#skyriv

It’s been three years since Sky laid eyes on an Elapid demon. Not since the portal to the dark realm had been closed for good.

Or so they thought.

For a few seconds, it’s the only thing that takes up his vision — a swarm of scaled creatures crawling around Alfea, neither serpent nor insect, their jagged claws buried into the spines of his fellow specialists and tearing them to pieces — before the rune on his neck tingles and the image fades.

Just in time for Sky to duck and roll away from the snap of its teeth.

Amber-colored venom drips to the ground, sizzling into the cobblestone where Sky had been frozen in place just seconds ago.

The demon’s cobra-shaped head turns in his direction, red eyes bleeding violence and hunger, only to stumble back with a piercing shriek when an arrow gets embedded into its neck.

“That sword in your hand? It’s to defend yourself from things like that,” a low voice taunts from behind him. Sky turns in time to see Riven aim another marked arrow, sending a shockwave of an angry yowl through the village when the sharp tip grazes the top of the demon’s head. “Would be bloody helpful if you used it right about now.”

The sardonic words make him smile despite himself, sending the unsettling flashback to the back of his mind. Shaking his head in amusement, he pulls the seraph blade from its scabbard, letting it illuminate his hand with a soft, divine glow.

Running toward the demonic creature, he arcs through the air, dodging a taloned arm, and slices through one of the demon’s legs — just in time to sidestep another one. Taking advantage of his crouched position, Sky pierces his blade through the underside of its belly. It explodes in a shower of burning ichor.

He turns to face his partner. “Two!” he calls out, breathless from the headiness of adrenaline.

“One and a half,” Riven shoots back with a smirk. He plants an arrow into the head of the third and final Elapid and doesn’t even stop to make sure it’s fully banished to the demon realm when he stows his bow away, strutting in Sky’s direction. Cocky bastard. “I helped you with the first one.”

The lightness in Riven’s voice, however, doesn’t match the intensity of his eyes as they absorb every detail about Sky. Gaze determined and evergreen. So intense it never fails to feel like Riven’s hands are slowly checking over every inch of him.

Like it always does, Sky’s heart pounds against the prison of his rib cage at the sight, sending a pulse of warmth down his spine.

It took years for Sky to understand that look. That unwavering stare. Intended to painstakingly ensure the soul bound to Riven’s was uninjured, unharmed. But once he did, once Sky allowed himself to feel the full weight of Riven’s attention, well, it’s been a steady descent since.

Sky does his best to shrug it away as they head back to the institute, tucked away behind a First World trinket shop in the middle of Blackbridge. “But I was the one to kill it.”

“I knew your hero complex would go to your head one day, I just didn’t expect it to be so soon,” Riven teases, bumping his bicep — inked with the rune identical to the one on his neck — into Sky.

“Weren’t you the one who told Silva we didn’t need a team for this patrol?”

Riven scoffs. “Like I could’ve predicted an Elapid nest? I know a higher level of demon activity has been reported, but where the fuck did those even come from?”

It’s a good question, actually. They weren’t even supposed to be on a mission today, just an ordinary patrol. One they’ve done countless times without encountering Elapid-level demons. It’s relatively uneventful most of the time, but today they stumbled upon a swarm of them for the first time in years and Sky—

He thinks of lifeless eyes, of blood-soaked grass squelching beneath his boots as he surveys the loss of his fellow warriors. Of the cries of pain and sorrow pervading through Alfea.

“Sky!” Riven warns urgently, pulling him out of his daze.

His body responds before his mind can even process the words, flattening to the ground as a demon flies through the air just a few feet above him. Sky’s palms sting from the cut of the cobblestones when he clambers to his feet, scanning the area around them for the nearest source of danger.

An Elapid demon comes at him seconds later, swooping with a visceral screech. Sky grunts as he blocks its leg with his seraph blade and pushes it back, his teeth gritting together with effort. From his periphery, he sees another leg loom over him, ready to spear through his body, only for it to get pierced with a marked arrow, exploding in a splash of ichor.

The demon howls and Sky strikes, swinging his sword through its neck. Black-green blood splatters onto him, biting at his exposed skin, but the thrill of killing the demon, of sending it back to the hell it came from, is much more powerful.

He turns to face Riven with a grimace. “Thanks for having my back.”

“Always,” Riven replies easily, and the smile he sends Sky is devastating, entirely out of place on a battlefield. “Except for when it’s Silva. Demons I can handle. Silva’s lectures? You’re on your own, mate.”

Sky’s about to tell him that Silva’s lectures are pretty much exclusively reserved for Riven when he hears an all-too-familiar scuttling sound. He barely has time to lift his sword when there’s a blur of movement, a sickening squelch, and—

Riven screams.

Sky’s body is hollow as he stares at the claw that’s run straight through Riven’s thigh, blood glistening on its black shell. It starts to shudder as though it’s about to jerk upwards – three, two, one, – and tear Riven in half.

Sky moves without thinking, spinning past his parabatai to sever the leg off at the back, thrusting his sword through the demon’s belly with an anguished, vengeful roar. He doesn’t even care to watch it be banished to the demon realm, and just turns to catch Riven as he collapses backwards, sinking to his knees. Two bound souls on the ground.

“Always the bloody white knight…” he gasps, sounding half out of it already. Sky fumbles for Riven’s hand, his fingers sliding in between his. “A lot of blood, Sky. It’s- my thigh. There’s too much blood.”

“I know,” he says, catching his voice before it cracks. “It’s okay, just- just let me get my stele, okay? We need a healing rune and-“

“N-no. Won’t work. Too much blood.” Riven exhales a short, mirthless laugh. “I don’t- it’s not going to work.”

“It will, okay? You’re going to be fine. Where I go you go, remember?”

“Sky don’t... I’m fine.”

But it’s not. It’s not fucking fine because Sky can feel their parabatai bond weakening by the second. Can feel the life-force that constantly exists within him, the axis of his whole world, fading away.

Riven just rests there on his chest. His breaths shallow, his fingers trembling against Sky’s neck, and his eyes trained on Sky’s face. He flinches when something wet drips onto his cheek, but he still doesn’t look away.

And Sky knows, he knows that a healing rune on Riven’s body isn’t going to be enough to fix him.

He knows that there are some wounds that are fatal wounds — heads crushed by stone, stomachs pierced by swords, hearts stopped with lightning — that are just too big, too permanent to heal. A femoral artery ripped apart by a demon is one of them.

But there’s nothing in this realm, nothing in this world or any world, that can stop him from reaching out with a bloodstained hand to draw one on anyway.

It’s not his best. He’s too shaky, too frenzied to make it his best. The lines aren’t sharp or precise and he can’t even breathe much magic into it like he usually would—

But then the rune glows. Steadily brighter and stronger than he’s ever seen. An iridescent blaze of light that beams through the village and nearly blinds everyone in it.

When it fades, any remaining demons are gone — expelled in a series of cataclysms that reverberate through Sky’s knees — and Riven has stopped bleeding. There’s a spiked claw on the ground next to his thigh and the skin where his wound should be is whole, unmarred. As if he wasn’t just on the brink of death. His puddle of blood is nothing more than a rusted stain that’s faded into his black gear.

Sky feels their parabatai bond flare against Riven’s palm on his neck, red-hot and electric. The rune on his bicep grows as hot on Sky’s chest as the liquid fire in his gaze. He breathes Sky’s name, hushed and reverent.

They haven’t looked away from each other.

Sky doesn’t say anything in reply. He just stares back at Riven, droplets of sweat and pain still caught in his lashes. His chest feels warm, his body heavy. Like he could stay here forever. Riven held close to chest, their feelings burning like heavenly fire through their bond, the rest of the world a universe away.

Sky and Riven. Just Sky and Riven.

There’s a sharp crunch of boots and Silva falls to a crouch beside Sky, startling them both out of their reverie.