saurio

── .✦ disclaimers it's been so long! i have multiple works in the drafts, but recently i haven't felt satisfied with my writing, so for now, and to start off my works in 2026, i give you all this smau! ( which i will be doing more often until i feel satisfied with my writing ).

proofread by a friend of mine <3 even tho she doesnt play twst...

i tried writing for the others but... erm, i couldn't rly come up w anything... mbmb.

starting off 2026 with twst since i js finished book 6 and currently on chap 101 of book 7 haha...! and i managed to get lilia's plat. jacket in under 40 pulls the moment it dropped hehe...

Riddle Rosehearts ⟡ ݁₊ .

Leona Kingscholar ⟡ ݁₊ .

Vil Schoenheit ⟡ ݁₊ .

Malleus Draconia ⟡ ݁₊ .

Leona - who’s been close enough to you to memorize the scent. He knows the brand. Knows the make and year. Some cheap body spray that barely lasts longer than a few hours. Like gum. He sprays some on his pillows before bed, burying his nose between them and pretends it’s you.

Ruggie - who couldn’t help himself. He swiped your half-empty bottle with practiced ease. Using it sparingly, down to the last drop, spritzing just enough on his collar to make it through the hard times. Doesn’t matter the price now. He tries to tell himself ‘when it’s out, i’m done’ but he said that when you left and look at him now.

Jack - who forgets entirely. Until weeks pass and he finds one of ‘your’ sweaters in his room. A little travel sized perfume in the pocket. He sprays some on the collar and presses it to his nose. For a moment, you’re there.

Azul - who’s paid for new couches in the VIP room. Scent permeates into leather and you’ve spent night after night curled on the originals. They’re moved to his bedroom, where he sleeps on them more than his own bed.

Floyd - who’s used to everything smelling too big. The surface world’s full of more pungent notes. He asks (demands) rather garishly for whatever you had. Soap, perfume, lotion - he doesn’t care. In a world where smells are too big, yours has become too small.

Jade - who brews the same blend of tea every night. Serves it in the same cup, pours out of the same pot, and doesn’t take a single sip. He lets the scent evaporate into the air because it smells faintly of someone who would dab some on their pulse points. Just for him.

Kalim - who supplied your entire wardrobe. Who wouldn’t budge on it, and made sure you had clean clothes besides your uniform. You looked so pretty, so happy, and your gratitude made him feel so loved. He didn’t stop there either. You complimented his bedroom once and that was enough to send more blankets than you’d ever need. Especially after seeing how cold Ramshackle could get. They were for you. So why are these the only blankets he can sleep in? If he closes his eyes, pulls them close, breathes - you’re hugging him, right? From wherever you are.

Jamil - who’s struggling to clean his room. There isn’t much time to dawdle. His sheets need to be washed. His uniform ironed. Then he has to finish his duties, shower, and ready for bed. He opens the top drawer for a new set of sheets and is hit with you. That’s right. You did the laundry last week…he closes the drawer and goes to borrow a set from Kalim. The urge to pull them out strong, but Jamil’s always been resistant to his needs.

Vil - who’s suddenly caught wearing a brand far beneath his normal standards. He rarely shows preference to one over the other. Yet this cheap, poorly balanced - honest to goodness mockery of a perfume has become his favorite. No one knows why.

Epel - who let you use his cardigan one time. More like you stole it during your stay at Harveston. Grandma said she’d make you one for when you came back. You still hogged his. The fibers picked your scent and he’s afraid to wash it. What was supposed to bring homely comfort, now fills him with yearning and nostalgia.

Rook - who seats himself in front of the fire. Barely lit, dim, and more for the mood. To light this abandoned room in a new emotion. He takes one last inhale from the most intoxicating scent known to Twisted Wonderland, and then tosses it to the flames.

Idia - who fingers a little glass bottle between thumb and index. It’s almost gone. He could buy more. Make some. The tags were peeled off, but Ortho could dissect the contents with just a drop. He’s clinging. Idia knows this as he pops the cap and presses his nose to it.

Ortho - who’s learning how to make friends. With new emotions and freedom. He’s studied the senses and how they influence emotions. When asked if there’s anything he’d like from Ramshackle, he thinks of what his brother might like. Idia won’t ask for himself. Yet Ortho’s own thoughts surprise him, because why does he want this little bottle of perfume so badly? It’s nothing special. He can locate 10 online listings with competitive prices and quantities. Yet he specifically wants this one.

Malleus - who slips into Ramshackle at the height of midnight. A ruin once again with relics upon relics of a beautiful soul now gone. He loiters and avoids your bedroom. Yet when he enters the bathroom, he looks at his reflection in the vanity. His eye catches the smallest glass bottle…and he takes it. He dares to spray it once on his cuff. The yearning causes him to stow it away for the next century. Until he craves to feel their warmth and searches.

Lilia - who smiles fondly, pressing the lapels of your blazer down and into a box. Taking it in before that sense begins to dull too. Committing it to memory. In a decade or two he’ll cross its path again, and remember .

Sebek - who chases. Who shamefully gives in to instinct and attachment. Who sprays the last of some generic, cheap, alcohol based scent that was an assault to him with bittersweet yearning. He traps it on your portrait and seals it in a glass frame. If temptation’s going to linger in him, then let it drive him forward.

Silver - whose eyes open easily for the first time. His heart stuttering, mind shifting, attention sharp … the call of your name on his lips, as a random student shakes him awake during class. He asks what perfume they wear and commits it to memory.

‧₊˚ ┊ Riddle is… unamused

‧₊˚ ┊ At least, that's what he wants you to think, but his red face definitely says otherwise

‧₊˚ ┊ You're lucky there's somehow not a rule against wearing stickers on one's face, otherwise Riddle wouldn't be so forgiving (lies — he'd let you get away with murder tbh)

"Aww, don't pout, Riddle. It looks cute on you, don't you think?"

"Cuteness is subjective, my rose. If anything, I think I look rather ridiculous."

"Do you want me to take them off, then?"

"N-no! If adorning my face with these stickers makes you happy, then you have my permission to do so. I only ask that we keep this to ourselves. I don't think I have the patience to withstand the looks and comments I'd get if I went out looking like this."

‧₊˚ ┊ Mr. Nonchalant Dread-Head over here does not give a fuck lol

‧₊˚ ┊ As long as you're not disturbing his sleep, then you're free to use him as your little arts and crafts project — just don't mess with his hair, ears, and tail unless you what him to bare his fangs at you

‧₊˚ ┊ Leona will remove all your hard work if he has to leave the comfort of his room, so don't get too attached to it lol

"What's stopping you from just going to Spelldrive practice like that?"

"My dignity and self-respect."

"Wow, okay, rude."

"Whatever. I'll make it up to you when I get back, alright?"

"Fine, but I expect you to buy me more stickers."

"I'll buy you a whole sticker factory if that's what you want."

"Really?"

"No. Now, help me take these damn stickers off."

‧₊˚ ┊ Azul doesn't exactly see the appeal of decorating his face with stickers, but he likes hearing you praise him and call him cute, so he lets it slide

‧₊˚ ┊ Me may or may not buy you a bunch of stickers with the sole purpose of baiting you into using them all over his face (this mf ain't slick smh)

‧₊˚ ┊ Azul just wants you to tell him he's pretty, and this is the only way he can get what he wants without sacrificing his pride lol (men will do anything but be vulnerable lol)

"Have I ever told you that you have beautiful eyes? This sticker right here complements them really well. You're so pretty, Azul. Seriously, it's so unfair."

"You flatter me, my pearl. Keep it up and you'll make me blush."

"You're already blushing. That's cute too, ya know? Dammit, everything about you just makes me wanna squeeze you."

"You're starting to sound like Floyd, darling."

"Yeah, well, maybe he's been onto something this whole time, and I'm only just now realizing it."

"For my sake and yours, please stop hanging out with him — he's a bad influence on you."

‧₊˚ ┊ Jamil doesn't have the time or energy to deal with your bullshit (he still loves you tho)

‧₊˚ ┊ He's either gonna let you have your fun, or shut that shit down before you even have the chance to think about putting a sticker on him

‧₊˚ ┊ Lucky for you, Jamil is weak for you and will, occasionally, give in if you beg enough for his liking (freak)

"I thought I made it clear that you're not to distract me while I'm trying to cook."

"Fine, I'll go — just let me put this sticker on you first."

"Uhhh, no."

"What, why?"

"I don't need a reason. If I don't want a sticker on my face, you should respect that and leave me alone."

"But, Jamillll."

"Hush, your tricks won't sway me. Now, leave before I kick you out."

"Please! I'll do anything."

…

"Beg."

"Of course you'd say that. Fine, pretty please, Jamil, won't you let me put this sticker on you."

"Hmm, your begging can use some work, but I'm a man of my word. Go ahead."

‧₊˚ ┊ You run the risk of sustaining grievous bodily harm every time you so much as touch Vil's face without washing your hands first, so a sticker might land you six feet under (jk tho — he's never hurt you, but he will get very upset with you, which is privacy worse bc he's very petty lol)

‧₊˚ ┊ He will always tense up the moment you put a sticker on him — eyes wide and expression blame as he turns to look at you like you just said the most out of pocket thing he's ever heard

‧₊˚ ┊ You're very lucky that Vil doesn't make a mashed sweet potato out of you lol

"Before you get mad at me, I want you to know that those stickers are safe for your skin."

"Good, I'd hoped you weren't foolish enough to think you'd get away with putting something full of toxic adhesive chemicals on my face."

"Aw, c'mon! I'd never do anything to make my Queen mad. Well, not intentionally, at least."

"Yes, I would surely hope not, sweet potato. Now, remove this sticker from my face."

"Yes, my Queen."

‧₊˚ ┊ Idia is never gonna say no to you — it's a miracle he managed to pull you in the first place, so he's gonna do whatever he can to keep you happy lol (he's very desperate)

‧₊˚ ┊ He doesn't leave his room like, ever, so he doesn't care abut you putting stickers all over him

‧₊˚ ┊ Idia loves cute things — especially cats — so his one request is that you adorn him with as many cat stickers as you can

"Ooh, look at this one, Ids. It's so cute — kinda looks like you too."

"Chat, is this rizz?"

"… you just had to go and ruin it."

"I'M SO SORRY, PLEASE DON'T LEAVE ME. I PROMISE I'LL NEVER BE CRINGE AGAIN!!!"

"Don't make promises you can't keep, Idia."

"My bad. I'll choose a better dialogue option next time."

‧₊˚ ┊ Oh, Malleus is so down to be your living, breathing sticker book

‧₊˚ ┊ He find the sticky adornments to be rather… intriguing — he never saw such things until he came to NRC, so they're somewhat of a novelty to him (Briar Valley is pretty much stuck in medieval times, so no stickers for poor Mal-Mal)

‧₊˚ ┊ Malleus will wear your stickers with pride and refuses to take them off no matter the occasion which is quite the sight lol

"Don't you think you should take the stickers off before you go to class, Mal?"

"Nonsense! I would never destroy my dearest Child of Man's hard work. I shall let these stickers fall off on their own."

"I mean, I appreciate the sentiment, but you don't have to keep them on just for me."

"I just so happen to think I look quite fetching with these stickers. Lilia says they help temper my naturally intimidating aura, so I shall wear them until fate deems it fit to see them fall off."

The silence that followed was a bubble of pure surprise.

Then Maria’s hands flew to her cheeks as if to hold back a tide of delight.

“Wife? Your wife? The enigmatic keeper of the lonely lighthouse? The one all the wistful maidens whisper about but never dare to approach?” She peered at you with hungry curiosity. “Stars above, Peter, did you hear that? Did you?”

“I did, my darling, I did,” Peter murmured, a broad, sun-breaking-through-clouds smile spreading across his face as he gave a firm, approving nod to Flins. “Good. Very good. A rare and beautiful bloom indeed.”

The flush that crept up your neck was a wildfire of conflicting emotions – embarrassment at being so openly adored, a strange pleasure at the uncomplicated praise, and beneath it, a tremor of fear at how seamlessly Flins had woven this fiction. He absorbed their approval like a parched root absorbing rain. His usual serene dignity softened, infused with a radiant warmth. He dipped his head in a graceful nod.

“Your kindness is a light upon us. Truly, I am... a man undeserving of such grace, and yet, beyond measure, blessed.”

“Oh, but you must listen to me now, Flins,” Maria said, her tone shifting to one of gentle command. She pointed a finger at you, not accusing, but instructing. “Be her guardian moon,” Maria said, with the gentle imperiousness of someone who had been married to one man for a very long time and had, therefore, opinions about how love should be kept. “Cherish her. Warm her. Hide her from the sharpest winds.”

“I intend to honor that trust with every breath I do not take, dear Maria,” Flins replied, his voice dropping to a solemn, intimate register with an echo of laughter, “I will adore her light until my own dwindles, and guard it as the night guards the dawn.” He looked down at you, and in his star-flecked eyes, you saw a universe being meticulously arranged around your image. 

“Splendid!” Peter boomed, clapping his hands with a sound like ancient parchment rustling. “Then this isn’t just an anniversary, it’s a double celebration! No arguments from the newlyweds,” he stated, as Flins was about to begin a polite protest of his. “You’ve been a shore-bound hermit too long. The town will be overjoyed. A little happiness is good for the atmosphere. Come, we’ll all walk together.”

Flins hesitated, a flicker of something fiercely private crossing his face – a guardian’s instinct to keep his treasure hidden. “The town… I fear its nature would be rather overwhelming. The clamour of so many memories...”

“Overwhelming? Nonsense!” Maria declared, deftly looping her arm through yours from the other side. Her touch was surprisingly substantial, unexpected from the dead. “She has the courage of a lioness, I can see it in the set of her chin! Your wife–” and Flins bloomed at these words, “–is just not accustomed to our ways yet! It’s just a gentle stroll, some happy greetings. Everyone will be so pleased to see the light in your eyes finally answered!” Peter supported her ideas with a firm nod.

“Deary,” she added, winking at you, “Don't you worry! He’s just being protective. A good sign in a husband, mind you, but a married man must learn the music of society!”

And so you were swept along, a quartet now on the silver-dusted path. Yet again, Flins kept your hand in the confines of his fingers, a fixed point in the gentle tumult, while Maria anchored your other side, a chatterbox of cheerful commentary.

As you walked, Maria’s curiosity, like a bubbling spring, couldn’t be contained. “But you are so very... alive, my dear! How does the mechanics of it all work?” She waved her hand at you in sweeping, elegant arc, as though you were a rare and delicate clockwork songbird.

Peter chuckled and drew his wife closer, away from you, his love a palpable cushion around her. “The heart is the only engine that matters. Didn’t it build a bridge of fifty years for us? If a promise can span decades, why can’t a vow span the very shore of being?” He glanced at Flins with the easy affection of old comrades, the sort of look that passed between men who had too many shared stories to tell. “When a soul has made its choice,” he added, “rules become suggestions.”

Flins met his gaze and gave a nod. “Indeed,” he said softly, his thumb beginning an unconscious stroking motion on the back of your hand. “The heart is a cartographer. It redraws the maps of possibility.”

Around you, the conversation knitted itself. Maria fussed about your wedding gown – “All ruined! Such a pity!” – and vowed, with the uncompromising optimism of someone certain of miracles, to fetch a seamstress in town who could coax splendor from ragged lace. Peter described apples that tasted like early autumn mornings, the ones that he grew in the realm of living. Flins threaded his comments through the talk like thin lines and smiled, however rarely.

It was this surreal normality that was most disorienting. The easy back-and-forth, the shared smiles that weren’t predatory or weary, but kind. It felt like you had stumbled into the warm kitchen of a family you never knew you had, and they were insisting you belonged at the table. 

And Flins… When you spoke, he leaned in as if your words were sacred wonders, and when the path pitched and a hidden root sought to trip you, his hand came lightly to the small of your back. The touch was feathered and yet it branded with a chill certainty, the kind of cold that promised preservation. 

You were accustomed to the unvarnished, often crude, manners of Nasha Town – the shouts across streets, the hearty claps on the back, the way men occupied space as a natural right. Flins’s demeanor was woven from another substance entirely. Every pause was a pulse beneath the fabric, every word held note of a virtuoso at the edge of rapture.  

As you proceeded, you realized, with a start, that you were not on the main path that led back to the silent bridge. Instead, Peter, with a confident step, had led your party onto a narrower trail near the edge of the cemetery. It wound like a dark ribbon through a denser part of the woods, where the trees grew closer, their branches weaving a cathedral vault high above. You were about to voice a question about this alternate route when the crimson glow intruded once more.

It was closer. Much closer. A sullen orb in the color of clotted blood, nestled in a hollow between the twisted roots of a dead tree. A low hum emanated from it, a vibration that set your nerves on edge. It felt hungry.

Your steps faltered. “Flins, again, it’s–”

You never finished. A soft azure light blossomed at your side, so you glanced down, curious. The lantern at the keeper’s hip, usually a sleeping star, was now awake with the same crimson hue. Flins, with the oblique grace that always seemed to belong to him, shifted the fall of his coat. Dark wool drifted and fell over the lantern as though a curtain had been drawn on a stage. The light dimmed, muffled into something private. His other hand tightened around yours with a gentle pressure that made the air itself seem steadier.

“Flins,” you whispered again, his name itself a plea for explanation.

He parted his blue-tinted lips, ready to offer a soothing, likely metaphorical, explanation. But Maria turned toward the crimson, and the laughter left her face like a bird startled into flight. The edges of her smile steadied into something firm, and she spoke in a voice that held the soft pity.

“Pay it no mind, sweetheart,” she said. “Some souls don’t know how to lay down their burdens. They carry anger, betrayal and thirst for revenge until it becomes… this. It’s… not for the likes of us, dearie. Not for happy hearts.” 

Flins closed his mouth, poetic deflection sagging into quiet gratitude. He gave Maria a grateful nod. The subject, his posture declared, was sealed. He guided you forward, his body subtly positioned to block your view. As you passed, you thought you saw, in the depths of that crimson pulse, the last shapeless movement – a twitch of spectral agony. 

Then it was behind you.

Soon, the oppressive closeness of the woods began to ease. The trees thinned, and the path sloped downward in a series of moss-carpeted steps. Below, the town of the dead revealed itself as a serene vision. Gray-shingled cottages with chimneys clustered around a tranquil square. A dry fountain stood in its center, a statue of a woman with an urn forever frozen in the act of pouring silent water. Lanterns hung with pale flame, bead-soft and gentle. The town was like a painting of peace that contrasted its twin above.

It was here, on this threshold where the woodland path met the town’s edge, that a stronger sigh of wind swept up from the depths below. It was a capricious gust, and it found the carefully arranged ends of your dark shawl, tugging them loose. The fabric fluttered free, lifting like the wings of a startled night butterfly against the twilight.

You gasped, raising a hand to catch the fleeing wool, but in a movement faster than thought, Flins was facing you.

“Oh dear,” he murmured, his voice thick with a concern that felt disproportionate to the breeze. Then he leaned in and seized the ends of it between his long fingers. The world narrowed to the space between your faces.

He stood so close that the map of his features, the frostlike filigree at his temples, the way the moonlight carved hollows beneath his cheekbones, were all laid plain to you. He was so close. And he was looking at you with a yearning so absolute it seemed to bend the very light around you. 

Then, faster than any thought, he bridged that final gap as if pulled by gravity. His lips, colder and softer than the petal of a winter rose, pressed to the very tip of your nose.

It was a shock, but a sweet one – the crisp kiss of a first snowflake landing precisely on the warmest point of your being, melting instantly into a memory.

Flins did not pull away quickly. He lingered in the aftermath, basking in your own startled warmth, creating a transient cloud where your two realities met. With a tenderness that felt like it could mend broken porcelain, he drew the shawl ends together, wrapping the soft wool securely around your shoulders and head, his fingers brushing the line of your jaw.

Your face, already touched by the cool air, now bloomed with a wildfire of living heat, a flag of crimson defiance against the pallid world. Your heart was a wild drum against the cage of your ribs, beating a rhythm of confusion, shock, and sweetest flutter.

Maria, who had witnessed the entire exchange, let out a peal of delighted laughter that broke the perfect moment. “Oh, Flins, you handsome scoundrel!” she cried, her hands clasped to her chest in sheer joy. “Stealing kisses so shamelessly! Marriage hasn’t just melted that icy heart of yours, no! It has set your soul to bubbling like a spring!”

Flins did not break his gaze from you as she spoke. The faint blue-ish blush on his marble cheeks deepened to the violet of a deep twilight. But he did not dissolve, did not retreat into his lantern this time. He held your gaze with the quiet intensity of a man who has found his reason for eternity and will not blink lest the vision fade. 

A ghost of a smile touched his frozen lips, meant for you alone.

 “Perhaps,” he said, “it has.” 

The town of the dead didn’t so much end as soften, its quiet cobblestone streets yielding to a lane. The buildings, with their slate roofs and pale walls, leaned toward one another in peaceful conversation, their windows glowing with a buttery light that had no source of flame.

It was then that you passed the intersection where the lane met a cobbled square. And there it was: a building that seemed to breathe warmth into the perpetual twilight. “The Deadman’s Share” read the carved sign above the door, wrought of black iron twisted into elegant vines. Smoke curled from a stout chimney, carrying the scent of baking bread, spiced cider, and seasoned oak.

“Oh, look! We are finally here!” Maria exclaimed, clapping her hands together with a sound like chimes. “Come, dears, you must step inside for a moment!”

You hesitated, your feet rooted to the street stone. In the world of the living, such places in a town like Nasha were refuges of last resort, filled with the grim laughter of miners drowning their fears in bitter alcohol, the air thick with despair and cheap vodka. 

Flins, too, had paused. He was not looking at the door, but at the smoke, his star-lit eyes reflecting the amber glow. A faint, almost imperceptible tension built up in his broad shoulders. He, with his eyebrows knitted together, didn't seem particularly entertained by the idea of coming inside as well.

But before you two could form a timid protest, a cheerful shout rang out. The tavern door had opened, spilling a richer wave of laughing and the strains of a ghostly fiddle into the street. Two figures stood silhouetted in the light – a man with the broad shoulders of a blacksmith and a woman whose form shimmered like a reflection in a sun-warmed pond.

“Maria! Peter! You’ve brought guests!” the man boomed, his voice a hearty sound that held no aggression, only abundant welcome.

“Not guests, Harold!” Maria called back, her voice singing with triumph. “A wonder! A living, breathing wonder!”

The social terror you’d felt before escalated in a cold wave, washing away the momentary curiosity. You instinctively stepped closer to Flins, your shoulder brushing the elegant wool of his cloak. You felt him lean into the contact, a subtle shift that spoke of a silent understanding. The long arm of his found your form, wrapping around it protectively.

Too many eyes. Too many voices. 

“Harold, Anastasia,” Flins nodded in recognition, “we were just proceeding to the tailor.” He attempted to turn, his hand coming to the small of your back to guide you away. “We wouldn’t wish to intrude upon a private gathering.”

“Private? Nonsense!” the woman chimed in, floating closer. Her kind face was wreathed in a smile. “The Share’s warmth is for all who carry a memory of community. And you,” her eyes, the soft brown of wood, settled on you with gentle awe, “you carry the most vibrant memory of all, I reckon. Please, just for a moment. A single toast to warm your journey.”

The pressure was a gentle, inexorable tide. Harold and Anastasia joined Maria and Peter, forming a semicircle of expectant faces. Their goodwill was a palpable force, a net of silken threads that made Flins’s jaw tighten, a minute clenching of marble. His hand on your back pressed slightly, a signal. We could flee. We could turn to mist and shadow. But the act would be a violent tear in this fabric of gentle peace, a rejection of the kindness this world had offered you. 

“I guess, it wouldn’t hurt…” You breathed out, because denying these lively dead seemed impolite. 

Flins stilled, and his starry eyes met yours immediately. In them, you saw the conflict: the desire to spirit you away to his solitary tower, warring with a stranger need – the instinct of a man who must, at some point, introduce his bride to the nosey neighborhood. With a sigh that was of surrendering a cherished solitude, he gave the faintest of nods.

The door swung open fully, and before you could muster a protest, the current of well-meaning ghosts carried you across the threshold. The strange warmth that embraced you wasn’t the damp heat of a Nasha Town’s taverns, thick with sweat and desperation. This place was breathing with heat, like the pentiful soil at the end of winter. It smelled of polished oak, of spiced apples, of clean pipe smoke that carried the scent of autumn leaves rather than cheap tobacco.

And it was, you realized with a deeper shock, beautiful.

The Deadman’s Share was a chapel to quiet camaraderie. The ceiling was high, supported by curved beams from which hung bundles of dried flowers that glowed with their own bioluminescent light. The walls were paneled in honey-gold wood. Along them hung some paintings, bringing to life some peaceful scenes: a ship entering a calm harbor, a sower casting seeds, a couple dancing under a willow tree. A fireplace large enough to stand in dominated the far wall, but within its hearth, no logs burned. Instead, great ribbons of blue and silver fire – like captured Northern Lights – drifted and curled in a mesmerizing ballet, their cool light radiating the strange warmth you felt earlier.

And this place was so lively. The patrons were many, a dazzling gathering of shadows and soft light. Their forms were the true tapestry of the place. A woman by the fire had hair like spun moonlight and skin so translucent you could see the bird-like architecture of the bones in her hands as she lifted her glass. A man playing a chess game with himself had a handsome face, but the left side of his doublet was dark and stiff with a long-dried stain, a dagger still embedded silently in his ribs. A group of three in the corner laughed silently, their mouths open in joy, their throats showing the terrible, final reason for their silence. The other guests sat at the polished tables, enjoying their drinks. 

And yet their eyes sparkled with kindness. They were not gruesome. They were simply true. Their deaths were part of them, as natural as the color of their eyes or the shape of their smiles. And the smiles were plentiful, peaceful, and warm.

The wave of sorrow that hit you was so immense, it nearly stole your breath. This place of final rest had more art, more peace, more genuine community than the struggling realm you called home. 

Why, a voice wept inside you, is the land of the remembered dead so much kinder than the land of the forgotten living?

Peter, with the air of a man about to perform a sacred duty, cleared his throat, tearing you out of your misery. The gentle hum of the tavern softened, then stilled. Faces turned toward you, pale and serene, some vivid, some mere suggestions of light. The glass stilled in the translucent hand. The silent laugh paused. The chess player’s hand hovered over the white bishop.

“Dear friends,” Peter began, his voice a comforting rumble that filled the space. “My dear Maria and I have had the honor of walking tonight with two souls whose paths have woven into a single thread. You all know our steadfast Keeper of the Lighthouse, who has protected our shores in contemplative silence for longer than most of us can recall.” All eyes turned to Flins, who stood as still and perfect as a statue carved from midnight, his expression unreadable. “It seems the silence has found its song. The vigil is over! This,” Peter said, and his gesture toward you was filled with benevolence, “is his reason. His wife!”

The silence that followed was absolute and attentive. Dozens of eyes – some bright and full as a harvest moon, others softer, like smoldering peat – settled on you. There was no judgment, only a gathering wonder. Then, the applause began. 

“A light for the lighthouse at last!” giggled the woman with moonlit hair.

“A beauty to match the keeper’s longing,” said the chess player, smiling kindly.

The group of three nodded in quiet approval.

Then, a man at the bar with maroon eyes and jet black hair roared: “To the groom! To the bride! May your shared silence be a song!”

The toasts washed over you, each one a balm and a barb. Flins stood as a carved monument beside you, accepting the words with slight inclinations of his head. But when the voices called you a fragile flame, his arm slid around your waist, pulling you firmly into the cool, solid line of his body. 

Then, from a shadowed nook, another voice called, “Words are fine wine, but a wedding needs its seal! A kiss, keeper! Let us witness the bond!”

A ripple of agreeing laughter flowed through the room. Your heart, a trapped bird, beat against your ribs. Public affection in your world was a coarse thing, a prelude to lewd jokes in the marketplace. This request felt different, but still terrifyingly exposing.

Flins turned to you slowly. The crowd’s noise faded into a distant sea. His face was a canvas of conflict in the flickering light – a trace of annoyance at the spectacle, but beneath it, a cunning delight. A secretive smile touched the corner of his perfect blue lips. His eyes, holding yours, gleamed with a private conspiracy.

“It would be…” he murmured, his voice a velvet thread meant only for you, “terribly ungrateful… to deny this kind folk. Shall we not grace them with our gratitude, my heart?”

There was only his face, so close, etched with an emotion you had never seen before: a vulnerable, aching hope, tinged with a possessiveness that thrilled and terrified. The crowd’s wish had given him a license he would never have dared assume on his own. His star-lit eyes asked a silent but urgent question.

Trapped, burning with embarrassment, you gave the tiniest, almost imperceptible nod. Perhaps, not permission for him, but a surrender to the moment.

In the very same second, Flins leaned in. The cool, ozone-and-rose scent of him enveloped you. His long, pale fingers came up, not to grasp you, but to gently, oh so gently, frame your face, his thumbs brushing your flaming cheeks. His touch was like being cradled by winter itself – breathtaking, shocking, reverent. And then he kissed you.

It was cold. Cold as the heart of an ice that barely remembers being water. But it was devastatingly soft. His mouth moved over yours with a hungry tenderness, a searching adoration that spoke of centuries of lonely yearning condensed into this single point of warmth.

For a moment, you forgot. You forgot the terror, the confusion, the marriage you’d fled and the one you stepped into after. In the gentle cold of his kiss, in the supportive sigh of the crowd around you, a strange feeling blossomed in your chest – a feeling that tasted like the memory of a lullaby, like the safety of a locked door against a storm.

But then, The Deadman’s Share erupted. The rustling applause became a joyful thunder of hands and the soft stomping of feet. Mugs thumped on tables in a happy rhythm.

Flins pulled away slowly, as if peeling his soul from yours. His eyes opened. A magnificent violet blush – the color of a twilight bruise, beautiful and tender – suffused his marble skin from his sharp cheekbones to the tips of his elven ears once again. Without a word, his meaning clearer than any speech, he took your hand, his fingers lacing through yours with a finality that felt like a lock clicking shut, and led you through the beaming crowd toward two empty stools at the end of the long, gleaming bar.

You followed, legs unsteady. As you reached the high stool, a lifetime of fending for yourself made your hand shoot out to grasp its back. But Flins was a breath faster. His cool hand closed over the polished wood, his body subtly displacing yours. He drew the stool out with a smooth motion, then stood beside it, waiting. 

This… this attentive, anticipatory care. 

It was hauntingly familiar. Varka had done this. He would pull out chairs with a flourish, hold doors with a booming “After you, little fury!”, his large hands making a spectacle of courtesy. The memory was a shard of the living world, sharp and sudden, piercing the delicate peace of the dead. A complex wave of guilt, confusion, and sadness washed over you. 

What was happening up there, in the world of rain and rust and desperate hope? Were your parents already turned out of their crumbling house, wailing over their lost fortune rather than their lost daughter? Was Varka still crashing through the town, his voice growing hoarse, his love curdling into something darker? The thoughts were poison in this sweet air.

A presence shifted behind the bar, and you looked up.

Right in front of you stood a tall man, broad-shouldered, with a presence that seemed to absorb the tavern’s warmth and reflect it, steadier and quieter. His hair was a flowing mane of deep burgundy and rich mahogany, streaked with the fierce orange of dying embers. His beard, equally magnificent, was carefully groomed. But it was his eyes that held you. They were the color of old wine held before a dark fire, holding both warmth and a settled sorrow. He moved with an efficient grace, placing two ceramic tankards before you. They were simple, glazed in a milky grey, and within them, a liquid shimmered with an internal luminescence.

“For the newlyweds,” he said, his voice a pleasant rumble, like stones gently tumbling in a deep river.

“Thank you, Master Crepus,” Flins said, his voice smooth as oiled silk, but his eyes were on you, watchful as ever.

The tension snapped back, wire-tight. You stared at the drink meant for you. This was the heart of their world, offered in celebration. To refuse was the deepest insult, a rejection of their welcome, their joy, their very existence. The social terror of a peasant girl, trained to please, tangled with the primal terror of a soul in a gilded cage.

“I-I...” Your hand, resting on the bar, began to tremble. You balled it into a fist to still it, and the simple silver band on your finger caught the light, winking like a captive star.

Crepus’s garnet eyes dropped to your hand. He observed the ring, then the way your knuckles were white with strain. His gaze traveled up to Flins’s tensed features, then back to you, his own expression deepening into something unreadable. He leaned forward on his elbows, his voice dropping so only you two could hear, the friendly rumble now underlaid with a bedrock of seriousness.

“So,” he said, the word deliberate. “You breathe.”

You swallowed, the sound loud in your ears. “I do, sir.”

Master Crepus studied you – the living blush that wouldn’t settle, the subtle pulse in your throat, the anxious warmth radiating from you. He glanced at Flins once again, a question forming in his eyes.

“Forgive an old bartender’s curiosity,” he said, his voice so low it was almost lost in the tavern’s hum. “But the bond between a living heart and a still one… is rare. The vow that brought you here… was it freely spun? By both hands?”

The question hung in the air, sharp as a splinter of ice.

Did you choose this? 

You had spoken words. You had given a ring. But was it a gift, or a surrender flung into the dark?

Flins’s hand shot out, covering your clenched fist on the bar. His grip was unnaturally crushing, a band of cold iron. His voice, when it came, had lost all its melodic softness, shifting to the crack of frozen lake ice, clear, hard, and dangerous.

“The nature of our vow,” Flins stated, each word a chip of falling frost, “is a garden enclosed. Its gates are not for strangers, no matter how… hospitable.”

Crepus held Flins’s glacial stare with selfless protectiveness. The air between them grew cold, the friendly warmth of the tavern receding as if repelled. The weary kindness in the bartender’s eyes didn’t fade, but it was joined by a flicker of grim understanding. He gave a slow, heavy nod, as if confirming a sad suspicion.

Flins rose, the movement swift and fluid. “The hour grows late for such chatter. Come, my heart,” he said, the term of endearment now sounding like a command. “We shall head to the tailor’s parlor.”

You slipped from the stool, relief at leaving warring with a new tingle of dread. 

It was then Crepus spoke again.

“A thought for you, lass, since you still have a mind for thinking,” he said, and his tone held an almost paternal regret. “The vow goes as ‘Till death do us part.’ ”

You shifted numbly, the world tilting. You could not look at Crepus, at the pity and certainty in his fiery eyes.

Flins turned rapidly, tugging you close, too close, placing himself between you and the bar, and leading you swiftly toward the door. But Crepus’s final judgment followed you like a curse. 

“The law is the law, Keeper, you two are already–”

Then, before the words could fully land, before Flins could spin around and unleash the storm gathering in his eyes, the heavy door of “The Deadman’s Share” swung shut behind you.

And there you stood, on the threshold of the tavern, stunned into silence.

.

Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated!

I know I'm a bit late, but Happy New Year (and very, very late Christmas), my loves! May this one treat us better than a previous one ;-; Honestly, I intended to end this before Christmas, but oh dear… Life is just too much sometimes. Why can't i just write my silly fics and enjoy my life as a hermit? :c

taglist: @theiridescentdragon, @yune1337, @papisp, @blueberrysauce, @damarezen @adi-na, @uniquecutie-puffs, @luv-isolde, @seraph-hello, @barryatsumu, @zerosbooblights, @justsleepysomething, @h1m3chan, @okadahimeko, @sasurioo, @snowfire0313, @amarelilie, @loriannbowman, @tamikahoshiko, @nyhgiu, @fandomotakutraveler, @alexandershadowpuppet

Deuce nods fervently, dragging you toward the door. “Heartslabyul’s clean! Organized! You’d thrive there!”

"And the desserts!" Ace adds. "Think of the desserts!"

Before you know it, you're shoved into Heartslabyul’s rose garden, where Riddle is waiting with the most extravagant tea party setup you’ve ever seen. There’s a towering cake, delicate pastries, and enough tea to drown Grim.

“I thought you might need proper refreshments while considering your options,” Riddle says, adjusting his posture like he isn’t secretly trying to sway you. “Of course, I have no preference where you go. I’m merely concerned for your well-being.”

Trey hands you a plate with the biggest, most immaculate slice of cake you’ve ever seen. “You’d fit right in here, you know,” he says kindly. “We’re all about structure and care… and good desserts.”

"Plus," Cater slides in with a grin, “imagine all the cool pics we could take together! #DormGoals, am I right? You and me chilling in Heartslabyul, like, all the time?”

Riddle clears his throat loudly. “This isn’t about favoritism, mind you. But if you were to choose Heartslabyul, you’d be part of a dorm that values discipline and respect for the rules.”

Ace nudges you with a smirk. “Ignore him. Just think of all the times I’ll sneak you extra tarts.”

You glance around at the hopeful stares. Grim’s already halfway into a tart he snatched off the table. “I feel like I’m being ambushed.”

“Oh, you are,” Ace says shamelessly.

Savanaclaw

You stumble out of the Heartslabyul tea party, feeling like you’ve consumed enough sugar to fuel a small country. Before you can even catch your breath, a shadow looms over you, and suddenly, you're hoisted into the air like a sack of potatoes.

“What the—JACK?!” you squawk, flailing as he throws you over his shoulder like you weigh nothing.

“You’re coming with me,” Jack grunts, completely unfazed by your protests. “You need to see why Savanaclaw is the best dorm for you.”

“I can walk, you know!” you huff, punching his back.

He ignores you. “Not fast enough.”

By the time he sets you down, you’re in the middle of Savanaclaw’s common area, where Ruggie is lounging on one of the couches, counting a suspiciously thick wad of cash. Leona’s sprawled out nearby, pretending to nap, though his ears twitch at the sound of your arrival.

Ruggie grins as soon as he spots you. “Ah, perfect timing! I was just telling Leona how we could totally use someone like you here. Right, boss?”

Leona cracks one eye open and yawns, his tone dripping with disinterest. “Tch. Don’t care. They can do whatever they want.”

“That’s funny,” Ruggie says, nudging Leona hard enough to make him growl, “’cause I distinctly remember you saying—and I quote—‘If they don’t pick Savanaclaw, everyone else can rot.’”

Leona sits up, glaring daggers at Ruggie. “I said no such thing.”

“Sure you didn’t,” Ruggie snickers before turning back to you, his grin as wide as a hyena’s. “Anyway, check this out. Leona generously donated some funds to help you... you know, see the light.”

He shoves the wad of cash into your hands. You blink at it. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Whatever you want! Snacks, clothes, bribes for your annoying friends in Heartslabyul…”

Leona groans and drags a hand down his face. “You’re making us look desperate.”

“We? Speak for yourself, Your Highness.” Ruggie winks at you. “He’s just mad ‘cause he doesn’t know how to be subtle.”

Leona slouches further into his seat, watching you through half-lidded eyes. “Look, Herbivore, if you wanna be around people who won’t coddle you, Savanaclaw’s where it’s at. We don’t do tea parties here—”

“Obviously,” you mutter, thinking about the claw marks on the furniture.

“—but we’ll actually challenge you to grow stronger. You can’t get that in the other dorms.”

Jack nods. “He’s right. And we’ve got the best training facilities on campus.”

Ruggie waves a hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, training’s cool and all, but let’s focus on what really matters. Free snacks. Awesome vibes. Me.”

Leona rolls his eyes. “You’re going to scare them off.”

You cross your arms, trying to ignore the way Leona’s ears flick every time you shift your weight. “So… are you guys going to bribe me with anything besides money and vibes?”

Leona smirks. “What, isn’t my dazzling personality enough?”

Ruggie snorts. “Oh, sure. That’s totally why people flock to you.”

You can’t help but laugh, and Leona’s eyes soften just a little, though he quickly turns his head like he doesn’t care.

“I’ll think about it,” you say, handing the wad of cash back to Ruggie, who immediately starts recounting it like you’ve stolen some.

“Better think fast,” Leona mutters, though there’s the faintest curve of a smile on his lips.

Octavinelle

As you trudge back to Ramshackle, your brain still processing Savanaclaw’s “recruitment tactics,” a pair of arms suddenly wrap around you, lifting you clean off the ground.

“Shrimpy!” Floyd crows, spinning you around like you’re a prize he just won at a carnival.

“FLOYD! Put me down!” you shout, flailing uselessly in his grip.

“Nah, I got orders,” he says, grinning ear to ear as he hauls you off toward the Mostro Lounge.

By the time you’re unceremoniously deposited (read: still stuck in Floyd’s arms like a glorified teddy bear), you’re face-to-face with Azul and Jade, both of whom look way too pleased with themselves.

“Ah, perfect timing!” Azul says, standing up from his chair with his signature business smile. “We’ve been eagerly awaiting your arrival. Have a seat!”

“I would if Floyd let me down,” you deadpan, glaring at the tall eel holding you like a sack of seaweed.

“Nah, you’re comfy,” Floyd chirps, tightening his grip as if daring you to try escaping.

Azul clears his throat, pulling out a scroll of parchment that looks suspiciously like a contract. “Ahem. Now, as I was saying—let’s discuss the many benefits of joining Octavinelle. For starters, we pride ourselves on being a dorm of intellect and resourcefulness. Here, you’ll have access to unmatched networking opportunities, a plethora of unique beverages crafted by Jade himself, and—should you agree—my personal mentorship in matters of… negotiation.”

He flashes you a grin that screams, This is totally not suspicious at all.

Jade slides a glass of something shimmering and iridescent across the table toward you. “I would be delighted to name you our official taste tester. Imagine the prestige of being the first to try all my… experimental creations.”

You eye the drink like it might explode. “Define ‘experimental.’”

Jade smiles serenely. “You’ll find out.”

“Don’t be shy, Shrimpy!” Floyd chimes in, shifting you in his arms so you’re now sitting sideways like some sort of royal guest. “You’d have so much fun here. We’ve got good food, good drinks, and me.”

Azul adjusts his glasses, sliding the contract closer to you. “And, of course, we’ve prepared a special position for you. All you have to do is sign right here, and Octavinelle will officially welcome you as our newest member.”

You glance at the contract, then at the three of them—Azul’s scheming smile, Jade’s unsettling calmness, and Floyd’s unnervingly enthusiastic grin.

“I feel like this is a trap,” you say.

“It’s not a trap,” Floyd says immediately, which makes you even more suspicious.

Azul leans forward, steepling his fingers. “I assure you, everything is perfectly legitimate. Now, shall we seal the deal?”

“Or,” you say, leaning back as far as Floyd’s grip will allow, “I could not.”

Jade hums thoughtfully, handing you another drink. “At least try the beverages before you decide.”

Azul smirks. “I’m sure a sip or two will convince you.”

You glance at the drink, then back at Azul. “Is this bribery?”

“It’s persuasion,” he corrects smoothly.

“Same thing.”

Floyd suddenly squeezes you tight, grinning down at you. “C’mon, Shrimpy. Just say yes already! I’ll carry you everywhere. Betcha Heartslabyul and Savanaclaw didn’t offer that.”

You sigh, resting your head in your hands. This was going to be a long night.

Scarabia

You barely make it out of Octavinelle alive (or at least with your dignity and soul intact) when you’re immediately ambushed again.

“Prefect!” Kalim’s voice rings out, and before you can even process the sound, you’re being yanked into a whirlwind of color, music, and… is that confetti?

You blink as Scarabia's lounge comes into view, transformed into what can only be described as a full-blown festival. Tables are piled high with food, lanterns glow in warm hues, and cheerful music fills the air.

“Surprise!” Kalim grins, throwing his arms wide like he just gifted you the world. “Welcome to Scarabia! We threw a party just for you!”

“A… party?” you repeat, still trying to figure out how you got here so fast.

“Yep!” Kalim grabs your hands, his golden eyes shining with pure, unfiltered excitement. “I thought, ‘What’s the best way to convince you to join us?’ And then I thought, ‘A party! Everyone loves parties!’”

Before you can respond, a plate stacked with delicious-looking food appears in front of you, courtesy of none other than Jamil.

“Eat,” he says simply, pushing the plate closer.

“Oh, uh, thanks?” you mumble, picking up a fork.

Jamil nods, then leans in slightly, his voice low and almost conspiratorial. “This is just a taste of what Scarabia has to offer. Stick around, and I’ll make sure you’re well-fed every day. Properly fed.”

You pause mid-bite, noticing the way he emphasizes the word “properly,” like he knows exactly how many instant noodles you’ve been living off of.

Kalim, meanwhile, is still giving you the most devastating puppy-dog eyes you’ve ever seen. “You’ll join, right? We’d have so much fun together! And think of all the parties we could throw! Oh, and I can get you anything you want! Name it, and it’s yours!”

You glance between Kalim’s hopeful grin and Jamil’s subtle but persuasive bribes.

Jamil catches your hesitation and sighs, placing yet another dish in front of you. “Look, I’ll even help you stay on top of your work. You’re clearly the type who needs someone dependable around.”

“Hey!” you protest, only for him to raise an eyebrow as if to say, Am I wrong?

“Please?” Kalim chimes in, practically bouncing in place. “It’ll be so much fun! And I really, really want you to join. Scarabia would be perfect for you!”

You groan internally, stuffing another bite of food into your mouth just to avoid answering. Between Kalim’s overwhelming enthusiasm and Jamil’s quiet determination, you’re starting to think Scarabia might actually succeed in breaking your will.

You’re doomed. Aren’t you?

Pomefiore

You stumble out of Scarabia, clutching your overstuffed stomach and wondering how you’ve made it this far without officially losing your sanity. Taking the long way around campus to avoid any more ambushes seems like the best idea—you’ve had enough dorm propaganda for one day.

Or so you thought.

You’re halfway through the forest, breathing a sigh of relief at the quiet, when—

“Bonjour, mon cher trésor!”

You shriek as Rook appears out of thin air. Where did he even come from? Why is there sparkly lighting behind him? Is this even allowed?

“Rook! What—what are you doing here?!”

“Ah, I see you were clever enough to evade the others,” he says, ignoring your question entirely. “But you cannot escape me, the hunter of beauty! Pomefiore awaits, mon ami!”

Before you can protest, he’s scooped you up bridal style and is sprinting through the forest with unnatural speed, his laughter echoing ominously.

“This isn’t fair! You’re cheating!” you yell, flailing helplessly.

“All’s fair in love, war, and dorm recruitment, non?”

You soon find yourself unceremoniously plopped down in the middle of Pomefiore’s lounge. Vil is waiting with his arms crossed and an unreadable expression, though the way his foot taps against the floor suggests he’s less than pleased.

“Honestly,” Vil sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Was the theatrics really necessary, Rook?”

“Always,” Rook replies with a wink.

Epel is off to the side, clearly trying not to laugh at your predicament while casually carving an apple.

“Well,” Vil says, straightening his posture and fixing you with a regal gaze. “I’ve heard about this… situation of yours. Joining Pomefiore would be the obvious choice. After all, we are the epitome of elegance and refinement. It would be a privilege for you to stay here, and I might even be able to do something about your… appearance.”

You blink. "What's wrong with my appearance?”

Vil waves a hand dismissively. “Nothing I can’t fix. Consider it a favor.”

Epel, meanwhile, sidles up next to you, whispering conspiratorially “Don’t listen to him. He’s just tryna butter you up. But, uh… you should totally join Pomefiore anyway. Look, I brought you some fresh juice from Harveston. And this apple.”

You glance at the carved apple he’s offering. It’s shaped like a little heart.

“Epel,” Vil scolds, glaring at him. “Stop bribing them. That’s hardly dignified.”

“Well, it’s working, isn’t it?” Epel shoots back, crossing his arms. “I just think we need someone who’ll actually get how hard it is to survive your routines. And they seem cool. So there.”

You feel your brain short-circuiting as Vil and Epel start bickering in front of you. Rook stands off to the side, watching with sparkling eyes like he’s witnessing a masterpiece.

Somehow, you feel like this is still less stressful than Scarabia. But only barely.

Ignihyde

You somehow manage to escape Pomefiore in one piece, though your mind feels like it’s been through a blender. You’re determined to finally make it back to Ramshackle without incident when—

“Prefect!”

You freeze mid-step as Ortho zooms into view, his boosters glowing bright blue. Before you can even blink, he grabs your arm with surprising strength.

“Ignihyde is next!” he announces cheerfully, starting to lift you off the ground.

“Wait, wait!” you shout, flailing. “I can walk! Please, I’ve been carried around like a stolen handbag all day!”

Ortho tilts his head, his LED eyes flickering. “Oh… okay! As long as you promise to come willingly!”

You nod frantically. “I promise! Just no more flying, please.”

Satisfied, Ortho takes your hand and leads you to Ignihyde. The journey is mercifully uneventful, though you can feel your soul leaving your body as you realize what’s waiting for you inside.

Sure enough, Idia is hunched over in the corner of the lounge, a laptop balanced precariously on a stack of game boxes. The moment you enter, the screen lights up with a title slide: “Top 10 Reasons Why You Should Join Ignihyde” in bold, glowing text.

“Oh, you’re here,” Idia mutters, adjusting his hoodie nervously. His hair flickers faintly pink at the tips. “Uh, okay, so—yeah, uh—welcome? Or whatever. Let’s, um, get this over with.”

He clicks to the first slide, which is an overwhelming wall of text filled with bullet points, charts, and what looks like a meme of a cat wearing glasses.

“Reason number one,” Idia starts, stumbling over his words. “Um, we’re quiet? Like, no loud parties or annoying socializing. Uh… unless you count Ortho, but, uh, he’s not that bad. And you can play games as much as you want. Or watch anime. Or—uh—just chill. Yeah.”

Ortho, standing nearby, nods enthusiastically. “Ignihyde is perfect for you! And Brother worked really hard on this presentation!”

You glance at Idia, who’s clearly fighting for his life to make eye contact with you. He clicks to the next slide, which is just a stock photo of a cozy room.

“Reason number two,” he continues. “We, uh, have good Wi-Fi? Like, really good. You could stream in 4K if you wanted to. Not that you’d want to. Or maybe you would? Uh… I dunno. Anyway.”

His hair flickers a deeper pink, and he clicks to the next slide. It’s a crudely edited photo of you and him standing next to each other in front of a glowing Ignihyde logo. You’re not sure whether to be impressed or deeply concerned.

He glances at you, his expression oddly hopeful. “So, uh… what do you think?”

You can feel Ortho practically vibrating next to you, his bright smile threatening to blind you. Meanwhile, Idia is trying (and failing) to look indifferent, but the way his fingers tap anxiously on the laptop betrays him.

“I’ll… think about it,” you say carefully, not having the heart to crush Idia’s dreams outright.

His hair sparks bright pink for a split second before he slams the laptop shut, muttering something about “overheating processors” and “input overload.”

Ortho cheers. “Yay! I knew you’d see how great we are!”

You manage a weak smile, already planning your escape route.

Diasomnia

You’re so close—so, so close—to finally making it back to Ramshackle when the universe decides to remind you that peace is but a fleeting dream.

“Ah, there you are!”

You barely have time to scream before Lilia literally materializes out of thin air, grabbing you by the arm and dragging you into a swirling vortex of green light.

“Wait, NO—”

Too late. You’re already standing in the middle of Diasomnia’s lounge, disoriented and ready to file a restraining order against anyone with teleportation magic.

Malleus looks up from where he’s seated, eyebrows raising slightly. “Child of man? What brings you here?”

“Great news, Malleus!” Lilia chirps, dropping you onto the couch like a sack of potatoes. “They’re choosing a dorm to transfer to, and we couldn’t possibly let them pick anywhere but Diasomnia!”

Malleus freezes, his eyes wide with surprise, before his expression shifts into one of regal determination. He rises from his seat, his imposing height making you feel like a pebble in the presence of a mountain.

“Is this true?” he asks, his voice deep and serious. “You’re choosing a new dorm?”

“Uh, yeah, but—”

“Then it must be Diasomnia.” His tone leaves no room for argument. “Here, you will be protected. No harm shall come to you under my watch. And…” He pauses, his eyes gleaming with excitement. “I have a gargoyle in my room. A fine specimen. You would enjoy its company.”

You blink. “...A gargoyle?”

“Yes,” Malleus says with absolute sincerity, as though that’s the most convincing argument in the world.

Before you can process that, Sebek practically throws himself to the floor in front of you, bowing with the intensity of a knight swearing fealty.

“Human!” he bellows. “You must choose Diasomnia! To live anywhere else would be an insult to the Young Master’s unparalleled grace and power! Surely, you can see this is the only logical choice!”

“Sebek,” Silver mumbles from his spot on the couch, not even bothering to open his eyes. “Maybe let them decide for themselves.”

“But, Silver!” Sebek protests, his voice trembling with the sheer force of his conviction. “The honor! The prestige!”

Meanwhile, Lilia floats into view, holding a plate of… something. “Don’t worry about dinner, dear. I’ve prepared a feast for you! Go on, take a bite.”

You stare at the plate. It looks like it might be alive. “I’m… good, thanks.”

“Nonsense! You need to keep your strength up!” Lilia insists, thrusting the plate closer to your face.

Silver sighs, finally sitting up. “You should just do what feels right,” he says, offering you a calm, reassuring smile. “Don’t let them pressure you.”

You glance between Malleus’s earnest expression, Sebek’s passionate pleas, and Lilia’s… questionable cooking. Your stomach growls, but you’re not sure if it’s hunger or the beginnings of a panic attack.

One thing’s for sure: if you survive this day, you’re going to need therapy.

The sun is setting by the time you finally drag your aching body back to Ramshackle. The dorm looms ahead, creaky and crumbling, but for once, it feels like a safe haven compared to the dorm-hopping marathon you just survived.

As you step inside, you’re greeted by the unmistakable voice of your ever-demanding feline companion. “There you are! What took ya so long? I’ve been waitin’ forever!”

Grim is sprawled on the couch, a can of tuna already half-empty beside him. He squints at you suspiciously. “So? Which dorm are we movin’ to?”

You groan, flopping face-first onto the nearest piece of semi-clean furniture. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“What?!” Grim squawks, leaping onto the armrest beside you. “What do ya mean you haven’t decided? This is important! We gotta pick one where I can get the most tuna, y’know?”

You tilt your head just enough to glare at him. “Oh, sure. Let me just base my entire living situation on your snack preferences.”

Grim puffs up, indignant. “Hey! I’ve been puttin’ up with this dump longer than anyone! I deserve to have a say!”

You sigh, the weight of the day finally catching up to you. Somehow, Grim being his usual self is oddly comforting after everything. No bribes, no PowerPoints, no gargoyle sales pitches—just Grim being Grim.

“Can we talk about this tomorrow?” you mumble, your voice muffled by the cushion. “I’m too tired to think.”

Grim eyes you for a moment before huffing. “Fine. But don’t take too long, got it? I’m not stickin’ around this dump forever!”

With that, he hops off to raid the kitchen, leaving you alone to sink further into the furniture. You stare at the ceiling, your brain too fried to process anything else.

Tomorrow. You’ll deal with it tomorrow. For now, all you want is to sleep in your creaky, drafty old dorm. At least here, no one’s trying to kidnap you.

From six until twelve (maybe thirteen?) he was your whole world, your partner in scraped knees and secret dares, the almost-boyfriend who walked you home until the day you had to leave. You remember that day clearly— you were both young and curious and that was the only time you ever kissed someone so passionately.

And though years have folded and unfolded since, and other boys and girls have passed through your life, the memory of him and the house atop the hill lingered like the last line of a bedtime story you never got to finish. Now, at eighteen, with your suitcases unpacked and the town you wander both changed and unchanged since, you find yourself wondering; 

What became of the little boy with rosy cheeks and crimson hair within the elusive house atop the hill? And more importantly… Had he waited for you as he promised he would? As you’d waited for him?

Oh, but the town, if anything, had waited for you. The same sloping lanes curled around themselves like the pretty ribbons every little girl has in her hair, the same shopfronts blinked their painted eyes beneath eaves of chipped wood, and the same cobblestones carried the same weary cracks as though not a day had passed since you last tripped across them. 

…Yet look closer; the illusion thins. The bakery that once smelled of sugared dough now carried the sterile tang of coffee beans. The playground, once rusted and loud with shrieks, had been repainted into silence. Faces that might have belonged to childhood friends now belonged to strangers instead. It was everything and nothing like you expected. 

You chastised yourself for the disappointment that rose in your chest. What did you think would happen? That the town would remain suspended in amber, unchanging, preserved exactly as it was on the day you left? That if you rounded the corner at just the right hour, you might find your younger self skipping along, hand in hand with a boy whose laughter always rang louder than the church bells? Perhaps you did expect it, though you would never confess it aloud. Perhaps a part of you did think the whole town had been frozen, a snow globe shaken only when you returned to stir its pieces back into place at your liking. 

But above it all— silhouetted against the sky that was as bright as you remembered— loomed the elusive house atop the hill. The house that did not blink when years passed, that did not repaint or refashion itself to meet the times. Its windows glimmered darkly, shuttered but watchful, and its slanted roof cut into the horizon like a blade. You told yourself it was only a house, only wood and brick and rose bushes, but you felt its presence all the same; patient, everlasting, a shadow stretched across your childhood, a shadow that had never quite receded from the corners of your mind. Did the boy with rosy cheeks and crimson hair still live there?

What was completely new to the town, though, was the music. 

Loud and brazen, the sort that rattled windowpanes and startled sparrows into flight. It did not belong to the town you remembered, yet you found yourself drawn, drawn toward it— pulled, pulled as surely as a tide toward the moon. Each step carried you further down the lane, until instinct led you to the very corner you used to round as a child.

And to your surprise, there the boy with rosy cheeks and crimson stood… with a microphone in hand?

His rosy cheeks were painted now, half-concealed beneath a mask of dark cosmetics. Nor did he wear a full crown of crimson hair, for black had been streaked through it, deep and dark as ink spilled across parchment. He was clothed in splendour you’d hardly seen anyone wear in person— an oversized coat of luscious red fur spilling from his shoulders, shoes so tall they lifted him out of reach— and there was no mistaking the passion that set his whole frame alight as he sang.

So you stood there at the edge of the forming crowd, mesmerised by the sight of him. Riddle. The name trembled in your chest like a secret only you could bear. He was beautiful in a way that startled you, sharp and dazzling all at once, his face carved in light and shadow, every line of him made for a stage rather than a playground. You scarcely dared to breathe, lest the vision collapse. 

And because you were so transfixed, you did not notice at first— did not see how his gaze broke from the crowd to find you, how his eyes locked as though they had been searching for you all along. It was only when the music faltered and the cheering dimmed that you realised; he was moving. 

He was moving toward you. 

Every stride devoured the distance, until suddenly he was there, close enough for the smell of perfume and faint cigarette smoke to cling to his coat, close enough for his arms to sweep you into him with a ferocity that stole your breath.

“Oh—!” 

The sound barely escaped you before he crushed you tighter, burying his face against your shoulder. His grip was iron, desperate, achingly familiar, and the years of silence seemed to mean nothing to him. If anything, they spurred him on more— he clung as if he meant to reclaim every missed moment in one embrace, as if you had never been estranged at all.

“(Y/N)! You’re back!” Riddle exclaimed, his cheeks puffing up in a smile like you remembered it to. “I missed you so much! Oh, you look so cute…!”

“Wh—” You sputtered. You’d been so caught up in what was different that you hadn’t anticipated being thrust into such affections so soon— nor did you expect him to hang off of you like this. Why, he clung to you like he used to on the monkey bars all those years back…!

“Mm, and you still smell the same!” He murmured, his words muffled by the fabric of your clothes. “I could pick you out of a crowd blindfolded.”

“Riddle! You don’t even seem surprised…?” You found yourself looking at the floor. You were scared of whatever emotions might come forward if you looked at him directly— for you wouldn’t be able to hold yourself back from kissing him.

“Oh?” Riddle’s lips pursed in thought as he pulled back. You knew he was examining you, but frankly… you were much too shy to look at him in return. “Why would I be surprised? You told me you’d come back, didn’t you?” 

“…I did say that, didn’t I?” You muttered, surprise softening your features. You had always meant it, of course, yet seeing him know it too, feel it as surely as you had, made your heart jump up out of your chest and into your eyes. 

Suddenly, the world around seemed to be tinted a shade of rose and devotion. And when you mustered the courage to look at him… through his eyes, you saw it—

His soul. 

In his soul, he knew you would come back, because you told him you would. So in that tender pause, the years of locked-away feelings slinked out of the depths, up to the surface.

For the first time in years, you let your own soul come out, and your hands found his, and it was as if you’d never left on that hot summer day; as if no time had ever come between you at all.

“…I’m not going anywhere this time, Riddle. So tell me, how have you been?”

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐏 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐋 was elusive and that was all it ever was. It was intangible, something to watch and be watched by, but never touched. Never approached, or lived in, or any of the other things that houses were made for. So you never truly imagined what the inside might look like; somehow, you had never considered that there was an inside at all. And yet here you sat upon the living room couch, your shoes tucked neatly beneath you. 

Now, what struck you most were the photographs. If there was anything that you were expecting as Riddle dragged you up the hill— it certainly wasn’t this. 

Framed portraits littered the walls, frame after frame, almost cluttered in its quantity. Smiling children— you and Riddle together on the playground swings, faces pressed cheek-to-cheek. Candid portraits of you laughing, caught mid-motion. Family photos— Riddle between the mother you had always heard about but never actually seen until now, and a tall man you had never known existed. 

You did not recall these pictures being taken. You did not recall Riddle even having a father.

A warm breath brushed your neck, followed by the scrape of teeth against your skin. “What are you looking at?” Riddle hummed, his voice low and petulant, lips skating over the curve beneath your ear. “Kiss me back, won’t you?”

“Riddle…” You tried for composure, but the sound was already shaky. His hands were splayed over your waist, tugging you closer, closer still, and you could barely manage to push words through the heat curling in your chest. “These… photos. When did we take so many together?”

He hummed against your throat, but he did pull back— if only to resettle himself. His weight settled into your lap, his arms winding back round your neck. Your hands, hesitant, slipped from his shoulders to the edges of his coat, peeling it from him. The intimacy of the gesture struck you— it was everything you’d ever dreamt of— and yet your gaze returned inevitably to the wall.

He followed it, but not before pressing a lazy kiss to your jaw. “We always did. You’ve just forgotten, you silly thing.”

“…I think I would remember this many pictures.” You murmured. “I mean… I didn’t even know you had a father.” Your eyes stayed on the tall man, that easy smile, the hand on Riddle’s shoulder. There was a slight abashed feeling, having to admit it. Not knowing something so obvious about your friend was… embarrassing.

“My papa…” Riddle supplied smoothly, his lips grazing your cheekbone as though punctuation. “Of course you met him. He liked you.” He said it almost fondly, followed by another kiss, softer, more insistent. His nose brushed yours, his voice dropping to a whisper. “But your memory was always bad. That’s why I remember for both of us.”

His words weren’t particularly untrue. You never did have the best memory— you were always forgetful. That was fact, you weren’t going to deny it. But still, your brows pinched together in confusion. “I… I guess?” Your hand raised to brace your companion’s hip. “But I wouldn’t forget something important like that. I mean— I knew you had a mother even though I never met her… I can’t believe I’d forget you had a father, let alone meeting hi—mmh?!”

Your protest was cut short by the sudden press of his lips against yours. It was playful in its abruptness, yet deep enough to make your pulse skip. His mouth moved insistently over yours, stealing the rest of your thought before it could form. He tasted of sugared strawberries and the faintest trace of smoke, and when he finally pulled away you were left breathless, your words scattered.

“Don’t pout so much.” He teased, eyes glinting as he slid off your lap with eagerness. “I’ll prove it to you!” He straightened his coat, then tossed it carelessly over the arm of the sofa, already turning toward the stairs. “I’ll fetch the pictures from my room— the ones with Papa!”

You blinked, still gathering your bearings. “Your… your room?”

“Oh, and speaking of Mama…” He glanced back at you with a mischievous smile, as though he’d just remembered to mention something small and inconsequential. “Why don’t you go say hi?”

You froze sharply. “She— she’s home…? While we were—?”

“Of course!” He laughed, bright and carefree, the sound so at odds with your racing thoughts. “You’ve gotten so uptight over the years, you know. What’s a little kiss on the sofa between us?” He reached over to pat your head, almost condescending in its fondness, before pivoting toward the staircase in the hall.

“I’ll be right back!” He called, already bounding up the steps, leaving you alone with the walls of smiling photographs and the sudden, pressing knowledge that you were not quite alone in the house. 

At once, you made motions to neaten yourself— and rub the lipstick stains from your face. You rose, because the motions were better than sitting and staring, and because ‘one could not be frightened while busy with tasks’— as was what your own mother taught you.

So you began in the parlour, touching the picture frames to confirm their authenticity. Then the hallway opened up into a kitchen that smelled faintly of lemon polish and something sweet, as if a tray of scones had been set down and then, deliberately, removed. Drawers were closed. Chairs were pushed in. The kettle sat innocently on the hob. You opened the door to the back room on a whim and found nothing but a slant of sunlight and a chair with a forgotten scarf draped over it. Each room you moved through gave the same answer; empty.

The house, which had watched you from the hill for so many years as if it were merely an ornament on the horizon, felt suddenly hollowed and personal in a way that made your skin prick. All at once you were aware of how alone you were— not alone in the comfortable, peaceful sense, but alone the way one is when a room holds its breath and refuses to exhale. You thought of Riddle upstairs; he was only a flight away, and that ought to have comforted you. He had promised to fetch the photographs; he would be back in a moment. It was absurd to be afraid.

Still, when you reached the foot of the stairs you hesitated, the wooden banister sticky beneath your palm from some remembered summer, sweat gathering, small and hot, at the nape of your neck. You told yourself you were being ridiculous. Riddle was there. His mum was, too, probably bustling somewhere with the sort of domestic efficiency mothers showed only to those they loved. You took the first step.

That was when the voice came.

“My dear, what are you doing all alone? A house like this can swallow a girl whole if she is not mindful.”

The words did not arrive from one place but from many— blooming and settling over you, soft and impossibly near. From the parlour, the kitchen, from the walls, from every room you went in and from every room she wasn't present in— the voice had already unfurled itself into the house and claimed each corner. You turned, trying to place her— Mrs. Rosehearts— but there was no one to face.

“Ah, don’t look so startled…” Mrs. Rosehearts continued, each syllable sugared and coaxing. “There’s nothing to worry over, not here. You’re very welcome in this house. Very welcome indeed.”

The warmth of the words pushed in on you, invading the space where reason would sit. You listened to them as though to music you already knew the melody of, yet with a growing, illogical tension at its edges— a note just a fraction out of tune, the sort that sets teeth on edge only after the song has finished. Your throat tightened. Your mouth, which had been rehearsing a thousand sensible replies, went suddenly blank.

“My, my!” She chimed, an obvious smile audible in every line. “What a timid little thing you are. Won’t you sit down properly? I’ll fetch us some tea. Or perhaps you’d prefer cake? You do like cake, don’t you? Oh, I’m quite certain you must.”

You felt very small then, and very exposed. Where was she? Where was she calling you from? There was a basin in the mind, one full of thoughts that would never be answered. Why couldn’t you see her? Why hasn’t she shown herself? And in your confusion, there was only one sensible reply.

“Oh, Mrs Rosehearts…! I— I’d really like to see you, please. Could you… show yourself?”

For a moment there was silence— so complete it felt as though the whole house had leaned in to listen. The ticking of the grandfather clock stopped mattering, the creak of the rafters vanished. Then above it all was a laugh, elegant and affectionate.

“If that’s what you wish, little dearest. Of course I’ll oblige…”

A beautiful woman with cheeks of rose and hair of crimson. 

A hot flush came down the back of your neck, and suddenly every sense of unease you’d had went away. How stupid of you… Honestly, how ridiculous! Working yourself up over nothing, prowling around the house like some silly child afraid of the dark. You’d gotten way too in over your head— jumping at shadows, inventing ghosts where there weren’t any. This was only Riddle’s mother. His mother. Just what were you thinking?

Her thumbs brushed over the apples of your cheeks before you even realised she was approaching you. The touch was soothing, her smile impossibly fond as her eyes roved over your face. “There now…” She whispered, and now her voice felt normal. “So timid… no wonder my darling boy kept you all to himself.”

“Oh…” You breathed out. Was there still lipstick on your face? Sevens, you hope not. How could you explain your way out of that—? Or find another boy with black lipstick in a ten kilometre radius to pin the blame—? “It’s lovely to finally meet you, aunty.” Finally, you remembered your manners, straightening your spine and lifting your chin just the way your parents taught you.

The woman before you laughed. It was the kind of laugh that felt both indulgent and knowing, as though she were in on a secret you weren’t yet privy to. She leaned closer, her perfume sweet and heady— she smelled like smoke, too— and you felt her breath stir your hair as she murmured, “Go to him, won’t you?”

The words remained in your ear long after she’d withdrawn, and for a strange, uncertain beat you couldn’t remember if she had actually touched you or if it had only been imagined. Either way, by the time you blinked, she was gone. The house seemed oddly empty again. So you found yourself drifting up the stairs, each step taken half by will, half by instinct to not be alone, until you reached his doorframe. 

There, Riddle was kneeling on the floor, hunched over a small wooden box. His shoulders jumped when you knocked gently against the doorframe, but the startlement quickly dissolved into a bright smile and he sprung up to his feet.

“Look, look!” He beckoned, tugging you to his side with boyish excitement.

You lowered yourself to kneel beside him, smoothing your skirt with careful hands before folding them neatly in your lap. And then you did look—

Photographs. Polaroids. Dozens of them, stacked and scattered, all of you, all real. You, and Riddle, and a man whose features echoed his son’s. The man downstairs, who you swore you’d never met. His father. And in the background of one, unmistakable as day— your own parents.

It made perfect sense by all accounts— a family outing. Yet still you were shocked. You had… no memory of this. 

Riddle giggled, tilting his head towards you with a grin that was both triumphant and fond. “I told you so, silly girl.”

The words made you flush with a sudden, sheepish heat. …Perhaps he was right. Perhaps you really were being ridiculous. A laugh slipped from you, small and uncertain, but you forced it into something lighter, more natural. Your memory had always been poor— everyone knew that. It wasn’t impossible that you had simply… forgotten. Yes. That had to be it.

“…You’re right. Yes, silly me…!”

So you allowed yourself to relax, let the questions fall away like loose threads unpicked (even though you were always taught to flounder until everything was perfect). What did it matter, when everything here made such perfect sense? Riddle was beside you, his delight radiating like sunlight, and suddenly you became aware of something else thrumming beneath the surface; the low, insistent pulse of your own arousal. You’d been so caught up in what did and did not make sense that you hadn’t fully allowed yourself to enjoy what was finally yours.

Riddle seemed to notice your change of heart at once. His hand slipped over your shoulder, his fingers grazing the slope of your collarbone in a gesture so casual it made your breath hitch. You answered without thinking, leaning into him, closing the small distance— as your body had been waiting for, all along.

“Do you remember? You promised we’d do so much more when we saw each other again.” He whispered against your jaw, leaving new traces of black lipstick along your skin— and after you’d worked so hard to rub the last set off, too…

This promise, you did remember. It was all those years ago, that day, after you’d separated from him with nothing but a string of saliva connecting you; You’d swore that you’d come back, then you could do all the things that adults in love did with each other. You were so young, then— but you were filled with affection, and passion, and all the other things that growing teenagers felt when they kissed each other. Much like how you felt now— hot, bothered, desperate to arch and cling to the boy beside you and never let go.

You tilted your head, allowing his mouth to trail down the hollow of your throat, a sharp gasp torn from you as you leaned back on both hands. Riddle wasted no time in mounting himself atop of you, letting his kisses trail down to your chest. Thank God you wore a low neckline today— A contented, lazy smile crossed your face as you took a deep breath in, relishing in the way his fingers moved to cup your breast. 

“I do remember…” You hummed, moving to unbutton the first few buttons of his shirt. When his pretty, supple collarbone was exposed to you, you trailed your hand across them, before cupping the back of his neck. Pulling him close, you whispered against his lips; 

“So, take me in any way you want.”

𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐄𝐏 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐇𝐀𝐕𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐒𝐖𝐄𝐄𝐓. After the way his body had pressed into yours, after the way your throat still ached from moans you hadn’t known you were capable of, after the way you had given yourself up entirely— there should have been nothing left but exhaustion and contentment. Your skin was still warm from the heat, your core still weak from the aftershocks, your lips bitten and sore from the force of his kiss. You should have been lulled into the deepest, sweetest sleep, drunk on pleasure and closeness.

But sleep had other plans for you. When you pushed yourself from the plush duvet, it was not in the sluggish, half-conscious manner of one roused from slumber, but rather with the sharp and unthinking urgency of terror. There was nothing deliberate in it; it was instinct, the body leaping to preserve itself from some danger already forgotten— for the memory of the nightmare had fled the instant your eyes opened. Its claws had been deep in you, of that you were certain, and yet by the time you sought to grasp at its particulars, it had already dissolved into nothing. All that remained was the undeniable certainty that something had been there, and that you had to escape it.

The first thing you noticed, when you steadied yourself, was the absence of all things comforting. The bed was empty. Riddle was gone. The room around you was steeped in a kind of darkness that did not belong to ordinary night. So you turned toward the window, hoping for the pale reassurance of moonlight, or the faintest suggestion of a starry sky— but instead, you were met with nothing. 

The view opened only onto a smooth, endless black, as though the house were suspended in a void. How? How was this possible? You pressed your hand against the pane, half-believing that some obstruction had been drawn across it— but the glass seemed bare on both sides. You tried the latch; it refused to yield. You pushed harder; the frame rattled, but the window would not give.

And then— you could not help but feel it— the blankness outside seemed to shift, as if it were not absence at all, but a presence. A presence that had been watching long before you thought to look.

You shivered, though the air was not exactly cold, and your arms folded around yourself in a poor attempt at comfort. The room, so plush and indulgent only hours ago, now seemed stripped bare of safety. A thought struck you— maybe he had gone to the bathroom? You crossed to it at once, each step uncertain, and threw the door open with more urgency than you intended. Empty. Utterly empty.

So maybe you were still dreaming. Yes, that had to be it. That this was merely some cruel continuation, a lucid dream from which you had not yet parted from. The notion made a fragile sort of sense, enough that you pinched the soft skin of your forearm until the flesh protested. Pain flared sharp and real. But you did not wake up. Shouldn’t pain wake you?

Heart quickening, you returned to the room and slipped out into the corridor. 

What met you there was worse. Every picture that had once lined the walls— faces, new and old, of family… forgotten memories preserved— was black. Every window that ought to have revealed the night instead opened only onto the void. They were pools of nothingness, eyes of nothingness, gazing down upon you in silent judgment. Their regard was so heavy, so oppressive, that you yourself began to feel like nothingness, as though your body, your mind, your very name might dissolve beneath their stare. In that moment, as you clutched yourself closer, you found yourself deeply missing Riddle. What is going on? 

“(Y/N)?”

It should have been a comfort. You had been yearning for him with such aching desperation that the sound of his voice ought to have undone you. Yet the instant it reached you, your heart recoiled. It sounded like him, yes, but it did not feel like him. The warmth was gone. The intimacy was gone. Something was wrong. Something was terribly, irreparably wrong.

You ran.

You did not wait to see from where it came; you only fled. The corridor stretched before you, longer than you remembered, the familiar turns and doors rearranging themselves into a maddening geometry that led nowhere. You ran blindly, driven by the certainty that what followed you was not him and must not catch you.

And as you ran, the house changed. The pools of nothingness— those blank, oppressive eyes in the pictures and the windows— began to bleed red. First one pair, then another, until they multiplied, until the whole corridor swam with them. Blood-red, glaring, dripping. The black backdrops glowed as though veins had burst within them, and each new eye threw its own cast of crimson light. The glow spun across the walls like sirens, one moment lancing straight at you, the next wheeling away, only to return from another angle. 

The house atop the hill watched you all your life— now, so did the eyes. 

Some tracked you directly, following every frantic step; others swivelled without pattern, disorienting in their ceaseless movement. The corridor pulsed red and black, black and red, until you no longer knew which way you were running, only that you had to keep moving— because what was behind you was not the Riddle you loved. But your body betrayed you. Breath tore at your throat, your legs faltered, and at last you stopped. The silence that followed your ragged breathing was almost worse than the chase.

In the black and the red and the red and the black, and in the silence and the deafening sound of your breathing and heartbeat— you heard her; you did not see her.

“Dearest, where are you going?”

“Oh, Mrs. Rosehearts…! My parents will be wondering where I am.” The eyes knew you were lying. The eyes knew you were lying. The eyes knew you were lying. The eyes knew you were lying. “I was going to tell them I’ll be spending the night—”

“Why don’t you go back to bed? My darling boy will be missing you.” When it spoke again, its voice had drifted closer, though no figure stood before you. 

“…Mrs. Rosehearts,” you called into the darkness, forcing the words through a throat gone tight, “could you show yourself again?”

“You look so beautiful, dearest.”

“Please,” you tried again, your voice trembling on the edge of a plea, “I really want to see you…”

“Why don’t you go back to bed?” Its suggestion came sweetly. “Or, would you rather sleep beside me?”

No. No, no, no. This wasn’t right. The walls breathed red, and the eyes turned, one by one, until you were their singular focus.

“I’d rather like to see you, Mrs. Rosehearts.” You pleaded to it. “Please show yourself?”

For a long moment there was no sound but your own breathing. And then, very softly, the voice returned;

“…Go back to bed, dearest. He will be missing you.”

This wasn’t right. Why wouldn’t it answer you? Just one request. You only wanted to see its face. You knew it wasn’t Mrs. Rosehearts, but still, you wanted to see. It sounded like her, but it wasn’t her. It wasn’t her. Was it ever? And yet, even knowing that, some small, frantic part of you still wanted to see.

Then there was the sound of heels on the floor, approaching your direction from the right. You turned toward the sound and saw, not a body, but a shadow stretching far and thin across the red-washed walls. It was his shape— Riddle’s— the body you knew intimately, yet every familiar movement was made strange. The distortion of the light enlarged it until the silhouette blotted out half the corridor, crawling closer with every click of those unseen platforms.

Your heart lurched painfully against your ribs. Something was very wrong. You staggered back, despite the voice of Mrs. Rosehearts coaxing you to stay put. The shadow grew longer, wider, swallowing the corridor with every step. You didn’t wait for it to reach you. You turned and ran.

“Don’t let the walls cave in on you!”

The voice chased you down the hall, bright and ringing with laughter. A sweet giggle, laced with the happiness of childhood. It was the sound of afternoons in the park, the sound of hide-and-seek when you were young and innocent and unafraid. But here, in this corridor of red light and nothingness, it was wrong. Horribly wrong. The memory itself had turned against you.

Run, rabbit, run. The beloved childhood song pounded in your skull, faster, faster, a cruel song keeping pace with your desperate feet. Run, rabbit, run—

But your legs betrayed you. The floor clung to them, thick and sticky. You looked down— Black, searing tar had bubbled up under you, gripping your skin, dragging you down into its suffocating heat. Each step was slower than the last, every movement an agony of resistance. But when had it appeared? Where had it come from? 

The answer was nowhere and everywhere. The walls themselves were bleeding now. Every picture frame that had once held some cherished memory was spilling over rushing tar. Childhood portraits, family photographs— the father you never remembered hearing about, the photographs you never remembered being taken— all of them slick and running with molten black. The void was pouring out of them, flooding the hallway, surging around your ankles, your calves, latching and dragging and choking.

You tried to lift your legs. The liquid pulled tighter. The red light spun madly across the corridor, eyes upon you from every angle, watching as the black tide swallowed your steps. Now you were stumbling, hardly able to see. It invaded your eyes, and you were weeping salt and tar. So you shut them hard, and frantically felt around for something, someone to hold onto. Hands clawed at the floor, arms pushing through the sticky drag, every movement a battle against the tide. Your knees buckled, slipping, dragging you backward. 

With a final, desperate heave, you surged forward, feeling the resistance thin beneath you— and then gravity took you. You pitched forward, tumbling onto something soft and warm, the world lurching before settling.

When you lifted your head, the burning tar was gone, stripped from your skin as though it had never been. No suffocating heat. No tide dragging you under. Only the parlour, neat and whole, dressed in the red glow. The walls still writhed with shapes you could not name, eyes dripped wetly from the cluttered picture frames, but the flood had vanished.

And there, seated upon the couch as if he had been waiting all along, was Riddle. Your Riddle. At your gaze, a smile curled his lips.

This was right. This was right. You wanted to cling to him. To crawl on your hands and knees and cling to his legs— to hug his body which sprawled in casual elegance. …But— wasn’t he the one chasing you? You turned, wild with confusion, to the hallway. Red walls, glowing eyes— but no tar. Nothing but silence. …So it couldn’t have been him.

When you looked back, he was crouching before you and you had no time to question anything. His hands clamped your face, cold and firm, and he dragged you into a kiss. 

…You love his kisses— but this time it felt different. You could’ve sworn this was your Riddle— not what was chasing you in the hall. So why did this feel wrong? It didn’t feel like you were kissing him— you knew what it was like to kiss him; Erotic, tender, passionate. That’s what kissing him felt like. Empty, fierce, unyielding. That was what you felt now. 

So, who are you kissing? Who is kissing you?

Panic bloomed in your chest. You shoved him away, desperate for space. Now, everything judged you. Now, everything watched you. The house atop the hill, the eyes of nothingness, the eyes of red, the eyes of the boy in front of you— all honed in on you, you, you.

“Why did you push me away?” His voice was low, then cracked, higher, a whisper of someone else threaded through it. “Why did you try to leave? Surely you’re not trying to leave?”

You’d never seen him like this. Never so angry, so livid, so certain in unforgiving.

“Don’t leave us again.” 

The words split and weaved together until you couldn’t tell which voice was his and which wasn’t. Where he ended and his mother began no longer seemed clear.

“Won’t you come back to bed?”