This Shall Be My Spot

She couldn’t stop moving

Five paces.  Turn. Five more. 

Dirt crunched and rolled beneath her boots, loose stones skittering down the hillside with every turn. The rhythm should have been a balm. It usually was. But it wasn’t the ground that was uneven. It was everything else. 

She held the irrational conviction that if she allowed herself to stand still, it would all come crashing down around her. The world would split open beneath her feet. The sky would crumble to the earth. The truth would find her. Motion felt like the only lie she could still maintain.

So she moved. Five paces. Turn.

He was supposed to be behind her. He said he was right behind her.

Smoke still clung to the memory that followed her out of the crèche. Even now she could taste it each time she swallowed, the bitter film of ash in the back of her throat. Rubble dust scraped every swallow. Buried beneath the crack of collapsing stone and the monastery tearing itself apart was his voice, louder and impossibly clear in her recollection:

Go. I’m right behind you. His hands firm on her back, pushing her through the portal. And godsdamn it, she’d listened. He’d never given her reason to believe his certainty could lie. He sounded sure, and his certainty became her own.

How simple it would have been to grab onto him and pull him through alongside her. To make sure he kept his word. To reach for his hand before running. Simply waiting for him. There were now a million versions of the same moment, each one differing by the smallest choice. Each one ending with him here beside her.

Each one impossible now.

Her mind turned it over and over again, not softening in its repetition. Questioning her. Chastising her.

You knew better. You should have made sure.

“I should have checked,” she said to no one. It didn’t matter, it all sounded flimsy and thin anyway. As useless as every prayer she’d whispered since she’d begun pacing. “I should have—“

The sentence dissolved as her eyes instinctively searched the constellations once more, tracing the familiar shapes she’d known since childhood. Surely, if there had ever been a night to answer her…

Instead, the stars only burned above her, distant and quietly indifferent.

She’d spent a lifetime believing they spoke to those willing to listen, revealing answers to those patient and wise enough to read them. For months after her mother disappeared, she’d searched them until dawn stole them from the sky, night after night after night, convinced she’d overlooked some pattern, some warning, some answer hidden just beyond her understanding. 

They had answered her then exactly as they answered her now.

With silence. 

”You would have died.”

Wyll sat staring into the fire, but she refused to look at him. Refused to look at any of them since the second time they dragged her back. They arranged themselves carefully without acknowledging it, cornering her in like a scared animal. Care disguised as caution. 

They were right in doing so. She was already searching for another exit.

Five paces. Turn.

“That isn’t—“ The tightness in her chest returned. That hollow place again, pulling inward and dragging everything with it like a slow collapse. “That isn’t the point.”

What she really wanted to say was, I would have rather it been me.

The thoughts she’d been outpacing caught up before she realized she’d stopped moving. Images her gruesome imagination had produced of their own accord, patiently slipping between the last vestiges of hope. Stitching together endings it never witnessed. 

His hand half-buried beneath the rubble. Fingers still and bent all wrong. Had they been halfway into a spell? Or a reach for purchase? One last attempt to pull himself free? She couldn’t tell. 

The dust had settled into the creases of his knuckles. Along the line of his jaw. Against the curve of an ear where those fine wisps of hair always sat unruly. Now they were plastered against his skin, matted with sweat and blood. That endlessly clever mouth slack and silent. No breath. No—

“No.”

It hadn’t even sounded like her own voice until she noticed the pause of the others. The heel of her hand dug hard against her brow as if she could drive the images out through bone with enough pressure.

There was some distant gratitude that the rest of the image remained hidden in that rubble. Her mind had at least spared her that much. But, almost as if to spite her, it replaced the images with everything that came after.

The nothing. The silence after. The weight of the absence that would follow. His voice, his movement, that ever-present hum of thought and magic that seemed to surround him like a second atmosphere. 

No longer would there be the dreadful humming while they prepared meals. No debates over the stars every evening that somehow wandered into philosophy before either of them noticed. No voice answering hers before she’d finished asking the question. No patient, thoughtful, “Curious…” whenever she showed him another hastily sketched leaf or flower with the humorous hope that perhaps this one would stump him. No familiar weight of his palm between her shoulder blades, his ward already on her before she stepped into the fight. 

The world would continue. Morning would come, the sun would rise, meals would be cooked, fires would still be tended to. They’d still walk toward Moonrise. 

But for her, there would only be a stillness.

Too much stillness.

Her stomach soured and twisted, bile climbing hot in her throat.

Five paces. Turn.

“You left him!” 

It echoed in her mind with the same violence it had when it tore itself from her throat. 

Astarion’s face flashed before her, all sharp lines and even sharper eyes, though she couldn’t decide whether she found anger there or guilt. His voice held a cool certainty that didn’t seem to match the dangerous expression he met her with. 

“I did not,” he snapped back. “I said he was behind me, not that I would carry him out.”

"You couldn’t have made sure—"

“I’m not the wizard’s keeper!” he hissed. “We were all rather occupied trying not to die.”

She would have gladly gone for him, that much she remembered with a painful clarity. Two steps toward Astarion and a pair of strong arms locked around her waist and hauled her backward, holding her fast while she struggled against them with a violence she’d never known herself capable of. Had those arms let go, she’d have clawed every smug word straight from his throat. 

“This was your fault!” Her voice scarcely sounded human. “All for that damned mace!”

For the briefest moment, Astarion’s mask slipped. His jaw tightened and he flinched just enough for her to see the regret there. Then just as quickly, something ugly flashed in his eyes and the regret became buried once more beneath a practiced contempt.

"How fortunate I survived.” The words came clipped, each one meant to wound. “Otherwise, you’d have no one to blame.”

He shoved past her. Took three steps, perhaps four, before he stopped, his shoulders sagging and a shake of his head before a thick, whispered “Fuck,” escaped, and he turned back without making eye contact with anyone.

“Fine. I’ll go find your bloody wizard before you tear the camp apart.”

She hated him for saying it, but she’d clung to the words anyway. It was unfair, expecting Astarion to bear a hope that, if failed, would leave her with a grief that she wouldn’t know how to survive. 

Loose stone rolled under her boot and the rhythm she’d clung to all evening betrayed her. Her ankle twisted against the uneven ground before she caught herself, stumbling just enough for the world around her to rush back in.

”Don’t,” she snapped as Wyll reached forward to steady her. 

Not that there was a polite way to say it. She was barely holding the borders of her body together as it was. One well-meaning touch and she was certain that everything she’d spent hours keeping upright would finally collapse. She folded her arms tight across herself instead, fingers digging through fabric until her nails found the ache beneath. Something solid that still belonged to her.

Five paces. Turn.

There had been time, and that was likely the cruelest part of it all.

Before the crèche and the chaos, there had been quiet evenings after everyone else drifted off to sleep, the fire low and the night somehow belonging only to the two of them. Conversations that wandered until one question became another. Stories that took the long way around. Comfortable silences that neither of them ever seemed too hurried to break. 

“A stolen glance, that sudden heartbeat,” he’d told her once during that magic lesson. Sometimes the little things are worth more than kingdoms. They promise things to come.”

She’d laughed to herself at the hopeless romanticism, then carried those words with her anyway. There had always been something beautiful about not yet. About knowing where the road was leading and allowing oneself to enjoy the walk. 

But she understood him now.

The way he sometimes looked at her like a constellation he wanted to map. The way his voice softened when a conversation became just theirs. Looking across the fire for him, only to find he was already looking back. 

There was always going to be another evening. Another conversation. Another spell to puzzle through together. Another absurd philosophical tangent. 

But now they would remain unfinished.

There had still been questions she wanted to ask him. A spell she hadn’t quite managed. A theory about the stars she’d planned to argue with him over later. A hundred conversations they’d assumed there would always be time to finish. 

And there had been so many moments taken for granted. Small, ordinary opportunities that seemed so certain of returning they hadn’t felt worth reaching for.  She simply watched them pass. Let them pass. One after another.

You didn’t even— She didn’t want the thought, but her mind offered it anyway.

You didn’t even kiss him. 

Not that it should have mattered. But it did. Not yet. She repeated it to herself so many times that she almost mistook patience for wisdom. Told herself he needed time. His heart still belonged to wounds she couldn’t ask him to ignore. She could wait. She wanted to wait.

Not yet.  And now, not ever. 

Five paces. Stop.

Oh.  The thought didn’t barge in like the others. It was a slow, quiet fog that had already been rolling in her mind, but now only growing heavier the longer the idea of finality was thought of. 

Remaining stationary was worse. The world poured back in too quickly — the crackle of the fire, wind through the branches, one of the others shifting their weight. Her own heartbeat. All of it too loud, too much, pressing in from every direction until even the next breath felt like it had nowhere to go.  

They’d been gone for a while, long enough for the plume of dust and smoke she’d been watching rise from the crèche to thin against the sky until darkness swallowed what remained. Until there was nothing left to watch.

She refused to think about how easily that mirrored her hope. 

Time had come apart into something strange and complicated. Moments and memories stretched until they seemed impossible to endure, only to vanish quickly into the next. Hours turned into heartbeats, heartbeats into eternities. It no longer resembled anything she’d spend her life measuring by stars. 

So she measured another way. Every snap of a twig, every animal skittering through the brush, every sound stole her attention back toward the darkness past the fire, hope rising beyond reason. Desperately searching for any sign of their return. For him.

She forced herself back into motion, because standing still meant feeling everything at once. The world had asked impossible things of her the last few weeks, testing what a person could survive. Her mother’s disappearance. Her brother’s. The parasite coiled behind her eye. Miles of road that never seemed to end. 

She had endured all of it by some miracle, but this, she wasn’t certain she could…and she didn’t want to think about it yet. 

Nevertheless, her eyes refused to leave the tree line. Nothing.  No movement. No sound. No—

Movement. She almost thought she’d imagined it, until shadows separated, slowly taking shape until the firelight caught familiar faces. Karlach. Shadowheart. 

Relief came first, then terror followed just as quickly, hope and dread colliding within her.

Another figure at the crest of the hill and she held her breath. Astarion.

Just as her mind began to surrender to the grief she’d spent hours bracing for since the crèche fell, she saw a fourth silhouette. A familiar gait, though with a limp. A hand bracing against the rock beside the path. 

He was there, real and alive. Alive.

She never remembered deciding to move. One moment Gale was several paces away, limping into the very edges of the firelight with dust clinging to every part of him. The next, the ground rose hard beneath them both.

She’d collided with him hard enough to steal what little balance he had left, dragging him down onto the dirt with her. Her arms locked around his neck and buried her face against him. Dust, smoke, sweat, him. She breathed him in once, then again, her lungs attempting to convince the rest of her that this wasn’t another cruel invention of grief.

Only then did she look up. Across the firelight, Astarion stood with his jaw set, eyes fixed stubbornly on the fire until, almost reluctantly, they found hers. Only one look passed between them. It wasn’t an apology or forgiveness, but an understanding and gratitude. 

Astarion gave a nod in return before turning back to his tent. 

Beneath her, Gale winced and drew in a careful breath through his teeth before she realized she’d practically folded herself onto him. She tried to pull away with an apology, but his arms closed tighter around her, his head tucked into her hair. 

“Aoife,” he breathed against her skin. It was rough, exhausted, and so wonderfully alive. 

That word struck her sharply in the chest and she'd never been happier to hurt. 

“You were supposed to be behind me.” Her words left her in too many emotions she couldn’t untangle just yet: dread, anger, relief, love, guilt.

“I know,” came after a long breath. “I know. I fear the rubble proved rather unwilling to let me go.”

She let out something that she intended to be a laugh, but it only broke halfway into a sob instead. In that moment the world narrowed and neither of them moved, and for the first time since she’d stumbled from the crèche, she stopped counting her steps. 

Pose reference taken from this image of ‘The Kiss’ by Martin Lagares.

Formalwear design inspired by this mod

Event run by @justdebzong & @mirufiyu

Opening one eye, Mas dared to peek at Imrae from the side. A handsome profile with a regal, prominent nose. Rosy lips. Long slim ears. Many fellows at the taverns claimed that a nice long ears on elven gents were a sign for a- Ahem. He was getting ahead of himself. And besides, Imrae looked... forlorn, somehow. Lost in thought. He was gripping one hand with the other, squeezing it tight. Was he nervous? Was it something Mas had said or done? “Are you alright, Imrae?” he asked, aiming for a gentle, casual tone. “Hm? Oh. Yes. My apologies.” Imrae smiled, but his nervosity did not vanish, and his next words made clear why. “I think I have to tell you something about myself before you decide to spend more of your life's time on me.” Mas' heart started beating faster. Was he already promised to someone or, gods beware, married? Regardless of what Imrae was about to confess, at least he was doing it before anything had been said and done. “I... am odd, Mas. I am not a very fiery being. My blood does not run hot with desire as it does in most.” Mas blinked. That was a new one. He had met celibate people. He had met impotent people. But this was neither, from how Imrae had phrased it, nor was he finished, so Mas gave him a nod to show that he was listening. “In addition, I am not terribly experienced when it comes to relationships.” Imrae let out a nervous chuckle. “Correct me if I am mistaken, but I have the feeling that you are looking for lasting companionship.” There was genuine, heartbreaking unease in his eyes, but also relief of having said it all out loud. “Thank you. For trusting me with this,” Mas said, brushing Imrae's hand while he processed what he had just heard. He studied his fellow drow for a few moments. While anxious, Imrae did not seem in any way unsure about his preferences, or the the lack-there-of in his case, just as Mas was certain that he had no interest in the intimate company of women. And Imrae was not mistaken, he had imagined how living together might be like. Trancing in the mage's embrace. Eating breakfast between the roses of Mas' rooftop garden. Daily walks through the city together. Awaiting Imrae's return like a sailor's spouse when he was away on his travels. But imagination only brought one that far. “So you are disinterested in physical love?” Mas asked in a gentle fashion, and prayed that it did not sound judgmental to Imrae. “I engage in it, now and again. But I do not know if I could be a good match for somebody who puts great value in... physical love as part of relationship.” “You know, before I came to the surface, I would have counted myself as such, but physical was the only semblance of love that was to be had in Menzoberranzan.” Mas drew his fingers through his long ponytail. “'Trust is foolish' and all of that nonsense. I calmed down a lot since I fled to the surface.” He took a deep breath and smiled. “What I am trying to say is that I would love to see where this goes.” “The same. And my apologies. I fear such a curt discussion is not exactly what the poets write about.” “On the contrary. Honesty is much more romantic than you think. And it is certainly refreshing.”