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kingdomsofrain2026-01-17 02:26 pm
onefellswoop) wrote in kingdomsofrain2026-01-17 02:26 pm
shitlords!
placeholder title above! hmmmm
1) Prelude: Ill-Natured Shrubbery.
2) The Party Gathers: If a Tree Burns in the Forest...
3) Death House Pt. 1: Family, If You Wish It.
4) Death House Pt. 2: Onward and Downward.
5) Awich: The Dead All Know, The Dead All Go.
6) Awich: Investigations.
7) Awich: After the Battle.
8) Loch Bien: Complications, Concerns, Frogs.
9) Loch Bien + Onward: Things Go Very, Very Wrong.
10) Through Forest, Into Mysos.
1) Prelude: Ill-Natured Shrubbery.
2) The Party Gathers: If a Tree Burns in the Forest...
3) Death House Pt. 1: Family, If You Wish It.
4) Death House Pt. 2: Onward and Downward.
5) Awich: The Dead All Know, The Dead All Go.
6) Awich: Investigations.
7) Awich: After the Battle.
8) Loch Bien: Complications, Concerns, Frogs.
9) Loch Bien + Onward: Things Go Very, Very Wrong.
10) Through Forest, Into Mysos.
no subject
Sen folds Rin in his arms and lingers there a moment, comforting them as much as himself. It was, after all, quite a time ago, and really, it could have been much, much worse. He doesn't say this, however. Instead, he nods his agreement that yes, if it pleases Rin, they'll just have to find Rein and kill him. (He wonders, though, whether this abduction has anything to do with the vile shit.)
"I fucked up one or two. Truth be told, I did what I do best: I conversed my way ashore. Although I seem to recall two of my shipmates got it in their heads to take knives to each other's throats as I was doing so. Very odd day, that." Did he suggest to them that they ought to do it?
Maybe.
Their own damned fault for listening to him, though.
And/or engaging in child enslavement. Six of one.
"Poor fellows."
"You seem very torn up about it," Faolan remarks dryly.
Sen covers his heart with one hand in a somber, mournful gesture. "Oh, devastated. One of them owed me two gold from a recent game of liar's dice."
"You actually won?"
"Now listen here," Sen points one long finger at both Fae and Dima. "Just because you got yourselves well-fucked and full of the warm-fuzzies doesn't mean you need to be *rude* to us lesser mortals."
"That's a 'no', then." Faolan's mouth hints at burgeoning laughter.
<.>
It's lucky, Dima thinks - or it's something other than luck; it's an agreement among personalities, a shared agreement to find something beyond gloom in recounting wrenching pasts - that Faolan and Sen can egg each other on this way, companionably. (He's lucky for the both of them. Yes, including Sen, and Sen's quenchless capacity for chatter. Much as Dima may roll his eyes at the elf's slippery truths and loquaciousness, both have proven bolsters against the seethe of ire and dismay.)
He lifts an eyebrow, eyes steady-fixed on Sen. "I'd expect no less from our masterful bardlock." And, after a moment, "Best to repay some measure of the hell you've given, I think."
Meaning - maybe - a measure of approval. Knowing Sen requires nothing of the kind, may not want it, and so Dima adds, "I'd thank you kindly to keep further rock hurling to yourself, however."
There's another kiss for Fae's cheek, a nudge of forehead to jaw and a few moments' thought before he speaks again, "I'm familiar with the name - Rein's name - and with the purpose of his practice.
"I've never met the man. I'm sorry to hear you did."
A cant of his head, a sniff. "For what it's worth. If the bastard wasn't beaten for the entirely most certainly accidental slit throats that certainly weren't caused by his sale of present elves, the refund-seekers were likely decimated."
Rin's eyes track to Dmitri, thinking, thinking, then: "If that's the case, you'd better find their bones and bring them back, because I have some words for them.
"And some claws.
"And teeth."
They're still holding onto Sen, and they're just going to keep holding onto Sen. With a not-really-joking grin that turns into a ticked lip, a blinking of their eyes, another burrowed nestle at Sen's chest.
It's from Sen's chest that they add: "See, that's the good thing about traveling around with necromancers: We can kill them as many times as we want.”
Dima offers no arguments; Dima in fact has no arguments against this.
<.>
Sen snorts an appreciative laugh, giving no promises about either rock throwing or murder, no arguments against the latter.
Faolan, having indulged himself with another lingering nuzzle, comforting and half-pleased, now draws forward with a lift of his jaw to indicate they ought to get moving. As he leads, he contributes, "Less costly to just torture them a while. Necromancy's not cheap. Even for Voronins."
A squeeze of his hand and a sly glance back at Dima: he's teasing.
"Having a pair of dedicated larsonists helps with overhead," Sen drawls.
Faolan stifles a laugh before sobering and adding, "I've heard the name, too. Nothing to do with children. Or me. Slaver all the same, like Sen says. Mostly women, mostly up from the southlands, but only because they were 'exotics'. He's got brothels in Morovsk and Mysos. Maybe Loch Bien, though I never went inquiring."
A pensive look as he remembers something; turning to look back at Rin, he asks, "Some of the women I knew, though, would call him Vytantus Run. You ever hear that? You know. 'If you see Vytantus, Run.'"
Sen nods, even if the question wasn't directed at him. He's heard it. "Words to live by."
<.>
Oh, that's a thought; even before the press of Fae's hand, Dima's lip has ticked to a sharp smile, and he meets that sly glance with a lift of his eyebrows, an appreciative gaze that suggests he wouldn't be at all opposed to a bit of, mmm, malevolent encouragement applied to wayward parties, particularly with Faolan beside him.
Well. And if Dmitri were to expend the coin and energy in resurrection, they might as well take their time in re-mangling any offenders.
The smile doesn't last for long; as Fae talks, Dima's own solemnity returns, and he tries to think whether Rein might have anything to do with the matter of these disappearing children, and whether there might be a way of tracking the man down (of course there is a way; no one can remain hidden) (the question is whether Rein forms any part of the puzzle they currently face).
Rin is listening closely, their attention more attuned than usual, and they nod at Faolan's question. "I heard that. A lot, I think. 'If you see Vytantus, Run. Run, or it's your ruin.'" Maybe that's part of the reason they remember the name; there was a sort of sing-song chorus the chant was put to, and they start humming it absently before catching themself, shaking their head.
"There were a couple of kids—" They look up, then toward the river, then at Sen before continuing, "There were these two kids that thought it was all a big joke. Which I get, I guess; we all wanted to believe it was a joke, or that's the kind of vibe I got. And they worked it out that if they could prove the Sneak Thief - that's what we called him, for a while, the Sneak Thief - was just a stupid old man with back problems ad a bad attitude, they'd save everyone a lot of worry and would be kind of the heroes of the city, or whatever part we had in the city.
"So someone dropped a lead about where this Rein might be, and the kids went off to unveil the truth or whatever—
"We saw them, all of us did. A few days later, strung out below the docks.
"I dunno if that Sneak Thief had anything to do with it, but it was— There were things missing. And there was a message. An invitation? To come find Vytantus Rien if we ever had anything we wanted to donate."
There's silence for a moment, and though they move closer to Sen, though their tail twitches, they only add matter-of-factly, "It was all pretty fucked up."
Which is when Dmitri adds, throat cleared slightly, "He has a reputation in Novorometz, as well. Apart from the brothels, Rein is a known supplier of—" Odd and ends. 'Useful goods.' "Materials." And, "Remains."
<.>
Sen hums thoughtfully at this recounting, for the moment grateful his sojourn with Vytantus was limited at best. It seems to him he's lucky to have all his odds, ends, materials, remains, and useful goods.
It's the rhyme that stymies him; he knows he's heard it, but just as with the Nightmare Market, he can't for the life of him recall the words.
Just like then, Faolan is the one to recall. (Sen wonders about that. Why the druid knows so many songs and rhymes that others might forget.)
Faolan isn't surprised by either the story of the Sneak Thief of the admission of what he provided to the necromancers of Novorometz. A silence follows, broken only by the frustrated, hushed musings of the bard behind him. He gives Sen a moment, then another, clearing foliage to make passage easier for the others - then quietly recites over his shoulder:
“Th' ways ay dark for scrapers us
Not tide shall wef' an' crews in
If an' see Vytantus, run
Run, or else s'ayn ruin.
Us heard it spake in tav'n late
Ay hushes down th' lane
Stray none the sideling ways t'night
Where walk Vytantus Rein
List bairn, we not can guard
Til morrow shines all dew'n.
If an' see Vytantus, run
Run, or else s'ayn ruin.”
He shrugs there and adds softly, "There's more to it, but that's the best I know. Everyone's got their own rhyme to add. And - way of speaking. You don't hear proper Common for that one in Lo'ben.”
<.>
in hasn't encountered this version, not quite, but it's a close match to songs heard hushed at midnight, voiced by urchins crowded safe within their mish-mash dwellings. Songs revised and built upon by those who knew well the nearness of hazard, and who might keep awake long through the night, too wary of shadows to sleep.
Yes, Fae's version is close enough that Rin hums beneath their breath as Faolan recites. Close enough that they know the meaning without gleaning the particularities of dialect—
They do like the sounds Fae gives the words, though, and here and there they echo his voice, testing out the syllables as if tracing fingers along the form of speech.
"We had a verse about eyes watching, or feeling like eyes were watching even though no one was around— Oh, oh. No, it was the shadows have eyes, that was it. The shadows have eyes and the shadows sing lies and the shadows all speak to Vyntantus."
They're ticking off something - numbers, words, images - on their fingers, humming again. The flicker of their tail less agitated as Rin lets memory run through them, then, "The shadows have eyes and slip back with the tide; that one, too.
"It's why Eliss never liked to go by the water at night.
"Also there were crabs. So even if the shore was empty, you might get a snip."
<.>
no subject
Dima loves him. He's sure of it.) (The more he says he's sure of Dima's love, the more he wavers, wondering if he isn't fooling himself. Somehow.)
His thoughts turn to Rin and what kind of life they lived before that clearing. They talk like they lived in less than ideal conditions - an orphan? A runaway?
He'll ask...sometime. Not today. Today's been colored darkly enough by the long-reaching shadows of Vytantus Rein.
"Elucidating as this is - and I can promise you both, I'll be cornering you to learn your variations," Sen interjects, "Vytantus isn't the only person in the wide world who's been known to spirit away children. Are we decided that this is his work?"
Faolan considers a moment, then exchanges a glance with Dima. "If the children from all five circles were taken in the same way, it's a high number. High enough to attribute to him, or else he has competition, and if that's so, it's safe to assume he knows who's taking business from him."
<.>
[q: would any of this recounting have brought up further info in dima's mind that he might have heard wrt rein?
ARC: 26
a: Listening to this, Dima remembers somewhat vaguely that Vytantus was described by those who saw him as having "strange eyes" and odd patches of scales on the skin they could see. Dima probably dismissed those claims as overwrought imagination (or embellishing). On hearing the rhymes about abduction and control of shadows and darkness, Dima begins to wonder if Vytantus isn't a Yuan-ti pureblood.]
Dima returns Faolan's glance with a nod. "That's so. I wouldn't rule out coincidence entirely - as Sen's said, abduction on its own isn't uncommon - but the signals are too many too ignore. The scale of the disappearance, for one, and there's the potential presence of a tidal force.
"There's the capacity for taking an entire druidic circle - one, if not five - by surprise; there's the self-certainty required to storm the home of seasoned practitioners of magic. And there's the fact that this devastation has been held in relative secret. It's strange, isn't it, that someone or some force should wreck such devastation without announcing itself to the territories. Most attacks of this scale are leveled with the intention of making a resounding point, or building toward cultivation of formless fear— Or else wiping a field clean of enemies." A cant of his head, a click of his tongue, and he looks to Faolan. "Did your circle know themselves to be in the sights of a particular nemesis?"
He pauses, squeezes Faolan's hand. Offers a steady and steadying brush of his thumb, a sign that Dima is observing his Fae closely, ready to cease speaking at any sign that his Puppy may be crumbling inward. "There are other questions I'd ask, my Fae. Don't feel you must answer. Only speak if you feel able." A moment to let his meaning settle, and then, "Do you know whether the adult victims discovered were— Mm. You said that they were brutalized. It might be useful to know whether many were, for lack of a better phrase, missing pieces of themselves.
"Or whether there is anyone you know who we might ask."
Another squeeze to Fae's hand before he continues, words now addressed to the group as a whole—
"For our own purposes, it would be worth knowing whether abduction has been a commonality among other—" His brow furrows slightly, and he shakes his head sharply, frustrated. "Skirmishes; raids. Whatever it is we're calling these attacks. I'd like to know how many of them are related. I'd like to know whether other broad attacks have been committed and kept quiet.
"And whether the circle or circles were targeted in order to—" There's a slight catch in his throat, a look to Faolan, and, "—in order to take the children, or if the children were a manner of afterthought. Or, I suppose, incentive.
"A 'bonus' promised to Rein, if someone brought him in to execute their work." Again Dmitri shakes his head, then runs a hand back through his hair, exhaling a sharp breath. "This is all supposition, of course; half-educated guesses, at best. For all we can tell, there isn't a single shred of connective tissue between the raids and the ruin brought upon these circles, the poisoning in Loch Bien, the infiltration of the Nightmare Market—"
Another click of his tongue; a storm passes across his brow. "And the matter of Payl Gower's daughter. Most likely that's a separate affair entirely— But I can't quite trust to hope on this account, and I'd caution against overlooking the potential of connection."
<.>
Faolan listens, clearly deep in thought when Dima finishes speaking. It's Sen who pipes up first, quietly, as though he senses Faolan's wheels are still turning. "The thing about Vytantus, though - he doesn't like to draw attention. If he's involved, he's not masterminding it; it's too inflammatory, for lack of a better descriptor. If people even suspected he's to blame for the slaughter of that many people in one sweep, he'd go underground for a bit and pop right back up when some new devastation occurs."
He shakes his head. "He might be profiting off it, certainly. Fucking vulture, him."
Faolan nods agreement to this statement and contributes, "If pieces were missing, I'd believe that's where they went. But - Dima, I couldn't tell. Between their killers and the animals - the wild ones and their own, they -"
He takes a sharp breath and clears his throat before he continues.
"The other thing. I wasn't one of them, exactly, so I wasn't party to much. I -" He feels a sudden flash of breathless loss, a swift blow when the thought rises that he never will be, because they're gone, the entire Circle of Wildfire, and there's no one but him, and he's no archdruid. He's barely a druid.
(He'll never sit with them again. He'll never indulge their children with games of chase again, or listen to the elders' stories, or feel the budding camaraderie that comes with slow acceptance -)
It takes him a moment. It takes another firm squeeze of Dima's hand to remind himself there's still good ahead.
"I don't know who might have been a nemesis, particularly. If it'd been only the one circle, I'd blame orcs or lizardfolk, but it's more widespread than that. And the raids at the borders makes me wonder if it isn't the same folk doing it. Mercenaries from Striker's Bay or someone looking to throw the whole continent into upheaval, which and whatever -
"That's connected, if nothing else."
<.>
The hand at Faolan's arm caresses steady, steady, and the squeeze is returned with redoubled pressure. He thinks again that this man - this man who is, really, very young in the world - is brave; he knows he himself is fortunate to have Fae's trust.
And no one ought to witness the devastation, the physical rending of a community that took them in, even if at the outskirts.
Just as no one ought to have been sold to the keeping of pirates, or come upon the corpses of mangled compatriots.
There's pain in the air, suffusive, today. There's likely more to come— But perhaps they can stem some measure of it.
Perhaps they can search down the bastards responsible, and light havoc to their being.
"It'd say so, yes. And the choice to target the druidic circles first - to, mm, speaking indelicately, remove their force from the field - seems a pernicious strategy, and long-planned.
"If the endeavor is progressive upheaval - as looks to be the case - there must be some force or some being capable of profiting from widespread chaos.
"The ruling class of Loch Bien has been wiped aside. ...As have a number of ranking dignitaries from adjoining territories. Morovsk is made to appear responsible. Every border seethes with hazard. The druidic circles have been ravaged.
"I'd like to know what damages Mysos has suffered.
"And what profits have come to the canals." He shakes his head. "There's something to those fucking things, as well.
"As for Striker's Bay—" He glances at the others. "We've had no luck with them in Morovsk. Those sent seeking council don't return, or are returned to us in inanimate form.
"What do any of you know of the place?"
Note also: Liv has been and will continue flying overhead while they travel, keeping an eye on the areas around.
<.>
[INT
r: 6
s: 2
f: 11
Rin probably doesn't know much at all about Striker's Bay, and probably never had any interest in learning. Sen and Fae don’t know much, either.]
There's a collective shaking of heads at the question, which isn't really surprising, given what Dima's encountered with regards to Striker's Bay. They continue on in silence, each of them left to their own respective musings about the thread of intrigue before them.
Eventually, Sen begins humming, then singing a song he may or may not have invented, the tune cheerful enough to stave off melancholy for them all. This song becomes another that Faolan knows, so he joins in gladly, obviously with lifting spirits.
Nothing transpires on the first day, and they make camp near, but not on the banks of, the river at Faolan's suggestion.
Two days pass like this, only once do they divert a mile or so off course at Liviana's warning of a large host of bipedal, frog-like creatures ahead. (But not frogs. She is clear in this assertion to Dima, or as clear as she can convey that they are not frogs.
They get lost in the process, though Faolan is able to get them back on course with only an hour wasted (despite Sen's best efforts to 'help'.)
Once, a hopeful bear attempts to get into their packs for food; twenty percent of the rations are gone before anyone wakes up, and Rin chases the beast off. (Rolls for perception, percentage lost, and who did the chasing.)
After a while, Sen offers or acquiesces to carrying Rin piggyback.
Faolan is indefatigable in leading them; it's obvious he knows the forests here quite well, though he admits they're reaching the boundaries of his familiarity, which ends at the mountains looming nearer and nearer.
They're entering the borderlands.
Tomorrow, Fae tells them, they'll start crossing through the mountains. He suggests they make camp here tonight; there's a spring nearby with fish, and there's game they can hunt that might help spare their remaining rations. He thinks the area is mostly uninhabited. (Nature: 19)
He then asks Liviana if she might rest a while, then scout ahead and see if the pass is clear of danger.
If there's no objection to any of this, then the party is now waiting for Liviana's return.
Also if there's no objection, Fae would like to split into two groups and hunt for food: Rin and Sen between camp and the river so there's no losing them, and himself and Dima between camp and the spring.
<.>
One addition to the end of the first day: Dima messages his sister the following words via Sending: "Traveling to Mysos. Learned five druidic circles have been quietly destroyed. Loch Bien pinning borderlands raids on Morovsk and Striker's Bay mercenaries. Something is building."
Regarding the present situation, there are no objections from Dima, Rin, or Liv. Liviana does indeed rest, then scout ahead. Rin still thinks the bear was kind of rude but also they can't blame him because they would also probably have stolen food from a mysterious camp. Dima is pleased with and proud of how well Faolan leads them, and has said as much at least twice. And though he didn't join in with Sen's song the first day, he might have been caught smiling— At Fae, of course, and at Sen's successful attempt at raising the party's mood.
Rin would like to know what kind of game is best for catching, and promises solemnly that there will be no straying far from the river; they will in fact be careful to keep the river always within hearing, if not directly in view. This is a fixed plan in their mind!
About twenty feet out from the camp, between the camp and the river, Rin is going to cast Snare. They point out the location to the party, and warn everyone they can't be held responsible for anyone who steps into it!
After, they're going to wink at Sen and say, "Stealthing time," then head in the direction of the river.
Dima, while slightly wary of letting the thieves wander off alone, does like Faolan's plan, and figures that if Sen and Rin wander too far, Fae and Liv are well-equipped to find them. Before heading from camp, he'll take a moment to draw Fae into his arms and share a kiss undisturbed by the presence of thieves. After, he'll suggest that he follows Faolan's lead - a plan he assumes Fae would have counted on - and will admit that his own experience in hunting isn't extensive, adding, "Lead us to the hunt, my Puppy."
<.>
no subject
He's going to try and hunt something a little larger, himself, and tells them not to hunt anything larger than a deer because it'll probably go to waste. Bears are too large and their meat's not going to taste all that good, and boars are dangerous.
He pointedly asks if Mykola is able to catch fish; it says it can, but only whole in its mouth, which Fae finds alarming.
When the thieves are underway, he does linger in that kiss for quite a while, letting on just how much he needed it in how tightly he holds Dima. In answer to the prompt, he smiles softly; far beneath, like a flicker of a candle maybe burning back to life, there's a flash of wildness that would, in another life, give him a feral grin. He's not quite there yet, however.
At their last camp, he spent about two hours fashioning himself a primitive bow and failed to convince Sen to share his arrows, so he spent another hour crafting a few of those, as well. (Survival 19, Persuasion 13 to Sen's 19.)
They'll work, and that's all he cares about.
If nothing else, he tells Dima, he can always run a deer down as a wolf. (But he'd prefer not to do that.)
The spring is quite large, fed from some underground source as well as from a waterfall spilling over a rocky rise. The water's clear and cool, and they're able to see the flash of sunlight on fish that swim near the surface. A deer at the water's edge spots them and stills, its tail flicking and ears twitching in their direction. Fae stills, as well, one hand on Dima's middle to keep him from startling the creature.
He doesn't try to shoot it. When it walks back into the forest, he explains: he doesn't want the animals learning their watering hole's unsafe. Doesn't seem fair.
For Sen and Rin: make a survival check just to see if anything comes wandering into the snare.
[SURV, r: 18]
About fifteen minutes after setting Snare, it's triggered by a large rabbit.
Sen, thinking maaaaybe Rin doesn't want to deal with the unpleasant part of this, will offer to do the other half of the job.
[note: sen you are in fact correct thank you ;.;.; they will be nearby but not watching unless sen asks them for anything ;.;]
Sen isn't going to ask them for anything, and is going to very quickly handle the rabbit. And immediately put it in one of the bags he has for some reason.
[PERC
s: 13
r: 29]
Rin, while Not Looking at the rabbit situation, does happen to be looking in the river's direction; they notice movement on the small beach: crabs.
They also notice there are waterfowl picking off the smallest crabs, pecking open soft shells to get at meat.
<.>
Rin is going to Messages Sen: [ Hey, I'm taking a look at some crabs. ]
Crabs, happily, are much easier to think about Dealing With than rabbits. Especially after so many snips so many years ago.
And Rin would like to attempt to gather small small crabs into a bag of their own!
[SURV, r: 18]
<.>
Yeah, they manage to gather a pretty sizeable amount of crabs into a bag. They won't be much good for preserving, but they'll be edible tonight, and bringing in the rabbit as well, they've done a damn good job - which Fae will tell them.
[note: ahhhh ;.; Rin will do a little bounce onto their toes when he doeS tell them! And then tell everyone how skillful and very thoughtful Sen was!]
Sen, meanwhile, is going to attempt to use his shortbow to shoot one of those birds.
Sen's attempt to shoot the birds was not good and there is no bird for eating.
[note: rin calls the birds cowards!]
Which sends the entire flock upward, making angry noises at the interruption of their meal.
As for Fae and Dima!
Fae is able to find food and resources in terrains he knows well, so it's not long before he finds edible berries for the group. It's something.
He's also going to attempt to set a trap-
Which he admits to Dima, he's never been much good at, but he does try to show him what he's doing with a rope snare. (15 on Survival)
<.>
!! Thank you Faolan!
Extra thank you bc I was going to say that Dima will be watching Fae closely and asking him to share what he sees in and knows of the woods around, and how he uses that information to find his way/find food.
Only when they don't need to be hush hush, of course.
...Actually Dima. Will also have an eye out for any potentially useful alchemy ingredients. Because that is an area he doeS have some knowings in.
So learning and looking!
[NAT, d: 24]
<.>
So because his area of expertise is necromancy, there's not a whole lot here that would be useful for those particular spells; however, he does see some herbs that have medicinal properties, flowers used in tinctures for scrying, and one particular plant with a root that sells for a tidy sum of gold to the right buyer.
[note: :o! dima would like to attempt to collect all of these pls, or as many as he can, if any]
Absolutely can. There's no particular trouble in collecting them, and Dima's got himself a nice store of plants now.
Near the end of this, as Fae leads them a little ways away from the spring, he sees that deer again.
He's going to attempt to shoot it with the bow he made, god help him. (4) The arrow sails harmlessly three feet and buries into the ground. Faolan softly curses Sen for being a shithead and tries again. (2)
[note: dima casts Slow on the deer, which fails its save.]
The deer's speed is halved and Faolan is going to try one more arrow. (4) Faolan throws the bow down and says Fuck it, stay here. And he's going to wild shape into a wolf and try to run it down.
So, the deer failed its second saving throw and is still moving at half speed, but the transformation also lost Fae some time. And in the deer's next turn, it'll be out of the area of effect, I believe, so it's now moving full speed, attempting to flee into the brush.
[note: Dima silently cheering for Fae but also lbr mostly focusing on maintaining concentration while being bowled over by how lovely wolf is ;.;]
Faolan brings the deer down by the throat and shakes his head to hurry things along; the deer goes still, and Faolan-the-wolf sits back on his haunches and looks over at Dima.
<.>
Fae sees a look of absolute admiration in Dima's eyes as the half-elf approaches. As before, he holds out his hand palm-up; an offer and a query unvoiced: May I?
What he does speak: "My beautiful Puppy."
<.>
Fae remains still, watching Dima until he's near, then sniffs the outstretched hand curiously - almost as if to ask, What are you doing?
When he looks up again, Dima's able to see he still has blood around his mouth and on his teeth, which would account for why there's no lick. If Dima gets close enough, however, Fae will lean against his side.
<.>
Dima and draws his hand into caress along Fae's head, with a subtle scratch behind his ear, and does indeed draw near enough to leaning. Huffing a soft laugh, he'll hold Faolan the wolf's eyes, his fingers carding through thick fur. "You are a magnificent creature, you know. In every form you hold; in every way you are.
"My Fae, my Puppy, you've done very well.
"Here, and leading our party so far. We'd still be wandering in search of Knaren," there is a deep, deep roll of his eyes at that, "If it weren't for you.
"Clever and skillful; beautiful and vicious. Do you know how lucky I am in you?"
<.>
The wolf at Dima's feet has a stillness inherent to the species, but it's clear he's listening. He doesn't move away for a few minutes, content to be here, be loved, be petted by his Dima.
He drops wild shape, however, the transition leaving him still at Dima's side, though he's careful to try and wipe any traces of blood from his mouth now.
He gives a little nod towards the deer and explains, "It'll start to turn if we don't dress it now. Best do it here and take what we can back to camp."
He starts to say Dima doesn't have to watch, but thinks maybe Dima wants to watch - and even help? - so he offers instead, "Faster with two sets of hands."
There's a hesitation here, another thing he starts to say, then doesn't, then changes his mind once more and smiles a sidelong look at Dima. "Later tonight, I'd like to come back, though. Just us. There's something I want you to see."
<.>
"I'd like that very much.
"Please, Faolan; you must count on it, and so shall I."
The smile he gives Fae is small and pleased, hopeful. (And yes, Dima is thinking of the spring, the fall of water; how well he'd like to see Fae in its misting spray and moonlight. How like the docks it might be; peaceful, complete.) Yes, he'd like to sit beside the spring, but he's eager for anything his Faolan might share.
Including the work at hand.
Though Dima's had little practice handling carcasses for food, he knows the handling and preservation of remains. Knows certain practices of the sort, at least, but he'll watch and follow Fae's lead, suspecting his own knowledge isn't completely transferrable. Asking Fae brief questions for elucidation; once or twice asking that Faolan guide his hand, the better to know the feeling of a certain cut, the better to attend the work with proper care.
He'll ask Faolan how he learned to hunt, and how he chooses prey, supposing that there are reasons to select one and let another go, or to avoid certain creatures entirely, as Fae suggested with bear and boars. If the questions seem to get in the way of their present work, he'll keep them to a minimum. But Dima wants very much to hear of Faolan's experience; would like to hear everything, anything his Puppy might share and say.
<.>
Faolan answers Dima's questions in his concise way, without curtness; he talks as they work about growing up on a farm, about subsistence hunting to help get by. He talks about his own feelings of fairness in hunting, how he never kills females in spring or animals at watering holes, never hunts more than he needs, how he leaves the rest for scavengers or to be reclaimed by the earth. He acquaints himself with the look of an animal fully grown and one still in its youth. He explains about boars, about the fattiness of bear meat, which is good in lean winter months, but not just now.
When Dima asks for a guiding hand, he doesn't mean to betray himself, but the catch of breath is there as they, together, work a knife through. The second time he's asked, he leads kneeling behind Dima, chest to back, and when the cut is made, he lingers, face turning in to Dima's neck, eyes closed soporifically. His hand tightens around Dima's and the knife, and in the pit of his stomach, he feels an electric tension.
(This is the kind of thing that got him in trouble. With Lachlan. With Fedir. With enough men that it got around that he's dangerous, that he's crazy.
A knife.
The creeping suggestion of his own desires beyond children, fatherhood, family, and - honey, yes.
The problem is, he's a man, but he's also a wolf-not-wolf, and there are things lurking inside him that want to see -
A knife beading blood from shallow cuts. (Lachlan had slapped his hand away, had struck him hard enough that he'd reeled back from the blow and dropped the knife.))
(Dima got excited when Faolan threatened him that day in the ruins.) (He moaned so beautifully when Faolan bit him by the fire.)
For a suspended moment, there's only Dima's artery near Faolan's parted lips, warmed by quiet, shuddering breaths; there's the scent of blood and game, of Dima's hair, sweat, subtle perfume of soap. There's the feeling of their bodies faintly moved by rising, falling breath, and a knife.
And slowly, he withdraws, ignoring the insistence of arousal and turning his attention once more to skinning his kill. (Though he makes sure Dima can see how he works now; he lingers over certain cuts, and it could be nothing, could be caution -
Or it could be, to the right onlooker, a silent expression of desire, a suggestion that he's seeing a half-elf and not a deer under the bite of the blade.
When the work is done, it's as though nothing happened at all with the knife. He cleans it carefully and sheathes it, then uses the pelt as a makeshift carrier for the meat they'll take. He's careful not to take all of the choice cuts, leaving the tongue as thanks (begrudgingly - Dima might catch him looking back longingly at it) as well as the beast's liver. Already he can hear birds circling and smell small predators lying in wait nearby; they'll eat well, and so will -
Yes. His family.
Sidebar: Make a note that as of today, Derzhena has not responded to any messages Dima has sent using Sending.
[note: .tbh dima probs would have used sending to attempt to contact derzhena's wife, lariya, after the third time derzhena didn't respond. or if that is too much after the fact saying, that will be his next attempt nod
<.>
Impossible to miss the signs in Faolan.
Unthinkable that he might veil the stagger of his own breath, the uproar of his pulse as his blood races, seethes with longing.
Let, oh let Fae see just what he does to Dima.
Let Puppy see how well his Daddy wants those hands, that knife. Hot breath and teeth so near his throat.
Let Faolan glimpse how well Dmitri wants the give of skin; the surge of rising blood. Sharpness cut across his own surface, driving gasps of blessed pain.
What nobody has given Dima. Not with fondness. Not with ferocity twined in tenderness. Dima’s known his own interest, and has known better than to ask for its infliction. (To do so would have been an opening toward weakness, to admission of predilections not worth risking on men not worth his time, not worth his trust.
He’d trust Faolan to take him to the very precipice of shadowed consciousness. Of course he trusts Fae with his life.)
Oh, what this man could do to him.
And Dima thinks, feels certain Faolan would wish it. Feels certain Fae thinks on it while he butchers his kill, that even as Fae’s eyes keep to his work, Puppy remains electrically aware of Dima’s presence, the potential of his willing, willfull blood. And he feels Fae’s presence like a gaze settled unyielding, like a promising of brilliant threat, like a blade drawn in ecstatic sharpness, its every shift a work of measured care.
Show me your fervor, my Puppy, he thinks, again and again in delicious chorus. Bring me to my blood. At times pausing in his own work to catch upon the graceful precision in Fae’s cutting, in the subtle flex of hands that can caress as easily as gift a wound. Yes, Dima needs to remind himself to breath here and there; yes, he knows a dizzy spinning of anticipation, of the promised breath of pleasure.
It isn’t an impulse to follow now. Not when Faolan is set upon this work; not when he has such cause to handle and preserve the meat that will sustain them. But it’s something to more than dream on. Something more to look ahead to. On the walk back to their camp, he clasps his hand tightly twined with Fae’s. Occasionally curling the brush of a finger, tender and appreciative. Neither pursuing the matter of the knife nor discarding its thought, though another thought, another word sings forward. Born by the form of the wolf and the blood at Faolan’s lip after, by the hover of a knife and the charge of Puppy’s presence, by the roiling within Dmitri’s own blood. He thinks, and feels a shiver in his ribs at the word, I could be your mate.
And leaning over, leaning upward, he sets a kiss to Faolan’s lip. “I’ve learned a great deal today, my Dearest. And you are remarkable.”
<.>
no subject
And delighted. He feels placid delight: Dima liked it. What almost happened. What could have happened, what might happen. Oh, not tonight; tonight he has a different plan. But another night when they can be alone, or maybe in broad daylight on the river's edge, he'll pin Daddy down -
Better not to think about that right now.
But he does catch Dima's jaw between two bloody fingers and his thumb and lean in for one more kiss, one more look with heavy-lidded, dreaming eyes. "If you'd like another lesson, all you ever need to do is...mm. Say."
Say. Command. Guide him -
A thought registers that knocks the air from his lungs and the smile from his lips. A vision, or a waking dream: Daddy, instructing him as he works his blade.
...They're not making it back to camp if he keeps thinking along these lines. With a heavy breath, he steps back, his trailing fingers leaving faint streaks of gore on Dima's jaw. "Back to the thieves? I'd rather not feel rushed from anything with you. Conversations. Lessons."
The potential drag of a knife.
"You deserve all my focus. All my precise care."
And, with a smile that shows more teeth than normal, he adds softly, "Daddy."
If there's no objection from Dima, he'll begin the trek back to camp with the deer meat.
<.>
"Wise Puppy," he murmurs. Words admiring and spun dizzy; words he doesn't knows he's speaking until he feels his breath against his lips.
(This is what people mean, then, when they speaking of going weak-kneed.
Before he met Faolan, Dima had never understood the phrase as anything other than exaggeration, but for a moment, several moments, it's lucky Faolan's against him, fingers clasping Dima's jaw, because there's no other force to keep him upright.)
Gods, he wants to call Puppy to his lesson.
It doesn't help that he hears the implication in that 'say.' An invitation to conjoin command and keen infliction, and that's a path Dmitri can't think down just now, or he's liable to give in to rushing. Which would be satisfying in its way, yes, but Dima's deeply inclined to agree with Fae: He wants to take his time with Puppy, to draw out and drown in every moment, hand-in-hand, body wrapping body.
So he grins back at Faolan, eyebrows raised, his own teeth flashed in promise. Speaking louder, more firmly this time: "Good Puppy."
And with his Puppy, Dima heads back to the camp.
When Rin - and, presumably, Sen - are etching lines in the dirt, playing some manner of game that may or may not be either tic tac crab or hangcrab and looking really very pleased abut something, as the crab dinner cooks. As Dima and Fae move closer, Rin calls without looking up, "Crab night!" Then, muttering to themself, debating the merit of the word: "Crabbit night?"
<.>
Before Dima can respond to the announcement of Crabbit Night, Faolan frowns faintly, then amends to Rin: "Crabbit for us; rabbit for Dima."
Quickly, he adds, "You caught all that today - that's wonderfully done, Rin. Both of you. We'll eat well tonight and dry the deer for the journey."
"Trying to sweeten us up and make us forget Dima won't be eating the crabbit?" Sen drawls, pushing a still-live crab back into its place on the tic-tac-crab board.
"I can give praise and distraction at the same time," Faolan replies. Between darting glances at Dima and the other two, he first hands over to Rin the berries he found, then sits on the ground and begins the work of slicing the venison.
“Why isn't Dima eating the crab portion of the crabbit?" Sen directs this question to Dima himself.
<.>
He thinks, again, again, he's very lucky; offers Faolan an appreciative smile before he can catch himself.
He thinks, as well, How? Before the pieces quickly fall to place: It's no secret in Morovsk that the Voronins have an aversion to - or, for those just a little further in the know, a familial allergy to - shellfish. It particularly wouldn't be a secret for anyone who visited more than a party or two of Daniil's, quick as the little shit is to advertise an allergy that Dima would much rather never goddamn acknowledge.
It feels humiliating, at times: To have this allergy so near the sea. To have this weakness widely known.
It's something Dmitri's tried to ignore and overcome on multiple occasions; the result has never been hopeful. And it's something Dima might have tried to ignore for this particular meal, had Faolan not spoken.
He clears his throat, shoots a sharp glance at Sen. "I find the creatures unsightly." There's a snarl in his voice, a warning—
Until he catches sight of Faolan, hesitates. Finds himself admitting, his lip ticked in a sneer, his irritation now directed toward himself: "And I would much prefer to carry on breathing tonight."
(It's... it's nice that Faolan was thinking of Dima, even if Dima doesn't care for the truth he knows. Skirting the truth felt a little too much like a betrayal, or like swatting aside the hand extended to aid him.
Well. And. Probably best to have some measure of the truth known, so neither thief gets it into their head to slip him some shellfish on a lark.)
Rin, who is in the middle of attempting to place a crown of hastily woven grass onto the crab in the middle square, looks up, then adds helpfully, "Ohhh. The crabs don't like you." Looking back down, they add, "Crabs can be persnickety like that, that's true."
<.>
Sen's response is almost immediate: he makes a disappointed sound. With it, he flaps a hand dismissively and turns back to his game of tic-tac-crab. Clearly, he had expected this to be a "won't" rather than "can't" situation and was hoping to bicker.
"No crabbit for you until you can self-resurrect." To Rin, he asks thoughtfully, "Do you suppose they like us? We are eating them."
Faolan casts another glance at Dima - one that lingers, becomes a slow regard from head to toe, full of appreciation before he remembers Dima didn't sound particularly pleased about the crabs. Or his allergy to them. Inclining his head invitingly for Dima to sit beside him, he waits until the half-elf is close enough for him to lower his voice and speak.
"Sorry. Your brother's so...um. Vocal about it. I should've asked."
And he speaks softer still, "You're not missing out on anything today. The rabbit's fatted and likely tender cooked. And I think those two might've been fucking by the crabs."
With his knife, Faolan indicates his nose. He can smell it.
<.>
Having managed to get the crown onto the crab, Rin is now arranging the berries in a bowl so that they look their berry best. (It's a nice selection of berries Faolan returned with. And it was nice of him to say about everything Rin and Sen gathered.
Faolan's pretty all right, in Rin's opinion. Not as good as Sen, of course - no one's anywhere near as good as Sen - but definitely all right!)
As they make their next tic-tac-move, Rin tries to offer a crab a berry, shrugs as the crab tries to scuttle away. "Well, they're don't like berries, and everyone has to like something, and since we're pretty much the only other thing here, that means they must like us, right?"
They think a moment, tapping at their cheek, then nod and add, "And it's nice to be appreciated. Probably these crabs know we appreciate them, which has got to count for something."
Thank every god that is and never was; Sen's dropped the fucking thing. (There's that much to be said for the shithead: He doesn't push at what's dire, or make much mockery of... Well. Of fucking weaknesses that can't be fucking helped.
All the godsfucked magic in the world and Dima would still be incapable of eating fucking shellfish.)
Dmitri might be shooting glowers toward the crabs, living and cooking alike. The glower stops when he feels Faolan's gaze upon him; when he turns, and sees that invitation. His irritation doesn't vanish, but its sharpness fades, and of course he joins Fae. Frowns at the mention of his brother, but the rest is—
He snorts, shakes his head. "An aftereffect of your wolf's shape?" And, casting an amused look toward the thieves, "It's a wonder neither of them were pinched in the process. A crab-ridden beach wouldn't be my first choice for—" 'Fucking'? That doesn't feel quite right. "For such worship.
"But then, they are peculiar. Both of them." The tone of his voice suggests 'peculiar,' but not held in dislike.
After a moment, letting his eyes return to Fae, letting himself take in the sight of the man, he sighs just slightly. "Daniil likes to make the 'inconvenience' known.
"I find it rather— This incapacity of mine. I find it rather galling."
<.>
It's Faolan's turn to snort. "Worship. Is that what you think they were doing."
Sen, in the midst of considering whether using the crabs for tic-tac-crab is a form of pre-cooking torture, veers from what he was beginning to say to, "Mind your business, Faolan."
At Fae's surprise for having been heard, the elf pantomimes the gesture Faolan used with his knife, though indicating his ears. Faolan tsks and returns his attention to the venison, though he casts a surreptitious, amused glance at Dima.
Sobering some, he leans closer so they're pressed shoulder to shoulder the way they had been when he was still in his other form. "Is it really incapacity to not be able to eat crabs? I think you could do what Daniil does with a little more finesse. Use it as a way to compel others to cater to you. It's not your inconvenience, then. It's theirs."
Almost abruptly, he darts a kiss against Dima's cheek, then, eyes on his work again, continues, "Not mine, either. I prefer game to fish, so we'll never have a wretched dinner together."
<.>
The kiss catches him by surprised, please and fluttered light, and it's entirely possible that Fae can glimpse a brief flush of color at Dima's cheeks, discernible as a soft laugh is drawn from him, as he bites his lip lightly, and looks to Faolan with a smile—
Then darts his own kiss - an arcing, graceful path - to the edge of Fae's jaw.
Spoken softly, purred light like pattered rainfall: "My Fae.”
Amazing - and, really, not so astonishing at all; doesn't it make perfect sense? - the way Dima's heart lights to speak those words, or 'my Puppy,' or 'Puppy,' or any way of speaking his (love's) (mate's) Dearest's name.
"You're very good to me, Puppy." Then, speaking louder, more than a little pointedly toward Sen, "And I suppose what they were up to was a good deal more unholy."
From across the clearing, Rin pipes up, "And much more fun!"
Dima shakes his head, rolls his eyes, then returns his focus to Faolan. Watching his work, the slip of deft hands, as he speaks again: "I care little for— Mm. It isn't in my nature to brook circumstances that stand beyond my will or alteration.
"I don't— Care for it." There's a sniff and a toss of his hair. Then, frustration fading again: "That said, I'm pleased that we'll have many happy dinners together. Countless ahead of us, I should say." He lets himself smile, lets himself trace a hand beside Fae's ear - carefully, so as not to interrupt - and then—
"As it happens, I am equipped to manage any of Daniil's endeavors with infinitely more finesse. But that's saying very little."
Dima might. Might. Still be particularly annoyed about Daniil after his talk with (last talk with) (fucking, never mind) Vitaly. And it occurs to him that he never spoke a word of it beyond the message sent to his sister. So.
"...I don't believe I told you. I don't believe I've told any of you, in the midst of all that happened. But it has reached my ears that my shit of a brother may have thrown in his hand for one of Calabra's daughters."
<.>
The sudden shift from lighthearted banter and, yes, kisses, catches both Sen and Faolan by surprise. (In both of their estimations, it's hard to say what catches Rin by surprise. Ever.)
Dima does have their attention. Faolan has stopped carving, staring blankly now at the man at his side, and Sen is casting perplexed glances between Dima and Rin.
"Doesn't he dislike your family?" Faolan asks carefully. "Can't be anything good to come out of it. He -"
A beat and then a faint curl of his lip. "Oh, was that who the letter was for? Nngh."
Sen, having no familiarity with Daniil, comments, "Can't have been. Whoever that was, they'd been carrying on a while with Calabra. You'd have known by now."
Seeing the look Faolan is trying very hard to hide, Sen amends, "Wouldn't you?"
<.>
He hadn't.
Precisely.
Intended to bring things to a halt.
He also doesn't like to have brought his brother into any manner of extended discussion.
Nor does he like to admit how fucking little he knows, or knew of Daniil's activities. And Dmitri is looking from Faolan to Sen, attempting to decide how to respond, feeling a gathering storm in his mind as he thinks that yes he should have known, should have at least guessed at the potential, only it doesn't make a fucking bit of sense, not that sense has mattered a damn to his brother, and Dima's beginning to hear his blood pounding in his ear when—
"Man, your brother's gonna be pisssssed when he finds out about the. Trunks and whetstone and tiny portrait man. Whatever his name was." Rin, who hadn't entirely been paying attention, finally caught onto what was being discussed. Looking at Dima, they add, "I didn't really know you had a brother."
Dima snorts a breath. "I regularly wish I didn't."
There's a silence after, where Dima looks at the other party members, then at the fire. Where he scoots closer still to Faolan, and winds an arm around his Puppy's waist. Seeking stability. Seeking proof of something bright. And wanting to let Fae know that Dima - however abstracted - is still here.
"There are times - rare times - that my brother is capable of discretion." Particularly when he wants something his siblings might cut off. "And I have been away from Morovsk for months now." Away physically, and before that, internally distanced, distracted; his attention drawn often into half-sensical quandaries and perhaps-imagined threats.
"It wouldn't be wise of him, but it is Daniil's habit to act ahead of wisdom. I can't say he wouldn't attempt a fuckforsaken pact of this kind."
And, looking at Fae - his expression a mingling of plea, apology, and frustration - "It is entirely possibly that the letter was for him. I am not entirely convinced— But it's another potential signpost not to be dismissed."
<.>
no subject
When Dima's settled, Fae nudges temple to temple, smiling rather happily despite the sourness of the topic at hand.
"Daniil is...mm..." He had begun to explain the man in particularly ungenerous terms, but then thought maybe Dima might not care to hear him speaking so baldly about the Voronins.
And then changes his mind again, thinking Dima would probably enjoy it.
"Spoiled. And I don't mean in the sense of wealth and silver spoons; I mean he's a spoiled shit who thinks the world turns on his whims. And he doesn't care much for Dima or Derzhena, so it's no surprise he'd go around them if it might benefit him." Here, he muses silently for a moment before commenting, "Don't know what he'd do with a wife. Never seen him with a woman before. If that letter was for him, the 'offers' might be a little hollow."
Sen is staring at Faolan with a cocked head and an arched brow. The stick he's been using to shepherd crabs back to the 'board' is now pointed Fae's way as he directs his words to Rin. "Do you hear how he talks about his in-laws? Merciless, him."
"They aren't -" Faolan tries to argue hastily, but Sen interrupts - ignores - him with, "Torrio, wasn't it? Trunks and tiny portrait man?"
<.>
It takes very little coaxing; Fae affords a nudging indication, and Dmitri moves readily, as if toward - yes toward -relief. Toward an easing against a world that had begun to turn itself toward jagged edges, toward pitfalls seen and pitfalls only guessed at. (Toward existence as it had begun to shape itself in the months leading up to his— His travels. His exile.
If he thinks about it. When he thinks about it. Dmitri understands that his life in Morovsk had begun a kind of flaring hell. Understands that what he saw hadn't matched up with what was; that he'd taken shadows for fact, but then he'd had reason, there was always some manner of wretchedness afoot.)
How lucky he is now - how safe - to sit here with his Faolan, guarded, surrounded. How much more easily he exhales as Fae's temple nudges his own; as he nudges back, eyes slipped briefly shut. The better to feel his (love's) (mate's) Puppy's presence. The better to know that there's beauty in his existence, and that whatever is happening in Morovsk, whatever's happening across these chaos-stricken territories, there is infinite reason to continue seeking onward, and infinite cause to know that he is and will be well, with Faolan beside him.
It doesn't hurt that Fae speaks scathing and apt words regarding Dima's shit of a brother. Dima snort a laugh at the words and, yes, nods agreement regarding the 'offers'; he knows enough of Daniil's preferences to understand how hollow the words would be, though of course it'd matter little in making a marriage to attempt outflanking Dmitri and Derzhena.
The fucking piss-monger.
He's about to speak when Sen butts in, and Dima's thoughts turn soft-edged again, dizzied. He almost didn't notice the implication, it felt so godsdamned natural. (Of course Fae's in-laws; of course.) And though he hears Faolan's attempted response, there's no trouble in it; the words don't feel like an attempt to sever himself from Dima, or Dmitri can't at all believe it's so. The hand that brushes Fae's thigh presses, lingers; suggests that maybe, maybe, it could become the truth. Suggests that Dima just might like it.
It's while Dima's caught in brief dreaming that Rin nods enthusiastically to Sen. "That! That one. Torrio. The one who—" Shit. Right. Right, he was the one who did Payl in and sent him off to ghost-land. Rin frowns and shakes their head. "The guy who thinks he's top shit, yeah."
Rin tosses a berry to Sen, and, "Someone's going to end up pretty unhappy with Calabra.
"...I guess most people would be pretty unhappy with him. At his big table all along, hoarding the rolls."
Dima's going to ignore the remark about the rolls. "'Unhappy' is a word for it, and you're correct. Calabra has been offering his daughters liberally, as I understand. That these asinine 'hopefuls' should include my brother—" He shakes his head, draws an arm around Fae's leg and nudges up against him, "The little idiot's being played, if he's attempted any offer at all. Clever as he thinks he is - and clever as he most decidedly is not - there's little chance that he suspects it."
The little shit is going to make a fool of their family, and he thinks he's bound to profit. For fuck's sake. "He is spoiled, yes; you've said it perfectly, Fae. And if I could reach my sister, we'd do well to learn whether Daniil or Calabra reached out first."
A thought. A grimace, because it occurs to Dima that he. Could. Attempt to contact Daniil directly.
Ah, fuck.
<.>
Sen catches the berry with a swift movement, serpentine almost, so that it lands directly in his mouth. He straightens, looking particularly pleased with himself in spite of the current conversation.
"Why don't you do whatever it is you wealthy sort do with your problems? Lock him up somewhere or quietly send him with Payl?" Sen's only half-serious about that. But. But it's not not something he would do, in Dima's shoes, if his own brother was trying to get around him like so. (Then again, he doesn't have a brother, so really he has no idea what drives such decisions.)
Fae isn't keeping up with the conversation. He's focused on Dima's hand on his thigh and the meaning he could attribute to it. The way Dima touched just then hearkens back to their conversation about rings, giving him a melancholy little twist in his stomach. (Like a stone dropping, sinking him.) (He wishes -)
(He wishes Dima wouldn't try to lead him along like that. They both know it won't happen. It's a pretty thing to dream about, and he has been dreaming about it, but he knows reality will hit eventually. What they are is what they can be; it's better not to speak about it, or let the thieves think it, or -)
By the time the conversation winds around to contacting Derzhena, Faolan realizes he hasn't been paying attention enough to know what they're talking about. What he does know is he feels hollow inside, and Dima is holding on to his leg and nestling tight against him.
(...If Dima told him. If he asked, if he, maybe, commanded it. What then? Could he refuse? Would he?
If Daddy said it?)
He shivers faintly, what could be nothing at all, or could be telltale to Dima.
He needs to focus. He needs to stop thinking about the hand that graced his leg.
"She hasn't responded yet?" he managed, gathering the notion from pieces of scattered awareness. "How long would it usually take her to reply?"
<.>
[q: did dima receive a response from anecitus when he used Sending to let him know about boat attack?
a: He did not.]
Sen's catch earns a cheer from Rin, and a round of applause— Then an attempt at making the crowned crabs clap its claws. (This crab, they have decided, is named Garvis and will not be eaten!)
In response to Sen's question, Dima shakes his head. "It isn't so simple as that."
It could be that simple. It isn't unheard of in Morovsk for a particularly troublesome member of a high-ranking family to disappear. It certainly isn't outside of Dmitri's capacity, or his sister's.
But there were promises made long ago, and for all of Daniil's shit-minded ploys, he is still one of the Voronins. There's something to be said (is there, really?) for maintaining, preserving their family (the family that remains; the family that didn't fuck off to nowhere or to a haven of high elves). There's a loyalty that Dima's can't quite break from.
His focus shifts to Faolan. More properly, his focus fixes on what feels like an absence; as if his Puppy's drifted from him somewhat. (As if something gone awry.) (As if Dmitri's turned something awry.) Though it takes a moment, a few pieces draw together: Sen's suggestion of in-laws; Faolan's truncated rejoinder; a conversation concerning rings, and futures that seem perhaps improbable, perhaps impossible to a man who has been so often shoved aside.
Dima knows a clenching in his heart. Is intending to caress his Fae when he feels—
Oh. That shiver.
Looking upward at Fae, he smiles, grin crooked, slightly sharp and rooted in admiration. And before he addresses Faolan's question, he speaks softly, reaching upward to cup Fae's cheek - briefly, briefly, so as not to keep him from his work for long - "It's all right, Puppy.
"My Fae; my adoration."
A flex of his fingers, a slight roll of his palm to better press Fae's cheek, and then Dima returns to speaking loud enough for the group to hear: "The response is met to be immediate. As far as I understand, the channel's window of receptivity is small.
"I may have simply contacted her at inopportune moments." A slight shrug of one shoulder, and, "She may have chosen not to speak with me.
"Or I may have—" Another irritated tick of his lip. "No; I've cast it correctly.
"But I've had no response to any message sent this way.
"And it strikes me as odd that Derzhena, at least, has not responded once."
<.>
Fae, caught by Dima's hand and held there, possessed, only watches his love with cautious eyes; he thinks Dima doesn't understand. He thinks Dima may believe his lack of faith is because he's been so often shoved aside, when the truth is, in the beginning he was only shoved aside because he's not nobility.
And now he is what he is. A whore, an outcast, a hermit. More wolf than man.
Certainly nothing a noble could ever think to bring home and call his equal. Especially if said noble is the head of the family.
These thoughts circle in his head and he does try to set them aside, but - but. It would be so much simpler if Dima would just accept what is, rather than the fantasy.
(It isn't all right at all.)
Sen is looking around at the mountains rising above the trees, and at the water, and wonders out loud, "What if there's - oh, some impediment? The mountains, or magical influence. Fuck do I know about magic, really, but maybe it's not you or her at all. Try reaching someone else."
By now, Faolan has set the knife down and opted to wind his arms around Dima's waist. He rests his cheek on the other man's shoulder, face turned away, eyes on the woods. (Where would they - will they - live? Can he take Dima away from comfort? Can he, himself, be content to live in Morovsk?) ((It's all doomed to end, isn't it?))
He holds tighter.
Having spoken his piece, Sen holds up a berry for Rin, giving them ample time to ready themself to catch it. He misses, however, and looks askance at the intertwined pair. "You're oozing that melancholy and throwing off my aim. Dima, fix your druid before he spoils supper."
Seeing that most of the venison has been sliced, though, Sen rises and dusts off, broaches the distance and takes over the task of drying the meat over the fire. When Faolan tries to protest, Sen starts to sing - loudly - an impromptu song about crabbit, tieflings, and berries.
<.>
He could point out that he has attempt reaching someone else, but then Anicetus scarcely counts - of course the fucker would've held his silence - and Kozak had been... Well. A perhaps over-hopeful shot in the dark.
He could also point out that the mountains have fuckall to do with anything— But then. It might be a question worth asking. And the matter of potential magical interference catches his mind. Because if Dima is the problem, it might not be a matter of his own casting. It's something to look into, and much as he doesn't precisely care for the thought, he may look into Sen's own capacities for magical detection, for discerning whether Dmitri has somehow been cursed, or otherwise impacted. He'll ask into Faolan's as well, of course.
Later.
Later, because beside him, against him, Faolan's distance seems only to increase. There's unease in his being, even as he curls around Dima; there was wariness - worrisome, but oh, doesn't Puppy always have long-learned causes for caution? - in his eyes. And he's looking off, holding almost too tight.
Something's wrong. Something terribly unsettled in Dima's Fae.
Dima can't bring himself to snipe at Sen as he grouses, approaches. What he offers instead - brief but genuine - is a look of appreciation. The shithead knows precisely what he's doing, and Dima takes the cue. Drifting a hand to card Fae's hair and speaking softly, "There's a mossy patch beneath a tree nearby. We're going to move there, sit there together, Puppy.
"Let's have a rest."
And with softness twining clear-lined command: "Up, Dearest."
That spoken, Dmitri twines his hand in Fae's and rises - slowly, carefully and yes, reluctantly drawing himself from Fae's embrace - then grasps Faolan's arm, guiding him toward a tree a brief distance from their camp.
When they draw to a halt, he winds one arm around Faolan's waist, drifts the other hand to trace his cheek, his hair. To fold his hand and brush the knuckles light against Fae's cheek, then settle lightly, lightly there.
And leaning upward, there's a kiss for his Faolan; brushed lips, then lingering, lingering. Between brushes, Dima's voice soft velvet, "My Fae. My dearest Fae."
When he draws apart - slightly, subtle - it's to give Fae's arm and waist a gentle, downward tug. "Sit with me, Puppy.
"I want your company without interruption. As I want you: Always. Oh, always."
Dima moves now to sit, and if Fae follows, he'll draw the man against him, draws his cheek to Dima's shoulder, know his breath near Dima's throat. "It was what Sen said, yes?" A moment, and his hand begins it brush through Fae's hair. "We needn't talk about it, Faolan. But his words sounded right to me. Ah, I regret to saddle you with any connection to my brother— But you need never speak with him, if you prefer.
"I want you in my family.
"You are my family, Fae. Just as you are in my heart, my bones.
"Do you know how vital you are to me? Your necessity, my Dearest, is as critical as breathing.
"What I've promised you— The ring. I understand belief is difficult. And it's all right to doubt. Someday, my Fae, you'll know. Until then, and with every breath beyond, I will be hear beside you. Your Dmitri, your Daddy, your Dima."
[an q: would dima have any reason to suspect the mountains/environment or something about the mountains/environment woulD be intervening with the Sending spell?
ARC, d: 18
Dima really doesn't know the environment or surrounding societies well enough to say whether there might be some artificial impediment; however, he knows there's nothing natural that would prevent his messages from getting through via the Sending spell.]
Also please to note, while Sen works on the meat, Rin is going to go about shaking the claws of the tic-tac-crab stars and ushering them back toward the river.
[NAT, r: 17
The crabs seem pleased by the handshakes and, with their obliviousness to the deaths of their comrades, follow Rin to the river in a little herd.]
Rin tells Sen they'll be back very soon, but first they have a parade to lead!
They point to the crabs behind them, naming off each, before starting down to the river, picking up on the song Sen had begun and adding little twists and turns for everything crab, and of course for Sen, and for Mykola also.
<.>
no subject
Eventually, he finds himself sitting with Dima near, the ghost of a touch lingering at his cheek and the memory of a kiss on his lips.
Every word Dima speaks feels like collapse on Faolan's lungs, not because he thinks Dima is lying, but because he knows he isn't. Because he knows Dima believes what he's saying. He keeps his cheek pressed to Dima's shoulder but still sighs - defeated.
Isn't it strange how he feels terribly defeated lately? How the oncoming losses weigh so heavily, perhaps more heavily than the past ones? (No 'perhaps' about it.)
Dima wants to have this conversation. Or rather, Dima won't let him avoid it this time.
When he can bring himself to speak, he says quietly, "Suppose there is a ring, my love. Suppose you take me into your family. The one you can't disregard or destroy; promises, yes? You made promises? What sort of destruction will it bring on them if you were to make me your equal?"
He straightens so he can give Dima the full of his regard. "You can't abandon them, either. You can't say you'll simply run off to play house with me in the forest.
"You've heard, haven't you? A bird and a fish may fall in love, but where will they live?"
He smiles sadly at this, then shakes his head and turns his regard to the mossy ground. He fingers a budding plant thoughtfully, delicately. "We could be happy. I could be - what I am. What I've been. No rings, no title. No one to try and part us for scandal's sake, because I'll have remembered my place."
He looks sidelong at Dima and implores softly, "You say you would give me a ring to show me my worth to you. I would be happy without one. I would be content to take up again what I was to show your worth to me. Isn't that enough?"
<.>
Faolan's speaking - in spite of clear reluctance to voice his concerns, his thoughts; in spite of what must be a growing pain and weariness - and that's far better than something.
As Fae speaks, Dima watches him with unwavering focus, strokes a hand along his arm. Winding his own arm tighter around his Puppy. Not interrupting, not allowing himself to interrupt until Fae's come to silence.
"My Fae; it is not enough for you, or for your worth. Not in my eyes. Not in my knowing.
“No, Dearest; I won’t permit it.
“I trust that you find worth in me. I cannot believe you would be happy shunted to the side, treated as something less than equal, less than the wild brilliance you are. And— Mm. Know this, at least: It would be misery for me. To treat you as a secret; to betray you in my every breath.
“Happiness kept in shadow, severed from the sun, is no true joy. My Dearest, I want you beside me in all ways.
“And I’m pleased, Faolan, I’m proud of you for giving voice to your thoughts. For sharing them with me— Thank you.”
Lifting Fae’s hand, he settles a kiss upon the palm. Then folds it, and draws it to his chest.
“Regarding my family, you needn’t worry. My sister will accept you when she knows I—“ ’Love,’ how he wants to say ‘love,’ but now isn’t the time; now is another fraught moment, and though the word echoes in Dima’s hesitation, he manages to hold it quiet. “—favor you. I don’t doubt she’ll thank you for what you’ve brought to me. I am—“ There’s a huffed laugh, soft and self-deprecating. “Ah, Fae, I am far more myself now, with you, than I have been for months. Years, perhaps. I am far more capable, and I daresay far less vulnerable to my self-injurant impulses."
“You bring me to myself; Derzhena will see that. Lariya, her wife, will see that. And I expect Lariya will like you well.
“Whatever Morovsk might say, my family will prevail. We’re no strangers to scandal; Dearest, you must have heard. When my sister’s husband passed suddenly. When she remarried a woman of no name. When our father took an elven woman in marriage, and dared to present their offspring as his heirs. When my father fled, and left our name within our hands.
“Instances that scarcely tell the half of it. Instances that don’t begin to touch upon my own… Mm. Impulsive, ill-thought lessons.”
He shakes his head, brushing away certain recent memories, incidents— Just for now. This isn’t the time for those, either. “I heard more often than I can count that I did not ‘know my place’; that my siblings and I would bring our home and bring Morovsgorod to ruin. And yet here I am. And yet the Voronins hold strong, hm?”
He shifts himself to draw onto Fae’s lap. Arm moving to wrap behind his Puppy’s shoulders; hand moving its caress to brush his cheek.
“Look at me, my Puppy: I’ve thought ahead. I do little else but think ahead. And I promise: I can protect you, just as well as myself.
“I will do both, readily, gladly.
“Just as I will readily leave Morovsk if you can find no peace there. Faolan, many of my duties can be performed away from the city, and ‘many’ could be turned to ‘all.’ If it comes to total absence, my family will endure regardless, and I will regret nothing.
“How could I regret anything, when I have the world in you?”
There’s a kiss for one cheek, then the other. There’s a nuzzling of Fae’s temple with Dima’s cheek. And Dima speaks again: “We are neither fish nor bird, nor liable to bend to any rules of man or nature.
“You are tenacious, my Fae; so is your Dima.
“I want you with me, always.
“I want you as my Dearest and my Puppy. As my husband and my mate.”
<.>
In his head, Faolan had been building up arguments to counter everything Dima has proposed. There were, there are many holes in the plans laid before them, so many pitfalls Dima hasn't considered (and, true, many aspects of Dima's family Faolan hadn't know, but that shouldn't matter.)
Then Dima said a word, and nothing else could exist in Faolan's mind except for that word, a burning radiance, a key sliding into place and turning an unsuspected lock.
His breath catches and eyes go distant, then focus again on Dima - stricken. Wondering.
Mate.
Oh, he liked the sound of 'husband', but -
Dima knows what he is. Dima knows what exists inside him, the howling, violent creature (but not evil, only nature refined, only all his primal pieces collected into a single canid form.)
It was never a word on his own tongue, and why would he ever consider it when no man would choose the wolf inside him, the wilds he inhabits? When the men he knows want civilization, want safety and brick walls, and oh, Dima would follow him into the woods.
(Dima would find a wolf's form for himself. Faolan's sure of it.)
'Husband' is a word wound up in complexity and strife, but 'mate' is simple. 'Mate' is something enduring, irreproachable and sacred, wound through with vines and painted in blood. It sings of sheltered, earthen dens, of hunts run side-by-side. Of knifes and teeth and claws, nights spent twining beside burning campfires and days lazy in the sun.
He must have echoed the word. He echoes it again, testing it, nodding before he realizes he's decided he likes it. That Dima is, yes, his mate.
The slithering pleasure in his stomach climbs and climbs until it becomes a radiant smile that reaches his eyes in a wholly new way. (A smile for Dima alone.) (A smile for his mate.)
"My mate. That, I'll accept," he whispers. "That's what we can be, and nothing can tear it from us."
<.>
It could have gone badly—
No. No, Dima doesn't believe that in the least; felt from the start the resonance of the word, and somewhere knew that Faolan would feel its rightness. If he'd worried some over the timing (he hasn't had so very long to worry, has he?) (it didn't take long at all for the word to leap from his throat; he couldn't hold it to himself; he couldn't, wouldn't withhold it from Faolan), he felt and feels the word to be a form that holds his meaning better than almost any other.
It's a word untouched by the hands of men, of any humanoids; a word unmarred by all that roils in the sniping rumors of entangled cities. A word that tells of freedom, of racing among forests, fields, plains, anywhere, oh anywhere at all.
A word that tells how Dima would go anywhere, be anything with Fae.
A word for the wolf, just as well as the man.
When Faolan echoes the word - when his own voice tests 'mate,' begins to make it his own - its rightness roots itself further, and Dima thinks that alongside 'love' (a future word for giving, sharing; a future word, but certain to be spoken, already implied), there may be no truer term for what they are together. And yes, and yes, his insides thaw anew upon that speaking.
When Faolan smiles now, the sky turns into sunbursts; Dmitri's vision to dazzled upheaval. (Oh, if he could bring his Fae, his mate to smile like that often, always.) (He thinks, with a leap in his chest, that he will see that smile again, will bring and be cause for that smile again, and gods, gods, that thought sets him soaring all over again.)
And Dima smiles, bright in kind, with a happy nudge to Faolan's forehead, with a gentle tug of his teeth - not biting, not pressing hard at all - to Fae's ear. Then softly kisses his cheekbone, his cheek, the side of his lip, and speaks—
"It's what we are, my Puppy.
"It's what we will always be."
He brushes back a few strands of Fae's hair, his smile gone cock-eyed, still beaming. "The rest will follow, but oh, Fae, you are my mate, and I am utterly your own."
<.>
no subject
Eventually Liv returns from her scouting expedition, worn from flight.
[1) a q: who ended up with the Ring of Swimming? i cannot remember and didn't write it down go me :/
2) before fae and dima nightventure, dima is going to try sending again if he may yy
- The Ring of Swimming is up for grabs; neither Sen nor Fae need it.
note: rin will take the ring of swimming since as they point out dima has plenty of rings
- Dima may attempt sending again. Who is he Sending to?
nerys!
- Make a Perception check for Liviana, and make an Insight check for Dima to understand what she tells him she may or may not have seen.
PERC, l: 18
INS, d: 10]
Liv attempts to relate to Dima her findings; what Dima sees is a flash of forested mountainsides, a winding pass barren of travelers, and flocks of birds rising in a gust from the trees near sunset, then settling again.
<.>
Dima will convey these images to the party as he saw them, without attempt at further interpretation. He'll look to Faolan particularly as he does so, asking whether he - or any of the party - makes anything of the information.
Dima is particularly curious about the birds, and their rise and settling.
[q: does he recognize the kind of birds Liviana conveyed, or anything about them?
a: There's no specific kind of bird; it was more like...all the birds in those trees rose up in a big burst and then settled again.
NAT, f: 5
...Faolan has no idea what that could mean.]
Rin, taking the cue from Dima's interest in the birds - always ready to fixate as they do on particular details - would like to see whether they can figure anything from the described image/pattern.
They might just. Not. Have any skill set for judging tbh.
[INS, r: crit fail!
Rin thinks maybe the birds were dancing.
note: Rin is in fact certain of it!!]
Meanwhile, Dima is going to thank Liviana for her information. And quietly apologize for noT being able to translate. He will be keeping the images/info in mind as they continue on.
Dima also is indeed going to try to reach Nerys with the following message: "Nerys. Did you learn anything regarding Calabra and Gower's daughter? In twenty-five words."
<.>
Dima receives a response from Nerys: "Nothing on the girl. Calabra en route to Mysos via High Road. Sending assistance. Meet at Mysos side of Borderlands."
It can be deduced from this response that, in deciding to follow the river, the party did manage to avoid the danger on the high road - but also missed a chance to intercept Calabra.
<.>
Dima is equal parts relieved that some message made it through, irritated about Calabra, and pricked with wariness at his sister's nonresponsiveness.
He'll convey Nerys's exact words to the party, asking whether they'd like to make their way toward the high road and attempt to meet this assistance.
It might be discernible that he's frustrated at having missed the chance to intercept Calabra, though he's attempting to hide it.
...Dima would also like to try reaching Lariya via Sending. He can cast it three times and wants to save one for responding to Nerys. Dima attempts to reach Lariya with: "Traveling toward Mysos. Troubled news from Loch Bien. What news of Morovsk and Derzhena? In twenty-five words. Thank you, Lariya."
It is probably clear to the party that he's casting the spell again; they'll see him perform the necessary motions, and see him murmuring words, though the content is perhaps indiscernible, very hushed.
[PERCENTILE ROLL, d: 89
dm roll: nat 20]
<.>
Lariya’s response follows: "All is well. Daniil is his usual self. Derzhena apologizes for her lack of response and will explain later. Stay safe."
<.>
Dima feels. Quite a bit better after that.
Dima also intends to send Nerys one more as a response, but will wait to hear from the party re: travel direction. He'll also tell the party they needn't decide now; he can always tell Nerys they'll send word of whether or not they'll bE at the high road in the morning.
<.>
Fae thinks they should continue following the river to the mountain pass. Sen is still sulking about his last attempt to guide the group and tuts at the potential change in plans.
If Liviana is asked for input -
[liv very much is asked!
INS, d: nat 20]
Dima receives a strong image of daylight, the sun shining, and ominous images of sunset, shadows stretching long and twisting into strange shapes. It's clear Liv is okay with the mountain path so long as the party travels by daylight only.
<.>
Dima will give Liviana a scritch beneath the chin, then tell the party what she's told him.
Rin says they've gotten pretty attached to the river and maybe there will be more crabs! Maybe after that mountain crabs? They're down to continue on this way.
Dima is, to the surprise of no one, very good with following Faolan and Liviana's instincts, and remains not particularly eager to travel near the high road.
His suggestion will be to ask Nerys to send the assistance to the nearest city they're liable to come upon.
Dima would. Like to check with the group and with himself wrt whether they're liable to come near/stop by Riversdown en route to Exningley.
[dm: It's way, way out of the way. Riversdown is a good two days' detour at least.]
And finally, Dima responds to Nerys with his thanks and an indication that they'll be following the river, so if the assistance doesn't find them near the road, they might meet up in Mysos proper.
[note: Nerys doesn't respond to this, which likely just means he had nothing to say.]
One last q from Dima for the moment: Does anyone in the party - Dima himself included - have any sense of what manner of perils the mountains usually/generally hold? For spell prep purposes.
[NAT
s: 9
f: 14
d: 14
r: 15]
<.>
Sen has only vague notions that the mountains are, like most wilderness, dangerous.
The rest of the party knows there are humanoid creatures that live in the more secluded places, as well as a variety of beasts that COULD call the mountains their ecosystem.
No one's really sure what specifically lives in these mountains, but it's probably a good idea to have a mix of combat and defensive/warding spells.
And if Dima wants to go over Fae's spell choices - which he will prepare next morning - he will ofc run them by Daddy.
<.>
[A look ahead to the next morning—
Dima will, I think, test that ground with a gentle command. Which will be, I think, "Show Daddy your spells, won't you, Puppy?"
And when he’s seen the list Dima very much approves of this list, and remarks on the balance shown among damage types and damage versus aid. It looks as though between Fae and Dima, they have a fairly thorough range of damage types covered.
Dima also asks Faolan to walk him through the workings of the druidic spells he's prepared, mostly because Dima's curious about Fae's magic, just as he's curious about Fae period thanks.
So when Fae preps his spells in the morning, this occurs! And Fae will likewise watch Dima’s own prep in the morning, and he will love watching this process.
Note that Dima literally. Sits with his books. Makes notes. Mutters to himself a loT. Practicing the gestures. Fae may watch all he likes! ;.; Also, Dima will be asking Fae about his magic in a way that is very clearly not even a little bit self-conscious about his own lack of knowledge in this regard.]
<.>
Just after supper, Sen had murmured something to Rin before rising, dusting himself off, and intercepting Faolan just as he was returning from relieving himself in the nearby woods.
"Let's take a walk."
Faolan had cast a glance back at the fire - back at Dima, whose back was to them - then ventured, "I should ask -"
"Just a moment or two of your time. I want a word about him without him slinking halfway up your side." Sen's face had been half-shadowed, but Faolan thought he saw something friendly in his smile. He had felt no telltale clench of warning that might have arisen if anyone else had spoken those words.
He had followed Sen away from their camp to the river's edge, then down a hundred yards or so: far enough to be out of ear-shot of either Rin or Dima. With that same friendly smile and tone to match, Sen had turned to face him and asked, "What the fuck is wrong with you?"
Faolan had been too stunned to respond, and Sen had given no quarter. "Dima clearly wants to marry you. He's a breath from humming wedding marches and looks as lovesick as a young girl whenever he has the opportunity to say your name.
"Why are you behaving as though the world's set to end any time there's mention of the future he wants with you? No, don't deny that, you started *pouting* in a little pool of your own self-sympathy earlier because I had the nerve to suggest the Voronins would be your in-laws."
Feeling as though the wind had been knocked from him, Faolan had managed only, "You don't understand."
"Which part?"
"It's complicated, Sen. It's -"
"Is it? Is it really all that complicated, or are you just *scared*?"
"I'm not!" Faolan had felt a rising defensive outrage.
"What's the problem, then?"
"I'm not any equal of his. Don't any of you understand, it'll ruin his name if I agreed to that, if we lived in Morovsk - people would never forgive the scandal -"
"And?"
"What?"
"Dima seems aware of that. It seems to me he's willing to face it."
"He says that now, but -" Abruptly, Faolan had stopped, had dropped his gaze. Sen had made a sound then as though he'd found confirmation.
"But? Go ahead. Finish the sentence."
Defiantly, Faolan snapped, "But in ten years, he won't be saying it."
"And?"
"And what, you shit?"
"In ten years, you've prophesied he won't be saying he's willing to face the scandal. What's the problem with that?"
Faolan's mouth had pressed to a thin line; he hadn't responded, so Sen responded for him.
"The problem is, you think he's going to blame you? Resent you?"
The strength had eked out of Faolan; he had felt flayed open. (Exposed.) Quietly, he'd replied, "He will."
Sen's tone had softened and a large, slender hand had come to rest on Faolan's shoulder. He had looked up to see that the elf was bending just enough to look eye-to-eye with him before speaking. "Faolan. What the fuck does it matter? Your job isn't to anticipate all the mistakes that might make him unhappy in ten years. It's to be happy now, and make him happy if you can - and you can. Why don't you stop mourning something you haven't lost and may never lose? Why don't you try to make him so happy, he never has cause for regret?
"I think Dima would agree, by far the best response to any scandalmongering you'll encounter is happiness with your choices."
Faolan had once again found himself too dumbfounded to speak.
"If nothing else, you'll stop boring the rest of us with your misery. Poor Faolan, getting everything he could ever want." He had tsked, had shaken Faolan in a friendly sort of way, then shoved him gently back towards camp. "Think it over. Stop ruining my appetite."
<.>
no subject
Faolan, who has been pretending he doesn't notice any anticipation from Dima and possibly acting as though he forgot, lets the hours sort of...drag out? until it's well past dark.
[note: Dima Keeps Looking At Him. Trying to play it cool nbdnbd.]
Eventually, he rises from the campfire, stretches, yawns as though so terribly tired - then catches Dima's eye and starts to laugh, knowing he's not really fooling anyone. He'll hold out a hand in invitation, and if Dima accepts, he'll - without any shame at all - put on the Goggles of Night so he can lead his mate back to the spring without having to take a different form.
<.>
Gods, how he adores this man.
Fae's laughter draws a huffed laugh of Dima's own, and of course he accepts Fae's hand; hasn't he been anticipating it all evening?
Rising, he cocks an eyebrow, a crooked smile— Attempting wryness, unable to contain its warmth. "A very daring look, my Dearest."
And yes, Faolan is getting a kiss to the jaw before they head off anywhere. And yes, Dmitri keeps his hand, letting the sounds a night's creatures, night's breeze, and the approach of falling water drift around them.
<.>
"Less daring than stumbling around in the dark," he murmurs with a lopsided smile of his own.
He's quiet until they approach the spring; it seems almost as though their twined hands hold all of his focus, and occasionally his thumb brushes a slow arc along Dima's skin.
He doesn't stop at the water, but rather follows it around to the rockface where the waterfall has formed. Before they reach the cascade, before his voice can be drowned out by the minor roar of water, he asks, "Do you remember what we talked about on the dock that night? The places we'd been, the stars and waters we saw?"
He doesn't wait for an answer; picking his way carefully over the sand and stones, he leads Dima to the waterfall itself - and behind it, where the rocks form a natural opening, barely four feet high. They have to stoop to pass inside.
The way the cave has formed, the waterfall's roar is muted, distant, as though they've stepped into a different, parallel world.
Faolan takes off the goggles.
Dima can see why immediately: this is the cave Faolan spoke of: dotting the walls and ceiling are thousands of spots of blue light. In the water, glowing fish swim in lazy spirals.
<.>
He feels Faolan's touch like incandescent shimmer, a light that guides him truer than his own sight. There's no pause as Fae heads toward the water; no doubt that Puppy knows precisely what he doing, where he's going.
And here, Dima can feel the misting spray just as he'd conjured it, earlier, in mind. Here, with the roar of water crashing louder every step, with Faolan speaking of memory, and of course Dmitri remembers; he'd thought of that night while he thought on the mist reaching them now, and his smile - a little daft; a lot grateful - suggests as much.
Fae moves toward the waterfall, and though Dima's head cants briefly curious, still he doesn't hesitate. Feels a thrill rising chirruped in his chest; an understanding that Faolan is sharing something with him. One of the places he saw and held dear, perhaps. One of the locations spoken into velvet skies above the dark, written forever into Dima's knowing.
He recognizes the image from Fae's telling as they step through. Feels briefly that he's walked into a dream conjured by his Faolan, because the world's shifted entirely, turned not alien but astonishing, illuminated softly by the lights contained with in. By creatures, organisms, breath of life among the water's muffled sound.
Dima's smiling - an expression complicated but joyous; humbled, perhaps, to witness both the beauty of this site and the meaning to Fae's sharing - and he speaks, voice not quite steady: "Like the sky and stars brought down around us, or we, rising to their tier.
"Oh, Faolan—“
Dima draws closer. Places a hand on Fae's bicep, curls near against him. There's a space of time before he speaks. Time in which his hand runs its caress again, again. Time in which he leans his head against Fae's arm and settles, nuzzles.
Finally, eyes catching Fae's, and catching the reflections of that luminescent blue: "It is as you said, my Fae.
"As you said, and more astonishing still, in the presence of my mate."
<.>
Faolan holds Dima, arms wound around him in a loose, possessive embrace. This is what he wanted: himself, and Dima, and a cave lit all around as if by stars.
The last time he came here, he'd been grateful to have a secret all to himself. He'd shared far too much, been too exposed. Piece by piece, he'd won privacy back. Secrets, beautiful rather than scandalous. He hadn't wanted anyone else to know. Even when he'd told Dima about it on the docks, he had questioned himself.
Why share it with someone he knew would be gone so quickly?
(Had he known even then, though, that Dima wouldn't leave him? That Dima wouldn't allow him to flee into the woods again?)
"Nothing special happened to me here," he remarks softly. One hand trails up Dima's back, searching in the half-dark to card through his hair. "I don't have a story about it. I just...found it, and saw how lovely it was.
"But that means it's a place where something can happen to give it meaning, and nothing else can share the space of that meaning. Does that make any sense?"
He thinks maybe he isn't giving the right words to what's in his head. Educated as he had to become in his former life, he still finds himself faltering, clumsy when trying to explain something more than the work of his hands or a hunt or the ruin he finds in the world.
He draws his hand down to Dima's cheek, palm cupped and thumb sweeping tenderly. "I'm finding meaning in so many things lately. I'd like to have more of that; to take you to every beautiful place I've seen and let it be a place I saw with my mate.
"I'd like to hold my past up for reckoning against what you are to me. Maybe I'll find the meaning is that I was moving towards you."
His smile in the dark, visible still to Dima, is a complicated one. And then it isn't so complicated.
"Nothing happened here for me; there wasn't any meaning. But then I showed it to my mate. My - " Faolan falters, but there's no sorrow, no shame in the pause. Only dumbfounded speechlessness at his own good fortune. (To be here, surrounded by glimmering points of light, and held in Dima's arms.)
"My Dima.
"This is where I told my mate I love him." Not complicated a smile at all. Only softly radiant, shy, full of hope he doesn't show anyone (except, except.) "I love you, Dima. So much that I want to show you every beautiful place I've been, every perfect thing I've seen, and let it be meaningful because of you."
He pauses, then huffs a little laugh. "I practiced all that and still can't get the words just right. But what's important - the part where I love you? I managed that much. I'll always manage that much."
<.>
He kisses his love, for a start.
Draws inward and upward, his hand carding its path through Fae’s hair. Dima tipping up on his toes to reach nearer, kiss with greater, tender pressure. Hears his breath halt again, again, again.
And whispers between breathes: “My mate. Oh, love.”
He lingers here with words knocked from his lungs; lingers again upon the sight of Fae when the kiss has turned to locking eyes above effulgent smiles. It’s Fae’s smile that brings Dima back to his voice, puts breath behind his crescendoing need to speak. Because it’s worth all the world, to witness hopefulness in Faolan; to see hope freed - even if only in brief spaces; even if it takes time to cultivate - from wariness. To see Fae’s gentle, his daring, his assured heart drawn from hiding.
Dima speaks, feeling the deft-spun strength of every word: “My mate.
“My Fae.
“Oh, my love—“
There’s a soft laugh, a moment to restore himself to speech, because that word alone almost undid him again. He presses a hand to Fae’s chest, as if asking his forbearance and, yes, simply wanting to touch his lave. “Forgive me, Puppy; I’ve thought upon three words since almost first we met. Words I never understood before I found you, and you found me. Words I’ve come to know like burning in my chest; words clear to me in every breath.
“Words brought to truth for me, brought to my understanding by the fact and light of you.
“I love you. My Fae, of course I do.
“How fortunate I am, to have found you. How favored beyond the will of gods, to hold you in this soft-light sanctuary - this cavern, ah, this den—” There’s a pleased smile from Dima, and a nudge of his nose inward, against Fae’s throat before he finds his mate’s eyes again, continues speaking, “How favored I am, to hear ‘love’ from your tongue, and know it blessedly, finally upon my own.
“Here, where my love once found some peace from execrable climes. Where you found protection, before I could shield you."
“Here, where my mate drew me in moonlight and in mist, to share with me the vision of a secret first shared upon the docks - a night forever written on my soul - to let this secret be ours, shared, and to impart a dearer secret still—
“That my mate knows the consonance between us; the call of our hearts, each to each.
“That my Puppy trusts Daddy to help guide him; to preserve him.
“That my Fae knows his love is sacred to and shared ardently with his Dima.
“That my Faolan can smile with such hope; that we might resurrect the world together yet.
“Love, I admire you, adore you. I know excitation at the sight of you - vicious, deadly, tender - and know deepest peace held in your arms. You are everything to me, my Faolan. Every joy and every name.”
There’s a brief moment in which Dima’s speech hangs suspended, and could turn one way or the other. Because in part he thinks he should be cautious, doesn’t want to bring too much upon his love. And then in part - larger, more clamorous part - he yearns to say this, offer this; give it as an option, grant his Fae this token of Dmitri’s sure intentions.
He chooses, or feels the choice slipping into itself. He speaks—
“And if you’re ready, my Fae.
“If you can accept one more name—“ There’s a soft laugh and a shake of his head. “One more name for the moment; I expect I’ll never cease in finding names for you.
“You needn’t accept it now. My mate, I won’t be upset. I want this for you, as one part of the life we share— But in your time.
“We have all the world ahead, don’t we?”
He has, yes, slipped his hand into a pocket of his robe. Deftly. Smoothly. And when he raises his hand, there’s a ring held between two fingers, carefully, presented to the vision his love.
“My world; my Dearest and my Love. Faolan and Fae; my Puppy and my mate. Let me give you another name—
“I’d like to call you ‘husband,’ too.”
<.>
Standing in a cavern full of starlight, his lips feeling beestung and warm from Dima's kiss, (thinking the word 'den' again, again, but not here, no, somewhere warm and dry and safe, a place for himself and his mate-) Faolan realizes he's not at all surprised.
Of course Dima would choose here, and this moment.
Of course there's already a ring.
His first instinct - the first rising emotion - is sorrow. As it climbs upward in his chest, he comprehends something about himself: he's gotten in the habit of feeling sorrowful. He's learned to anticipate the oncoming ruin and strangle whatever hope he might feel for the future.
In this case, a future that might ruin Dima's life. (A future that sees him once again alone, retreating to the woods with a broken heart, a shattered soul.)
(But Sen said.) (Sen had a point.)
But.
What if.
He can't hope, but he can say what if.
What if he just...tried. For as long as he can, with all his will, what if he tried to make Dima happy? What if he could do that so well, whatever was lost along the way simply didn't measure up?
He's fingering the ring without taking it, contemplative.
He could say, You know this will only end badly.
Or. Please, it's enough to be your mate. Let's not talk about this.
Or. Dima, there's no future in this.
What he says instead, very carefully, very softly, is, "Would it make you happy?"
He draws a sharp breath, thinking maybe Dima won't understand why he's asking. Maybe Dima will think it's the only reason he might agree. His hands cover Dima's and the ring, and with the same careful, low tone, he adds, "If the world were perfect - or if I knew for certain you would never regret this moment...or me. Know I want you, Dima. I want to be everything to you, and if I could promise a life free of regrets, I wouldn't hesitate.
"But I don't know, and I can't promise - and you won't let me avoid it, will you?" His smile's a rueful one, lopsided and without accusation.
"I can't protect you, and I can't escape you. So - I suppose I'll just try very hard to bring you a blissful life. Will it make you happy, Dima, to be my husband?"
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no subject
But since Faolan is asking. Since Faolan has dared this far, and since everything he's said, everything's he's been with Dmitri has suggested Fae's hesitation comes more from worry - from wanting perhaps too keenly - than from not wanting what Dima's asked—
Well; it's very, very easy to answer: "It would, Fae.
"It would make me very happy, and tremendously proud, to have you as my husband. To walk with you in daylight, hand-in-hand; to kiss you on the cheek in every street and shop, before the eyes of all, seeing, feeling only one another.
"Please, Dearest: Don't think you lack the power to protect me. Already you guard me from the night's cold. From men and meenlocks. From myself, and what was once a hollow in my heart.
"And you know, you must know you bring me bliss. I've never known such joy before you; I scarcely knew brightness, at all. And my heart never did sing before we met.
"Faolan, listen to me. Listen to your Daddy; listen to your mate, hm?" There's a crooking smile - playful, deeply fond - and a nudge of the back of Dima's fingers to Fae's jaw; a movement that shifts into a cupping of Fae's cheek.
In Dima's other hand, the ring remains. Held now in a hand less tense-kept in anticipation. Held, and tilted slightly for a catch of light.
He continues, "I regret nothing that I've done whole-hearted, whole-minded. When I act in accordance with the truth that sears me— My Love, I know my certainties like flame; they burn with me; they become a part of me.
"I am certain of my love for you.
"I am certain how how utterly I want you and require you beside me, in all names, anywhere we two might do.
"I will always love you, Faolan; I know that too. My Puppy and my Wolf: I want everything you are, and I will keep you."
"Trust your mate on that, hm? Or. Simply know your Dima will always give you more cause to believe. Know that we have time, such ceaseless time, to find what life can be in love; in one another's arms; with one another's fire."
There's a nudge to Fae's forehead. The slightest, lightest tug of Fae's lip, which turns to a brush, lingering and sweet.
"I will never and I could never regret you, Faolan. It isn’t in my nature. It isn't what I am.
"You exist too deep within me; you have always been, I think, within my blood, waiting to awaken. And nothing, nothing can dislodge you from my heart.
"Just as no force, no fiend, no would-be-deity can force me from my Fae's."
Here Dima shifts his hands. Moves the first from Fae's cheek to his hand, to draw it up between them. The better that Dima may kiss Fae across his knuckles, then twice upon his palm. The better that Dima might hold the ring before Fae's finger, waiting only for his mate's confirmed agreement to slip it to its home.
Speaking, as he does this: "Say yes, my Love.
"Say that I may grant this ring and offer up my name.
"I'd like it, Fae; I'd like it very much.
"It would make me - as you always make me - very, very happy."
<.>
Dima's words sink beneath his skin. Maybe it's the cavern's strange lights, or maybe it's just that he's coming to know Dima, to believe him and believe in him - or maybe Faolan is softening. Maybe he's discovering that the world has good still to behold, and much of it begins and ends with his newfound family.
With all the worry now set aside, never forgotten but for now weakened, hushed and ignored, Faolan is free to exist in this moment, where all he has to do is make Dima happy. (And trust that Dima will do the same?) (Yes, maybe that, too.)
This moment and this place where he spoke love to someone for the first time, and heard it spoken back so sweetly, so raw and honest. He wanted this cavern to have meaning; Dima is holding out that meaning, letting it catch the blue glow on its metal surface.
Dima is offering a ring and a name, which are such small things, but they're made meaningful, aren't they? A ring and a name can mean a lifetime. They can mean family and love and forever.
And.
And the thing that would make Dima happy is -
What no one ever wanted. (And Dima hardly asks at all for what they did want.) (Dima gives Faolan room to want both sex and - this. And this.
A ring and a name.)
(Fae Voronin. That might be something real and true.) (Dima's going to regret marrying a scoundrel, a wh-) (No.) (No, he's not letting that thought in here, with all this beauty around them, with Dima waiting eager with a ring ready for his hand. It's a sacrilege.)
He breathes shakily and realizes the lights have doubled, tripled, blurred to starbursts and his eyes are wet. He feels staggered by this place and moment and Dima, who loves him. Who's waiting for an answer.
Weakly, as though the words are a theft of something sweet and long-desired, he finally admits, "I'd like it."
He nods and lets the words come again, relieved and maybe-broken. "Oh, I'd like it.
"Yes, then. For your happiness.
"And mine, Dima." He smiles unsteadily. "And mine."
<.>
Look at him: With all the sweetness of dawn's light; daring past the wounds he's carried for so long and all the fear they've left.
It isn't, Dima knows, that there is no worry left in Faolan. It's that he's letting himself reach forward. Letting himself incline into belief.
Letting himself speak claim for his own joy; to think on what he wants, and perhaps, perhaps permit himself to see something that might not end, or something that is - at least, if nothing else - assured in this moment; something that can offer brilliance, lightness, exalation.
There's a prick of tears at the back of Dima's eyes as he brushes a thumb along the fall of Puppy's tears. There's a stagger in his chest - the sound of air received as his body remembers to breathe - and reverence, gratitude as he speaks—
"There you are, my Fae."
A kiss for one cheek, not to banish weeping, but to take the tears upon his lips; to share in his mate's tumult and relief. A nudge of Dima's nose to Fae's, his forehead brushing at his Love's, then a kiss to the other cheek.
"We shall have it: Every name we share; everything we please.
"Together, and my mate, my husband, you will have happiness. I confess I'm set upon it. If I can't keep all the world's antagonisms from gnashing teeth your way, I'll rend as many as I can, gnash my own teeth—
"We'll shed their blood together, Dearest.
"And our home will be as it is now: Together. Wherever we find ourselves. Wherever we may choose.
"So long as I am yours, so long as you are with me and so long as I can bring you joy, ah, Love, we're always home."
There's more he wants to say. There are star-struck galaxies of words he wants to share, but the moment and the depth of honeyed eyes suspends both breath and voice, and for a moment, a stream of moments, Dima only stands with Faolan, one hand upon his Puppy's cheek, the other at his hair. His own expression at once telling of tidal feeling, and of simple, total adoration.
When he can speak again, his voice falls hushed, and his lop-sided grin shines with wonder. "I'm so proud of you, my Love.
"I want this for you, along with every other freedom, every other bliss: I'd like for you to believe the possibility of your own happiness; to speak for it, reach toward it where you're able.
"And your Daddy, your Dima, your mate and your husband and all that I am with you, for you—"
The smile turns slightly conspiratorial, still suffuse with ardor, as he draws back just enough to show the ring again between them. "I'll be here to help you, Faolan. To believe for you if the world seems dark; to wrap you in my teeth, my thorns, my holding."
There's a moment where he bites his lip, suddenly a little more hushed, suddenly shy. Looking to the ring, then to Fae's hand, then Fae's eyes, and—
"Give me your hand, my Fae."
Deftly, in a graceful, measured string of motions, Dima will take his Fae's hand, and slip the ring onto his finger. Clasping his hand after, meeting his eyes, and yes, there's a subtle wetness at Dima's own cheeks now, and no, he doesn't notice, doesn't mind at all. Knows only resurgent jubilation. Knows only the feeling of his mate's hand between his own.
“You bring me happiness beyond measure.
“You make me happy, my husband, my mate.
"My Love and my Fae."
And Dima kisses his everything, his world.
<.>
Eventually, Dima and Fae return to their camp. By then, Rin is asleep and Sen is in his meditative state - though it certainly looks as though he's fallen asleep.
Dima and Fae curl up together in the hammock, tired enough from the day's travel and evening's events that they drift off almost immediately. Liv takes a place on a branch above, keeping close without sleeping directly on the men.
<.>
no subject
Sometime before the present day, Dima reveals to the children his wish to give the third ring to Faolan.
The children have some misgivings about it at first; Rose demands imperiously to SEE the ring before she'll agree. Upon inspection she frowns, then decides, no, she doesn't think it was anything of importance. Thorn seems to be simply agreeing with her, and doesn't seem to really care all that much about the ring; he asks if Fae has fixed Hildabear, though. (This is in fact a project Faolan has been working on, carefully attempting to salvage piece of the original toy for use in a new one, but he has no materials for the body right now.)
Dima immediately presented the ring for examination, of course. And tells Thorn about Fae's work with Hildabear, indicating that Fae wants very much to find the right fur for Hildabear, and to make sure Hildabear is given the very best mending. He also tells Thorn that Faolan is very very gentle handling Hildabear, and makes sure she's never pinched or pulled while Fae is working.
Dima points out that Rose will have her own ring just as soon as she's returned, and promises to take her to pick out another ring all of her liking. Thorn and Hildabear may, of course, join to pick out their own.
Dima adds that he's certain Fae will find meaning in this particular ring, and the connection it promises to all of them.
...And Dima will also inform Thorn that Rin has taken to stealing Hildabear from time to time in order to tell her stories, then slip her right back where she came from with a little pat, no troubles had!
The children seem quite taken with all of this; Rose looks surprised to learn she might be able to pick her own jewelry, but also appears to be suppressing excitement about the prospect of the third ring's use.
Thorn will, at a later time, pester Rin to hear the stories they've told Hildabear.
At the end of the conversation, the children both intimate that they want to know what Faolan says.
(After all, he might be joining their family!)
Dima assures them that he'll tell them all about it, and thanks them both for their approval.
Dima is, through all of this, doing a very good job of noT having a cry of his own. But damned if it isn't close.
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