Qia

𝔻𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕠𝕟: ℝ𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕤𝕔𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕦𝕣𝕗𝕒𝕔𝕖

In collaboration with(@The Savant) as Scotti

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Hearing the echoing weight of steps on metal only gave him the impression that he was caught — looking around and thinking of what to do. Scotti decided to turn off the mobile device's flashlight so Selene couldn’t look down into the darkness and see him. Plus, he didn’t want to stare at the human or animal remains that were everywhere around him. Then there was a realization of how much it stank around him, dusty, and a putrid aftertaste that crept up from the stilled air.

Covering his mouth with the fabric of his hoodie, he felt like it was better to have some kind of filter in between him and whatever dangers were lurking in the air, and he looked around. Looking up to the place he fell when he heard Selene’s almost familiar voice. A piece of him argued with himself not to answer but he really did not want to be in this death pit any longer than he was.

Silence.

A minute went by before he sighed out, enough for her to hear him, “Yeah, I am down here. What of it?” The sassy coldness of his voice showed that he was disinterested in speaking with her. He didn’t want to be in this situation, and he could have honestly started adventuring around, though he was too scared to do so. What if he came across those monsters people talked about? Miners, diggers, and people who worked in Khia always had terrible stories of run-ins with the beasts of the dark. He knew he would have absolutely no chance if he ran into something.

“Oh, just wanted to say…,” Selene’s voice echoed lazily down the chute, “that you sure are a fast runner.”

She adjusted her stance, case still cradled under her arm. “Graceful too. Right up until the whole screaming and plummeting to your possible death part. Impressive stuff.”

The sarcasm rolled off her tongue as easily as ever, dry, disinterested, but obvious enough to let him know she hadn’t forgotten how they’d gotten here, to begin with. In an effort to hide his intentions from her, he’d run off and straight into a death trap more convincing than any excuse he’d tried to spit out. Lower-tier gutter rats like Scotti thrived on adrenaline and half-baked lies, but the underbelly of Dominion devoured those who mistook frenzy for skill. Someone had clearly schooled him in the basics of pursuit, or he’d figured it out himself, yet he’d failed to learn the cardinal rule: surviving here required patience, not velocity.

Hearing her voice come down from above caused his face to twist, and he grumbled at the clarity of sarcasm her tone had towards him. Bits and pieces of rebellious nature along with the regular teenage attitude wanted to snappily come out at the woman, though they didn’t. There was no point in grabbing the bait and firing back at her, “Oh, yeah, thanks,” was stated more sarcastically unappreciative than he meant it to be but it wasn’t like they were on nice terms so he couldn’t care too much.

She exhaled once, narrowing her eyes toward the hole like she could will the darkness to give her a better angle.

“How do you wanna do this, kid?”

A shrug with a throw up of his hands couldn’t be seen, though the gesture was what counts, right? “I have no clue,” he stated while picking up his mobile device once more. She knew he was here. There was no reason to continue to hide and he turned the flashlight on, “I have about ten more hours of battery and it’ll drain with the light constantly on,” he waved the device up at her, shining the phone flashlight, which was not very effective.

Scanning the area again, he was queasy at all the sights, “Also, I think I fell into something that means I am worse off than dead if I can’t get out of here,” he was being honest because he was scared. There was an underlying tone in his voice that showed he was really scared. “I am pretty sure this thing loves eating people…” he gently pushed a skull with his foot as it rolled with a rattling echo. He shook his head, and his face showed disgust as he stepped away from the visual bones of people.

Selene didn’t respond immediately. The light from his device was weak, barely more than a glint, but it was enough. Enough to see how far he’d fallen. Enough to see what else was down there. Her gaze flicked to the skeletal remains, now half-illuminated for her to take them in. They weren’t fresh. That was the first thing she noted. Bone stripped of tissue, some fractured from impact, others clean, brittle. The way the bodies were arranged—or rather, scattered—didn’t scream battle. No sign of weapons, either dropped or shattered. Just people who had ended up in the wrong place and never made it out.

And it wasn’t just one or two. Her eyes swept over a jagged outline slumped against the far wall, its size too large and its shape too wrong to be human. The bones around it were more fragmented, like they’d been dragged. Or crushed. Whatever had happened down there hadn’t been quick or painless. And now a kid was standing in the middle of this nightmare, waving his flashlight like a goddamn beacon.

With a click of her tongue, Selene set the case down beside her and knelt, eyes scanning the corridor walls for any anchor points, anything load-bearing. “Ten hours of battery,” she muttered, more to herself than him. “You’ve got better odds than most.” Her eyes then locked onto a length of piping bolted along the opposite wall, rusted but solid. It looked like it had once housed coolant or low-pressure steam, thick enough to bear weight if she distributed it properly. The bolts were old but hadn’t completely given to corrosion, and the pipe itself ran parallel to a steel support beam embedded in the wall. If she could anchor a line to both, it might hold long enough to get in and out. It wasn’t ideal, but it was workable.

“Sit tight,” she called. “If I can rig a descent line without snapping my spine in half, I’ll get you out. Just… don’t wake the locals in the meantime.” Selene didn’t wait for a reply. She stood, brushing rust from her gloves, and pivoted back the way she’d come.

“I don’t think my odds are that good,” he continued to scan the room, nothing looked fresh, but there was that underlying stench of rot. Things have died here recently or have at least been dragged into this area to be eaten. The thought made his body ache as he continued to look around the room. It was hard to tell if it was comforting or not — he didn’t want to be blind to anything, though he didn’t want to see what was going to kill him if it showed up either.

Looking up when she told him to sit tight, his face twisted with a bit of disgust, because he had no idea what her plans were going to be, and he didn’t know what her plans were for him. Maybe he should try going down the tunnels, if there were any, and seeing if his chances were better. The young man didn’t care to be caught up in her grasp and interrogated — too much of that nonsense today. He muttered to himself as he continued to walk around the stone room. A stone grave. “Oh, yes, I will definitely look for the locals and ask them for some lemonade or a cup of tea,” he rolled his eyes.

Her boots moved fast but quietly along the grating, the metal groaning beneath her with every step. The corridor hadn’t changed—same steam hissing from overhead, same walls bowed from years of pressure—but now she was scanning with a purpose in mind: an emergency cabinet. Older sectors of Dominion, especially the pre-expansion ones, had been outfitted with them during early construction runs. Selene remembered seeing one years ago during a drop run with a smuggler who had specialized in salvaging these old tunnels. The cabinets were built into the ductwork—low-profile and easy to miss unless you knew what you were looking for. Most were stripped or rusted shut by now, but every now and then, one gave up something useful. A cabinet like that could hold the difference between a quick death and a stupid one. Emergency breather masks, old flares, maybe even a climbing line if the coils hadn’t frayed to hell. She doubted Dominion’s engineers expected anyone to still be using them this far past inspection cycles, but here she was.

And there, half-obscured beneath peeling conduit insulation, was the edge of a recessed panel. Selene stepped up to it, pried away the brittle sheath of insulation, and felt around the frame. The rust gave easily under her gloved fingers, flaking away in red-brown curls. She braced her boot against the lower edge of the wall and yanked. The latch gave with a groan and a screech that echoed far too loudly through the corridor for her comfort. Inside, most of the contents were ruined. A shattered visor mask. Empty clips for a long-dead flare gun. Cracked casing for a medpatch unit that had long since dried out. But nestled at the bottom, coiled like a snake in a bed of dust and grime, was what she needed—an old emergency descent line, reinforced fiber wrapped around a rusted carabiner.

She tested the line with a tug. Its braided fibres groaned but held.

“Good enough,” she muttered, slamming the cabinet shut. Selene turned and retraced her steps, her boots a little faster now. Time was slipping, and she had a feeling that the kid didn’t have the sense to stay still forever. She reached the drop again, crouched by the edge, and began feeding the line through the carabiner, anchoring it to the pipe she’d scouted earlier. The angle would be awkward, the climb worse, but if it held, this could work.

Selene gave the line one last tug, testing the tension, then leaned over the edge. “You still alive down there, Curious Boy? Because you’ve got about thirty seconds before I make this trip for nothing.”

Hearing everything that she was doing above kept him interested, but it wasn’t like he could see much. It was somewhat frustrating to be stuck in such a situation — why couldn’t he have told the guy in the trench coat to get lost? Though… the man didn’t give him much of a choice at all. If he heard her say good enough, he would have been protesting as much as possible, but he wasn’t able to hear her from where he was.

“Ya! I am still alive down here, and what do you mean make the trip for nothing? Would it be that upsetting if I died so you couldn’t bully some teenager for answers?” He might not have got what she said, but he was definitely alive and sassy. Showing the lack of respect he had for others. His attitude expressed that more than his words.

Selene rolled her eyes in answer while placing the black case aside. Then, she gave the line one last tug and swung her legs over the edge without hesitation. The line groaned under her weight—not from weakness, but from age. Every inch of fiber was older than she was, maybe older than the entire sector they stood in. Still, just as before, it held. One gloved hand slid beneath the other as she lowered herself down, boots scraping the wall for grip. The metal wasn’t smooth, pitted from decades of corrosion and heat, and flakes of rust fell with every shift. Dust filled her nose. The kind of dust that tasted like dried blood and old wires.

Halfway down, she paused. The light from Scotti’s phone was faint now, bobbing with each nervous shuffle he made below. It barely illuminated the cavern floor, but it was enough to cast long, stretched shadows across the bones. Now that she was closer to them, she couldn’t suppress the shudder that ran through her.

“Why in the world did you have to come here of all places? I couldn’t have scared you that much, right?” Selene said, resuming her descent.

The light bopped in a way that showed offense, “Do you think I meant to come down here? No!” He didn’t mean to raise his voice in such a way that it echoed through the cavern, and his hand quickly covered his mouth with surprise. “I meant no, I did not mean to come down here,” he hissed his words out softer before going back to what he was doing — examining the bones around him.

Then, somewhere beyond the ring of the flashlight’s glow, came the sound. It wasn’t the sharp creak of metal or the hollow groan of settling ductwork. It was softer. Wet. The kind of sound that made the skin tighten behind one’s ears.

Selene froze, breath suspended. The darkness beyond Scotti’s trembling light seemed to curdle.

Drip. Pause. Scrape.

It didn’t repeat, but it didn’t need to.

She didn’t say a word. She just picked up the pace until her boots hit the floor.

Hearing the sound seemed to make Scotti freeze for a long time, trying his best to listen in, and he turned the flashlight off out of reaction. They were in complete darkness. Nothing more seemed to come from where the noise originated from though he waited a moment before turning on his flashlight again, “What was that?” This was more to himself than anyone else.

That was when he shone the flashlight over and jumped out of his skin, he didn’t realize Selene was right beside him, “Ho—oww—ah,” that was when he realized how his one ankle throbbed. It was a decent drop from the old vents onto the bony covered stone floor, and he reached down to touch the ankle out of natural reaction. Lifting his pant leg and pulling down his sock, it was already bruising from being twisted, and most likely happened when the metal panel fell out from under him, and the impact did not do him any good.

“That hurts like a bitch” he whined while pressing onto it to make sure it hurt. His face twisted when he touched it, exposing how sensitive it was, and he rolled his sock back up and let his pant leg back down.

Selene didn’t flinch when the flashlight caught her face. She’d seen the startled twitch coming and half-expected a shriek to follow, but instead he winced and crumpled toward his ankle with a curse. That was enough to pivot her attention. She crouched beside him, scanning the bruise already blooming along the side of his foot. Swollen. Not shattered, but twisted hard—likely during the drop, maybe when he’d hit uneven ground or clipped a bone on the way down. Her eyes flicked to the rusted edge of the hatch overhead, where a bolt still hung crooked. That thing gave beneath him like a trap door. No warning, no cushion. Just steel, gravity, and impact.

She clicked her tongue once. “Sprained. Maybe worse, if you keep putting weight on it.” Selene didn’t say idiot, but it hung in the air all the same. Still, she hadn’t abandoned him when he’d fallen, and she wasn’t about to now, especially not with that sound still lodged in the silence behind them.

He glared at her, “I kind of have to walk,” he grumbled after his words and stared at her as if she was serious at the moment.

Her eyes scanned him—torn cuff, grimy hoodie, bruised ankle already swelling against the fabric of his sock. He wasn’t going to be sprinting any time soon, not through terrain like this. Not without making more noise than whatever had made that wet, scraping sound. She grabbed the line and gave it another sharp tug, testing the tension one more time. Then she turned, crouched beside him, and unclipped the carabiner from the anchor loop at her hip.

“You’re going up first,” she said, already looping the old fiber around itself and slipping the carabiner through. “I’ll brace the line down here and keep you steady. All you have to do is not kick me in the face on the way.”

Selene glanced up at the drop. It looked steeper from below. Taller, too. Her fingers moved fast, the kind that had done this kind of thing before—clipping, pulling, adjusting until the slack gave just enough. Improvised harness? Not ideal. But what other choice did they have?

“Ready? When I say go, keep your hands tight on the line and don’t fight the pull. I’ll walk you through it.” She paused. No sarcasm this time. Just eyes locked on his.

“And whatever happens, don’t look behind you.”

Being told to go up first and him looking at the rope, the area where he fell, and back at Selene. He shook his head, “I can’t climb that? I didn’t even pass that rope test or whatever in school. You think I am going to make it up there?” Scotti was a little baffled that she thought he could do that. A little flattered but more annoyed than anything. Pointing up the string and to the top, “There is absolutely no way that I am climbing back up there. I’ll get half way up and fall on my ass,” he explained.

“Also, what do you mean not to look behind me? That advice never does anyone good.” He huffed out, argumentatively, and crossed his arms. With a negative shake of his head, “I’m not strong enough to climb up that rope. I’m not doing it. I don’t want to actually break my leg.”

Selene stared at him.

Not blinked. Not looked. Stared. The kind of look someone might give a half-sunk lifeboat that just refused to float.

“…You followed me through a market full of smugglers and mercs without a second thought,” she said flatly, voice edged with disbelief, “but now that I’m trying to get your sorry ass out of an actual death pit, now you don’t trust me?”

A twist of his face showed more than he wanted to let on — there were thoughts, pre thoughts, but he had no choice — and he shook his head and stayed quiet. She wouldn’t understand. There was no point in trying to talk to her about it or explain the position that he was put in.

She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she shifted, tugging the rope around herself with practiced hands. The harness she'd meant for her own climb now doubled, twisted and secured with a snap of the carabiner. It wasn’t clean. It wasn’t pretty. But it would work.

“New plan, then,” she muttered. “You don’t climb.”

He opened his mouth to protest again, but she was already moving—looping the line under his arms, ignoring the flinch when the cord scraped against his bruised ankle. Her hands were all business, threading slack through, knotting it fast behind her own hip. A tether, improvised and tight, from her waist to his.

“You fall, I fall,” she said, adjusting the pull so he leaned into her without toppling. “So if dying in a ditch is your master plan today, try not to take me with you.” Selene stood, steadying her stance as the rope pulled taut between them. “We move together. I haul, you hold on. And if you even think about squirming like a caught fish, I swear—”

Her voice caught on the sound again. That same slick scrape echoing somewhere behind them.

Scotti’s head turned, and he seemed to forget everything that the woman had just said to him. “Do you think that’s one of the beasts of the caves?” He was asking this more in a sense of speaking a thought aloud. His mind was honestly set on that — a beast that everyone warns you about and most could never imagine.

She didn’t finish the threat. Instead, she tightened the strap at her hip and stepped toward the wall.

“And if I do get us out of this alive,” she added, “you owe me the truth.”

With one hand braced against the metal and the other gripping the line, she began the climb—one brutal inch at a time, Scotti dragged with her like extra baggage she was too stubborn to leave behind.

Then he rolled his eyes when he heard the last line, “And what if I don’t want to give the truth, huh?” He knew he was pushing his luck, but it was an honest question. Scotti didn’t want to tell her the truth because he didn’t know what trouble that would get him into with the man in the trench coat. It was dangerous to cross boundaries on what the man said to him. He didn’t want to risk the situation. Although he had already failed, because the man told him not to get caught.

Selene’s gaze remained fixed on the wall, her fingers gouging grooves into it. She didn’t glance back, didn’t indulge his hesitation with so much as a twitch of her brow. Her shoulders simply continued to burn, each tendon a fraying cable as she hauled them upward.

Her voice, when it did come, was a serrated whisper.

“Then don’t.”

A pause.

“But don’t expect me to climb into a grave for you again.”

When she began to move, Scotti did exactly as he was told — to hang on — and he was silent for the moment. Was his statement upsetting? Her silence got his mind running a million miles per hour on what she was feeling or how she would react. Maybe she would push him back into the hole and leave him for whatever picks him off. “I’m fine with that. I hope I never see you again after this,” he huffed out.

“Not like I wanted to see you in the first place anyway. Wasn’t an optional thing.” Scotti didn’t think about his words, but it would have proved a lot of her assumptions. He was put to a task to track her, and now she knew it wasn’t an optional thing for him. Someone was forcing it.

Selene exhaled, not in anger or shock, but with a marrow-deep weariness that transcended the fire in her shoulders or the rope burns now striping her palms. Each ascent up the shaft felt less like a physical act and more like an exhumation, hauling not just Scotti’s deadweight but the specters of every shitty job, every back alley deal, every time someone had shown up pretending they had a choice only to remind her they didn’t. That she didn’t.

She’d spent years learning how to spot the difference. The difference between someone who chose to be there… and someone who got handed a leash and told to smile.

“Seeing me was never optional,” she muttered, almost to herself. “For a lot of people.”

It wasn’t the first time someone had been sent. Probably wouldn’t be the last. And somehow, that always made it worse—knowing that even when she wasn’t worth chasing for who she was, she was still worth using. Still someone’s map, someone’s debt, someone’s ticket.

This one, though—this twitchy, reckless boy with terror leaching from his pores—he wasn’t afraid of the dark. Or the thing below them, whatever it was. His fear was sharper, more intimate: the dread of a rabbit realizing it’s been flung into a wolf’s den by its very own pack. Selene’s fingers tightened on the rope. She’d seen that look before, in mirrors she happened to glance herself in.

That, more than anything, is why she kept climbing. Her hand finally found the lip of the shaft—corroded metal biting into her palm as she dug her fingers in. The air up here was just as stale, but it didn’t stink of rot and death. That alone was enough to taste like salvation.

She could’ve pulled herself up first. Could’ve unhooked the tether and left him to find another way—slow, painful, maybe even fatal. And maybe a few years ago, she would’ve.

But not today.

Not after the scrape of bone.
Not after the truth he hadn’t meant to say.

Selene shifted her weight, bracing one knee against the wall, and with a grunt, hauled the rope one final time—not for herself, but for him. Because if no one had ever done that for her… someone had to start somewhere.

Getting out of the hole caused him to breathe with relief while he glanced back down, swallowing, and moving a handful of feet away from it. At least as much as the rope allowed him without pulling it tight at all. Scotti began to undo the ties, “Thanks,” he muttered out more gratefully than what was probably expected of him.

“I’ll tell you the truth,” he added with a glance to Selene. The young boy was beginning to chew the inside of his lip out of anxiety while he untied the rope. “I don’t really know how to explain it,” his words continued while he got fully untied and backed up a few more feet, towards the wall, and sat down. His ankle was aching, and it was almost killing him at this point.

Shaking his head, “I don’t know…” Scotti began with almost a bit too much defeat in his voice. “This weird dude who was overly serious approached me. Told me to follow you into the Grey Market and figure out what you were doing. I didn’t really see his face since he was wearing a fedora, and his collar was up high. The fedora was dark brown? And he had a trench coat that was khaki or tan or whatever,” he gestured his hand as if the thought truly didn’t matter. “Taller and what I could see of his face, he didn’t look half bad, but he is a nasty person.”

Rolling up his pant leg again and pushing his sock down, he was checking on his ankle, which didn’t look any better, “He threatened to skin Marie if I didn’t do it. Told me not to get caught either, or there would be consequences. I don’t even know how he knows about Marie,” Confessing that cracked his voice and his face twisted to show how upsetting the thought was to him. “I have a handful of brothers and sisters. My mom does what she can for work, and it isn’t honorable to most people, but hey. It’s honorable to me. She’s doing what she can for her kids and everything else, and I am doing what I can for my siblings except that bastard threatened to hurt my youngest sister.” Anger flared up in Scotti. His one fist was balling up so tight that his knuckles were turning white.

“You understand, right?” Scotti sounded embarrassed and a bit guilty. He was hoping that Selene understood why he was following her. That she wasn’t going to lash out and do something worse to him, his mom, or one of his siblings.

Selene didn't speak while he rambled through the explanation, not when he stumbled through the stranger’s outfit, not when he cursed, not even when he mentioned his sister. Her face was unreadable, set in that still, watchful expression that felt more like a mask than anything human. Only her fingers moved, slipping the last of the rope loose from her belt. Like she needed something to do with her hands so she didn’t clench them into fists.

Of course it was him.

The long-time family dog. The leash-wielder. The kind of man who never needed to say her last name out loud because he knew it was stamped across her back like a serial number.

She didn't say his name—never had, not even in the privacy of her own mind. Names made people real, and this one was better left hard to hold and harder to track.

“He’s not one of them,” she said eventually, voice low. “The clean ones. The ones who smile in Council chambers and sign off on re-education orders like they’re approving lunch menus. Naa….he’s the one they send when those smiles don’t work.”

Her hands stilled against the rope, finally letting it drop. “He used to ‘check in’ when I was younger. Never told me his name. Didn’t have to. Always came dressed like a detective out of some old pulp serial. Nice shoes. Always smelled kind of funny though.” A small, bitter breath pushed from her nose. “He liked to ask about my grades. My friends. If I were being ‘a good investment.’”

“He’s not just some creep with a threat fetish. He’s part of a containment net. My family doesn’t like loose ends, and I’m the worst kind.” Because there were some lines they simply wouldn’t cross with family. But for those that weren’t? Well…there were reasons why she’d left that part of her life behind her.

Listening to what Selene had to say about the whole thing didn’t comfort him at all, it made it worse in his mind, and he just stared at his feet. Then he rolled up his sock again and put his pant leg down. “So…” Scottie began while thinking half-heartedly. “He’s going to hurt my sister, isn’t he?” His eyes flickered over to Selene with a hint of fear in them. There was no worry about himself, he always talked himself into believing that no matter what happens to him it's okay, but he couldn’t handle the thought of one of his siblings getting in trouble because of the things he did… or worse… the things he didn’t do.

Selene’s jaw flexed, but she didn’t look at him.

She stared at the wall instead. At the rust veins bleeding through the metal. At the way the heat seemed to hang heavier now, like it was listening.

“Yeah,” she said quietly, after a beat too long. “He probably will.”

“He honestly sounds awful, why would your family hire a man like that!?” Scotti got loud and a little emotional. “So this dude just goes around threatening people all the time? Because of you? Do you have like fucked up parents or something? I mean… my mom has Kritter or Jones or Bark check up on me all the time, nice guys, but like… she wouldn’t ever have anyone like that keep an eye on me.” The young man was just in disbelief with that. He knew people could be evil but it was a shock to him still.

Selene’s response to his question about her parents was a dismissive flicker of her eyelids, as though the words were too trivial to warrant the energy of contempt. “Yeah. Something like that,” she muttered, the syllables brittle with bitterness. Parents. A word that conjured guardians who’d curated her existence like a taxidermied trophy, all potential and glass-eyed obedience. They’d hoped.

But the words hadn’t even finished echoing before the world shifted.

It began deep. A tremor too low to register as anything but unease. Then came the shriek,metal wrenching against metal somewhere above them, followed by a thud that rattled through the soles of her boots.

Selene’s head snapped up.

“…Shit,” she breathed.

The corridor’s innards convulsed. Walls rippled, pipes detonating in sprays of scalding steam. Selene’s instincts outpaced thought. She lunged, tackling Scotti sideways as the ceiling buckled. A seismic crack split the air, and then chaos became geometry: angles of falling rebar, arcs of ruptured wiring, the mosaic of concrete disintegrating. She registered the heat first, a flash of orange, as severed power cables lashed the dark like electrified whips. Then, the deafening thunder of collapse.

When the shaking finally slowed, they were left in a new kind of silence.

Selene rolled onto her elbows, coughing ash from her lungs. The path behind them no longer existed, only a tomb of mangled metal, its crevices smoldering. The shaft they’d scaled lay entombed, along with any trace of the thing that had almost pursued them.

NaNoWriMo Shutting Down

It is quite sad. I participated in it last year, and it honestly somehow encouraged me to get back into working on the book I started during the pandemic. I think it's because I was able to convince myself that hitting that word limit isn't as great as a feat as my mind had convinced me it was.

Realms of Sun & Shadow

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_{Location: Seluna Temple
Interactions: Katherine (@SpicyMeatball), Ramona (@enmuni)
Mentions: Desmond (@Theyra)}

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Elara dipped her head in thanks, her shoulders relaxing a little under Katherine’s kindness. The priestess’s words weren’t stiff or rehearsed—just honest, like sunlight breaking through clouds. Elara hadn’t realized how much she’d needed that warmth until it settled over her. Her grip on the basket loosened, the woven reeds creaking softly as she adjusted her hold.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her fingers curling once more around the basket’s handle. “It’s a lovely temple, even in the quiet. Or maybe… especially in the quiet.” She didn’t add that the dark suited her, too—that it reminded her of long halls in the royal home, of still corners where she could exist without demand. But she thought about it. Felt it, even.

The scrape of the temple door swinging shut snapped her attention backward. Elara turned just enough to see the newcomer, her breath catching. Ramona stood frozen near the entrance, one hand still gripping the doorframe. Her name didn’t quite reach Elara’s lips, but the realization bloomed all the same. They had seen each other before, often enough to be more than strangers. Though how the handmaiden knew her was more in the way of two moths circling the same lantern, never quite touching.

Ramona’s posture remained rigid, as though the air itself had solidified around her. Her eyes held a flinch of ancient guilt, the sort etched by years of folding oneself smaller. Elara recognized the reflex—the art of vanishing without moving, perfected by those accustomed to the fear of being an inconvenience for those above them.

Yet, as she’d told Aliseth, she’d never much cared to follow such a ritual.

Which was probably why the sight of the Lunarian maid like that made something tighten behind her ribs. Perhaps it was the way Ramona’s expression closed so quickly—like a door softly shut before you could ask what was behind it. She wondered, absently, if she had looked the same when the priestess had opened the temple doors for her, half-ready to lie but too tired to pretend.

Furthermore, it was strange, wasn’t it?

Because if anyone should have flinched, it was her.

She was the one who hadn’t gone to the royal cabin. The one who’d wandered off-course and now lingered here with a basket instead of facing the expectations she’d been raised to uphold. Amaya might still be waiting, or worse, might not have noticed she was gone at all. Elara had no excuse, not really. And yet, seeing Ramona tense like she had something to answer for stirred an uneasy sympathy in her chest.

So, she offered the woman a small nod. Just enough to say: I see you. You don’t have to explain.

Elara shifted slightly then as another presence entered the temple. A rustle of wings fractured the silence as an owl descended in an arc of ivory feathers, its landing near the priestess as precise as a falling star finding its mark. It cocked its head, eyes glinting with the detached curiosity of something both wild and wise, a creature unbound by mortal anxieties. For a heartbeat, those obsidian pupils fixed on her, dissecting her stillness, before dismissing her as harmless. Strangely, she found that she envied its indifference.

Elara's gaze drifted toward the man who had followed the owl inside. He looked like he belonged in a warmer world—leather-trimmed cloak lined with sheepskin, hair tousled by travel, the kind of man who lived between roads and maps. She didn’t know him, not personally. A merchant, maybe? The leather looked too fine for a soldier, and the way he moved lacked the formality of court.

The owl sidled closer to the priestess, its eyes darting, missing nothing. Elara wondered if it had chosen the man or been chosen, the way her fox had stumbled into her life. Had it managed to find its way to its pack? She sure hoped so.

As the priestess moved through the hall, Elara found her gaze following the soft glow of the single lit candle. Katherine lit each sconce in turn with care, like she was waking the temple up piece by piece, coaxing it gently out of sleep instead of forcing it into the day.

There was something sacred in the motion. Something familiar.

She remembered hands like that—Her mother’s hands, ink-stained and steady, cupping her face after nightmares or tracing healing sigils over scrapes earned. Her mother’s magic hadn’t lived in grimoires or altars, but in this: the alchemy of presence and the holiness of tending.

The basket’s handle bit into Elara’s palm, jolting her back. She loosened her grip, knuckles blanched and trembling, as the priestess turned to address the scattered assembly.

“Welcome all to the temple of Seluna…”

Quietly, Elara stepped forward.

Her boots didn’t echo. The stone beneath her feet seemed to absorb sound the same way grief did: completely, without complaint. She moved toward the nearest empty alcove, a small niche in the wall with no offerings yet left. She crouched beside it and gently set the basket down. With practiced care, she began to remove its contents: a neatly folded cloth, pale and soft from years of laundering. A small tin of salve, its wax seal still unbroken. A bundle of dried herbs bound in twine—lavender, rosemary, a few sprigs of feverleaf. All simple things. Humble things. But there was comfort in that, too.

She laid the cloth across the alcove’s base like a foundation. Then, piece by piece, she arranged the other items atop it, not for show, but for meaning. Her mother had once told her that an offering didn’t need to be grand. It only needed to be sincere. That sincerity, she’d said, was what Seluna noticed. Not the polish.

So, as Elara placed the last item, the candle, in the arrangement’s heart, she half-expected the air to shift, some sign the goddess had tasted the offering’s truth.

But the temple kept its peace. The silence was its only answer.

Realms of Sun & Shadow

---

_{Location: The Eye of the Beholder
Mentions: Elio (@c3p-0h)
Interactions: Sya (@PrinceAlexus)}

---

Thalia had just started convincing herself that the bread might not crack a molar if she chewed slowly when movement—graceful, slithering movement—entered her peripheral vision. She turned, just in time to catch the glint of Sya’s glittering tail sliding across the tavern floor, a tray expertly balanced in her arms like a challenge to every rule of physics. For a moment, Thalia forgot all about the breakfast roll halfway to her mouth.

“Food, hot food... sssssseeing as this morning is sssoo, hot breakfastsss!”

Thalia blinked once, then again, as Sya made her way over, lowering the tray toward her table.

Cheese. Venison toast. Spiced porridge. And—

Thalia squinted. “Is that…” She pointed a cautious finger at what looked like a savory pastry stuffed with porridge and reckless ambition that could rival her own every time she even got near a kitchen.

Sya beamed. “Miss, savory, or ssssweet, I made a sspecial breakfast.”

“‘Special.’” The word clattered from Thalia’s lips, brittle as the bread she’d abandoned. Special. A poisoned compliment, velvet-coated and hollow. Growing up in Aurelia, it had been code for mediocre but trying—a label slapped on her fumbling spellwork, her awkward curtsies, her mother’s tight smiles later on after yet another suitor withdrew his interest. Now, it hung in the tavern’s dusty air, a ghost of condescension. She stabbed her spoon into the selected porridge instead, its cinnamon warmth a safer betrayal.

“Thank you so much, my dear, for asking. I’m doing just fine and this all looks grand,” he replied to the lamia politely, Thalia stifling a laugh behind her spoon. Of course he would say that. Of course, he’d smile like Aelios himself had laid out this mismatched platter with divine intent. That was his gift—or maybe, more accurately, his defense. Where she bristled and picked and prodded at the world, her father… adjusted.

But now, watching him, she wondered if it was simply another form of armor.

Not steel, but warmth. Not walls, but manners.

It had fooled her as a child. She used to think her father’s charm was unshakable, enviable. Now, older—and perhaps a little more cracked herself—she recognized it for what it truly was: the gentlest way a man could endure a world that had offered him so much and then taken it all back. He wore it not to impress but to protect. Himself. Her. Maybe both. Because if he stayed calm, if he pretended everything was still “grand,” then maybe she wouldn’t have to look too closely at how far they’d fallen. Maybe neither of them would.

The porridge coated her tongue, its heat a balm. Edible. Acceptable. Not the sugared figs or honeyed pheasant of past feasts, but sustenance without pretense. She watched her father bite into the pastry, his smile never wavering as porridge globules oozed onto his plate. His eyes, though—fleeting and unguarded—flickered with the same exhaustion she’d seen the night they’d left their home, trunks clattering with the remnants of their name.

“Yes…thank you,” she murmured before the lamia took her leave of their table, the words softer than she’d intended. Gratitude, perhaps, for the meal—or for the unspoken pact between them. He would play the grateful guest; she would play the pragmatic survivor. And together, they would pretend this was enough.

The two ate in silence for a bit, her father being the one to break it.

“So,” he began, clearing his throat after a laborious swallow, “how was the big celebration last night? Meet anyone… notable?”

Thalia didn’t look up right away. She focused instead on the swirl her spoon made in the porridge, watching the steam curl upward like it might offer her an excuse.

“I managed not to throw a drink at anyone like last time,” she said eventually, “so I’d say it went better than expected.”

Her father chuckled. “High bar.”

“Well, I am known for my lofty standards.”

He leaned back, clearly content to let her set the pace. “Still… anyone worth noting? A neighbor? A friend?” He paused just long enough. “A suitor?”

Thalia raised an eyebrow. “What, like someone ready to whisk me away to his crumbling cottage and a life of shared root vegetables?”

“Stranger alliances have bloomed in stonier soil. I mean, look around you. Look at where we are.”

She sighed. “Well…there was… someone,” she admitted, then immediately regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth.

“Oh?” His brows arched, a silent prompt.

“A stonemason,” she clarified, too quickly. “Not a suitor. Just a man who hammers rocks for coin.”

Her father blinked, once. “A stonemason,” he repeated, as though trying to decide whether that was an actual job title or some kind of metaphor.

“Yes,” she said dryly. “He builds things. With stone. It’s very literal.”

“Ahh, I see. And…. what did this stonemason build with you?”

“A headache.” She jabbed her spoon downward. “And conversation. He invaded my table after playing hero to some drunkard.”

“Bold,” her father mused, though his lips twitched.

“You have no idea,” Thalia murmured, staring down into her bowl. She could still feel the heat of Elio’s breath at her ear, the way his voice had curved around her like smoke. The way he hadn’t touched her—but somehow still had.

She cleared her throat and straightened, the spoon clinking gently against the ceramic. “Anyway, it wasn’t anything serious.”

“Didn’t say it was,” her father replied, though his eyes crinkled with something that might’ve been amusement or curiosity, or both. “Just sounded like it made an impression.”

“It didn’t.”

“Of course.”

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“I’m not looking at you like anything.”

“You’re doing the thing with your face.”

“I only have one face, my flower.”

She shot him a look over the rim of her bowl, but the smile tugging at her mouth betrayed her. “It was just some banter, honestly. He was... irritating.”

“But charming?”

She didn’t answer that. Instead, she took another sip of her porridge before relenting. “Pass the mystery pastry before I change my mind about tolerating you this morning.”

Her father complied, still wearing that aggravatingly smug expression as he slid the plate across the table. She took the pastry with practiced caution, like it might lunge at her, then tore a bite from the corner. To her surprise, it wasn’t half bad. The crust was uneven and flaking in odd places, but the inside was warm—more savoury than she expected, with a hint of sweetness that didn’t quite make sense but somehow worked. She chewed slowly, eyes flicking across the tavern. A few other patrons were eating the same thing. No one looked offended. No one had keeled over. And Lark, stationed loyally near the hearth, watched with hawklike focus as if daring her to drop even a crumb.

Maybe Sya’s odd creation had more merit than she’d given it credit for. Not that she’d ever admit that aloud.

She took another bite, lips twitching in faint resignation.

“See?” her father said, in that insufferably pleased tone of his. “Not everything here has to be a disaster, despite the rough start.”

“Mm,” Thalia hummed noncommittally. “Well, don’t expect me to start praising it in song.”

Her father grinned. “Wouldn’t dream of it. You’d have to rhyme ‘ingot’ with something, and I fear the options are quite bleak.”

She snorted softly into her pastry. For all her complaints about the town and its drafty rooms, half-frozen floors, and strange snake innkeepers with experimental cooking hobbies, somehow, against all odds, she didn’t hate this moment. It was all still a far cry from her home, but it was… tolerable. Endurable. Even, she admitted privately, not that awful.

And if her pulse still skittered, it was the spices. If her cheeks bloomed rose, it was the porridge’s steam. And if her thoughts strayed to a smirk half-lit by torchlight, to fingers that almost grazed her wrist—well. That was a secret for the stones in Dawnhaven to keep.

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

Finally gotten to filling out that questionnaire thingy zzz

@ERode

𝔻𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕠𝕟: ℝ𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕤𝕔𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕦𝕣𝕗𝕒𝕔𝕖

The air changed as soon as she stepped past the threshold. The warmth wasn’t the steady hum of regulated heat like in the upper levels—it clung like a fever, thick and cloying, as though the walls themselves were breathing decay. These ducts weren’t merely antiquated; they were necrotic, severed from the city’s pulse by decades of neglect. Selene had heard the myths traded in the market: tunnels carved during the colony’s infancy, abandoned when ambition outpaced infrastructure. No surveillance. No patrols. Just a vacuum perfect for contraband. Or corpses.

She’d passed through places like this before—not as deep, not as decrepit—but close enough to feel the shape of danger. There was a high likelihood of her suddenly disappearing here without a trace, with no hope of being found, even by her family. But Selene also knew that disappearance didn’t always mean death. Some simply went off-grid, too deep and too far for even the Council to bother. Others were forced down here—runners, fugitives, or just kids who owed the wrong people too much. In the underbelly of Dominion, vanishing was never clean. It was messy, and it always left behind questions no one wanted to answer.

So, the danger wasn’t the dark, nor the crumbling architecture. It was the uncertainty of walking on a bridge rigged with traps by strangers, decades dead.

Her boots struck the grating with hollow reverberations, each step flaking rust like dried blood. The metal groaned, its structural fatigue palpable. Above, exposed cables hung like nooses, their rubber sheathing peeled back to reveal copper sinew. One cluster bore scorch marks—a past explosion, or a purge. Selene noted it all, her gloved hand brushing a wall as the metal crumbled slightly, leaving a film of oxidized dust on her fingertips. Ahead, a soft hiss escaped a pressure valve, releasing a thin stream of steam that sliced the corridor like a veil. Selene ducked through it without pause, ignoring the brief sting of heat across her face. Behind that veil, the walls narrowed again—and that’s where she saw, or better yet heard, the first sign something had gone wrong.

A sudden scream tore through the space around her. Selene’s muscles locked, her breath suspended mid-inhale. Instincts honed in Dominion’s underbelly parsed the sound: youthful timbre, raw panic, cut short without echo. Not staged, she decided. Authentic terror had a texture to it, a raggedness no actor could replicate. Her gloved fingers tightened around the case, its edges digging into her ribs as she catalogued the absence of follow-up noise—no scuffle, no whimper, no mechanical whir of a trap resetting. Only the drip of condensation and the creak of fatigued metal.

Selene moved even faster now, because there was no doubt in her mind that the voice belonged to her tail. What were the chances that it was anyone else, given the timing?

The narrow passage opened just ahead, revealing a section of floor that had collapsed inward, its metal paneling twisted like peeled skin. Selene approached with care. Rust flaked from the edges. A few bolts still clung to the frame, but the rest had been torn free—whether from force or erosion was anyone’s guess. She crouched, angling the black case under her arm and peering into the open void below.

Darkness. A long drop. Then, a weak beam, bobbing just enough to catch on the curve of metal and then vanish again. Not much, but enough to confirm one thing. Someone was down there.

“Hey, Curious Boy, that you down there?” she yelled loud enough for him to hear.

---

Interactions: Scotti (@The Savant)

Realms of Sun & Shadow

---

_{Location: Frostmoon Lake
Mentions: Sya (@PrinceAlexus)}

---

The snow around Frostmoon Lake lay thick and untouched. Orion walked silently, his dark cloak sweeping behind him. Wind tore across the frozen shore but left his clothes undisturbed. Snow fell gently now—no longer sharp, just soft and dull as dust. The lake stretched under the gray sky, still but not frozen, its surface black and glassy. It reminded him of a lake from his childhood. He’d named it Brightwater, though it had no true name. That southern lake had rested between sunlit mountains under Aurelia’s endless summers. To him, it had seemed enchanted, even holy. He’d believed the sun god turned its waters to gold each dawn.

Here at Frostmoon, there was no sun. No warmth. Just cold stillness, beautiful but hollow. A grave for what was lost.

But even graves demanded respect, and Orion had work to do.

He hadn’t stopped at the inn after leaving the post office. His body, though hardened by years of survival, hummed with a quiet ache. It wasn’t thirst for blood or hunger for food. It was deeper—an ancient, clawing need for life itself. Over time, he’d learned to feed that hunger without causing pain. Mostly.

He followed the edge of the woods where twisted bushes clawed through the snow. These plants were survivors, stubbornly gripping the frozen earth with roots that dove deep, hunting for hidden pockets of warmth. Orion knelt by a cluster of shrubs swallowed by white, sweeping his gloved hand to clear the snow. Then, bracing himself, he pressed his palm to the icy ground beneath.

The energy transfer began sluggishly. A faint thread of shadow seeped from his fingers into the earth, winding through the roots. The plants shuddered but held back, their leaves trembling as if afraid. Slowly, their strength trickled into him—uneven, reluctant, like water dripping through a cracked cup. His skin warmed a little, and the knots in his shoulders loosened. But a chill lingered at the base of his spine, sharp and unshakable, like a splinter of ice.

When he withdrew his hand, the shrubs lay brittle and gray, drained but peaceful. No pain. No struggle. Yet Orion’s hunger still gnawed at him, quieter now but unsatisfied. A prickle of unease crawled up his back. Not enough. He shoved the thought aside. Dwelling on weakness was dangerous.

Orion trudged farther along the trees, boots sinking into the snow as his eyes swept the ground. He scanned for movement, for color—anything that defied the endless white. Near a cluster of jagged rocks, he spotted it: winter grass clinging to a shallow slope, its frost-coated blades brittle and yellowed. The sight was almost pathetic, but survival often was. He knelt, brushing the snow aside with stiff fingers. This time, he didn’t hesitate. His palm met the frozen soil, bracing for the familiar pull.

The energy, this time, came in rough waves, sharp and grating. The plants resisted—roots thrashing, blades jerking back—as if the ground itself rejected him. The connection strained, threatening to snap. Heat flashed in his fingers, hot and sudden, then faded to empty numbness. Orion pulled his hand away, shaking it as if flicking off an insect sting. The grass lay wilted, partly drained but not dead, its remaining blades clenched tight. It had broken free. Defiance. Something so ordinary, yet stubborn enough to survive.

He breathed out slowly. His breath fogged the air. His face stayed blank—years of practice made sure of that—but tension crept back into his shoulders, knotting his neck.

Not enough. Not right. This mirrored the previous day’s failure: his shadows flickering out mid-fight while others defended themselves. He’d blamed the cold then. Blamed exhaustion. But twice now, his power had wavered.

Patterns warned of danger. Patterns meant traps.

Ignoring the unease, Orion stood, brushed snow off his knees, and walked to the lake. It sprawled ahead, silent and vast. No wind. No hint of sunlight to mark the time. The world felt frozen, as if holding its breath. He swept snow from a flat rock and sat, eyes fixed on the water.

The cold seeped into him now, but it no longer stung. Not like the early days, when his veins still burned with mortal warmth. Back then, the cold had been an enemy—a thief stealing sensation from his fingers, his lips, his heart. Now, it was a companion. Predictable. Honest. His hands rested loosely—one on his knee, the other gripping the boulder’s edge. His fingers no longer ached, but they felt distant, as if part of someone else’s body.

He stared at the lake’s black-glass surface, watching snow vanish into the dark. It shared only its shape with Brightwater, he realized then. That lake had pulsed with life—sunlight glinting, dragonflies darting, boys laughing as they jumped from rocks.

Frostmoon didn’t laugh. It waited. Silent. Uncaring. Did it see him as he truly was—not alive, not dead, just….existing?

Orion exhaled slowly, and the breath turned silver before fading. He did not often allow himself to dwell like this. But here, in the hush of snow and silence, the memories crept in with the cold. Aurelia. His son. Evangeline. The boy’s laughter, his stubbornness. He missed it all.

He had not written the child’s name in the letter. He couldn’t.

It was honestly enough that he’d written at all.

His hand drifted to his coat pocket, fingers brushing against the folded paper tucked safely within—the one he had received, not sent. Sya’s letter. As odd as it was, it had steadied him more than he cared to admit. She had seen through him in ways few ever tried to. Her words had been a bit unhinged, but they had also been heartfelt. Part of him wished he could respond in kind. Part of him feared she’d see too much if he did.

The wind shifted directions.

Then, a sound.

Soft. Delicate. The crunch of snow under something small.

Orion turned.

A white fox stepped from the trees, its fur matted with frost. Thin ribs pressed against its coat. It moved slowly, like it wasn’t sure it belonged here anymore. It paused at the edge of the clearing, ears twitching. Hungry. Wary. But not scared.

It took a step forward. One paw, then another, until it stood near the lake’s edge, just a few feet from Orion. Its eyes locked onto his, bright and unflinching, and in them, Orion saw no fear.

Only a question:

Which of us is the predator?

And the answer waited quietly beneath his skin.

Realms of Sun & Shadow

---

_{Location: Eye of the Beholder
Interactions: Open
Mentions: Sya (@PrinceAlexus), Ivor (@SkeankySnack)}

---

Thalia glared at the flour bag as if it had called her a name to her face. In turn, the lumpy sack slumped on the counter like a lazy drunk, its rough surface coated in pale powder. She crossed her arms and cocked her head sideways, half hoping the stupid thing might sprout a label saying How Not to Ruin Bread: A Guide for Former Rich Girls Who Can’t. But no such luck.

The tavern’s main room felt heavy with quiet, broken only by the wind whining through boarded-up windows and the occasional groan of the wooden floors. A handful of people still huddled near the fireplace, wrapped in scarves and suspicion, their eyes darting toward the front door that had been locked the entire night. The bar itself stood abandoned, though someone had left out a sad spread of stale bread, wrinkled apples, and mystery meat under a greasy cloth.

Thalia didn’t mind picking through leftovers—hunger was a blunt teacher. What she did mind was being expected to turn flour into actual food. It was simply too big an ask for a girl like her. The noble houses of Aurelia had many rules, some of which were spoken plainly and some passed through generations in the silent way of tradition. Nowhere in those teachings had anyone ever instructed her on what, precisely, to do with a bag of flour at ten in the morning after a town lockdown.

Lark had plopped himself by the hearth the moment they’d entered, his tail giving a single thump against the floorboards as if to say, Feed me or else. Thalia’s father trailed behind her, scrubbing a hand over his stubbled face as he eyed the sad breakfast spread. He looked like a man who’d long ago stopped expecting anything better than whatever he could snatch with his hands. Thalia had noticed this about him lately—how he adjusted without fuss. Or maybe “adjusted” wasn’t quite right. He wasn’t ignorant of their crumbling status, their shrinking world. But he didn’t rage against it. Instead, he treated their downfall like bad weather—something to wait out. Something you couldn’t shout into changing.

He hadn’t argued when their servants had quit. Hadn’t flinched as their grand home’s doors were sealed one by one. Hadn’t blinked when friends had vanished like smoke.

It wasn’t surrender he exhibited, though. It was patience. A trait Thalia had never quite mastered.

Her jaw tightened as he ripped a hunk of bread like it was no different from the delicate pastries they’d once eaten on silver trays. Maybe it wasn’t, to him. Maybe he’d always known their glittering life would crumble. Maybe that’s why it stung—his quiet acceptance felt like a mirror, reflecting all the ways she hadn’t let go.

“You’ll scorch a hole through that flour bag with those eyes,” her father grumbled then, shuffling past her to poke at a plate of shriveled carrots.

“I wasn’t glaring,” Thalia replied, arms crossed. “I was… considering my wide range of options, as usual.”

He snorted, tossing a bread crust to Lark. The dog caught it midair, tail wagging. “Last time you weren’t doing something you were clearly doing, we had to air out the kitchen for days.”

“That was a new recipe.”

“It was toast,” he said, chewing, “You were making toast.”

Thalia snatched the driest bread roll she could find, ignoring his chuckle. Dawnhaven’s idea of a meal—stale bread and lumpy vegetables—made her miss Aurelia’s citrus-glazed cakes. But missing things was dangerous. It meant admitting they were gone.

Thalia had just slumped into a chair and bitten into her rock-hard roll when the tavern door crashed open. A blast of icy wind rushed in, followed by a booming voice that practically rattled the cups on the tables.

“Good morning everyone!”

Thalia blinked. Slowly.

She turned just in time to see what could only be described as a walking avalanche of fur and muscle stomping cheerfully inside. For a brief moment, her alcohol-blurred memory scrambled to place him—had he been at the feast? Or was this just what the gods conjured when they wanted to test one’s bravery?

Then came the realization: blight-born.

A proper one.

She’d seen them before, from a distance and heard references in hushed tones, sometimes described with words that sounded less like facts and more like folklore. But this was the first time she’d really taken one in. Not glimpsed through foggy eyes and mind. But really looked.

And stars above, he was moon-blighting massive.

Not just in height—though he easily towered over everyone in the room—but in presence. He wore his size like a declaration, all red hair and glowing eyes and scarred confidence, the kind of man who could lift a cart off someone or hurl it at someone and not break a sweat either way. She watched as he laughed easily, joked with the innkeeper- a snake! How inebriated had she been last night?- in a language she didn’t recognize, then handed off what looked like a bottle with a wink before turning toward a red-haired woman sitting deeper in the room.

Thalia released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and quickly turned her eyes back to her bread. Not that she was scared, exactly. Just… reminded that Dawnhaven didn’t play by the same rules as her home had. Here, a blight-born didn’t arrive, if they did, with armed escort or fanfare—they walked in like regular people. Talked like regular people. Smiled like—

She tore a bite from the bread a little more forcefully than necessary.

“You like the bread that much?” her father muttered as he took the seat facing her, voice dry as ever.

“Hardly,” Thalia replied, reaching for her mug. “Just readjusting my definition of ‘morning person.’”

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

@Herald Had Dom approach him for some free food. :)

Realms of Sun & Shadow

---

_{Location: Seluna Temple
Interactions/Mentions: Daphne (@PrinceAlexus), Katherine (@SpicyMeatball)}

---

Elara stepped through the temple door. It shut behind her with a soft click that felt too loud in the empty space. She paused, the sound lingering like a held breath. Around her, the air was cool and still, quieter than the forest outside but heavier too, as if the walls were holding their breath with her. Faint traces of incense clung to the stones, sweet and dusty. High above, the ceiling curved like the inside of some giant creature’s ribs, shadows nesting between pillars. The place felt half-asleep, she decided—a thing not quite ready to wake.

She’d imagined temples as grand, but not like this. Not so still. Temples dotted the Lunaris kingdom like stars, places people went to find answers. Elara had visited plenty, always for others: her grieving father, her sick mother, Amaya’s endless rituals. Never her own. Now, her boots whispered against the floor, and she wondered if Seluna even knew her name. At the far end of the hall, a silver crescent moon glowed faintly on a raised platform. It looked lonely, she thought, like it missed the sky.

She stood quietly near the entrance, drawing the too-large cloak more tightly around her. The scent of Aliseth clung to it still, calming her in the same way he had during their conversation.

Her eyes drifted toward the woman who’d opened the door for her. Robed in black and silver, adorned with Seluna’s sigil, the priestess stood with the calm authority of someone accustomed to thresholds—between night and dawn, death and mercy, goddess and mortal.

Elara inclined her head in greeting, her voice soft but steady.

“Good morning. Forgive the intrusion—I wasn’t sure if anyone would answer.”

She paused, her gaze flickering toward the still corners of the hall, and then back to the priestess.

“My name is Elara,” she said at last. “And… I think I’m meant to be here. Though I was not entirely sure why this morning and…I’m still not sure if I know, genuinely.” Perhaps a bit too genuine on her part.

She hesitated, then lifted the small wicker basket she’d nearly forgotten she was holding. The handle, smoothed from use, creaked softly beneath her fingers.

“Well—” her voice warmed with the faintest flicker of self-awareness, “except to help. In the smallest way that I can.”

Inside the basket were simple offerings: folded linens, salves for wounds, a bundle of dried herbs tied with twine, and a few spare candles she’d gathered from the servant stores. Nothing grand. Nothing that would merit recognition. But it mattered to her. The act of bringing it, unasked, felt like a stitch in something frayed—perhaps even something fraying within herself.

And if she lingered here a little longer, among strangers and stillness, it meant postponing the inevitable walk to the royal cabin. Just for a while. Just until she remembered how to wear the shape of a handmaiden again.

It was only then that she noticed it. The scent was initially hidden behind the incense. And then she saw them. Bodies. Laid out with care beneath simple cloth coverings. The breath in her throat snagged for just a second. Not from fear. Just a memory of the last she’d seen of her mother. She’d looked like that, too. As if her body had remembered how to be present but forgotten how to belong in the world anymore.

Elara turned her gaze away almost as soon as it landed. She wouldn’t dwell. She couldn’t. This wasn’t her grief to carry—but it brushed against her anyway, soft as a thread unwinding in her chest.

A rustle of movement drew her attention to something, or someone, behind the priestess. Another woman, taller, broad-shouldered, with violet eyes, a soldier’s poise, and a casual air that felt strangely at odds with the sacred hush around them. Elara’s gaze lingered for a moment, curious, but didn’t linger long. She didn’t know her. Probably one of the royal guards, judging by her uniform, or a knight-in-training under one of the nobles. They rarely crossed paths with handmaidens, even in a place this small.

The guard leaned toward the priestess, murmuring something that made the older woman nod. Familiar. Close. Elara’s stomach twisted. Not jealousy, exactly. Just a hollow feeling, like hunger. When had anyone ever looked at her like that? When had she ever been that sure of where she stood? The guard strode past, boots crunching snow outside, and Elara swallowed the ache.

Temples were for truths, she supposed. And here was hers: Duty wasn’t enough. Not anymore. She wanted… something. A path to follow. Maybe even a person to trust. The thought scared her. But as she stood there, basket in hand, Elara let herself imagine it—just for a breath—before turning back to the priestess.