#tscatolf

For the forest floor should have been tearing Marinette's feet to bloody shreds—the undergrowth is strewn with clawing brambles, choking poisonous leaves sharp as blades, and rending obsidian shards. Tree trunks bleed rivulets of stygian ichor that drips and pools into brackish puddles on the ground. Occasionally splashing and staining both her hands and feet with their sickening essence.

But no harm has come to her here, not yet.

And unbeknownst to her, golden eyes watch from the shadowy depths of the abyss, as the guiding pull lures her ever deeper—soon she'll be beyond the boundaries of her Goddess's influence and ensnared within his sway. A risk with her current state, but what other choice does she have? To confront without risking the hearts and souls of her fellow Champions.

With every step taken, Marinette's bond with Tikki strains. It's almost choking how agonisingly painful it is to venture so far from her light.

“Just a little further,” she reassures herself, voice scarcely above a whisper. Though, she's not quite entirely sure why she is even trying to do this in the first place.

Trees seemingly part in her way to lead her onwards. Leaves and trailing vines softening in her presence and furling away like curtains.

Around her, an arched pathway forms, undergrowth lined with oil black moss, glimmering in the veil of moonlight bleeding from the canopy above.

There's a flutter of wings from the shrubs nearby that catches her attention, Marinette's steps slow as she turns her head and crouches cautiously. A small robin—coalesced in shadows with eyes glimmering a golden divine light, perches on a thin rocking branch and tilts its head at her.

She watches it curiously—the first sign of life within this place (though perhaps not exactly a good sign of life, all things considered).

It flutters its wings before darting up and weaving through the low-hanging vines and branches of the canopy. Guiding her in tandem with the path and the strengthening pull upon her soul.

Before her, the radiant shadowy robin swoops low so that's flying just over her head. As the final two trees part for the path, a twilit glade greets her eyes. Bathed in the silver of the moonlight and the shifting, swirling pinks and purples of the shadows. Like a midnight sky on the clearest of nights, a clandestine heavenly abyss between the Moon, and the Earth's respective domains.

Almost entranced, Marinette steps daintily into the glade, crossing the threshold and befalling wholly into his domain. Strangely, breathing comes easier to her within here, and her shoulders uncurl, tension bleeding from her bones. If it were not for the sudden lightness of her body and mind… “I don't think I would've noticed…” She admits so stifling and so faintly to herself, with the muted flickering pink bubbles of panic, not unlike Tikki's magic, in her heart. That the strain and pain of her bond with her beloved Goddess is beginning to fade—rot—away, though not completely but neither holding quite such an iron grip upon her soul any longer.

Though Marinette has stilled just beyond the threshold, the robin continues forth, swooping onwards to circle around the glade—once, twice, thrice, before gliding to the centre of it. Bursting into a plume of umbral smoke and feathers, the robin's form twists and writhes.

And out from within the shadowed shroud, an unmistakable man saunters, smirking all too gratified at her. Draped in the gilded finery of the gods—a barely concealing toga of blackest night and darkest depths, adorned with all manner of golden jewellery inset with obsidian and black opal. The Talon. An accursed God of Darkness.

He inhales deeply, staring at her through half-lidded glittering gold eyes. “Hello, Marinette.”

“Of all the Champions, I didn't expect you to come to me of your own accord but then again… you do belong with me.” Trilling as the words roll off his tongue all while puffing his chest out like a pleased bird—or more accurately, a robin.

Marinette scrunches her nose up, lips thinned and brows furrowing, eyeing him not dissimilar to how a rabbit watches a hungry owl. “I belong with my Goddess, Tikki.”

The Talon chirrups an inhuman laugh. “You accepted my gifts, dear Champion, therefore you are mine.” Tilting his head to one side, and with a pitying coo, smiles forlornly at her. “You're so miraculously loyal to a Goddess who could not care less for you, her one and only Champion. Ah, my mistake, she recently claimed a second Champion, did she not?”

For a second, Marinette can't help but let her control slip enough to snarl, face twisting and eyes glowing a brilliant glowing red in momentary fury. Shoulders curling up once more. She grits her teeth and closes her eyes as she tries to calm herself by breathing deeply. It doesn't help but the effort was made nonetheless. “You're wrong. I'd never betray my Goddess for the likes of you. I didn't accept them in the slightest, I only moved your curses somewhere they wouldn't harm myself or my friends.”

“Ah, ah, ah, you took my gifts, therefore you accepted them, my blessings.” He argues, leaning further into her personal space and delicately trailing a blackened taloned finger down her wrist. “My claim upon you has been staked and Tikki,” he sneers the Goddess's name with such vitriolic abhorrence, “has turned a blind eye to your suffering, and has actively fanned the flames of it. Would you really rather continue as her tortured Champion until you rupture beneath the burden of unnecessary duty upon your shoulders?”

He's not lying. She can feel the accidentally—unintentional—unwilling bond with the Talon she had threaded. The very thing that has brought her here, to him. And the urge to renounce her bond with her Goddess and truly bind herself wholly to him, to let him hold her so lovingly and protectively.

“You may be Tikki's Chosen but you are merely the latest among the countless Champions she has claimed, and your novelty has waned for her; though your use remains.” He takes a moment to emphasise his point, tapping a claw against the veins in her wrist. “Why else do you think she's claimed another when she has a reputation for only ever taking a single Champion at a time? Once your usefulness runs out for her, she'll discard you for the shiny new one.”

“Alya was supposed to be Trixx's Champion…” Marinette argues feebly, stumbling back a step—not enough to leave his grasp nor the glade, however.

“And yet,” The Talon answers, tapping the claws on his other hand against his chin, “she is now favoured by Tikki. Strange that Trixx did not try to offer you his boons in turn, seeing as your magic would have been quite compatible with his. A Champion for a Champion, a soulbond for a soulbond.”

She opens her mouth to answer and shuts it with a deafening clack, stark in the absence of her bond with the Goddess.

Raising an eyebrow, his smirk curls wider—mocking yet pitying. “Haven't you noticed the anomalies—inconsistencies—with your memories, Champion? Haven't you noticed how her light burns you—blinds you as it binds you?”

“That's not—!” Marinette argues instinctively, taking a step forwards into his space with an ineffective shove to his practically bare chest, the word "true" rots upon her lips like poison dripping from open wounds—agonising, unhealed, an omen.

He snorts at her, shaking his head and closing his eyes for but a moment. “You've been upholding balance in the name of good for so long, is it really so surprising that you're feeling the pull to uphold the other half of it now?”

“Yes!” She hisses, dropping an octave at the end as she loses the tension from her shoulders. Her breathing hitches and a sob catches in the back of her throat. “No…” Throwing both her hands to each side sharply, as her voice frantically pitches up with another sob, “I—I don't know!”

The smirk upon his lips falters then falls. He sighs and grimacing, lifts his taloned thumb to wipe the tears from her eyes ever so tenderly. “You should have been mine, you know.” Voice rife with a vulnerable poignancy. “From the very beginning. You were always meant to walk in the light of the moon and the shadows of day. But the other gods stole you, claimed you for their own before your soul could be bound to me as with how every Champion has always been naturally bound.”

“Why? That doesn't make sense, why would they do that?” She can't help but ask, swallowing thickly and biting at her lips.

Humming, he tilts his head to one side.“My name, dear Champion, is Nightwing. I was mortal once—a Champion too—before I ascended to godhood. And those gods you so faithfully followed, they feared that as an old enemy of theirs, I'd corrupt your soul with divinity, lead you astray to turn the tides of balance against them. As has long been overdue in this realm.”

Shoulders trembling, Marinette curls into herself, crumbling like her resolve to her knees before him. Head bowed, hands shaking.

“And now, knowing this, knowing the truth of your Goddess,” Nightwing begins as he crouches down in front of her, “will you belong to me, become my one and only dear Champion?”

Breathless and unhesitating, she licks her lips—curling her hands into fists—and nods solemnly. “I will, as long as you will belong to me as my one and only beloved God.”

The all too gratified smirk he wore as he had revealed himself to her, returns in full force—though seemingly softer this time, a lightness to his shimmering eyes, as the smirk melts into a gentle frown, almost pleadingly, he explains. “Please forgive me, my Champion. First, we must sever the soul bond you have with Tikki. The pain will last only a moment but it is inevitable and I cannot lessen it any further.”

Nightwing isn't lying.

A gasp is wrenched from Marinette's lungs against her will. That thin faded tendril binding her soul to her Goddess snaps. Her vision blackens in an instant. Tears cascade down her cheeks as she squeezes her eyes shut. Not that it helps in any way. Each breath feels hollow. Her heartbeat thundering in her mind as her throat constricts and bond sunders. The pain truly lasts only a moment. But the lingering rending absence does not.

And… and there is grief, etched into the very essence of her soul, a deep agony wrenches at her heartstrings until the organ is all but torn from her chest in a ghastly void of ruin. A wound that will never heal as long as the pain that rots it continues to fester. The gilded ichor of the night drips from it, drenching her clothes in an oil spill of dying hopes and dying bonds.

There is no going back now.

No chance to regret it.

Her choice is made.

Her actions done.

The price has been paid.

And finally, she no longer need pay for the dregs of power and love with her own flesh and blood as she had done before.

“The others… the other Champions will come, with their Gods in tow.” Marinette whispers, she knows it deep within her bones they will do everything in their power to keep her caged like a canary in the coal mine or a songbird for show.

With a baleful smile, Nightwing gently wipes the fresh tears from her cheeks with his talon. “Then we will let them come, watch as their hope and faith wavers…”

Softly, he trails a talon down her cheek, following the path of dried tears and then along her jaw so as to lift her chin with a delicate and reverent gracefulness. “And show them exactly what their hubris has wrought, my darling Champion.”

———

| Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this fic! Comments, Likes, and Reblogs are much appreciated! |