hi so i have. The Fear about this fic so here are a few disclaimers
disclaimer one: rbs are off bc i don't need people outside of my mutual circle reading this LOL. comments are welcome though!!
disclaimer two: uhh this fic is kind of on the heavier side. it's antagonist au so rhys is Already doing worse, and this is kind of rock bottom for them. oops ! tw for suicidal ideation especially
disclaimer three: oh also for context (mentioned in one [1] line) aelwyn & rhys dated for like a week in the middle of sophomore year & then broke up. dw about it they'll figure it out eventually
okay now for the fic. have fun
Rhys woke up panicked.
The moment they processed consciousness, they jolted upright in a single moment, their chest heaving. Movement, in the corner of their eye — an elf, quickly leaving. Rhys disregarded the information for now. Last they remembered, they were in the forest, and they… they think they passed out, sometime in the final battle. Rhys clenched their teeth, swallowed their anxieties, and glanced around to assess their situation.
They weren’t in the woods anymore. They were in small bedroom, with soft golden sunlight streaming through the window. The bed they were sitting on was covered in blankets and pillows, one such blanket draped over their shoulders. Slowly, ignoring their muscles’ complaints, they forced themself to their feet, shrugging off the blanket. They stumbled the two steps forward to the window and braced themself against the windowsill.
The ground was far below. They estimated that they were three stories up. The sun was beginning to set, silhouetting the buildings of the small town. Instead of the bluish grass of Sylvaire, the plants were a bright, cheerful green. There was a gas station across the road, and a building with a sign proclaiming it was Krom’s Diner.
They turned their gaze lower, to the driveway. There, a motorcycle parked next to a van…
…Rhys knew where they were.
The door clicked open and they whirled around, muscles tensing. Aelwyn shut the door behind her. Rhys didn’t relax.
She looked better than she had last time. Her hair was brushed, falling loosely around her shoulders, and her eyes were brighter. They hadn’t noticed how awful she looked in the forest until she had been able to recover from it. The dark circles under her eyes still hadn’t faded, and her skin was paler than it should be, but she was improving.
Rhys shook themself. “Where are we?” they demanded.
“What happened to hello,” Aelwyn said lightly, referencing their inside joke.
“Aelwyn. What happened.”
Aelwyn’s faint smile faded. Her gaze was too soft for the way Rhys felt. It almost hurt, the way she looked at them—that kind of genuine gentleness was almost foreign to them now. They bared their teeth just slightly, defensive.
“The Nightmare King lost,” Aelwyn said. She paused, and added, “Kalina’s dead.”
Silence stretched out between them. Rhys dropped their gaze.
If the Nightmare King was gone… if Kalina was gone—
“You should really be laying down,” Aelwyn said suddenly. “You’re still—“
“Shut up,” Rhys said. “Shut up.” They were nauseous, almost shaking. “Oh, god. Oh, fuck.” They sank to the floor, drew their knees to their chest, and wrapped their arms around their legs.
Aelwyn sat on the bed and it creaked underneath her. Rhys stared at her feet. Aelwyn was never fidgety with her hands. She always kept perfect posture, neutral-to-positive expression. It was her feet tapping that gave away her nerves. And they were tapping away, back and forth, one-two, one-two, waiting for Rhys to say something.
Rhys didn’t want to think about what her news meant. That they had fought for nothing. That they had to live with that knowledge that they fought for the villain, and it didn’t even work. That they had worked so hard and now the only person who seemed to understand them was gone. They had precognition in a sense, for heaven’s sake, and even they couldn’t beat the Bad Kids. And of course, the looming fact that they had to live now, full stop.
Or—
To consider later.
Rhys drew themself upright, still sitting, and cleared their throat. “We’re in Mordred Manor,” they said plainly. Facts first, then emotions.
“Yes.”
“How badly do the Bad Kids want me dead?”
“They don’t,” Aelwyn said. “I explained everything to them.”
Rhys went still. “You. Explained. What, exactly?”
Aelwyn hesitated, and Rhys attempted a calming breath, to little avail. Honestly, they weren’t even sure what she knew of their motivations: that they had wanted to die so badly and ensure that they stayed dead that they agreed to aid the Nightmare King’s return. In a sense, they were curious: what did she think was their reasoning?
“I told them you didn’t really want to do it, but you had dug yourself too far into it and were scared of leaving. Some of them were… less believing, of this, but—“
“Is that what you think was happening?” said Rhys, incredulous.
Aelwyn frowned. “Yes. You told me—”
Rhys had told her that they didn’t think they could leave anymore. They didn’t m—they didn’t want to leave. They had said that because she started talking about it. There wasn’t a life for them here, not in this world. Kalina and the Nightmare King had offered them an escape route from it, not a way to live. That wasn’t what they wanted.
“Aelwyn. Why do you think I joined? I wanted to be there. I’m a bad person.” It was something they had repeated to themself. That’s why they broke up with her — they couldn’t stand knowing that they would eventually hurt her. Was it more selfish that they wanted her close, or that they wanted to push her away?
Aelwyn scoffed. “So am I. If anything, I’m worse. I killed the Elven Oracle, I—”
“Oh, please,” Rhys interrupted. They dug their fingernails into their legs. “You were under incredible pressure. You did what you thought would let you survive. Once you got out from there—”
“—That’s no excuse. Adaine left, she’s stronger than I am—”
“—Adaine had a real support system—”
“—She knew our parents were doing wrong before then, and anyway,” Aelwyn raised her voice over Rhys’s next complaint, “if my parents count as being at fault, then so does Kalina for you.”
Rhys stared at her, startled. “What?”
“You think I didn’t hear how she talked to you?” Aelwyn said. “And you always deferred to her—”
“—Obviously, I did? She was our leader, aside from the Nightmare King.” And she was the only one who understood them, but Aelwyn wouldn’t get that. Kalina didn’t pretend to be nice to them. She was always clear with what she wanted.
“Doesn’t change the way she talked to you.”
“It was perfectly normal?” Rhys’s voice had climbed to a higher pitch. “You don’t know anything, you were being tortured in Fallinel!”
Aelwyn flinched, only barely, before snapping, “I wasn’t in Fallinel the whole time. I still have eyes. And you still told me things. You were a suicidal teenager and she took advantage of that! That’s—Galicaea, I can’t believe I have to explain this—that’s not okay!”
“What?” Rhys said, laughing more out of surprise than anything. “I put myself in that situation. It was my fault, if anything. It was my choice.”
“Rhys, she’s hundreds of years older than you! She enabled your—fucking—” Aelwyn stumbled over the word, as it was an English word, not Solcom or Elvish—really, the fact that she was using it at all was a shock—“suicidal ideation so that you’d help her cause! No sane, good person would agree to that!”
“She wasn’t enabling anything! I can make my own damn choices! It was you that betrayed us! Betrayed me!” Rhys knew that she would. But naively, they hoped that she wouldn’t. That she’d understand why Rhys was doing what they were. They had begged her to let them finish what they were here for.
“I saved you,” Aelwyn said. “I was the one who found you after the fight, half-dead! I was the one who convinced the Bad Kids to bring you with us, that you weren’t as awful as they thought you were!”
“I wish you hadn’t,” Rhys hissed. “You should have left me there. I’d rather be dead than here.”
“Well, that’s clearly not fierce competition, because you’d rather be dead than anything.”
Rhys grinned. “Glad you figured that one out. Sure, Winnie. So I don’t get why the Hell you brought me out of those woods.”
“Because I want you to live, damn you!” Aelwyn said furiously. “Galicaea help me if it’s selfish. But I want you to live. I’m not going to just let you die.”
Rhys’s heartbeat pounded in their ears. They couldn’t believe her. She didn’t know who they were, not really. She couldn’t say that.
“You,” Rhys said slowly, “are so fucking emotional.” It hurt, the way she looked at them. But they knew she despised being called emotional, and when she curled her lip, Rhys knew they had hit the nerve they were looking for.
They didn’t want to think about how much she must care about them. They didn’t want to think about how much they cared about her. Or how selfish it was of them, not her, to want death over dealing with their actions.
“So are you, the way you followed Kalina like a damn dog,” Aelwyn snapped, and Rhys’s vision flashed red.
They pushed themselves to their feet in one motion and lunged for Aelwyn, tackling her to the bed and wrapping their fingers around her throat. She laughed once, took their wrists in her hands and flipped them, pinning them. They’d never really learned how to fight, not properly. Kalina acknowledged they didn’t have the time to learn. They learned to pretend to be able to fight.
The other thing she did teach them, briefly, was to fight dirty.
Rhys kneed Aelwyn in the stomach, and took advantage of her surprise to shove her off, pushing themself back to their feet.
What Rhys had learned on their own was to push through pain. And their body was electric with it, darting up and down their limbs and joints. They were just barely shaking, holding their breath when they couldn’t steady their breathing.
“Do you really want to fight?” Aelwyn asked. “Because with how sick you’ve been, I don’t think—”
Rhys lunged for her again, because if nothing else the adrenaline was giving them something to focus on other than what she had told them and how torn up they felt. With them on top of her, she rolled, sending them both tumbling off the bed and knocking the air out of Rhys’s lungs as they landed on their back. They gasped for breath and Aelwyn—didn’t move. She stared down at them silently and then looked up at the door, which opened.
Jawbone stood on the other side of the doorway. He stared at them both. Aelwyn ran her fingers through her hair and flashed a smile. Rhys pointed at her.
“You didn’t use any spells.”
“Hm?”
“You didn’t use any spells.” She could have won that fight easily. Rhys still couldn’t use magic.
“No, I didn’t,” she said. “Are you going to stand up or just lie there?”
Rhys stared back at her, and Jawbone sighed, stepping into the room. “Alright. What happened?”
A pause. “We had an argument,” Aelwyn said flatly, and with that everything hit Rhys like a tidal wave and they burst into tears.
