understand that you feel that way, and I don’t resent you for it. It’s a good thing to express our feelings with honesty - doctrine tells us that it brings us closer together under the Beam. I can’t begin to understand what your experience here has been like, but I can hope that I can do a better job as your teacher and guide. And I do promise that I will try to. And Tyranny…” he pauses here, searching for the words he wants to find. “If you… if you’re struggling… you don’t have to struggle alone. You can talk to me. Or if you just want someone to sit in silence with sometimes, we can do that, too. I know that I’m kind of… well, your boss, but I do swear to you that I will be there for you if you need me to be.”

Tyranny finally looks at him again, and he does whatever he can to radiate trustworthiness, letting her piercing, haunted eyes probe through him. 

“I believe you, Wick.” Her voice is small and tired but there nonetheless, and he feels as if he could glow. “And that’s kind of part of the worst of it. You’re just so… good.” She catches on the word, like she did before, and she has to clear her throat, ducking her head as her fringe of lashes flutters with a few quick blinks. “I want to try to be better. I will try. I would like to be… I would like to be good.” She rushes out the final sentence, as if it burns her throat to say, as if it’s something shameful to admit. 

Maybe to a demon, it is.

Before she turns away again, he reaches out to take her hand once more, squeezing it gently with the hope that she can take some comfort from the gesture. He’s never felt so close to her, and he’s almost surprised by how nice it feels. “That’s a big step, Tyranny. Truly, the desire and the intention to change, to be better than we are today, is half the battle. I believe in you, I really do. You aren’t a lost cause. Please, never give up on yourself.”

Her yellow eyes meet his, and for a second his breath catches in his throat as they gaze at each other in this hushed moment, holding hands in the back of the carriage. It almost feels like a shared prayer.

“Thanks, Wick,” she murmurs, before she corrects herself with a jerk of her head. “Sorry, I mean, Your Radiance. I didn’t mean to disrespect you.”

He huffs out a small laugh without thinking, eyes crinkling with it. “You know what? I don’t mind. You can call me Wick.”

Her own mouth curls into a small, shy smile as her gaze tracks the movement of his face with his laugh, something almost hungry within the depths of her eyes. 

And instead of shivering away from it, Wick feels something deep within him begin to bloom in response, perhaps just as hungry for someone to finally truly look at him and see him for who he is at his core. To be known beyond the trappings of his station, past what he represents as a figure within the world. For someone to inquire what he wants and likes and thinks and feels and to desire those answers for no reason but the genuine curiosity of learning more about someone to know them better.

Perhaps he has more in common with Tyranny than he would have thought.

By the time they’ve arrived back at the Villa Aurora and Tyranny has been escorted to her chambers and he’s laying restlessly in his own silken sheets, tossing and turning, he’s half convinced himself that all they shared tonight was a fluke, brought on by Tyranny’s drunken state. She’ll sleep it all off, all of her apparent sincerity and vulnerability and desire to change, and be back to her wild ways in the morning, even if she remembers what happened. Maybe even because of it, if she’s embarrassed to have let any chinks in her armor show in front of him. To have cried and held his hand under the soft, dreamlike light of the moon. 

But when the blazing sunlight comes to herald another day, Tyranny greets him with a bow of her head and a, “Good morning, Your Radiance. It’s a beautiful day to be Bright,” chirped with a small, hesitantly conspiratorial smile instead of the sardonic roll of the eyes he’s become accustomed to receiving, and he can’t prevent the wide smile that crosses his face in response. 

“Good morning, Aspirant Tyranny. Quite a beautiful day to be Bright, indeed.” He beams at her and feels even Brighter when he sees the way that his own happiness makes her face light up and her body stand a little taller.

If last night was the turning of a page in their relationship, then this is surely the beginning of a new chapter. 

iii. your eyes, they shine so bright 

or: friendship // exodus

I have been a stranger in a strange land. Exodus 2:22

The first time that Tyranny considers just what it is that Wick means to her, she’s stumped. She doesn’t have enough life experience on this plane and in this body to contextualize and compartmentalize the different things he makes her think and feel and how they compare to her relationships with others, few though they might be. When she considers talking to her sisters about it, she immediately shudders at the thought and then has to pause at how it could be that her closest relationships here don’t feel like safe ones to rely on. 

He’s certainly not like a sister to her, not anything like the kind of family she’s known. 

He’s genuinely good. He cares about everyone, even her somehow. He makes her feel safer than anyone else in her life. She laughs more with (or at) him than anyone else. At the same time, he can be a stick in the mud and makes her roll her eyes at least once a day. He’s blinded by the teachings of his family and so compliant with their will that it goes past funny to pathetic. His ideas of fun, so sadly vanilla, are nowhere near her own.

She desperately wants to corrupt him. She desperately wants him to redeem her. The very immensity of her wanting, her hunger, often feels as if it can’t be contained within her own chest. 

She genuinely wants to kill him sometimes. Or maybe she just wants to sink her teeth and claws into his body and devour him so that he can never escape, so that he’ll be with her always, no chance of abandonment. One flesh.

But more than that, she already knows that she would kill for him. 

Maybe that’s just the nature of Aspirancy.

Even that automatically strikes her as wrong, but it’s the closest thing she’s found yet to describe it: the devotion she feels with the way she does want to be by his side to protect him from the world and all that would harm him, to maybe somehow absorb some of his true belief in goodness and salvation and redemption and the power of faith along the way, to always be there to reflect the Light that follows in his path everywhere he goes. 

And if maybe she wants that, if maybe there’s something wrong about the way she was made, if maybe she’ll never feel like a proper demon or at home anywhere she goes, then maybe there’s a chance that it’s not wrong to feel that way.

Maybe.

Some days, Tyranny likes to just sit and watch the interactions that happen between people. Between her sisters, between Wick and his grandmother or his mother or his siblings, between the various attendants of the House of Halovar. Those she finds the most interesting, like a complex and deeply tangled web on display for her to decipher, intersecting and knotting in fascinating, sometimes unexpected ways. She learns to identify who dislike each other, who are secret lovers, who are friends. 

It’s friendship that catches her attention the most and leaves her feeling strangely hollow when she watches pairs of friends gossip, smile and laugh, or affectionately embrace. It’s a relationship that she lacks and one that seems so fundamental to so many. 

Is it possible to feel complete without friendship? She can’t say, as she’s never experienced it. But she wonders, and she longs, and she tries. She greets people with a smile, she asks about their lives, she clumsily mirrors behavior.

She learns quickly that not many people want to befriend demons.

Sometimes, she wonders if Wick knows what it is to be lonely. She thinks he might. She sees it in his eyes sometimes, a bit of hollow sadness after a day of interactions with others where no one genuinely laughed with him or showed him any true affection. 

She shouldn’t pity him. He was born into wealth and power and beauty and abilities that he hasn’t even begun to explore the full potential of. It enraged her at first, truly, the scope of his sheer privilege that he’d earned through no real actions of his own. But as time unwinds slowly and she spends week after week as his reluctant disciple, she begins to ponder if there’s not a unique burden that comes with his position and status, if the cost that comes with an ivory tower is greater than he can yet comprehend when it comes to the course of his life.

At least she knows the truth about her circumstances. Wick, ironically for as much as he stands in the Light, is completely in the dark, surrounded by competing interests and corruption and twisted lies and secrets.

It’s a tragedy unfolding that she’s been tasked to bear witness to and see play out. What was once a private laughing matter to her becomes a bone-deep emotional ache, more quickly than she was prepared for. His smooth, guileless face, his round eyes, more innocent than they have any right to remain at his age while the blood of a chained Celestial is stamped across him, his earnest belief in saving her soul… she can’t bring herself to keep finding entertainment in it when it just hurts to be part of the charade lying to him, instructed to be playing a character in the false world constructed for him.

She rebels in quiet ways: pushing back against him when they sit in lessons, asking questions to encourage him to contemplate the nature of the Creed and the Light, toeing the line between what she can pass off as curiosity or a demonic desire for argument and going too far by completely shattering his basis of reality as he understands it. (She wants to shatter it. She wants to tell him. She thinks about it every night, confessing to him the darker side of his family and being the first one in his life to actually be truthful to him. To live up to his teachings of honesty.)

In peaceful moments, she allows herself to indulge by instead melting into compliance for him, reading the proverbs and learning the tunes of the hymns found in the Creed’s religious texts. She’ll sit quietly with him, studying together, as she tries not to longingly think about how nice it could be if this was genuinely her life with him, if there was no darker side to Aspirancy, if the answers to everything really could be found within these pages and all she had to do to find salvation and goodness would be to surrender to the Light. (She wants him to never find out the truth. She wants him to remain this protected, this innerly serene, this genuine in his convictions. She wants him to never look at her with disgust and betrayal and pain for being involved with all that was happening behind his back.)

No matter what she does, she thinks there is no winning to be found, not in this game when they’re just elaborately dressed up pieces laid out on the board for others to use as they deem fit. When the Photarch praises her with a hand on her shoulder and a crinkled smile privately congratulating her on how thoroughly she’s managed to take up her little Wicky’s time and attention and how well she’s playing her part, when her sisters berate her for growing soft and caring too much, having feelings that she has no right to, for not playing her part well enough and forgetting the bigger picture — both feel equally a loss.

Months into her existence on this plane, she’s presented with new relationships of Wick’s to parse through and mentally catalogue, the same way she’s silently documented all of his other interactions with people. They begin to take trips to the theatre regularly as Wick finds interest in beginning elocution lessons, knowing that he ought to be a smooth and capable public speaker as the face of his House. Well-renowned thespian, playwright, and director Halandil Fang takes him on as a student, and Tyranny sits in on their lessons in a corner, alternating from bored to captivated. She can’t deny that Hal, as he eventually tells Wick to address him as, certainly has a way with words and a solid presence that commands respect. 

It’s clear that he at least earns Wick’s respect rapidly, as Wick extols his virtues regularly. He’s almost starry-eyed with it, she thinks to herself wryly as she gazes at him, nodding along while he babbles after a lesson. 

So this is the relationship between a teacher and a student, one a mentor to the other. There’s respect, an exchange of knowledge, a bit of an unbalanced dynamic. It’s not unlike her own relationship to Wick as an Aspirant, at least on the surface, but it still doesn’t ring true to Tyranny as a fitting match for them. 

Their trips to the theatre increase once Wick insists upon watching his teacher’s work be brought to life on stage so that he can better observe the command over diction and projection and tone quality possessed by the performers Hal has directed. She can’t deny that these start out as her favorite outings; the shows are engaging and immersive, often full of color and spectacle, and she finds herself transported to other worlds while watching, delightfully taken out of her own head for a few hours. She greedily soaks in the performances, turning the words over like precious gems in her mind afterwards, playing back whatever messages were meant to be conveyed, whatever she learned of history or culture or folklore. When music is involved, she can’t stop herself from humming the melodies underneath her breath for days afterwards.

As soon as they first see a show in which Armas is playing the lead ingenue, the trips to the Lyceum only increase more, and Tyranny catches the furrow of a frown beginning on the Photarch’s face when she hears just how frequent the theatrical excursions are becoming. An undeniable sense of foreboding doom comes over her when Wick doesn’t seem to notice the negative reaction at all, continuing on dreamily at a Halovar family breakfast, complete with their Aspirants in attendance, about how this girl’s performances are nearly transcendent. 

Tyranny interrupts him by carelessly spilling the tea she was pouring for him all over the ornately decorated and pristinely kept tablecloth (and spitefully, a little bit all over his lap). Zebani’s lip twitches in barely detectable amusement across the table. Her demonic sisters turn to look at her, their reactions harder to interpret.

“Tyranny!” Wick yelps, attention redirected, all thoughts of the theatre temporarily forgotten as his focus turns to her. She tries not to preen under it, a task made easier when the Photarch dips her head slightly towards her with a smile of complicitous acknowledgment. Her heart clenches traitorously at the reminder that this is her role to fulfill, and her skin crawls uncomfortably as she can almost hear the approving whispers of her Father echoing in her ear.

When Wick mentions Armas for the first time to Hal during lessons, breathlessly praising the highlights of her performances and how he so admires her seemingly effortless control over elocution, Hal tilts his head, bemused. “You know I can introduce you to her if you’d like, don’t you?”

As Wick’s cheeks flush pink and he starts to stammer that it’s not necessary but would be lovely, Tyranny’s stomach sinks again with the feeling of impending disaster.

Armas is a lovely girl. Soft-spoken off stage, flowing glossy chestnut curls and perfectly pink lips. Gentle features, gentle manners, gentle heart. She’s beautiful but certainly not striking, Tyranny thinks with a strange and foreign sort of bitterness, and then has to stop in her tracks to question why she even cares to mark the difference. 

Not that it matters at all what she thinks. Wick is best matched to all things soft and gentle, to something pretty rather than spectacular, to a honeyed-tongue rather than a forked one. He takes to Armas immensely, and they spend hours talking together after shows about all kinds of things. He brings her gifts, just small things, but each remarkably thoughtful; Tyranny tries not to think about how he’s never gifted her anything. He watches every show she’s in as Tyranny watches him all the while, sees his eyes gleaming and his fingers gripping the edge of his seat tightly as he leans forward to be ever closer to her alluring presence. He blushes when Tyranny needles him about her.

Tyranny observes this new kind of relationship for Wick with a scrutiny unlike she’s applied before. It seems dangerous, like she’s teetering on the edge of some precipice if she allows herself to think for too long about why this matters so much to her. It almost feels like she’s pressing on a bruise over and over again each time she focuses on it, a dull ache pulsing just beneath her skin.

She doesn’t want to label it. She doesn’t want to watch Wick praying at his bedside every night with a new intensity that makes something within her flinch. She doesn’t want to see a portrait of this woman, taken from the latest promotional flyer for the Lyceum’s new show, carefully framed and placed on his desk. She doesn’t want to observe his grandmother’s frown growing more stern and pronounced with each passing day. She doesn’t want to hear the pointed reminders about his betrothal, the piercing remarks about the company Wick is keeping these days not being suitable for his station, the comments slipped into conversation about how theatre is a bastion of immorality and a den of iniquity and sin. It all feels like they’re plummeting down a slippery slope much faster than they know with only a yawning chasm waiting there at the bottom to swallow them hungrily into the abyss.

It’s a whirlwind of a month in which Wick has less time for her than ever, increasingly lost in his thoughts. She tells herself that it’s for his own sake that she acts out more in response, cursing and causing scenes and conducting all sorts of Dimming activities to keep his attention on keeping her in line in the eyes of his family, for all the little good it does in the end.

Armas still disappears without a goodbye. Hal tells Wick that she left a note saying that she’d been offered new opportunities to the south and wanted to expand her horizons, though she was thankful for all her time spent in Dol-Makjar. Wick, at least out loud, doesn’t question why she didn’t leave him a note as well.

He’s quiet for days, a new sad resignation to him accompanying a solemn set to his brow. His grandmother dotes on him once more, doling out cheek kisses and hugs and kind words as if there’s a daily quota she has to meet. Tyranny holds her tongue.

Their trips to the theatre slow before stopping entirely, Wick electing to take less lessons from Hal there, sometimes sending for him to provide lessons in his studies at the Villa Aurora instead. Wick and Hal seem to be progressing towards something like friendship, even as Hal continues to pay Tyranny little mind. He seems more interested in gaining a foothold of respect and influence within the House of Halovar rather than consorting with their demonic companions. Considering her sisters, she’s not sure that she can say she blames him.

It’s been weeks of Wick’s subtle melancholy, of Tyranny walking on eggshells around him, the name Armas never coming up and yet made far more noticeable through its absence. In a quiet moment, all too common lately, Wick is scribbling some correspondence in his chambers while Tyranny idly doodles nearby under the pretense of writing out verses of Embers. Concern and frustration boil over in her head from the whole situation, from so much time spent swallowing her words for so long. She never thought that she would miss the constant sound of Wick ceaselessly preaching at her in earnest, and yet here they are.

She might hate Armas for causing all of this and making Wick so sad. She might really hate her for more reasons beyond that that she can’t and doesn’t want to put into words. She hates herself for being so bothered by it all. Her tail starts twitching restlessly, and she sighs heavily. 

“Are you alright?” she asks abruptly, unable to bear it any longer. 

His quill comes to a sudden halt, though his head doesn’t move. There’s a long beat before he replies. “Of course, all is well in the Light.” He shifts slightly in his chair, quietly adding on, “Thank you for asking, Tyranny.”

She begins to chew on the inside of her cheek, frustrated, when she sees his hand move as if to return to his writing, only to then pause for a second, visibly making a decision as he places his quill down instead. He finally swivels to turn to her, blue eyes bearing down. “Why do you ask?” 

Tyranny wriggles, feeling a little trapped by the intensity of his gaze on her. “Well.” She begins to fiddle with the stitching on her robes, noting the places where it’s coming loose. “We used to… go to the theater more. And now we don’t.”

“Ah,” he exhales, and now he’s the one who looks uncomfortable. “Yes. I suppose I… I outgrew that interest.”

“It made you smile,” she can’t help herself from saying, internally flinching at how It accusatorially sounds a little bit more like She. “You seemed… happier then.”

“Well.” He swallows, looking down at the floor for a moment. “It was a happy time. I did enjoy it. It was nice finding… friends. But not everything is meant to last forever.” He looks back at her with sad eyes. “I don’t know how much my personal happiness truly matters in the grand scheme of things.”

Her heart aches. “Of course it matters! It has to matter, right? If we can’t be happy, then what’s the point of anything?”

He smiles a little, the smallest quirk of a lip. “I see your point in theory. But reality for me is… a little different. As has been made clear recently.”

She searches his face, finding only tired acceptance. “Okay,” she says weakly. “As long as you’re okay, that’s all I wanted to know.”

She looks back down at her robes. Her claws have worried a hole in one of her sleeves, and she’s assessing the damage when she hears him ask, “Are you alright?”

“What?” she jerks her head, caught off guard. “Why?”

There’s a bit of concern traced in the lines on his forehead as he scans her. “Well, you seemed happier when we would go to the theatre at first, too. And then you started acting out all the time, and then you became… well, remarkably well behaved as of late. Which is appreciated, of course, and proof of how far you’ve come as an Aspirant, but still. I worry,” he concludes with a self-deprecating kind of laugh, as if he knows it’s foolish to worry about a demon.

She wrings her hands, feeling caught on the wrong foot. “I’m alright. I’ve been worried about you,” she sneaks a glance at him, seeing the way his eyes soften. “I guess I do kind of miss the theatre. It was fun, I liked the people we’d meet. Well. Some of them.” She feels a bitterness pool on her tongue and tension rising within her body, and to distract from it, she quickly adds on, “And you know I get stir crazy if I’m trapped in the Villa for too long.”

A smile creeps up to settle onto his face, and Tyranny feels as if she’s finally seeing the sun after weeks of gloom. She relaxes under the glow of it. “I’m very well aware,” he says, a little drily.

She hurls her book at him, and he catches it, too well used to her attempts to throw him off guard by now. “So maybe we should get out more,” she suggests, heart suddenly beating a little faster as she waits for a response, irrationally afraid he’ll reject her and shut her down.

His smile turns a little more serious. “Perhaps we should,” he says softly. “And maybe we should get back to the theatre at some point. I have to admit, I miss the sound of your humming while we’d study after we’d seen a musical performance.”

In that moment, Tyranny is grateful for her pink skin as she feels her face flush. “Oh. I didn’t realize you heard that.”

“It was nice,” he rubs a hand over the back of his neck, a little shy. “You carry a tune well.”

She tilts her head as she regards him from underneath her eyelashes. “Thanks, Wick,” she replies quietly.

He smiles back, warmth in his face, and she feels a knot that had been trapped within her for too long begin to unwind itself.

The next time they go to the theatre, close to the end of a simpler time in Dol-Makjar, it’s Tyranny who’s found eagerly leaning as far forward as her seat allows, and it’s Wick who watches her instead of the show, a small, hard to read smile on his face the whole time. 

At the end, on that fateful night when everything changes, when terrible truths about his family are finally revealed in the wake of Thjazi Fang’s execution, she has to contemplate what it is that they mean to each other again. She barely knows how to categorize the mass of things she feels towards him, and she has no idea how he truly sees her, but she’s hoped that he at least likes her and holds some sort of affection for her. She’s afraid that will all change after tonight, that whatever light was found in their relationship will be swallowed by darkness. That she’ll become a betrayer to him, an irredeemable liar in his eyes, and their relationship will be forever tainted, or even worse, completely severed. 

She thinks she could deal with him saying that he hates her before him saying that he never wants to see her again. Hate, at least, is some kind of strong feeling rather than the absence of any.

So she’s prepared for the worst, but what she wasn’t prepared for was this. When he says, “You’ve been my only friend,” a little broken, a little under his breath as if it’s a confession he wasn’t ready to share, she has to brush past it. She can’t allow herself to acknowledge how horribly sad it makes her feel, as if she could cry for him, or to parse through the darker and more complicated stirrings of victory and some kind of twisted possessive glee wriggling around in her guts. It’s too much to deal with, and if she tries to think about it all right now, they’ll never make it out of here. So she ignores it.

But it rattles around her head all night, refusing to leave her mind. Friend. Only friend. A relationship she’s wished to experience for her own, to know what it is to care for someone and be cared for in return, to share secrets, to laugh and cry together. To know that there’s someone you can turn to for support when everything else in life has gone wrong. To love, in some way or another.

And she can’t truly think about the magnitude contained by the word love, not yet, but she can acknowledge that she’s found all of those things in Wick. And that somehow, against all of the odds, he seems to have possibly found those things in her, too. 

So as they ride out of Dol-Makjar, fleeing the city under the cover of darkness, she turns to whisper to him, his arms clinging tight around her waist as if she’s the last thing that he has left to hold onto in life. “You’re my only friend, too.”

And finally, it feels like the truth.

iv. I want to save that light 

or: realizations // acts

For you will not forsake me and abandon my soul helpless in hell, nor will you leave your Holy One and faithful servant to decay alone. Acts 2:27

Wicander Halovar was never made to be a soldier. He was never taught to fight, to defend and protect, or to attack. He was taught to remain docile and pliable, to be a tool for others. No sword or shield was ever placed in his hands as a child, only a staff of the Creed. The innate magic within him was never fully explored or explained, only harnessed and carefully contained in the direction that his family wished for it to be. 

Now here he is, separated from his small ragtag band of companions somewhere in the land of Kahad months after their first departure from Dol-Makjar, all spread out and fighting for their lives on a muddy, rocky field in what has seemed to become a regular and miserable feature of their lives these days.

And Wicander Halovar is no soldier.

As he takes a moment to breathe after fending off his own attacker, just knocked unconscious, his eyes naturally, instinctively seek out Tyranny, far away from him across the field. Her own eyes meet his for a second, panicked and overwhelmed as she’s surrounded, just in time for him to see her get speared through and fall, her body suddenly going limp as she hits the ground with a sickening thud.

It’s as if time stops working as he sees her taking a true death blow for the first time, her collapse happening in slow motion. His senses go numb and fuzzy, vision blurring at the edges and hearing suddenly muffled, and all he can focus on is the sight of her laying motionless, terribly still on the ground while her attackers move to strike against her again. 

He feels his heartbeat in his ears. He hears a horrible sound, the primal explosion of a voice screaming in fear and agony. He feels his own throat being scraped raw as he realizes his mouth is hanging open and the scream is coming from him.

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.

Thump-thump.

His heart continues to beat, but he isn’t able to think, isn’t able to connect to reality, isn’t tethered to his body. There’s a horrible churning in his stomach that just keeps building, a continued escalation of pressure with no release. He aches, tingling uncomfortably throughout his back.

Tyranny is bleeding out, wound still visibly darkening on her side.

He’s too far away from her, and he can’t heal her before she’s hit again.

He can’t stop screaming her name.

The pressure inside of him finally reaches a point of no return, and all he can do is surrender and succumb to its rising tide. He is of the Light, and he must give himself over to it. Fragments of now half-forgotten Photonic verses run through his mind frantically, and his eyes flicker shut until he throws his arms back, the strange sensation on his back giving way to something more, something that feels innately correct, like a part of him that’s been with him the whole time that he was never aware he was missing.

A quick series of events ensue, experienced as if through snapshots: 

His feet are no longer touching the ground. 

Three divine beams of radiant, blinding light pierce through the grey gloom of the day. 

Tyranny’s assailants are scorched through by that light, left lifeless as their limbs flop to the ground like the motion of marionettes whose strings have been ruthlessly severed.

He is by Tyranny’s side in the next second without a thought as to how he could have crossed the distance in between them so quickly, her body laying in the mud as he frantically turns her over to lay his hands on her wounds. He calls to the Light within himself and prays with an intensity like he’s never prayed before. Heal her. Bring her back to me. She is needed here, she belongs here, it isn’t her time. Heal her heal her heal her heal her come back come back come back I can’t go on without her I can’t do any of this without her we need her I need her she is loved she is so loved I love her

Tyranny feels the fatal blow strike and savagely tear through her, her vision already darkening at the edges as her legs buckle beneath her and her chest hits the ground hard, knocking whatever breath remained within her away. She loses control of her body as her eyelids close, the overcast grey of the field fading to full darkness as her mouth parts in the shape of Wick’s name, the look of sudden fear in his widening eyes being the last thing she saw before she fell.

She floats within the darkness, some fragment of her hanging suspended in between the faintest pinprick of light, growing ever more distant, and a whirling maelstrom far below that calls to her with haunting, familiar whispers. 

Come home, Tyranny. Return to your Father. 

Whatever remains of her clenches, shuddering at the thought, even as she drifts closer to the still expanding vortex, summoned as if a fish caught on a hook. 

I’m not ready. I have to go back.

She tries fruitlessly to catch a hold on the empty space above her, to somehow claw her way back to the realm of the living through sheer force of will.

It’s not up to you any longer, little Tyranny. Come. We have business to settle.

The deep, rumbling voice reverberates within Tyranny as she feels herself tugged ever lower, a strange sensation behind where her navel would be.

I don’t want to go.

The thrum of her Father’s mocking laugh would send chills through her blood, if she had blood in this liminal space. You think what you want matters? You dare to think that it has ever mattered? Child of mine, the only things that you should want are those that serve my interests. 

She wishes she could scream, could cry, could rage against Him as the light on the horizon dims further, only the faintest flickering to it left that she has to strain with all of her will to focus on. 

I can serve Your interests better in their world than I ever could in our own.

You have stopped doing so. You have displeased me. It is time to come home.

There’s a harsher tug at that, one that feels like it threatens to split her apart as she fights to no avail to move towards what remains of the tiny dot of light, being forcefully pulled down towards the whispers instead.

That isn’t home.

The tug of the invisible fishing line attached to her becomes a persistent pull at that, stronger than she can fight against, dragging her endlessly down and down and down.

Foolish, reckless, wandering child. He snarls, guttural and thick with condescension. To think you have any say against me. Come HOME!

Just as she’s reached the edges of the stormy Pit, her essence being whipped and spun around and around, tearing apart at the seams until she can’t see any light, can barely remember what she was fighting for, can barely even recall her own name or what makes her herself, another familiar voice echoes faintly throughout the space, challenging the relentless whispers that threaten to drive her to madness. 

Tyranny. 

A pinprick of light reappears, far far above her. Too far to reach.

Tyranny. Come back. 

She desperately beholds that light, the way it’s pulsing a little, even as her being remains out of her control. She aches at the sound of the voice, so terribly dear to her.

Please, please, please don’t go. We… I need you. It’s not your time, it can’t be. You have to be here, you have to stay with me. You… you promised we would stay together. 

The light flares, brightening up the darkness. The tempestuous winds weaken, and she at last is able to compel herself out of their reach, away from their grasping tendrils, and to hold herself together enough to stagger towards the light and her Radiance. 

NO! Her Father lashes out, voice darkening with anger. Come HOME.

Tyranny, I… I can’t do any of this without you. I’ll follow you to Hell if that’s what it takes, but I won’t let you go there alone. Come back. Come back to me. I need you to be okay, because if you aren’t okay… I won’t be, either. 

Even as the maelstrom begins to pick up intensity again, the Light begins to fill the space, and her companion’s voice begins to unify into one clear sound instead of fragmented echoes bouncing all around the Void. She almost feels warmth again. 

COME HOME.

Please, come home.

The voices ring out in unison, and something within her is finally freed, unchained from this place as if she can feel a click within her, the slip of a lock releasing. The Light blazes above and around her.

If she had a truly corporeal form here, she would grin and bare her fangs.

I’m going home.

The Light finally consumes and swallows the darkness all around her, flushing it out until all that remains is a brilliant, blinding white, overtaking even the fading sounds of the Shadow of Suffering hissing that this conversation isn’t over. 

When her eyes open and her heart beats once more, it’s as if her breath is knocked away from her all over again. 

She’s greeted by an angel.

He’s kneeling next to her, hands pressed tightly to her side, face drawn taut with anguish and a feral sort of expression. His wings are extended, shining iridescently, tucked in slightly to shelter the two of them from whatever is happening around them. His eyes blaze with radiant light, and there’s a bit of a glow emanating from his mouth as he murmurs under his breath, tattoos all flickering intensely.

She’s never seen anything so striking, and it makes her think that she can understand why people are driven to worship. She would worship on her knees just to be graced by his blessed Light.

She swallows drily, reaching out with aching arms to feebly brush along the edge of his wing. “Wick,” she rasps out, gazing up at him.

He freezes, head quickly snapping to look at her face and away from her wounds. His eyes still glow. “Tyranny,” he breathes out, almost reverently, his voice catching. “You’re alive.”

They stare at each other for a moment before Tyranny looks away, overcome, and strokes the shimmer of his wing gently where her hand still rests on it. “So, you managed to pull out the wings again, huh?”

“What?” he sounds genuinely confused, and follows her gaze to his wing. His jaw slackens and his eyes widen. “What?” 

She laughs a little, and it hurts her ribs. “Some pair we make, huh? The angel boy and the demon girl.”

“I… I didn’t realize… I didn’t know…” he stutters, still staring at his wing, disconcerted. “I was just… there, and I needed to be here, and then I felt… and then I was here, but I didn’t think…” 

She can’t quite make sense of his ramblings, but it becomes clear that from his shock, he hadn’t realized he had summoned his wings again until now. She reaches up to grab his chin gently and steer it back to looking at her. He lets her maneuver him without question, big eyes blinking down at her. She taps one fingertip, careful of her claws, against the tattoo near his eye. “Your eyes are glowing too,” she murmurs.

He blinks, hard. “Glowing.”

“I think Your Radiance is a pretty fitting title,” she feels her lips tug in a half-smile.

He swallows, brow furrowed. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”

She allows her hand still resting on his cheek to gently move to cup his jaw. He automatically turns into her touch, practically nuzzling her hand. Something warm and mushy cracks open inside of her, spilling out faster than she can contain it. “Thanks for saving me,” she whispers.

“Thank you for coming back.” He’s almost too solemn, face deadly serious as he gazes upon her. “I don’t know what I would - how I…” his voice cuts out, as if he can’t even fathom a world where he’s forced to contemplate how to finish that sentence.

“Hey,” Tyranny interrupts before he can continue down the spiral he’s in, using her free hand to grasp tightly onto one of his own, moving it away from where it still rests on her wounded side. She’s reminded of a memory that feels so long ago now when she had held both his hands before leaving his side for the first time in a long time, and he had prayed for her with a sincerity that made her breath stop for a minute. “As long as I can,” she pauses as she exhales, swallows, looks straight at him. “I will always come back for you.” She imbues each word with as much feeling as she’s capable of, punctuating it with a squeeze of his hand. 

“And I for you,” Wick vows, and she knows he means it, knows he’s not a liar. He says it like he’s giving her a holy oath, containing the same fervor and devotion that she used to hear him using in worship of the Light, his eyes still glowing as he beholds her. Tyranny knows that she’s nothing worthy of worship, a false idol at best, but in his eyes, she feels nearly divine for a beautiful moment.

She smiles, feeling the crust of a little blood still dried around her mouth. “You aren’t getting rid of me that easily, Your Radiance.”

“And I would never want to,” he says, all too serious, like he’s imploring her to search for and hear the truth in his words.

“Then I guess you’re stuck with me,” she coughs a little as she half-heartedly laughs, and Wick quickly rests a hand on her back to support her sitting upright, renewed distress etching its way onto his brow as she feels more healing energy flow into her body from that point of contact. The warmth from his hand lingers even when the magic is done.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” he says quietly, rubbing circles into her back with his thumb slowly and tenderly, an answer to their never-ending debates over contracts and firings and the free will to choose to remain with each other.

And for now, Tyranny lets herself sink into those words and into his arms without questioning anything more. 

Still, it wouldn’t be Tyranny if she didn’t eventually find herself overwhelmed by questions. She tosses in her bedroll several hours later, sent there to take an early rest by their party as they deemed her injuries the worst of the lot they’d suffered today. Wick had been particularly stubborn about demanding she lay down for sleep and recovery once they’d made camp, a crease of worry threatening to make a new permanent home between his brows if he couldn’t relax his face soon. She gazes off in his direction at the campfire, where he sits in quiet conversation with Teor and Kattigan far enough away that she can’t overhear whatever they’re sharing between each other. A small flicker of movement overhead catches her eye - Thimble, keeping watch over her as she supposedly sleeps, and Tyranny suddenly can’t stay silent any longer when so many questions are rattling around her head.

“Thimble,” she hisses out into the darkness. “Can you come down here?”

Thimble flits down, landing on her chest. “Hi,” she says, in that voice that still sounds too young for what a life she’s lead - how many she’s seen die, how many she’s killed singlehandedly. “Are you okay?”

“What do you know about love?”

Maybe Tyranny should have tried to think this through before letting her words lead the way. Still, too late now. Story of her life.

Thimble blinks at her before raising her eyebrows, unimpressed. “That’s what you’re thinking about right now instead of sleeping?”

Tyranny winces as she turns her face into her rough blanket, silently wishing that she was anywhere else but there right then or that she had never opened her mouth. “Um. Sorry. Stupid question.” 

Thimble flies closer, hovering above her head. “No, no, I’m sorry. That’s not a stupid question.” She lands in the soft hollow of her ear, nestling in a little, as has become routine for them on cold nights. “I just wasn’t expecting to be asked that right now, that’s all.”

Tyranny waits a beat, feeling Thimble’s tiny hands absentmindedly pet her. It tickles a little, and she has to fight the urge to twitch. “So… does that mean you have an answer?”

Thimble sighs, releasing the smallest wisp of a breeze in her ear. “I guess. I can tell you that I have… had a family that I loved,” her voice staggers as she corrects for the past tense. “I loved my friends and comrades in the Falconers Rebellion.” She stops there, only the crackling of the fire and the gentle rustle of the trees providing a backdrop of sound. “I loved Thjazi.” This is quieter, the loss of him clearly a deep wound that still hasn’t healed over, if it ever will.

Tyranny aches for her, for all the immense pain she’s known and endured and survived through. “And did… do all those kinds of love feel the same?”

Thimble isn’t quick to reply, but Tyranny can still feel her petting her slowly. “I don’t think love is easy to describe. It’s not easy to know what it is. You kind of just… feel that way or you don’t, right? And it can build over time, but that doesn’t mean that a smaller amount of love isn’t still love.” Tyranny chews on her lip, trying to contemplate that math and whether it makes sense, as Thimble continues on. “I loved my family from the very beginning of what I can remember of my life. The love for my friends developed over time, the longer we were around each other and the more we went through together. I think with Thjazi… well.” She laughs a little self-consciously. “I think I actually loved Thaz the day that I met him. But that doesn’t mean that I didn’t love him more than I knew I could by the time that I lost him. And I don’t think I’ll ever quite love anyone else the same exact way that I loved Thjazi.” She sniffles, voice growing choked up. “So no, that didn’t feel the same as my family or my other friends. It was something different, something that was only for us. He was… my whole world. He was my person. My partner. My companion.” After a brief pause, she finishes softly, “ And I still feel lost without him every day.”

Tyranny feels her heart in her throat and the rush of blood in her ears as a few things start to ring too familiarly for comfort.  “Were you in love with him?” she asks quietly.

More background noises of the night fill the air as Thimble goes quiet, a distant bark of a laugh from Kattigan echoing towards them. Tyranny hopes he and Teor are lifting Wick’s spirits, that the horribly haunted look that had remained hanging over him like a shroud all day is abating. She gazes off at their dark outlines silhouetted by the fire as she waits on Thimble’s response with bated breath. 

“I don’t know,” Thimble sighs. “I still don’t know. It didn’t matter.”

“What if he loved you?” Tyranny practically feels like a child asking about love, desperately wanting answers that will make things clear. Her gaze remains on the fire and the figures there.

“He did,” Thimble states plainly, no question about it. “I know he loved me.”

“But… romantically?” Tyranny’s voice trails off, uncertain where she’s wanting this line of questioning to lead, suddenly afraid at where they might end up.

Thimble sounds weary beyond her years when she replies. “That didn’t matter to me.”

“How did it not matter? Isn’t that confusing?” Tyranny turns on her side, frustrated, and Thimble flies out of her ear, landing on her bedroll in front of where she props her head up with an elbow. Tyranny’s eyesight goes a little blurry as she tries to focus on Thimble, so near to her.

“Maybe it would matter to other people. It didn’t matter to me, and it didn’t matter to Thjazi, that’s what I know. We loved each other, and that was all there was to it.” Thimble crosses her arms defensively, but Tyranny detects only honesty from her.

She flops onto her back to stare up at the night sky, speckled with a few stars visible out. “That’s nice. That sounds really nice, Thimble.” She watches the mist of her breath trail up into the cold air, trying to ignore the urge to cry. 

“If you’re not ready to answer, that’s okay, but,” Tyranny looks back over at Thimble, who hesitates, eyes trained towards the rest of their party as she continues. “Why is that on your mind tonight?” Thimble’s voice is gentler than Tyranny is used to hearing it, softly coaxing her to share, to trust her with her innermost thoughts and feelings and secrets.

Tyranny doesn’t answer directly. “Do you think that..” she fumbles over her words, tongue a little clumsy with nerves, and has to restart. “Do you think that faeries and demons love the same way that people do?” Her voice comes out no louder than a whisper.

Thimble turns to her, fluttering over to land directly above her heart. Even in the dark, Tyranny’s eyesight can make out the expression on her face, taken aback with some kind of sadness on her behalf. “I guess having never been anything but a faerie, I can’t say for certain. But what I can say is that I’ve never been given any reason to believe otherwise, with everywhere I’ve been and everyone I’ve met. I think love is one of the only things that’s a universally fundamental feeling and experience, for all kinds of beings.” She flitters up again, hovering in front of Tyranny’s face to bat at her nose playfully. “And you might be the only demon I know, but I do know you. And I know how deeply you feel things and how much you care. So based on everything I’ve seen, I think that love is just as ingrained in you as any other demonic traits might be.”

“But does it ever feel like too much to you?” Tyranny screws her eyes shut. “Do you ever feel like you’re drowning under the weight of it? Do you ever feel like you’re so hungry for it that you could die? Do you ever feel like it’s the only thing that matters and the only thing that’s keeping you tethered onto anything at all?”

Thimble pats her cheek. “Yeah, that sounds like love to me.”

“But it’s so much. It’s too much. Surely normal people can’t just walk around like that every day.”

Thimble lets out a wry snort. “Who says anyone is normal anymore? None of us here are, anyways.”

Tyranny sighs. “But can we ever really be loved the same way that we love?” She feels exposed to her core but is too tired to let any self-conscious thoughts stop her, as far down this road as she’s gone at this point. “When it’s so much, so consuming, so intense?”

Thimble’s hand stills on her cheek. Tyranny opens her eyes to try to focus on her. “Again, I don’t know much about demons,” she starts slowly. “But the fae can be known for loving intensely. Strangely, to some. Maybe obsessively in some cases, too flighty in others. And yet I’ve seen just as extreme levels of devotion from other kinds of beings. And I know that the way I love has been returned back to me by others. I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be the same for you.”

Tyranny’s chest feels tight as she utters under her breath, “Because I was born in Hell and made for suffering. Love was never in the cards for me.”

Thimble pinches her cheek, hard enough that it stings. “Hey!” Tyranny yelps indignantly, tail lashing as she reaches out for her, Thimble easily darting out of the way. “What was that for?”

“Because that’s bullshit,” Thimble says frankly, scowling. “You’re lovable, you dumbass. If there’s anyone I know who’s suited to love and be loved, it’s you, as long as you can get out of your own way.” She flies forward to poke her forehead, hard, for emphasis, before flying back far enough to hover clearly in Tyranny’s field of vision. “And don’t try to tell me you can’t be loved, because I know you and I love you, okay? And I know you love me too, and you can’t tell me otherwise. So don’t even try it.” 

She stares her down, wings working, and all Tyranny can do is try to stifle the sniff that signals impending tears. Not now, she thinks furiously. 

“Thanks, Thimble,” she whispers, rolling over to face away from her as she rubs at her eyes, willing away the physical sign of vulnerability that tears reveal. 

“You can always talk to me, you know.” Tyranny feels Thimble tug at a strand of her hair affectionately, and her heart aches in that way it always does whenever someone seems to express actual care for her.

“Yeah. I know.” She swallows, and then adds on, quietly, “And you’re not wrong. I do love you.”

It’s strange, the way that saying it out loud feels like she’s opened a pathway for people to look straight through her, like she’s left herself exposed by tearing down a wall that was made to protect her. But it’s freeing in a way, to simply say the truth instead of hide it away so that it can never be used against her.

“See, there you go.” Tyranny feels Thimble continuing to play with her hair, maybe starting a braid. “You said you love someone, and the world kept on going.”

Tyranny looks up at the dark sky and thinks about it for a moment. The ground is still steady beneath her. Thimble is still by her side. The stars are still twinkling down at her, set in their places for the night.

“But,” Thimble keeps on moving Tyranny’s hair around, flying to a new spot to adjust. “If you do ever tell someone that you love them and they don’t react well or they don’t believe you’re able to love or some stupid bullshit like that, I will chop their balls off. Gladly. Eagerly. Just say the word.” Thimble flies over Tyranny’s face to retrieve another strand of hair, and she can see her glaring daggers off in the direction of the fire in a way that feels very targeted. Tyranny’s face heats. 

“However,” Thimble sounds begrudging as she continues, and Tyranny knows without needing to see precisely who the pixie is looking at. “I don’t think that will be a problem based on what I’ve seen.”

Tyranny’s heart lurches traitorously at the idea that her situation isn’t hopeless even as her head insists that there will never be hope for her, that to even dream of hope is foolish.

“You’re very lovable, Tyranny. You’re brave and beautiful and funny and loyal and you care, deeply. I hope you can stop being so hard on yourself. You aren’t doomed to suffer, I refuse to believe that.” Thimble leaves her half-done braid to fly in front of Tyranny’s face and hover there in the air, expression serious as she stares her down. “I mean all of that, okay?”

Tyranny nods, eyes burning without tears, throat tight. 

“Now get some sleep,” Thimble says softly but firmly. “You almost died today. You kind of did die. Wick might try to kill me if you stay up all night talking to me instead of resting.”

Tyranny snorts, a little charmed by the thought. “He would never, he’s kind of obsessed with your approval. And he’s too much of a pacifist.”

“I don’t know, you should have seen him today after you fell. His face… well. I never knew he had it in him to be that scary.” Thimble shakes her head, a little admiring, or at least the most admiring she’s probably capable of when it comes to the subject of Wicander Halovar. “That boy would kill for you.” 

It sounds too honest, and it terrifies Tyranny. She swallows. “Well. A Light Priest’s gotta protect their Aspirant, right?” she deflects.

Thimble smiles sympathetically at her, maybe even with a bit of pity. “Sure. Yeah. We can go with that.”

Tyranny closes her eyes, unable to look at Thimble any longer and be confronted by things she’s not truly ready to face yet. “Okay, time for sleep. Goodnight!”

Thimble pats her forehead before going back to the partially constructed braid. “Goodnight, Tyranny. Good talk.”

The repetitive weaving of her hair is comforting, and Tyranny feels her body relaxing, muscles unclenching as her mind goes syrupy with the exhaustion of the day setting in. “Thanks again. For talking to me.”

“Anytime.”

Tyranny drifts off, mind and heart still in conflict over matters of love and destiny and faith and choice, as Thimble keeps working to assemble the perfect braid, a master of her craft. 

At the campfire, Wick kicks his feet into the dirt restlessly, still in a strange mood after the events of the day. Everything he felt was so heightened after the fight, as it usually is, but he’s never before experienced such a close call for Tyranny’s life. Usually, it’s been his own life most on the line, and for as much as that’s always terrifying and horrible and something he never gets used to, no matter how many times he’s gone down in combat, he thinks he would take those experiences a hundred times over to avoid seeing Tyranny struck down ever again. He hasn’t been able to stop replaying in his mind the sight of her falling into the mud of the field as her eyes met his, and it makes him feel like a failure each time he remembers it anew. 

He should have been there sooner. He should’ve been by her side to begin with.

At the same time, if he hadn’t been there at all, then… his stomach turns over, and he refuses to let himself think about those worlds any more. Tyranny is alive and well, acting no worse for the wear, and that’s what matters. She’s alive, and she’s okay, so he has to be okay. Right?

That is, if she’s really okay, which he’s not entirely convinced that she is. He doesn’t want to hover and invade her space, but at the same time, he wants to be able to provide her with anything she needs, to be there for her in any way that he can be, no matter what. He saw the way she stayed in pain all day, how she’d wince and her hand would keep drifting to the wound on her side. He saw the way her eyes would cloud over and she’d get lost in thought before looking over at him guiltily, pretending everything was fine. 

So sure, maybe he was a little overbearing when it came to making camp for the night and insisting that she rest and recover and take the best of their bedrolls and blankets, but he really doesn’t think he can be blamed for that. Not when it comes to Tyranny’s wellbeing. 

And shortly behind the repeated visions of her falling come the fresh memories of her lifeless body slumped in his arms, how it felt as he poured every ounce of his healing into her and prayed desperately, recklessly willing to bargain with any powers that would listen to him, and then to complete the sequence follows his newfound knowledge of just how far he would go for her and how he lost control over his body when he saw her in mortal peril, entering into a feral state. His subconscious instincts, tethered to his inner power, must have known long before his conscious brain fully connected the dots of what, and who, truly matters the most to him.

It terrifies him to know that the difference between him and the monster chained in the Halovar basement might be balanced on a knife’s edge. If Tyranny hadn’t come back… would he ever have been able to regain control over himself? Or would he have become just like one of those roaming bestial celestials of folklore, untethered and driven to mindless madness from loss?

He buries his face in his hands, wracked by fear and self-loathing and confusion. His hands tighten in his curls, still more grown out than he’s used to, pulling until he can feel the dull pain radiating out from their roots.

He’d like to think he’s not still so socially aware that he can’t tell when his adventuring companions have picked up on his emotional state, and yet it still comes as a surprise to him when Teor and Kattigan bring it up, interrupting their own retellings of their battle highlights from today’s combat and of past war stories from the Falconers Rebellion that still make them laugh after all this time, or perhaps because of it.

“You doing alright there, Wick?” Kattigan’s rough voice startles him out of his spiral.

“Yes, you seem to be… going through some things,” Teor adds, pausing as he measures his words carefully.

Wick looks up at them, not knowing how to respond. “No,” he finally admits, too honest with exhaustion. “To the first question. I don’t think I’m doing alright.”

“Mm,” Teor rumbles with a thoughtful hum. “Well. That much seemed clear based on your silence ever since we sat down together.”

Wick scratches at the back of his neck, averting eye contact. “I suppose I simply haven’t had much to contribute to the conversation tonight.”

“Got a lot on your mind?” Kattigan inquires, deceptively casual.

Wick swallows. “Something like that.”

Teor places a large paw on his shoulder, gentle but firm, as he cocks his head to look at him. “I noticed you gazing after Tyranny ever since the fight today - ”

A small chuckle from Kat interrupts him as he says, “Not that that’s anything new,” under his breath.

Wick flushes.

Only a small twitch of Teor’s mouth betrays any sign of amusement as he shushes Kat, continuing, “You are worried about her, yes?”

He nods, unable to give words to the enormity of everything he’s actually thinking and feeling.

“Wick, she is okay. She is alive because of you. You healed her, and we all lived to see another day because of that. Do not beat yourself up for anything that lead to that moment. Battle is always dangerous, and we risk our lives every time we fight. We all know that. Tyranny knows that.”

Teor’s richly accented voice is calming with the matter of fact way he delivers his message, but Wick still wants to cry out Does she? Does she really know? Is she really okay with risking her life with us when it’s a life she’s still only barely begun to actually have the freedom to live? What if, even if she’s fine with it, it’s me that isn’t okay with her life being in jeopardy?

Instead, he just nods again.

The nama’s enigmatic eyes bore into him. “Do you understand that?”

He sighs. “I understand that the lives we’re leading are dangerous ones. I understand that there are consequences to our actions, and that somehow, we all ended up together when we found a joint purpose, or we at least shared a need to get out of Dol-Makjar quickly and then chose to remain together. I get that any of us could choose to walk away and try to find a peaceful existence somewhere, not that anywhere we’ve been seems truly safe for us. But we all make our choices and live with them, and I accept that, I get that. I do. I know that we’ve all walked into deadly situations with the knowledge that any or all of us may not make it out. But… that doesn’t mean that I have to like it.”

Teor nods, slowly. “An understandable feeling. You were not born for the life of a soldier.” He says it as fact, without judgment, and while it may be a thought that Wicander himself has shared, he still feels a prickle of self-conscious embarrassment. “You were born with a silver spoon in your mouth and poison being dripped into your ear, and you have only had to learn what it is to truly fight much later in life. I admire your principles and the way you’ve learned reasonably quickly how to adapt to this life, but some things will always be harder to learn to deal with.”

“Such as…” Wick prompts.

“You care,” Kattigan provides bluntly. “A lot. Got a right old bleeding heart.”

Wick doesn’t know whether to treat that as an insult, but it does almost come across as one.

“It’s a strength, Wick,” Teor smoothly interjects before he has enough time to grow indignant. “It is good to care. Care gives us purpose, makes us better allies to one another, and fuels us when we need a reason to fight or to continue on. But…” he hesitates for a second, a little uncharacteristically. “We must be careful never to let care become a weakness. The things we love the most are those that can most easily be used against us and distract us or cloud our judgment when the need for our wits about us is at its highest, if we can’t compartmentalize when needed.”

“I don’t know if I can control that,” Wick says quietly to the fire, watching the way the sparks fly up. He flexes a hand.

The men let the silence after that between them expand for a moment until Kattigan breaks it. “Yeah, well. Not to make things weird, but I think we all saw some proof of that today. It’s not every day you’re able to bust out the angel abilities, wings and blinding light pouring out from your eyes and mouth and all.”

“She must really mean something to you. You must really care about her,” Teor adds gently, the weight of the paw resting across his shoulder still a grounding one.

Wick thinks about denying it for a second, but what good would it do when his own words and actions have already spoken so clearly for him? “Yeah. You could say that.” It comes out soft, a little torn up. 

What he hears in his own mind is She’s everything along with an earlier realization, a line that hasn’t stopped echoing around his head since it was first produced amidst the raw emotions flowing out from him.

I love her.

“That’s not a bad thing, Wick,” Teor assures.

“I think it’s an obvious thing to anyone with eyes and ears,” Kattigan says, less reassuring.

“It’s simply… well,” Teor reaches another momentary loss for words in his attempts to be delicate. “You don’t want to let your feelings control you, rather than the other way around. Does that make sense?”

“I should control my feelings?”

“You should make sure that your feelings don’t place you or those you care about into unnecessary danger,” Teor corrects.

“How?” Wick huffs childishly, feeling like he’s receiving a lecture.

“Don’t react rashly. Try to act with discernment. Listen to your heart, while using your head.” Teor taps his chest, then pokes him in the forehead with one large claw. “When the two are in unison and sing in harmony, that is best.”

“And try to get some control over those angel abilities, huh?” Kattigan slings a brawny, well-muscled arm around him. “It would be better if you didn’t have to wait for moments of extreme emotional distress to channel that kind of power.”

“I…” Wick feels a bit overwhelmed by all their attention directed at him. “I suppose I will… see what I can do about that.”

“Good.” Teor ruffles his mop of curls, casual brotherly affection in a way that Wick had never known just months ago, before standing and stretching with a toss of his mane, thick arms reaching towards the sky as his joints crack after sitting for so long. “Time for Kat and I to patrol, I think. You should get some sleep, Wick. You’ve been through a lot today. Tyranny isn’t the only one who almost died. I saw how bloodied you were before you shifted into your angelic form.”

Wick nods, finally acknowledging the ache in his muscles as he rises to stand along with Kattigan, gazing off in the direction of where they lay out the bedrolls earlier, difficult for him to see now through the darkness. His heart thumps oddly at the thought of laying down besides Tyranny, normal as it is for them.

Kattigan shoves him a little when he remains standing in place for a moment too long, and Wick stumbles a few steps forward. “You heard the lion man. Time for sleep, Wick.” His deep voice is just about as gentle as Wick has ever heard it. “Take care of yourself, alright? And take care of her, or I’ll be taking care of you.” The latter half of his sentence is far less gentle, laced with an undeniable threat.

“I’ll do my best,” Wick tries to smile under the weight of Kattigan’s dark eyes trained upon him with intent.

“Good man.” Kattigan claps him on the shoulder, just hard enough to make him wince, before moving to join Teor. 

“And…” Wick haltingly begins, and the two stop, turning back to face him. “Thank you both for caring and checking on me tonight. And thank you for continuing to fight today and protecting Tyranny and I when I was focused on healing her. I am… very grateful you kept us safe.”

“That’s what comrades are for, soldier,” Kat flashes a mercurial smile at him.

Wick feels a rush of warmth go through him as he half bows awkwardly and wishes them goodnight, not knowing what else to do before retreating from the fire to their small makeshift camp for the night. He hears the quiet sounds of their laughter behind him, but he knows them well enough by now to know that it’s fond rather than mocking. A smile steals onto his face, and he finally feels like he’s chased away some of the earlier turmoil he felt.

When he lays down on his bedroll next to Tyranny, as quietly as he can to avoid disturbing her, he’s startled by Thimble poking her head out of her ear to hiss at him. “Hey.”

“Hello,” he whispers back, seeing that Tyranny has already drifted off to slumber, a new intricate braid adorning one side of her hair.

“If you ever hurt her, I’ll kill you.” She glares at him, and he has no doubt that she means it.

“I… Thimble, I would never. I could never. Where is this coming from?” He trips over his words with the rush that they escape him with, thrown off kilter after being confronted more bluntly now with the same ominous message that Kattigan had just left him with.

She scans his face instead of answering for an agonizing moment. “Thimble,” he hisses again anxiously. “What’s this about?”

She sniffs, opting not to answer him. “I believe you. But I still mean it.”

“Um. Okay, well, alright then,” he says, somewhat helplessly. “Goodnight?”

“Goodnight,” she acknowledges before nestling back down into Tyranny’s ear, the perfect soft hammock for her.

Once Wick’s heartbeat has settled from the momentary panic caused by Thimble, he can’t help himself from studying Tyranny’s face while she sleeps. Shame creeps up his throat for a moment, feeling like he has no right to gaze at her without her knowledge, but considering how many times he’s woken to Tyranny perched on his chest, her eyes just a short length away from his own, he thinks it’s hardly a boundary they haven’t already crossed.

She looks peaceful, serene in the moonlight. Calm and eerily still in a way that she never is while awake.

She’s achingly beautiful. That much is no different from Tyranny awake in the daytime, and it’s not the first time he’s ever thought it or acknowledged it, but it is the first time that he allows it to linger without averting his gaze or his thoughts as quickly as he can.

She’s beautiful. He loves her. He’s afraid of what he would do and how far he would go because of that. He feels guilt for loving her when he was once her teacher and she was his Aspirant assigned to obey him, and her existence on this plane is still bound to him today, and he can’t know how much she truly feels like she has full free will and autonomy and the ability to make her own choices for herself.

He breathes through it, too many complicated feelings swirling through him as he takes one more long moment to regard her before he closes his eyes.

When Tyranny moves nearer to him in the night, shifting ever closer until their bedrolls overlap and the heat of her body meets and presses against him, he feels so much that he thinks he could die from it. There’s a river of tenderness running through him, and all he wants to do is take her into his arms and hold her, to protect her from the world, from anything that would hurt her, to shield her even from herself and the pain that she too clearly inflicts upon herself far too often. He wants so much, so many things that he still hasn’t been able to examine closely within himself and name without becoming quickly overwhelmed by the sheer flood of intensity being precariously held at bay.

Above it all, there’s one thought still running through his head that he hasn’t been able to bring himself to banish since he let himself feel it.

I love her I love her I love her

v. I can’t escape this now unless you show me how

or: confessions // revelation

I know all the things you do. I know your deeds, your love and faith, your service and perseverance. And I can see your constant improvement in all these things. Revelation 2:19

It might be the end of the world.

Maybe, if they’re granted the good fortune of hindsight, it will eventually be proven otherwise, but given all that they know now, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that it feels as if the world is actively coming to an end. If they can’t secure a victory on this night, untold catastrophe will befall them, their friends and allies, every kingdom, all of Aramán itself. The gates of Faerie will never open again while the gates to the Underworld will never be sealed. Death will claim all, and all that was once good and bright will wither away as shadows stalk the land hungrily.

It might be the end of her world soon, regardless of the ultimate outcome. As the dead gods might know as they look up in silent judgment and reproach from their long-since buried graves, the odds are not in their favor when it comes to the force of the might they’re going up against. 

Any intention that Tyranny once had of surviving the night crumbles as the situation only continues to worsen. They watch hard-won allies start to fall and excruciatingly made and detailed plans fail, as all the while House Tachonis and their allies continue to stand strong against them, a malevolent force of death and darkness bearing down. She and Wick remain hidden and out of the fray, concealed far enough away from the main battle in an otherwise abandoned tower lookout to mostly see what’s happening while hopefully going undetected by their enemies, or at least not becoming a priority to deal with. They’ve been left there as part of a contingency plan that’s likely useless now, the people in the battle that it depended on too caught up in the thick of their own entanglements with opponents as they desperately fight for their own survival.

It’s hard to watch as they wait helplessly on standby for the chance that their painstakingly crafted plans will still matter and they’ll be crucially needed here to follow through on them in the eleventh hour. They haven’t spoken in minutes, but their hands clutch together tightly as they stare at the increasing carnage.

When she sees the tiny ball of swashbuckling movement that’s Thimble just barely managing to evade being struck out of the air, coming perilously close to a quick and unceremonious end as she flies to the aid of a battered and bloodied Kattigan, Tyranny feels a terrible resolution take hold of her. She sees the tides taking a definitive turn for the worse, the only friends she’s ever known being put on the defensive as they prepare to make a valiant last stand, and a thought that has crept into her head on the darkest of nights crawls its way back to the surface of her mind now, an idea that she’s come into too many battles prepared with as a last ditch effort. One last bargain she might be able to make.

“Wick,” she breaks the silence quietly, already knowing and fearing how much this is going to hurt. He turns to look at her, unsuspecting.

“I need to get down there,” she states grimly. 

He closes his eyes, nods, and swallows. When he opens them again, they’re filled with a sad determination. “I agree, it’s time for us to join our friends. We have to go do whatever we can to help. I don’t think we’ll be able to do as much good up here as we originally hoped might be possible.”

“No.” Her hand flies out of his grasp and lands against his chest, holding him back.

He looks surprised, glancing down at where her hand presses into him, his eyebrows furrowing. “I don’t understand. You just said…”

“I have to go alone. I need you to stay here.” Her eyes bore into his, and she silently begs him for a moment to just let her go, to let this happen without argument.

Of course, that doesn’t happen, because of course, Wick is too good for that.

“No. Why would I do that? We stay together.” His brow remains furrowed.

“I…” she exhales, trying to think of how to talk her way through this. “There’s something I have to do, or at least that… I have to try. And I need you to stay safe and out of the way.”

“What?” he demands, every inch of the righteous noble that he is bristling as he takes a step closer into her space. “What could you need to do that you never mentioned in all of our planning?”

She tries to take an even breath, in and out of her nostrils. In for a bronze, in for a gold. The truth might be the only way out. Even as she thinks that, it feels like a mockery of the universe that one of Wick’s earliest lessons to her still haunts her.

She looks up at him, palm still on his surprisingly solid chest. She forces herself to relax it. “So. I’m a demon,” she starts, tone forcibly measured. “Stating the obvious, I know, but because of that, I have a… unique connection to death and suffering and powers greater and stranger than most mortals can comprehend. And I have a father and a creator, the High Prince of Demonkind, who loves to make bargains. And most importantly, I have something that he wants,” she finishes, still looking into Wick’s eyes.

A tic in his jaw jumps. “He wants you back,” he guesses, voice flat.

Tyranny nods. “He wants me to come home,” she confirms. “He talked to me when I was dying, that time you saved me because your angel powers came through. And… he talks to me in my dreams sometimes, I think.” She’s never spoken of it, but she wakes after some restless nights with echoes of his whispers, cajoling and wrathful in equal measure, still ringing in her ears. “ I think if I… agree to return to the Pit,” she swallows down the bitter bile rising in her throat, “I could get him to agree to unleash his full power through me for this fight. To let me channel it until it burns through this body. It could be enough to end the battle, to save all of our friends. It might be the only thing that could.”

His jaw continues to work as his eyes betray a deep pain within him. He shakes his head. “It’s not worth you dying, Tyranny. There has to be another bargain that we could make.”

It’s so, so sweet, the way he immediately jumps to we, immediately looks for a solution for the both of them. And it only makes the hurt that much worse.

She shakes her head in return at him. “I know what he wants, and it’s me back under his control in his domain, gone from this world. He won’t settle for anything else. You can’t tempt the King of Temptation with a lesser deal.”

“It’s not worth it!” Wick repeats, raising his voice to a level that catches her off guard. He turns away from her, raking a hand through his turquoise hair in frustration as he starts to pace around the confined space of the turret.

She rests a hand on his forearm as he passes her, trying to soothe his distress. He stops in his tracks underneath her touch but continues to face away from her, his whole body rigid with stress. “It’s worth it to me, if it can save you and our friends. Wick, we need a miracle right now, and unless if you can suddenly summon an army of celestials or singlehandedly bring down the might of House Tachonis and their hordes of the dead, then…” She shrugs helplessly. “Papa Ksha’aravi it is.”

He turns back towards her, eyes brimming with frustrated tears. “Why you? Why not me? Offer me, offer my soul to him,” he commands heatedly as he steps closer, looming large above her, and his visible hurt and offer of self-sacrifice is her breaking point for the pressure cooker of all the many complex, tangled-up emotions contained within her.

Tyranny squeezes her eyes shut tightly, shaking her head fiercely as a single tear traces its way down against her pink skin, dissipating into steam along the way. “Because I’m a demon,” she cries out into the space in between them, throwing her arms up. “I was summoned and made to serve you. I didn’t exist in this world a year ago, I didn’t even have a body. Your soul matters, but mine…” Her throat thickens painfully. “I can’t be saved. I can’t!” She shudders out a deep breath, chest heaving with the release of her outburst. Her voice lowers and almost breaks when she continues, slowly, as if each word is being drawn out of her. “I never could. But…” her voice is almost ripped away by the fierce wind whipping through the tower as she soldiers on. “If anyone could have, it would have been you. And you did save me, in so many ways.”

She opens her eyes, full of tears but alight with purpose. “You might have found belief in the Light, but… I’ve always found belief in you,” she confesses, allowing herself to reach up to brush his cheek, briefly. Just a swipe of the pad of her thumb, careful of her claws, for one last moment of connection before she withdraws, afraid of what she might see if she looks up and meets his gaze now. “So… believe in yourself like you believe in others, and…” she swallows, choked up. “Save the world, after I make sure there’s a world still left to be saved.”

She turns away from Wicander Halovar to leave the tower and run down into the battlefield, prepared to face whatever it may throw her way, only for a hand, less soft than it was just months ago, to catch hers and hold her back.  “Tyranny,” his voice is strained. “Look at me.” She makes a half-hearted effort to leave, tugging at his grip, but his hand slides up and clamps down on her wrist, firm, as he keeps her in place. “Look at me,” he repeats, serious. She slowly moves to face him, arm still caught by him. His face is tight with tension, jaw set. The only thing betraying the full intensity of his emotion are his eyes, almost glowing, flashing wildly.

“Wick, you need to let me go. You have to survive this, there isn’t any other option.” She stares him down, steady in her decision even as her voice shakes. “Let me do what I have to do to save you.”

He’s already shaking his head before she finishes getting the words out. “No. No. No. No. No,” he repeats over and over, volume rising with each denial. “You are not dying here. I… I forbid it. I forbid it! You aren’t allowed to die, do you hear me? Not here, not now, not ever.” His other hand swings around to take her still free hand, almost tender in the way he interlocks his elegant fingers with her blackened ones and raises their joined hands up in between their chests, pressing them against his heart. “It’s me and you, you and me. Together. Always. You’re… you’re all I have, Tyranny. And you’re all I need.” His radiant eyes dance around her face, lingering in spots, before he adds on quietly, “And you never needed me to save you. You saved yourself a long time ago just by being who you are. You’re the one who saved me.”

Fresh tears well in her eyes, causing others to spill out and cascade down her cheeks. Something within her chest aches fiercely and still a little strangely, no matter how familiar the feeling has become over the past few months whenever Wick speaks to her with warmth and kindness or she sees the strength of his beliefs in goodness and his convictions exhibited through action. His hand loosens and releases the hold he had on her wrist as he reaches up to gently wipe her tears away, just a moment before they’d mist away on their own leaving only faint tracks of salt in their wake. Her eyes flutter shut, eyelashes thick and tacky, as she surrenders into letting herself have this moment with him. She feels the warmth of his hand move to cup her cheek, and a slight shudder runs through her whole body as she fights to remain still. His own hand shakes slightly against her skin despite the quiet and capable strength she knows it contains that she’s seen ever developing in him since they first left Dol-Makjar so long ago.

Her perception of the world narrows, and all that she can think of and feel in this moment is him. The places where his skin meets hers, his words ringing in her mind. She feels her chest rise and fall as she breathes in deeply, eyes still closed. The next thing she feels is his forehead brought low to rest against hers, close and intimate, cool and soothing. His nose brushes a bit against hers, and the slight puff of his breath as he exhales leaves her lips tingling. They stand there together, sharing breath, and Tyranny thinks that she’s never known a sweeter pain than this. No torture and no paradise could ever compare to this unique agony and ecstasy swirling within her.

“I would save you every time, Wick,” she breathes out, a confession lost on the wind, inaudible to anyone standing more than a whisper away. The only acknowledgment from Wick is a hitch in his breathing and his palm flexing against her face, sliding to tighten against her jaw. Eyes still closed, she leans into his touch. If today will be her last, she can allow herself this moment of weakness to be selfish. “That will never be a question.”

“Then why won’t you allow me to care about saving you?” He sounds miserable, torn apart. “You expect me to let you sacrifice yourself for my sake as if I would ever be okay with that. As if I could ever - ” 

“I’m doing what has to be done.” Her eyes flash open, burning. “You have to understand that. I am here because of you. Literally, here on this plane because of your family making a contract with me that brought me out of the Pit. And I’m here physically in this place because of you. Because I am here for you. To serve you, and to protect you, and.. and…” her words fail her, and she miserably slams her head into his chest, next to where he’s holding their hands, careful not to hit him with her horns. His hand slips off of her cheek with the sudden movement, only to carefully find its way to gently cup the back of her head and caress one of her floppy ears. The sensation has her suppressing an unbidden bleat as she shivers.

Her voice is muffled when she speaks into his robes. “Do you remember what you said on the night we first left Dol-Makjar? You asked a room full of near strangers for protection, for shelter, for loyalty, for friendship, for someone to take care of you - I’ve given you all of those things. I’ve done all I can to be everything you needed. I’m just… I’m just doing what you asked.” She feels as if she’s begging for him to understand, begging him to let her go, while a still faint presence buried deep within is crying out, pleading for him to keep fighting for her the way that only he always has, no matter the fact that anything he says or does can’t change the situation they’re in right now.

“If you remember everything I said on that night… I remember I also asked for love,” he says cautiously, softly, as if she’s a wild animal he’s afraid to startle. She tenses, and she can tell that he feels it because he strokes her ear with a little more intention and holds her closer against him. “Did you…” she can feel the bob of his chest as he swallows. “Did you try to do that for me, too?”

With resignation, she proclaims into him, “I never had to try, Wick.”

“What?” he sounds confused.

She withdraws from him, blinking more rapidly than normal in an effort to steady and distract herself from the increasing pace of her heartbeat crying out at her Danger Danger Danger Danger. She takes a breath before looking up at him defiantly, repeating herself loudly. “I never had to try, Wick.”

“Oh, because…” he blinks, blue eyes clueless, cheeks flushing a soft pink in embarrassment. “Right, of course, you wouldn’t try, I’m sorry for asking. Just forget it ever came up, I - ”

“You don’t have to try to do something that comes naturally.” It feels like she’s torn her heart out of her chest and presented it, bleeding and blackened and smoking, to him as an offering - the only offering that an unworthy worshipper like her could ever find to lay down at his feet. 

He freezes, eyes wildly searching hers. “I… and that means that…” he’s practically begging her to sound it out for him syllable by syllable.  

She tilts her chin up, resolute. “Just think about it, Wick. If you’re a sorcerer, you don’t have to try to be one, you just are. If you already hate someone, you don’t have to try to hate them. If something already exists, you don’t have to try to create it out of nothing. It’s pretty simple.”

“So that means that…” he gulps, wide eyes still intent on her, voice a little higher. “You’re saying that… loving me came naturally?” He blinks a few times in quick succession. “Please, please, correct me if I’m being stupid or presumptuous.”

“You’re always being stupid,” Tyranny says without thinking, but it comes out ridiculously fondly and she hates herself a little bit more for that. “Sorry. You’re not always stupid.” She clenches her fists into the fabric of the robes that falls slightly over them as she looks down. “Yeah. If you really couldn’t tell, if you really have to know, yeah. I never had to try to love you.”

“Tyranny,” he breathes out, lost for words. “Tyranny.”

“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to,” she says miserably, ears drooping. “Really, I know it ruins everything and it puts you in a bad position, and I’m sorry. You don’t deserve to be tainted by my love, and more than anything, I wish I felt more sorry about it, but it’s hard to be that sorry when I think that loving you might be the only good thing about me, as selfish as it is. But… you deserve to know that you’re loved. And maybe I should have said something before today, but I don’t deserve your kindness, and I couldn’t face your pity, and - ”

“Tyranny,” he repeats, louder, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her to look up at him. He looks a little manic, disheveled, lock of beautiful hair falling crookedly across his face. His eyes gleam in a way that she can’t read. He’s… well, he’s always beautiful, but she’s always particularly liked to see him all worked up. Her throat suddenly feels a little tighter. “Why in the world would I pity you?”

She bites through her lip hard enough to taste blood. “You really want to get into this right now? We’re kind of on a clock if you hadn’t noticed.” She gestures fruitlessly away from them and towards where the battle rages on outside of the tower.

“You’re refusing to let me fight with you, and I refuse to let you fight without me. We promised a long time ago that we would never stray far from each other, and I intend to keep that promise. So we might as well talk.” His brow is set, smooth with determination to see this conversation through. She sometimes forgets just how deeply his stubborn streak can run, what with how often he can be easily malleable to her input or to the suggestions of others. A silly thing to forget, really, when his willpower can be as strong as iron and his own kind of faith in the Light just as unbreakable.

In the end, she gives in to him instead of running away. It feels inevitable, especially when she knows she can’t run fast enough for him not to follow her, and there’s no convincing him otherwise. He’s too loyal — to her, she realizes with a painful twinge. How horrible that such a beautiful thing could be his downfall. How painful to discover that as much as he’s her greatest weakness, she’s his. 

She should never have allowed herself to care this much. She should never have let it get this far. 

She should shut him down. She should end this while there’s still any amount of plausible deniability to be found, nearly shredded to pieces as it is.

She should save him by severing this thread that this conversation has been pulling on instead of allowing it to tie them closer and irreversibly together.

But Tyranny is and will always be a demon, no matter how poor of an excuse for one she might make. So instead, she selfishly indulges.

She lets herself feel. She lets herself fall.

“Okay,” she whispers, surrendering. There’s a sweet kind of peace in it, to finally stop fighting against a truth she already knows. “We can talk.”

His beautiful eyes go round, sweetly surprised by her acquiescence. “Oh,” his lips part in a perfect O. “Um.”

He just gazes at her for a moment, slack-jawed, chest rising and falling shallowly.

“You wanted to talk?” She prompts, barely a whisper.

He shakes his head as if shaking himself out of a daze. “Right. Right. Um.” He swallows, and his hands still resting on her shoulders twitch with a slight tremor. “Why would I pity you, Tyranny?” He breathes out, eyes searching hers.

She has to clench her own eyes shut, a poor attempt to stave off more tears against his kind gaze seeing her vulnerability without flinching away. “Because you’re always good to me, no matter how many times I fuck it up and make the same mistakes over and over again. Because I’m a demon, and you’re basically a literal angel. Because you could never love me the same way that I love you. Pick a reason, any reason. Any of them will do, really.” She laughs hollowly, ache in her chest throbbing.

“Tyranny”, he stresses her name, gripping her tighter. “I could never pity you for any of those reasons. Especially not when… well.” He stops, and she opens her eyes, curious despite everything still screaming at her that she knows how this story always ends, to see him anxiously chewing on his lips. “It would be rather hypocritical on my end to judge you for falling in love.”

He looks at her, nervous for her reception, and she looks back at him, struck silent for a moment. Her mind goes oddly blank, only the fuzz of static ringing within.

Her mouth is dry when she hears herself speaking again, her mouth moving without her brain fully working in tandem. “Because you’ve fallen in love before. With Armas. Or with… fucking Teor or someone. That’s great, Wick, you deserve to love, really, I’m really happy for you - ” It’s one last layer of denial, the only possible self-preservation she has left.

“Fuck,” she hears Wick swear beneath his breath, a little panicked and overwhelmed, and in other instances, this would send a delightful thrill thrumming through her blood at how indecent it sounds on the rare occasions that a curse falls from his delicate lips, but right now, it barely registers while he clutches her even closer, eyes frantically traveling the contours of her face with something like…

She can’t name it. She’s too afraid to.

“Tyranny,” he whispers again, and she thinks there’s probably not a more beautiful sound than her name on his lips. Especially when he says it as if it’s a precious thing, mouth shaping carefully around each letter, and he looks at her as if… as if…

“You… it’s…” He lets out a muffled, frustrated sound within his throat before he’s surging forward, clumsy with uncontrolled energy, using his grip upon her to propel himself as he brings his mouth down to hers, and then he’s kissing her, and all she can think is Oh. 

Oh. 

Oh. 

As she buffers, frozen, she feels him start to draw back, and she can already hear the stammering apology he’s surely preparing to deliver for being too forward and acting improperly. Instinctually, the most primal part of her cries out No as he retreats, and her mind finally snaps back into tune with her body as she brings her hands up to cup his face and drag his mouth back to hers possessively.

It’s bruising, it’s fierce, it’s sweet. It’s hungry and messy. Consuming.

It’s a million things bundled together, delivering everything that they haven’t been able to say out loud to each other before now. His lips are soft and just as unpracticed as hers, but he kisses her as if he’s been thinking about it for a long time, with the kind of passion that she’s tried to avoid dreaming of.

It’s better than any of those hazy dreams because it’s so undeniably raw and real. The heat of him against her, the tremble of his hand moving from her shoulder to cradle the curve of her jaw as he works his mouth over hers in a way that makes her dizzy with the new angle. She slides a hand up along the nape of his neck into his curls, just as soft as she’s imagined, and tugs firmly, anchoring herself even more closely to him, and he whimpers delightfully with it. Her stomach flips over in the best way, squirming with anticipation.

She can’t help herself from exploring further, from testing the limits as she teases her forked tongue over his lips. She feels him shudder, and for a second, she panics that she went too far too fast until he opens his mouth to her, and then their tongues are meeting clumsily and fumbling together, a strange, slick pressure, and now it’s Tyranny shuddering under the heady, eager weight of desire, a greedy voice within demanding More More More.

She kisses him with all that she has: all of her greed, her forbidden wishes, her wickedness, her sadness, her wretched love.

All of her love. Above all, love.

She kisses him with every ounce of love that she contains within her body and whatever makes up her soul, wanting to give it all to him. To return every bit of it that he ever showed to her over tenfold.

Even as she tries to press everything to him that she has left to give in this timeless interlude at the likely end of the world, he kisses back just as intensely, and she doesn’t know what she ever did to deserve the beauty of his affection and devotion directed at her. His love is a blazing light, a pure flame she would gladly be burned by, and she thinks that if she dies today, at least she’ll have known it in all of its searing glory, even if just for a moment.

Her heart hurts, and it’s only when she tastes salt that she realizes she’s crying once more.

Wick parts from her but doesn’t go far, resting his forehead against hers as tears stream down her face. The shiny pink of his lips is distracting, even as he whispers, half-joking, “Please don’t be crying because of how bad I am at that. I promise I can learn to do better.”

“I think I might want to crawl inside your skin and live inside of you,” she sniffles, still in a daze.

He turns his smile into the palm of her hand where it still rests on his face, pressing a short, sweet kiss there. “Strange as it might be to say, I think I understand the sentiment.” His eyelashes flutter as his beautiful eyes soften impossibly at her. “You understand now, right? It’s you. It’s always you, Tyranny. I’m in love with you.” He keeps his besotted gaze upon her as he confesses, and it’s like an arrow piercing through her chest to see how happy he is, to know that she’s made him feel this way and yet she’ll have to break his heart all over again.

If she was made for suffering, surely she’d be thriving now.

She feels herself tremble as she blinks her eyes shut for a moment before forcing herself to take a step back. “Wick,” she whispers raggedly. “This doesn’t change anything. I still have to do what I have to do. I can’t not try.” Wick’s lovestruck expression clears with the pain that statement brings, and she can’t help herself from trying to apply a bandage to the emotional wound, gazing deeply at him. “I love you, and I have to do this. Both things can be true. I promise, they’re both true.” She silently implores him through her gaze to know that the truth of her love for him is the single greatest truth about herself that she knows with all of her being.

Wick is somber. “I know we have to help. But you don’t have to do it on your own. There’s no world where I sit here as you sacrifice yourself, none. I’m going with you, wherever you go.” He doesn’t deliver his proclamation as some grand oath, just the simple truth, and yet Tyranny looks at him and sees a vision of a knight, armor sparkling in the sunlight, kneeling and swearing oaths of fealty before the hazy vision shifts into him, just as he is, still kneeling as he takes her hand in his and makes other offers of everlasting love and loyalty as he gazes up at her with those beautiful eyes. “Please, just… give us a chance together to change things before you do anything drastic.” He takes her hands in his tenderly, slowly intertwining her fingers with his, looking at her with sadly earnest eyes.

She sighs out, helpless against his puppy dog stare. “I wish you would sit here. I wish you would just keep yourself safe. Because I’m in love with you, and I’m selfish, and you matter to me more than I ever knew someone could matter. More than someone should matter, probably, like really, I think you might be afraid if you knew the full extent of it. Not that it matters right now.” She cuts off her nervous rambling with a shake of her head. “Anyways. This is all to say that even if I fail and things don’t work out the way I’m hoping they will, I would feel better knowing that you were alive and well. Because I love you.” She looks up from underneath her eyelashes at him shyly, still afraid to see his reaction to the words she’s so unpracticed at using, unfamiliar on her lips.

“Even if I was alive,” Wick says, low. “I would never be well again after that.”

And it’s not like she has much to say to that, not when she knows it would be the same for her if he was putting her in this position. 

“I don’t know if you heard me back then,” he continues, voice cracking. “But I told you once that I would follow you to Hell. And I still will, if that’s what it takes. But I - ”

“I heard you. Your voice brought me back,” she interrupts quietly, remembering the feeling of dying and hanging in suspended consciousness and the sound of the one voice that tethers her to her mortal life above all others guiding her back to her body. “I came back because of you.”

She squeezes his hands, and now it’s Wick crying silently, shining tears rolling down his cheeks. “Please, don’t leave me, Tyranny,” he pleads, and it breaks something within her. “Give us a chance first. Let us try. We’ve gone up against terrible odds before, and we’re still here despite it all.”

Her heart cracks open as he kisses her again desperately, pouring all of his feeling into it, and as she savors the sweet taste of his tears shared between them, she knows then that it was always going to end like this. The two of them united, facing off hand in hand against anything and everything that would seek to tear them apart from each other. The perfect counterparts, mirrors, kindred spirits, whatever others might call them.

The angel and the demon. A tragic love story. A story that she’s still hoping, despite all of the insurmountable odds, is yet unfinished.

She doesn’t know if demons ever get happy endings. She can’t say that she’s ever heard any of those stories, but currently, she also can’t say that she cares. What she cares about is this moment and the act of choice they are committing to in writing their own story and taking charge of their destiny, as she decides to take her own leap of faith.

“Okay,” the demon Tyranny breathes out against the lips of the Lord Wicander Halovar as she slowly pulls back from his kiss, mouth tingling, still enfolded in a tight embrace that brings the beating of their hearts near to the other. “Okay. We try together.”

“Together,” he agrees resolutely, and she has to go back in to claim one last lingering kiss from him because really, it’s not fair for him to be that attractive to her when she sees him so unwavering in his purpose and firm in his decision even as fresh tears stain his face, and it’s not fair that they aren’t alone in a room decorated only with plush pillows and fancy blankets and silk sheets right now, and none of this is fair. If she had known he loved her even just a day ago, she would have been able to jump his bones by now; she thinks he would have let her, would have returned her efforts and enthusiasm. A reciprocal bone jumping.

But because none of this is fair, and they’ve already been selfish with their time and indulged longer than is maybe good or right of them, their lips slide apart eventually as they separate, taking a beat as they regard each other for a final moment.

With a look that transcends any words, he gallantly offers her his hand, and she takes it as she steadily returns his look. Hand in hand, they set off towards the danger that awaits them and their friends in the battle below, uncertain of their fate. They can’t know what is to come for them in the fraught moments ahead, or the days, if they can survive long enough to see them, or the years, if they’re lucky enough to make it there to witness the dawn of a brighter era for Aramán.

Only one thing feels certain, as if it was always meant to be this way since the moment that a turquoise-haired sorcerer first stepped foot into a marble chamber to meet a pink-skinned demon.

They’ll face it together.