#prompt20

Prompt: comforting after nightmares @jilytoberfest

“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” ––Albus Dumbledore

He was sitting in the living room of their home in Godric’s Hollow, playing with his toddler son. A sense of dread washed over him and the smile fell from his face. 

A man burst through the door, and James just knew it was him. The man who wanted to kill his only son. Voldemort. He shouldn’t know where they were. How did he find them? Something must have happened to Sirius. His soul ached at the loss of his brother, but he needed to protect his family. 

“Lily, take Harry and go! It’s him! Go! Run! I’ll hold him off!” he shouted to his wife. She picked their son up off the ground and rushed up the back stairs. With one last look he tried to convey everything to his wife: the love he had for her and their son, how much he wished they’d had longer, and his hope for them to survive. 

He turned to face the evil man intent on murdering his innocent child. This evil dark lord. But where was his wand? Desperately he patted his pockets and looked all around him, but could not find it anywhere. The man burst through their door, but before James could even call out a warning, he was met with a flash of blinding green light. 

He was dead. 

He knew he was dead. 

He’d heard the spell, and felt it’s blow, but he remained. How? 

James watched as the man started up the stairs to where Lily had escaped with Harry. No. This man would not hurt his family. 

With great effort, James wrenched himself off the floor and put himself directly in the dark wizard’s path again. But Voldemort stepped through him as if he were no more than a ghost and continued up the stairs. James forced himself out of his shock and sprinted up the stairs after him. He ran to Harry’s room and felt his heart stop dead as he heard Harry’s muffled cry. He was still here. Why was he still here. Why hadn’t he and Lily left yet? 

He desperately tried to move through the door as Voldemort had walked through him, but couldn’t. The door felt as solid as ever, and James could do nothing about it. He could not speak. He could not warn them. He said the words, but no sound came out. He banged helplessly against the door, silent sobs ripped from his throat at the fate that awaited his wife and son.

Voldemort reached the door and blasted it open, James rushed in as soon as he did so. Lily let out an anguished sob, knowing what his arrival had meant for James. “Not Harry, not Harry, please not Harry!” she begged the dark wizard, and James’ heart broke all over again for his beloved wife. 

“Stand aside, you silly girl… stand aside now!” Voldemort hissed in an inhuman voice. 

Lily didn’t listen. Never faltered. She put herself between the dark wizard and their son in his crib. She spread her arms wide, as if hoping the expanse of her body could spare their son from a madman’s ruthless agenda. 

“Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead–” 

James sobbed silently, hoping his presence– however intangible– might be felt by his family in their last moments. 

“This is my last warning–”

“Not Harry! Please… have mercy… have mercy… Not Harry! Not Harry! Please – I’ll do anything–” 

“Stand aside. Stand aside, girl!” 

The green flash of the killing curse filled the room and his wife dropped to the ground, her eyes lifeless. James threw his head back and wailed. He felt her loss like a part of his soul. 

Voldemort aimed his wand a final time. Pointing his wand in Harry’s face. Harry began to cry, his little eyes– Lily’s eyes– searching the room for his parents. 

“Avada Kedavra!” 

The blinding green light flared once more. 

Then it was gone. James sat up, gasping for air and ripping the sheets off his body. Blindly, he fumbled for his wand, snatching it up off of the bedside table. With a wave, he lit every lamp in the room. 

“James? What is it? What’s wrong?” came Lily’s sleepy voice. 

He almost didn’t want to turn. He didn’t want to know if it had been real. It had felt so real. 

“James?” she asked again, concern coloring her voice. 

He gave in, and turned to face his wife where she now sat up in their bed. She looked confused, and a little concerned. Her belly still swollen with their unborn son. 

He let out a sob of relief, pulling her close to him and peppering her face with kisses.

“James, what–” 

Relieved tears flowed down his face as he sat back and told her his dream. Her face grew horrified, and she pulled him against her, cradling his head against her neck. She ran a soothing hand through his hair, the other resting on her belly. 

“Don’t worry, my love,” Lily soothed, “It was just a dream. Harry and I are safe and sound. You’re not going to lose us. I promise.” 

“It was just a dream. It was just a dream,” she whispered again. He wrapped his arms tighter around her– placing a protective hand over her stomach where their unborn son grew, safe, in his parents’ love. 

After making full use of their first night of marriage, or at least as much as was available after the proper soak and foot rub that the heel wearing catte had needed by the time they got home, the newlywed couple came up a bit short on their time to prep for their trip. Brem of course had pointed out a number of times that she in fact owned an airship and could fly them anywhere on the star that they wished, but getting her wife into the sky remained a challenge for another day given her sour response. So instead there was rushed packing, and repacking after finding the thing that was almost forgotten, and so on. In the midst of the two person storm of chaos though a though pulled a broad, familiar grin over the giant’s lips.

“You know.. once we get there I feel like we should stay a full thirty days. Really make the most of things!”

Her wife of course blinked a few times as she squished her belongings down a couple more times. “You know we couldn’t leave the kids that long, and what about the Mason? What on earth makes you think we could spend that kind of time on a vacation?”

That grin only grows wider as her beloved wife walks right into the trap she’d so carefully tossed out into the space between them. “Well, it is our honeymoon after all...”

A wad of saliva and blood, mostly the latter, launches from the Roe’s mouth as she starts to pick herself up from the damp mound of earth she was lucky enough to get launched into and not the rock a few fulms behind. The worst of the blow had been eaten up by the aetherical barrier she was wrapped in, but there was still plenty of protest from her limbs as she made her way back up to her feet and turn back to the shuffling oaken form closing in on her. Enough of her wits had settled back in from the sudden, unwanted bout of narcolepsy thrust on her by the creature’s last, well, second to last attack that’d left her open to getting launched. This time as the flow of aether around the tree-like beast shifted she knew what she was watching for. 

Much of the treant’s ambient energy resided in it’s canopy of branches and leaves above it, not the face-like core, and as it prepared to pluck another swelling acorn she could watch it all flow into the seed to prepare it for it’s projectile task. It was almost as if the whole system was a funnel that moved to where it was needed just at the time. As the oaken hand plucked it’s next weapon a smile took the sea wolf’s lips. She knew how the beast was playing it’s trick, and that secret was now her own. 

The giant’s weight shifts as her feet move into a better position under her, wanting to give off the appearance she was planning to try and block the next acorn like she had the first. As the beast flung it’s sleepy bomb though, she used that footing to launch herself to the side, rebounding off the broad trunk of a less animated tree of the Shroud to keep her footing. From there she pulls in the aether that made up her shield, gathering the stretched out hidden wall and twisting the energy into a conjured seed of her own before flinging it forcefully out at the shambling wooden beast. As it collides the magic within burst into a cloud around the treant before it slumps backwards, ‘eyes’ lightness and gaping maw left open and exposed.

“FUCK!”

Just when the roe thought she’d nearly got things arranged the way she wanted, she’d slammed her knee against the bottom side of the table she was working at and jostled all the delicately placed but still unsecured materials she’d spent the last bell on. It was the start of a torrent of cursing as she leaned back from the project, taking a moment to calm herself before those massive hands ended up crushing something. Again. It hadn’t been cheap to replace the ivory that first time around after all. After a few moments and a swig of rum to help settle her nerves, she sets the core of her project aside and ensures the base is ready once more.

It’d started simple enough really. A carved and then polished piece of river stone that had a broad circle base with a backdrop made to look like a trio of mountains. She’d even got a bit of white pant to make for snowy peaks seeing as they looked far more Northern than anything near Thanalan. Sitting on that base though had been three days of nightmare made reality. A mess of spun copper, gold, and even slips of silver all layered and woven so that no one stretch looked like it had too much of any one metal as she built up the nest. The edges rising up to make the ‘bowl’ shape had fought back hard, but it seemed even after the knee battering it needed little more than a few tweaks and to be re-centered.

Finally her attention turns back to the point of the whole project. A pair of carefully carved matching white doves, made from ivory and finished with little hints of black paint and gold foil on the beaks. It felt like it’d taken a moon just to do one, let alone a second, and the whole set again. Truth was it’d been far shorter, but the roe didn’t have the patience for such fine work as some. Years of maintenance of an airship and her eye had her used to sensitive tools, but most days she’d happily pass the work off to those who adored it and leave her to her books. This though, she wasn’t prepared to just pay out for. The edge of her lip is pulled inward and gnawed, being offered as a sacrifice to the Twelve while she finally got the two birds positioned just so that one was angled a bit, resting it’s beak over the other while the two heads nestled against one another. A few subtle shifts and she got the adhesive into place, holding it all together probably several moments longer than really needed. The two were finally set into their nest permanently.

The last addition was a repeatedly polished star ruby, that she ends up giving one more pass with her cloth to fully bring out that shine of the egg-shaped jewel. A few turns and twists later and she’s satisfied with the stone’s burst being display and it too is sealed into it’s final resting spot. Heaving out a sigh, the roe let her mind wonder as to how those like Nymia who did this sort of finery, or much better really, as their day to day. But the struggle had been worth it for the two women represented by those birds, and the hopes bound up in one day seeing that stone have it’s own soul to stand for. All of it framed and supported a mountain of sorts, touched by snow but having been plucked from the water and shaped first. One thought did start to jump ahead of the back as she basked in the achievement.

The rarity of rainfall was one of the few things Tempest had liked least about moving to Thanalan, what with storms being a direct part of her history and her name. So when one finally managed to roll through she made a point of dragging her wife up to their neighbor’s yard to make use of their gazebo overlooking the valley below. The tiny woman was all smiles as she as she drank in both sights and scents that had become a treat instead of being a part of nearly daily life.

The runty miqo’te guides her wife to sit before crawling her way up into the sea wolf’s lap, facing her with a bright smile. Her hands make their way almost immediately to the larger woman’s chest, pushing in and squishing and squeezing on their way to a proper kneading effort with a deep purr reverberating out of her throat in the process. As much as things were starting to stir something up within the roegadyn, the act is very swiftly replaced with her feline partner curling up against her torso and nestling into her breasts for pillows.