Halidomverse

The thing about the Angels is that they never really speak, merely chant their verses with increasing vigor, often in the ancient tongue — Halidom speech from before the second collapse. Rivin only knows the basics. Only cared enough to learn what was in the pamphlets and to do the opposite of the graffiti.

The Angels had sold their meat to the skyfat but they’d sold their souls to something older. Something that craved destruction and marred flesh. Something that beckoned children into prayer but never let them back out.

Those that survived their birth were easy to snatch up. Children were already a rarity in the dungeon — long before Rivin and his motley crew. Long before his mother and her mother still.

If the dark didn’t get you, whatever spoke to the Angels did.

He’d learned to keep far enough way. That was the easiest part. Their sanctum existed deep down beneath the Marina were the earth had been clipped and bridged into a fissure of sulfuric walls. They’d gouged their temples from the rocks, older then some of the ruins they’d used to patch their spires — the front of a cathedral skirts the long and winding path towards the lair, held up by marble statues wrenched from somewhere else:

A man with one hand outstretched, the other wielding a trident that’s aged into a patina, two prongs replaced by poorly forged titanium steel.

A fearful woman crying out, bottom lips pulled downward while the top of her head has been slashed clean off.

A laughing matron with several chipped and fishy legs curled up beneath her, face warped beyond humanity.

He’d only ever gone there once. Long ago now. When he’d been young enough not to know any better. Desperate enough.

He could remember his mother’s face more clearly back then, he wished he got to see her living one more often in his dreams. Usually she is gaunt, mouth agape like it had been when she’d died. Her hair the longest blanket, black like the deepest shadows. Once she’d smelled of flowers — the ones that grew between the cracks in the Upper Stacks, but in the end she’d only smelled of death.

No one had helped. No one had saved her. No one had tried. Not once the disease took root. No one but the Angels.

They’d worn garbs he didn’t recognize back then — black leather on their hands to hide the titanium claws bolted into knuckle. Nothing could be done, of course. Not even for strong mothers with soft hands and tender words.

It was him that they had wanted, voices sticky and sweet, luring him towards the door with scripture that hummed hard in his brain. Mercy would save him.

He didn’t understand what that meant. He hadn’t gone with them. Something had caught his eye; her weak fingers twitching and reaching from the bed, beckoning him back, pleading without strength. He’d stayed, brushed her curls for days, stopped only when they fell away in big clumps. Held her hands instead.

When he pleaded, when he beckoned. She did not stay.

The child is dying.

Woman now. Woman once.

She's breathing through her neck, skin fanning with every sputter, every wretched gasp to live. She holds her head up to the light and it lovingly splays across the gore, across all that's left of the fire in her eyes.

It's when her legs buckle that I grow curious, when she still doesn't fall to the dirt. She's bathing. Bathing in the sun while she dies. Drinking in the rays before they bring the flies. The blood, the blood is thick. I remember that smell. We remember—

She is not the first to stir my curiosity. My fondness in creatures such as you, but I am hesitant.

We have done this all before.

Before— Agony still soaks where love once swelled. I have cherished the creation that comes from creation, have mourned its squalid decline. My arms, his arms still feel the ache — our body, our body is no more and yet I feel it. Feel it all come crumbling down.

But, the trees are growing again — this clearing is thick with them, however burned they may be. The ground, whilst turned up, reeks of life. There's crickets resuming their song now that the danger has passed.

How long has it been?

Curiosity.

I've always enjoyed cats. Perhaps that's why they favour me? Perhaps they personify me greater than humanity ever could, and thus we are both weak to it. To girls like her, whom hold their heads to the sun. I wish to bask there as well, in the dying embers of her life.

She falls. Heavy. Simple. Chokes on a gasp that sputters red from her neck. Her fingers fist the ground — claw at it. Defiant even while her body shuts down.

I've never seen one of you die so slowly before. Not like this. She punches her fist against her chest. One. Two. Three times, and then again and again. The pulse her failing heart can neither echo nor copy.

Thumpthump. Thumpthump. Thumpthump.

Her hand falls still. I smell her tears before I see them. Saline and sweet. Tears shed in love always are. I shouldn't. I know how this ends for you. Your kind. Your heroes.

I know what he’ll do.

But I creep closer. This is a soul that seeks to share and this field is empty of meaningful life, bar mine. The creatures have all fled. I know how you like to be kept company while you die. I've held your hands one thousand times. I won't make the same mistake. This is kindness. A kindness.

I will not let curiosity take me — not again. That's how I lost you all before. Each time. Over and over.

But her eyes are gleaming in the light, golden rivers welling and overfilling. She has not seen the world yet, she has not seen all that I have laid down for you. She has not seen it and she mourns it. I can feel that most of all.

Perhaps this time.. Things will change.

Perhaps this time. It won't all collapse again.

Roach’s Daydreams #1: Heartbeat Even in her daydreams, she wins. ______________________________________

Rivin finds her amongst the tawny reeds.

On the banks of the quiet river that creases through Adasia. A rising tide laps gently at her bare feet. He hangs back. For a moment that holds for too long.

Like he did when he was sixteen and saw the vastness of the ocean for the first time. The endless blue. The cliff face being devoured by a roaring cerulean. Somehow glistening. Somehow shiny. The water rolling along the shore with foamy kisses, like teeth gnawing at the sand. Each wave a hungry munch.

It was.. so big. So much bigger than them.

‘They’re being such drama queens ‘bout the Lowrealm..’ Echo had barked out a laugh— even back then, even as the escorting Lieutenant kicked her broken frame forward. Her quivering ankle had failed her for a beat. There was blood oozing through the wet bandages on her thigh. Flood water still dripping from her hair.

He remembers it plainly all these years later. Even deep as he was in this unfamiliar, bright world where the sun was the sun and the blue was immeasurable. She had been smiling so wide — painfully so, like it might hide the tears welling in her eyes; like Rivin wouldn’t catch them in the glow of the daylight. Real daylight.

‘They’ve already flooded the planet!’ She’d thrown her head back in the first fresh breeze that stole both his breath and his courage. Cackling. Half mad. Terrified.

She's snoozing now. Of course. Like the alley cat she really is beneath her flesh and apposable thumbs. No longer fourteen and clawing at the dirt of a world upturned. Instead, she’s lounged out in the sun like the vastness is wine and she’s gulped it down too greedily — like she’s stumbled into this very bed of grass, drunk off of everything she continues to discover. Like she isn’t scared of any piece of it.

She’s always been insatiable. Curious. He’d wondered back then for just a half second, if losing their trashy little kingdom would slip her up. Maybe even break her. Condense her into something smaller than even he could take. But she’d only glared with challenger eyes, teary and bright and double-dogging of a dare the size of the universe.

Rivin sighs as he stands above her now — hands on his hips; grey glare fixed and taut with frustration. “Always slackin’ off, twerp,” he mutters. If it was anyone else, he’d kick them square in the ribs. Or bark a threat that’s disguised as a command. Scold them in a way that leaves traces even while his hands remain still.

He wonders if he doesn’t because she’s his exception*.* Because she’s still just some ancient scrawny thing that feels bigger than the world he knows. Even now. Especially now. But it might also be because he knows what she’ll do. How, even with a boot in her ass, she’ll slowly blink up at him; stretch like the grass is silk and cushion, and smile that fucking smile. Laugh that fucking laugh.

His heart surges with ache and lit matches — his blood is suddenly an accelerant waiting to be nicked by the flame. He frowns hard. Hates that she wins. Even in his imagination.

He stays quiet for a moment longer. She's even more relaxed up close. Her toes dip the waters edge, a fresh, wet gauze tied tight around the sole of her bare foot. It’s reckless really. Adasia is a new hamlet after all. The order for reinforcements hadn’t even been given yet (although its inevitable with the progress they're making.) Only the Sevens haunt the relic of the old mining town, now. But it’s not empty of danger.

“How can you sleep like that?” Her chest rises and falls with shallow, barely-there breaths. Like a little bird playing dead in the turf. He thinks she might be awake. Not because she looks it — but because he’s learned to expect the opposite with her. Or to stop expecting all together. “Bug, are you actually sleeping?” Now, he’s scolding her.

Rivin crosses his arms over his chest. Waits. Taps a foot in the grass. He thinks he might hear her soft breaths. He sighs deeply, dropping his arms to his sides as he squints hard at the ground, then looks around, first at the path he’d made in the reeds and then to the gentle lull of the waters surface reflecting a golden hue, and then to the river bed itself with the sleeping soldier treating it like mattress instead of a veld.

He's not sure — but, he is — what compels him to join her instead of send her screeching back to their makeshift camp. But, he does. Like a stray that’s not sure it’s safe yet. But wants to try. He slowly comes to sit beside her hip.

The ground is soft. A little wet. A little too like fresh clay through straw. He extends on leg before him and the other bends so that he can rest his forearm at the incline. He tries to look at the lake. To focus on the drawl of the azure as it fumbles over rocks and overturned logs. To follow the trail of algae along a discarded pipe sunken into the mud. But grey eyes flit towards the magnet that has always been the girl with the coin flip eyes.

He can see the freckles on her nose. Even when he looks away. Pressed into his lids like stars dotting sky. One hand reaches for her braid. Tugs softly. Holds. “You’re not asleep.” He says, to test her. She doesn’t appear to rouse but there’s the ghost of that cruel smirk tugging at her lips. Quivering there. “Tch.” He sounds annoyed. She’s usually such a light sleeper.

His heart is thrashing in his chest. Thump. Thump. Thump.

“You don’t want to get yelled at that badly?” The pads of two fingers touch her jaw — softly, to tilt her head towards him. Her lashes might flutter. Rivin looks unimpressed, although a kiss of roses bloom across the curves of his cheeks. “C’mon,” He sounds harsh but his eyes soften like they’ve melted. “You can’t fool me.”

He really should shake her. Scold her. This is either a trap or a weakness after all. He tells himself he’ll check her pulse — **just to be sure. She doesn’t look feverish or sick. But he checks anyway. Brushing those two fingers against her jaw as he leans in closer. “Are you dead?” He watches her face. Watches the twitch of her lips. He moves his fingers lower — to the hollow. Presses them into supple skin. Her heartbeat races beneath the pads of his fingers — skips.

He almost smiles. “Stop pretending,” he says it so softly. She doesn’t budge. Stubborn brat.

Rivin lets his hand ghost over the ridge of her throat. A touch that should be clinical. Should be disciplinary. But isn’t. He lets his hand hover, barely there, before tapping the hollow beneath her collarbone. Tap. Tap.

“..’M sleeping, Cap’n..” She finally says to the wind. Eyes still closed. Nudging her head softly through flattened grass. His jaw twitches. Tightens.

“Wake up,” the command is merely implied. Nothing like the orders he gives across the yard, voice booming like a foghorn in the night. Her skin is hot beneath his touch. The scent on it is sun-warm, grassy, familiar and hitting him too fast. He can smell the heat on her, the sweat, the metallic tang of blood, gunpowder and overripe fruit.

She might groan in a sound of surrender or refusal — he’s not sure. Only knows that it wraps around his spine like a wet tongue. His hand stills for a moment above her ribs — then dips, light as dust, brushing over the hem of her scrunched-up shirt. He pretends he’s searching for the right nerve to press — a disciplinary prod. But his fingers wander. Absently. With a kind of reverence he doesn’t usually allow himself to feel.

The warm rays of oozing sun smooth over his shoulders. Over his back. “You’re reckless,” he murmurs, his shadow blocking her. He doesn’t look at her face. He won’t. Not yet.

His thumbs press into her hips — meant to prod her up. Meant to be firm, annoyed, practical. Meant to prove a point. Instead —Echo gasps as her waist jerks beneath his touch, hips tilting just slightly, breath stuttering between her chattering teeth like its been caught.

His fingers, traitorous things, splay wider. Settling on her thighs now — warm and bare and soft like something he should not be holding like this. His gaze lingers at the little hollow where her throat flutters. Then her navel, rising and falling faster now. The slope of her hip, the stretch of bare leg—Fuck.

He looks up. And it wrecks him.

He might just die right then and there. Might just crack open like that fissure blown into Hysteria’s border. Echo’s amber eyes are already half-lidded. Gleaming. Pupils blown and helpless with heat. Her mouth is open and pink. Her skin flushed, burning up from her cheeks to the freckles beneath her eyes, down to the slope of her neck. And her chest — fuck, her chest is rising like she’s just run a mile, like something inside her has come burst open*.*

There’s no grin. No comeback. Just… her. Soft and there and trying so hard to stay still.

Rivin forgets how to breathe. Hopes he remembers before he passes out. He thinks, just briefly, about leaning down — devouring that pink mouth until it’s bruised. Then he jerks back like he’s touched a livewire that sparks through his bones.

He coughs. Stands abruptly. Rubs at his mouth like there’s something wrong with it. “Get up,” he mumbles — suddenly too quiet. He won’t meet her eyes. Not again. Wouldn’t dare. He’s already patting off the dirt and the burrs from his clothes — looking anywhere else.

But he can feel her writhing in the grass, can see her legs in his peripheral as she stretches out slow. Fingers and toes curling through reeds and mud as her back arches from the ground.

“Mhm.. You’re so much nicer to me in my dreams..” she muses, sleepy-sounding, like smoke and honey dancing under moonlight. He catches the glimpse of a hand as it tumbles up her front, smoothing between fabric and breast— her fingers daring him to spare her another glance. One would do.

He doesn’t take the bait. Knows it will be the end of him. Hears her sigh, all dreamy and disappointed as he pinches his eyes tightly closed. “Not even gon’ help me up?” Echo mumbles.

The quiet between them is laced with tension and leaves and salt still swirling from distant ports. Rivin turns. Slow. Straight as an arrow — immediately regrets it. She’s still on the ground — sprawled like a trap he was stupid enough to crawl into. One arm is flung languidly above her head while the other lays lazy across her stomach, fingers drifting casually toward the waistband of her pants like it’s nothing. Like he’s nothing.

Her legs are stretched long, knees slightly bent, skin kissed in gold and mud and scrape. There’s a wet line of mire trailing up her calf and dried reeds clinging to her thighs. He narrows his eyes again. Like it might help. Like he wont see her clearly through the slant. “I’ll kick you instead,” he mutters, voice too hoarse.

She doesn’t flinch. Merely drawls idle fingers across her belly, and smirks slow and wide and knowing. “Why don’t you try my pulse again? I liked that.” Gods, that smirk. Her tongue peeks out to wet her bottom lip. He hates how much he notices. but his gaze catches it. Freezes on the wettened brim of her mouth. Don’t, he warns himself.

Don’t you dare.

But his feet keep moving. One after the other, like he’s got no say in it. Like his body’s been doing this long before his brain caught up. He stands beside her again quietly for a moment. Hovers. She raises a palm like she’s royalty — bends her hand like it’s decked in too many rings she expects kisses for.

Rivin feels himself scowl. “You’re a damn menace.” he says, but reaches out anyway.

“Mm.”

He sidesteps her limp and offered hand and his fingers brush her wrist instead. Just barely. A graze. She’s watching him. Gaze heavy and bold. All the heat in the world packed into two golden coins and tossed straight at his chest. The silence breathes.

Rivin lets the air between them swell like something pregnant. Waiting. Before his fingers tighten around the joint and he hauls her up too hard. Too fast. “Hey-” Echo gasps, suddenly launched to her feet. Near stumbling into the water if not for his grip around her wrist. If not for the way he steadies her. She pouts when she finds her balance, presses her look of surprise into a neat glare. He doesn’t let go of her wrist for a long moment. “Bit rough, Cap’n,” she says in that familiar drawl but she’s already smirking again. Already standing straight and tall and unafraid. “Didn’t realize I was so hard to handle.”

“You know.” He huffs, dropping her hand like it burns him hotter the longer he holds onto it. She stretches out her wrist, flexes and rolls it in a way that makes him taste regret. Only slightly. Only enough to suck in a breath. Enough to reach for her again. Grasps her palm this time. Soft as fallen petals over path.

Rivin won’t look. Has already learned his lesson for today. But he squeezes her fingers gently. Just once, and then her digits thread through his knuckles like an invisible stich being pulling into place. His breath hitches through gritted teeth.

“C’mon,” he says again — still feigning control. He turns before she can argue, tugs her along as they start to part the cane in a hurry. He doesn’t let go of her hand.

Echo laughs that windchime laugh and the breeze carries the sound through the reeds and over the top of water and towards the skyline and somehow, inevitably, right back into his chest.

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