#flamesofavernus

Possession

tw: mentions of sexual abuse, violence, scarring, nudity

She didn’t answer him, just remained in place and watched. Her eyes traced him slowly—like a spell being drawn, studying him. The slope of his shoulders. The faint tension that never left his stance, even now. The way his legs spread when he sat, like he was still bracing for an impact that didn’t come.

Her expression didn’t falter, but something behind it tensed. A sense of recognition, sudden and unwelcome. Her hand dropped, brushing lightly against her own hip as she took a step back, her body was all contrast here—sharp shoulders under a soaked coat, the soft curve of her waist showing where the fabric clung, damp from the long hours in the greenhouse. A thin trail of water traced down her collarbone and into the low cut of her shirt beneath the fabrics.

She blinked, once—slowly. Just enough for silver lashes to catch the amber light that filtered through the broken glass above. Then, quiet and deliberate, crossed the space between them with the same slow certainty she used when handling a blade or something fragile. Her boots didn’t make a sound over the moss-choked tiles.

Each step brought her closer into the heat of him. Her breath was steady, but deeper now, controlled. The kind that stirred just beneath the skin. She stopped in front of him, closer than courtesy allowed, and tilted her head just enough for the bruised twilight of her iris to meet the fused bronze in his. She was close enough that the scent of her reached him. Smoke and wet leaves. Bloodroot. Rosewater. Her skirt whispered as she moved, hips shifting under dark, weather-dampened fabric. She tilted her chin just a little, and her braid slid forward over one shoulder, catching the light in its silvered length. Her mouth didn’t move.

Then something slipped and uncoiled again.

A flicker—not from her body, but through the bond. A rush, quiet and sudden, like breath against the nape of the neck. A vision not deliberate, not controlled.

She was showing him.

Half-formed images passing between them: his hands, rough and certain, ghosting along the curve of her waist; the heat of her body pressed to his chest, her breath caught between a gasp and something lower. It was a pulse, slow and warm—then sharper, brighter. Not even a full picture. Skin against skin. Heat under her palms. Her mouth near his ear, breath hitting the shell of it before teeth grazed the edge. His name, unspoken, hummed in her throat like a thread pulled too tight. The sensation of her body wanting—her thighs parting under his hands, the tension in her stomach, the softness of her chest pressed flush against muscle. A rhythm beginning. The wet heat of her mouth just before a kiss, real and sharp as steel in sunlight.

A half beat under her ribcage and she pulled back cutting the thread.

Serenei had long unlearned the lie that wanting made her weak. She didn’t flinch from her own hunger, didn’t hide behind feign innocence—she was a woman who knew the pull of desire in her marrow and let it bloom hot beneath her skin without shame. Yet that was entirely different; why would one ever take what was not freely given? Take and devour and indulge from one shackled, even loosely. Not when she herself knew too well the silence that followed a stolen act—the hollow that opened inside when the body was claimed without the soul. The Bhaalyn had taught her what power and control looked like, sanctified under the guise of devotion.

She didn't utter a single word. Then, without breaking the gaze, hands moved slowly undoing the ties of her blouse without ceremony, her fingers moving with a kind of grim resolve. Practical. As if she were revealing something medical, not intimate.

The fabric parted enough to expose the damage underneath. Scars over the breastbone; jagged, ugly things, some faded into pale ridges, others still a mottled red as if they’d only just healed. Long cuts where blades had been dragged too slow. There were bite marks too and burns, like brands, in circular patterns down the sides of her breasts, her stomach, her hips. Symbols carved into skin without consent, meant to wake whatever power they believed slept inside her. None of it random. Every wound had been placed with a purpose by the cleric who said her magic needed opening. Pain would bring her closer to divinity. Father would be proud, she would be ready.

Her voice, when it came, was low but steady. “He thought pain would make the power come faster.” No embellishment. No tearful story. Just the shape of a memory, flattened into a statement.

He'd use her body like a ritual book in those salt-iron caverns, carving, hurting, forcing himself on her—then said it would make her more potent as the weight pressed against her frame. At the time she didn’t even know what that meant, not really. But he kept going. Praying while he did it. She’d fix her gaze on the ceiling of the chantry’s sanctum—on the stone stalactites that hung like crooked teeth above the altar—and count them in silence. One. Two. Three. A hundred times over. Some days she imagined them falling, sharp and fast, cleaving through the man’s skull mid-prayer. Other days she just let herself drift, dull and distant, until even the burning between her legs felt like it belonged to someone else.

Serenei reached for the open edges of the fabric with the same care one might use to close the lid of a reliquary. Her fingers moved with practiced precision, looping the ties one by one. The linen, still damp, clung faintly to her skin as she pulled it snug across her chest, brushing over old scar tissue now half-exposed to the air. The movement wasn’t rushed, but there was a subtle tension in her jaw, like she was reminding herself to breathe through it. Her collarbone rose with each breath, steady now, and when the last knot was secured, she smoothed the front flat with her palm — not to hide, but to contain. Like something sealed shut after being witnessed.

You will have memories, Because of what we did back then.

When we were new at this.

Yes, we did many things, then...

All of them beautiful. ― Sappho, Come Close.

“Gith?” she repeated after him, while straightening up, fixing her robes— hoping they didn’t get stained permanently by the filth around them. 

“I do know about Gith and their psionics,” she replied, scoffing, her scholar side a bit wounded. Some information she had was from the boring classes back at the academy, during planar lessons, the rest from old parchment and enchanted tomes. How could she not know about the race that inhabited the Tears? 

“But I am afraid my knowledge is just on a theoretical level only,” her gaze was on the scars littering on his neck at the movement of his jaw. A cold chill ran down Melihël’s spine; an odd shift of the Weave. The wrong type of shift. “In any case, very few mortals could brag about controlling psionic powers as masterfully.” 

Horned head tilted and chin in clawed hands while the gears in her head turned. Contraptions of the Astral Plane. She never saw anything like it; she couldn’t even see it, but feel it nonetheless. His magic exploding, behaving erratically… Oh. Her eyes widened as she did the math in her head. Of course. That should be it. 

“It’s an impediment.” 

The dread in her voice was palpable. Melihël, who was a being blessed by the stars and had the Weave flowing in her veins even before she was born, couldn’t think of a worse fate, of an even more terrible torture. The sussur bloom had temporarily annulled her magic, sending her in a state of panic. But this… his curse was even worse, was it? Because he felt the connection to the Weave, the prickling sensations of the arcana under the fingertips... but he wasn't able to channel it correctly. Like a songwriter cursed to make out-of-tune music. Not to mention the ugly, painful looking scars that thing left on him… 

Her tail curled up defensively at the thought. “You can cast… but not in the proper way.” 

Brutal. Immoral. And so utterly scary. 

“Why did they put something so awful on you?” she inquired by gazing into his flaming eyes, the realisation hitting worse than a Storm of Vengeance. 

She didn't know him; not in that moment, not in that crater. She never saw that tiefling before. But, oh, how Melihël loathed whoever snapped that relic on the stranger’s neck. 

Broken hands reach out of a sea of blood and corpses toward a red sun rising in a pitch-black sky. Heads turn all at once, empty sockets staring at YOU.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎--- Skrrrrrk.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎Sirius flinches back into reality, rubbing his eyes after staring into the flames for too long. Grimacing, trying to find the source of the nerve-grinding scraping.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎The Gith was sharpening her sword. Over and over, grinding along the wet stone. Oh, how his fingers itch, how his blade calls for him, asking to dissect her like an experiment—a frog opened from stomach to chest. The image makes a smile creep onto his features, and his heart rate calm. She’d probably stay stoic until the very last moments. Too proud to even say please or thank you... but everyone had a breaking point.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎He shakes his head violently. The chains and coins jingle on his horns, making Lae’Zel look up for a moment and stop with the noise. But he just waves his hand, not in the mood to talk. Not with her. Not when her way of calming down made his ears bleed. And he’d rather not have to fight her... she seemed to be the only one who knew how to get rid of those brain worms.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎Oh, he’d strangle whoever put it there with their own innards.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎You feel something pull on your limbs, on your mind—and is the call not sickeningly sweet? Do you not wish to wash your hands in blood right now? It'd be so easy...

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎Oh, he hated that feeling, like something tried to control him... and so he forced his digits to stretch, to relax, not to curl into fists again. To push away the thoughts of carnage and murder.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎"Okay, so can ANYONE say ANYTHING so I won’t go insane over this silence and that noise?" He takes a deep breath to add through gritted teeth: "PLEASE."

4 a.m. The steward rang the bell in the servants’ quarters.

Aveline forced her legs out of the bed, the cold floor biting at her bare feet - but at least it hurried her along. From the ewer on her small table, she poured water into the basin, shivering as icy droplets struck her face. Soap and towel followed, cleaning herself as best she could.

Truly, I am a lucky girl, she reminded herself. Her own room, her own basin, her very own towel - luxuries many others did not have.

She brushed her hair quickly, enough to look tidy but never polished. A servant was best unseen, a grey mouse scurrying through the halls. She tied it back and wrapped the kerchief at the nape of her neck.

Apron fastened with practiced hands, she was ready. Today she had cleaning duty. Her mistress and master had entertained a guest through the night, and she had been ordered to tidy up after them.

Bucket and worn mop in hand, there was no breakfast waiting for her. There would be scraps later, once the nobility had risen and had their own meal.

The halls stirred softly with other servants - fires being lit, floors swept. She paused only long enough to rebind a younger girl’s apron, sparing her the steward’s wrath. The memory of punishment for such oversights still lingered - even when they were in the past by many years. By the time the steward rounded the corner, Aveline had already slipped into the shadows.

At last she reached the chamber assigned to her. Setting her tools aside, she reached into her apron for the key, to put it into the keyhole and turn - only to frown. The door was already unlocked. Forgotten perhaps in the night?

She tucked the key away again and pressed her hand to the handle, pushing the door open with her shoulder while dragging the bucket and mop inside with one move; the less time spent in the halls, the better.

The door closed behind her. She looked up - and froze.

Someone was still in the bed.

A horrified squeak escaped her as the mop clattered against a cabinet, pulling down a silver vase with it. The piercing ring of metal on stone rang through the chamber. If the guest had not been awake before, he surely was now. Aveline clapped her dry hands over her mouth, her back pressing against the door.

This was not how things were supposed to be. Guests were usually sent away before dawn; no one had told her what to do when one remained.

her mind scrambling to find the right set of rules in her head - he was her masters’ guest. That meant he was esteemed. She knew how to act in that case.

Her hands lowered, folded neatly over her apron, taking a step away from the door and bowed low. The floor was a much safer place to look at, anyway. Especially when even a glimpse of a well built foorm could make a maiden's heart skip a beat.

“I... I apologize! I was not— I... usually... ah...” She faltered, catching herself. He didn’t need to know why she had broken decorum. “Is there anything the esteemed guest desires of me… or shall I withdraw and let you return to your slumber?”