Rogue Sloth

New World Contention [AnnaWinters & Summer]

Azdrei’in leaned against the wall and folded his arms loosely across his chest while Artemis walked about the room. Even though he had volunteered to share her quarters with her, there was a part of him that was uncomfortable with the knowledge that they would be sleeping in the same space. It wasn’t that he believed he was in danger. He trusted that she wouldn’t suddenly attack him while he slept, but he felt strange because she was a female. They didn’t belong to the same species—this was something he reminded himself of consistently—but for some reason, it was impossible for him to look at her like he had the other animals on her planet. She was undeniably similar to a Lunvalgan female, and because of that, he had an attraction to her that made their temporary living situation feel more intimate than it should have.

“You will see more of space,” he assured her, letting his gaze wander to the windowless walls. “There are places to look out in the spaceship. They are just not here.” A thought made him brighten slightly and he turned back to her. “Seeing Earth is good.” Beautiful, breathtaking, or incredible would have been better words, but he didn’t know them in English, so instead, he projected the emotions that those words elicited as a substitute. “You will like it,” he assured her confidently. They had already seen part of her planet on their way to the mothership, but they had been too close to the surface to get a good look at it. From the larger craft, drifting at a distance, they could see far more, and he was eager to see her reaction to looking down on the planet she called home.

When Artemis spoke about how his kind was nonviolent, Azdrei’in said nothing. He wouldn’t have called his people nonviolent, personally. They were predators by nature and equipped with all the biological tools to hunt and kill. However, their violence was directed more properly than the human race’s was. Instead of using their weapons to fight each other, they mostly spilled blood to survive. They ate other creatures when they were hungry and defended themselves from threats. When it came to interpersonal squabbles, their leaders were quick to mediate and shut down conflicts before they could escalate to the point of physical violence. The heavy-handed leadership combined with the hive-like mentality of their people was what kept the peace among them. Perhaps when he became more fluent in her language, he would explain it to her more thoroughly.

He looked down at the video playing on the human’s device when she showed it to him. “I can teach you,” he told her idly in response to her request to learn his language. “We might be here for a long time. When we are in this room, I will give you more words to learn.” That would be a perfect distraction for him too, so he would have something to think about other than the fact that he was sleeping in the same room as a female human that he found inexplicably attractive.

In the next moment, the pocket door slid open as two male Lunvalgans entered the room carting his bed from his old quarters. Azdrei’in looked up and stepped away from the wall he’d been lounging against. “Bring it over here, thank you,” he instructed them with a gesture toward the side of the space opposite of where Artemis’s bed hung.

The two nodded and placed the mat on the floor. They took the furled cords that were attached to the edges and unwound them, lifting them up to the ceiling to hang the bed magnetically to the metal canopy over their heads. Since they shuffled rooms around so often, it was easier to make the furniture as portable as possible, so it wasn’t a hassle to move it from one space to another. Suspending it was an easy solution to meet the need.

Once they were done, he thanked the two again, and they left, leaving him alone with Artemis once more. Azdrei’in stepped over to his newly added bed and sat on the edge. The mat bowed slightly under his weight and swung backwards by its cords, but it supported him just as well as the bed in her hideout had. “Do you need food?” he asked, beckoning her to come closer. “You brought food from Earth, yes? I don’t know if the food here is good for you.”

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Not on my laptop, but maybe I can send them over Instagram

The flooring is also getting done this week, and hopefully the rest of the kitchen and bathroom will be done next week. If it is, then we can fully move in right after that!

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Caspian nodded when Iris said she would try to eat. Comfort food was a real thing and could be a balm to stress and raw emotions when one was overwhelmed. He had a few go-to’s that he enjoyed, such as minestrone soup and chocolate cheesecake, but even if those weren’t available, there was still something therapeutic about crying into a tin of ice cream. He hoped that if she was able to get some food into her stomach, she would feel at least a little better, even if it was just a metaphorical Band-Aid for the deeper problems. Although he wanted her to open up to him, he wasn’t going to force her into it if she wasn’t ready.

He put a bit of space between them on the sofa and reached for his own dish, lifting the dome that covered the eggs benedict that he’d ordered. The aroma of seasoned, poached eggs, Canadian bacon and English muffins topped with a smothering of hollandaise sauce wafted to him as soon as the covering was removed, and his mouth watered reflexively. He set the plate in his lap and picked up the utensils that came with it to cut into the food. However, as he did, he noticed that Iris seemed to lose momentum and put her breakfast back on the table. Apparently she wasn’t as eager to eat as he was. He was too surprised. Whenever she was anxious, he’d become aware that she tended to skip meals.

“Don’t apologize. I’m not going to make you eat,” he casted her a smile in the hopes of making her feel a little better. While she had no appetite, he still decided to get started on his breakfast in the meantime. If their roles had been reversed, he would have been uncomfortable if she had put off eating for his sake, so he brought a bite of food to his mouth and chewed slowly as the savory flavors flooded his tongue. The eggs benedict was delicious. It was both warm and seasoned to perfection, and he wasted no time cutting into a second piece.

As Iris struggled to find a way to open up to him, Cas was patient. He didn’t push her to talk as he ate his breakfast, instead letting her take her time to navigate the uncharted territory at her own pace. He was shocked that she thought she’d never opened up to anyone else before though. Hopefully it was just the amnesia blocking the memories. If she had really gone for over two decades of her life without talking to anyone about what was bothering her, then she probably needed a therapist far more than he did. Gently, he reached out to rest a hand on her leg, offering her a sympathetic look, “You can trust me, Iris. I love you, and I want to hear you talk.”

The last thing she said caused him to take on a quizzical expression. It was too vague for him to understand what she was trying to say. Was the ‘him’ that she mentioned Ethan or Regis or someone else that he didn’t know? And what picture was she talking about? He squeezed her thigh comfortingly, deciding to press her for more information softly, “What are the nightmares about?”

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

I finished out the last day and added on three more to skip us further along ^^

Let Me Steal Your Heart [BuzzingBee + Dagger]

The rest of that day and the two that followed went by without a hitch. Crow and the rest of the nobles never did see Otto again, but they covered quite a bit of ground with the Younisians that led them through their kingdom. To the former thief, it was a welcomed change of pace. He had grown accustomed to always watching his own back and keeping his guard up wherever her went, since he’d lived most of his life being pursued by knights and bounty hunters. While his old habit of keeping watch over his surroundings didn’t die, he felt much more relaxed than usual and enjoyed being able to travel in plain sight along a main road instead of sneaking through the shadows.

He also liked being back in Younis for the first time in years. Well, more specifically, further into the northern kingdom than just the border. The path they took was the same one that he had traveled along with Penelope, William and Abraxas the first time when he’d been sent to retrieve the king’s staff. Being back again brought up a flood of memories and mixed emotions inside of him from that trip, especially when they passed through the town where they had met Hartley.

So much had changed since then and as he looked around at the buildings and markets and people, it almost felt like the first visit had been a distant fever dream. Back then, he had still been an arrogant, bitter thief with a crush on one of his guards. Now, he had shot up the social ladder to the highest title in Brerra outside the royal family and was actively courting the woman who had once been assigned to keep him from running away. The speed of it all was dizzying, but he had to attribute some of the positive changes to the land they were riding through now. If it hadn’t been for the people they had met and the things that had happened to them in Younis, who knew what would have become of him and Penelope? He was thankful for the northern kingdom and the ways that he’d left it as a changed man.

Aside from the viceroy’s nostalgia, the three days they traveled with the Younisian knights were productive. They covered long stretches of road at a time, motivated both by their eagerness to get to the castle and the lingering worry that Otto would come back to finish whatever he had been scheming behind their backs before. Even Naida had stopped complaining about their speed, although Crow suspected her change of attitude was due to the fact that she’d taken an obvious interest in Edwin. Throughout the ride, she chatted happily with the Younisian man, exchanging questions and talking about their apparent shared interest in a game that the former thief had never heard of before. He doubted their father would allow her to be with a low-ranking knight from another kingdom, since Albin seemed to care a lot about protecting his oldest daughter, but he didn’t want to dash her hopes, so he kept his theory to himself.

When they weren’t on their horses, the group spent their nights at the local inns. As planned, they asked Rayner whatever they could think of about their missing baron as soon as they were behind closed doors. It seemed to everyone that Otto was long gone, but Crow refused to take any chances after he’d made the mistake of being optimistic in the past. Unfortunately, the lieutenant didn’t have anything useful to tell them and only grew more frustrated the more they interrogated him about his father. He was genuinely clueless about the whole thing and eventually stopped talking to the others out of spite on the third night of questions. With a curt demand to just go to sleep, he took up the bed in the furthest corner of the room and buried himself in the blankets, and the rest of the nobles finally gave up on getting anything more out of him.

The next morning started out the same as usual. Crow and his company rose early after a full night of sleep, got breakfast at the tavern below the inn, and set out on the road with Edwin and Osbert. He directed Baine to fall in line toward the middle of the group and brought a hand up to smother a yawn as they headed toward the next town. He’d been getting better sleep over the past few nights, but it was still exhausting to travel almost nonstop every day, and his weariness was catching up to him from the lengthy rides.

“At least we only have about three more days left of travel before we make it to the castle,” Percival said at his side, noticing the viceroy’s tiredness and offering him a sympathetic look.

“Thank the gods for that,” Crow groaned. “My legs and back are killing me. How do you knights do this all the time?”

“Most of us grew up riding horses,” he shrugged. “You adjust to it.”

“No, I don’t think I will,” the former thief decided with a wrinkle of his nose.

A tame chuckle escaped from the knight’s throat, and they lapsed into silence again. As the procession went onward, Crow let his eyes wander idly over the surrounding trees. They had moved on from the last town and now found themselves in a small section of forest that buffered the next populated area up ahead. A cool breeze wafted by, and he drew his travel cloak more securely around his shoulders to stave off the cold. The further north they rode, the further the temper dropped, and he couldn’t wait to get to the Younisian king’s castle to escape from the winter weather for a while. Hopefully there would be—

“Look out!”

The sudden bark of Percival’s voice sent a jolt up Crow’s spine, and he yanked on his reins just as an arrow whizzed past his nose. Had he not directed Baine to slow down, it would have gone straight through his head. Heart pounding, he turned toward Percy as the knight drew his sword from its scabbard. “There are men in the trees!” Percival yelled, uncharacteristically animated as he took charge of the situation.

The rest of the group shook themselves awake and readied their weapons as well, turning to face the threat just as a group of men in cloaks rushed towards them with blades and bows. They’d fallen right into an ambush.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Beige and light green! It turned out really gorgeous ^^

And I finally found the time and energy to get a post up, huzzah

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

“I know he does, it’s just hard to remember that when he doesn’t show it in ways that make me feel like it’s true,” Caspian exhaled when Iris tried to reassure him about his father. He’d tried many times to express to Atlas that he felt unappreciated and unvalued as a son, but the king never seemed to get it. Either his father didn’t understand that his constant critiques and controlling behavior were draining him or he didn’t care. He hoped it was the former, because the latter would be crushing.

When she asked why he didn’t tell her about the corpses he’d seen in Bel Bicis, he just shrugged. He’d kept it to himself for a lot of reasons, the main one being that they had simply been too busy trying to stay alive to discuss any of the things they were experiencing along the way. When he’d seen the bodies, they had been searching for shelter and running away from her father, when they had been in the apartment, they’d barely had half an hour to relax before the bombs had dropped, and they’d had to run to escape. When they had moved on from there, they had been exhausted and needed to find a new place to take refuge before the rebels caught them. After that, they had actually been captured, and he’d nearly been killed by Ethan. Even if he’d wanted to tell her about his ghosts, there had never been a good time to do it.

“I know I can’t change what happened to them,” he agreed with a faint nod, bringing his free hand up to rub his eyes. “It’s less about that and more about… well… let me put it this way. It was one thing to see a bunch of corpses on the ground and be able to detach emotionally. I didn’t know any of those people personally, who they were, what they were like, what they did for a living. None of it. I just saw dead bodies of total strangers that made me uncomfortable and a little horrified, but it was different with those two because I got a glimpse into their lives. When I saw the photo, it made me realize they were real people who had been happy and totally innocent before they were… killed.”

He swallowed hard and took a slow breath to keep his emotions in check. “I mean, for God’s sake, we were in their apartment. We saw where they lived, what they ate for lunch, how they liked to decorate. It was just a lot to take in, and that’s what really got me… It hurts to know that the smiling faces in that picture belong to the corpses in the plaza.” It also hurt to think about it again, so he fell quiet, focusing on fighting off the urge to let go of the tears that threatened to spill over. He was far from okay and, being a more emotional person, probably would have bawled his eyes out if he’d been alone. However, he had opened up to Iris to convince her to do the same with him. Right now, he had to be the strong one, so she could feel comfortable breaking down without feeling like she was overwhelming him. He could let go another time.

And it turned out that his idea had worked because after one last halfhearted attempt to convince him that she was fine, Iris dissolved into tears. Caspian held her close and closed his eyes as she cried into his chest. It was painful to hear her so upset, but he was glad that she had finally trusted him enough to let down her walls. He didn’t have any words to comfort her either, so he just sat quietly while the sobs wracked her, gently rubbing his hand up and down her back. They had both been to hell and back in their own ways, it seemed. Listening to her cry just reaffirmed his desire to make sure that she never went through that kind of pain again. He loved her and wanted her to be happy, not breaking down in his arms.

Awkwardly, that was the moment their breakfast arrived too. He opened his eyes and glanced at the door when he heard the knock on the other side. After waiting for another few seconds for the person outside to leave, he turned back to Iris, “Sorry, I need to grab that really quick.” Disentangling himself from her, he jogged over to the door and brought their food cart inside, wheeling it over to the coffee table to set down their trays. However, before he uncovered either of the dishes from their silver domes, he sat back down on the sofa and wrapped her up in a tight embrace.

“We’re a right mess, aren’t we?” he smiled at her sadly and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “You can tell me about what’s going on when you feel ready, okay? Do you want to take a few minutes to think about it and eat first? So you’re calm enough to talk.”

~Bonsoir~

Vail nodded, “Please be sure to tell us if you come across anything at all.” He was mildly concerned about James’ and Sylvia’s safety while they ran espionage for the Hygraces and the Moncouriers, but it was inarguably the best solution for everyone involved. His old friend knew the area well and could travel about without raising suspicion, and James was youthful and eager to help her. The two of them would make a capable pair both to find Ray and Gerald—assuming the humans were still alive—and to learn a little more about what the Wynters were doing in London. Any information that they could gain at all would be helpful to everyone in their efforts to stop the rival clan from starting a war that could quite possibly ruin relations between humans and vampires for a millennia.

Francois’s suggestion of joining Diana’s family for dinner appealed to Vail even more strongly. He turned to the leader of the Moncourier clan with an idle nod when the elder vampire queried about whether the rest of them had fed recently enough to keep their composure around their human hosts. It had been a week since he’d last drank any blood, but he was still getting by on the enormous dose he’d had when he’d drained Victoria. He had a mild craving for the excess iron in her blood specifically, something that no longer existed now that she’d been turned, but he wasn’t yet hungry for the flow in a regular mortal. He felt sure that he could last at least a few more days before he really felt the urge to go hunting.

The rest of the Hygraces were in good condition as well. Katherine had been making sure that all of her nieces and nephews satisfied their bloodlust regularly out of courtesy for the people that were risking their own lives by harboring them. The Crests were the Hygrace clan’s only hope for refuge until they could return to England, so it would have been problematic if any of the vampires attacked even a servant on the estate. Out of all of them, Peter was the only one who was too unstable to even be near a human. Surviving on the blood of captured rabbits and other small woodland creatures that were brought to him regularly, it was likely that he would snap at the faintest whiff of mortal blood.

So, when Francois extended his invitation to the married leaders, Katherine smiled politely and shook her head, “Thank you, but I will stay here with Peter.”

Since they were remaining behind, Vail bade his parents farewell and took Victoria by the hand again as they went with the rest of the group back to the manor to eat. “Are you feeling hungry at all?” he asked her curiously, watching as Sylvia smiled brightly at James when he offered her his arm. Even though they ate regular food too, hunger pangs were, to vampires, a sign that they needed to feed on blood, and he wasn’t sure how long it would take before the Crest heiress would need to hunt for the first time. If she was developing an appetite, it would be best for them to keep some distance from her human relatives at dinner.

New World Contention [AnnaWinters & Summer]

“I think you are,” Azdrei’in agreed when Artemis said she was safer on the mothership than she had been on her own planet. His people wouldn’t hurt her. Most likely, there were varying opinions among the Lunvalgans that were watching her in the loading bay. Before he’d left to scout out the earth, he had heard quite a few different thoughts and theories about the human race among the others. Some believed that earthlings were a scourge that needed to be eradicated and that killing them off was good thing; some were more neutral and simply believed that the Eilix knew what they were doing when they’d decided to release the virus on them; and some, including himself, wondered if there was anything that could be gained by studying the humans and learning about how they had lived and functioned on their planet.

It wasn’t hard to tell which camp each onlooker belonged to as they stared at Artemis. The more hostile Lunvalgans regarded her with cautious, unfriendly gazes while the rest observed her with intrigue. She was safe among all of them though. Since she was here to speak with their fertility specialists, she was a guest on the mothership, and that meant that no one would be allowed to lay so much as a claw on her without facing repercussions. Even the disgruntled people would have to tolerate her presence as long as she was under their leaders’ protection.

Following the other warrior through the long, silver-white halls of the ship, he glanced down at the human when she asked about children. “There are not many,” he told her, letting his translucent eyes wander over the other Lunvalgans that they passed. Occasionally he nodded a passive acknowledgement when he caught the eye of someone he knew. “The youngest children stay with their parents, and then they are moved when they don’t need them anymore. They stay in groups to play and learn together in a different place here… Some people watch them who are not their parents.”

It was difficult to explain that adolescent Lunvalgans were raised communally. Because pregnancies failed so often, it was more important for mated couples to keep trying to have more children than it was for them to take the time to raise the ones they did have. There were more males than females among them too, so many of the males who were not paired up with a mate were assigned to be caretakers for the children between the time period where they left their parents and the moment they were old enough to be assigned to jobs of their own.

When Artemis attempted to speak to one of the nearby females, Azdrei’in cracked a smile. “You said it right,” he assured her as they rounded a corner that led to the individual rooms they assigned for sleeping. The other warrior stopped next to an open doorway and gestured with one hand at the space on the other side. It was mostly bare, with a few built-in shelves in one wall for storage and a bed fit for one person that hung from four cords that were attached to the ceiling. Soft, white lights illuminated the room from the corners where the walls met the ceiling as well, and there was an adjacent room attached to the side with a waste receptacle built into the floor.

“The earthling will stay here,” the warrior directed. “Azdrei’in, you may return to your personal quarters in the northern wing until you are summoned tomorrow.”

Azdrei’in glanced into the chamber. Before he’d left for the earth, he’d shared a room with three other male warriors, but it was located in another part of the mothership far from the space that had been designated for Artemis. Knowing that she had been opposed to separating from him, he turned back to the other male, “I will stay in this room as well. The earthling does not speak our language and has made it clear that she will be opposed to it if I leave her alone here.”

“Are you sure?” the other warrior asked bemusedly.

“I am,” he confirmed. “Have someone bring my bed and perhaps some of my clothes from my quarters to this room. It is my duty to make sure the earthling is looked after, so I will stay with her while she is here.”

The other warrior looked amused with his answer, “You take this assignment very seriously, hm? Very well. I will have your belongings moved into this room for you.”

“Thank you,” Azdrei’in said appreciatively.

The other male turned and walked off, leaving them alone, and he turned to Artemis. “This is your room now,” he told her in English, stepping inside and beckoning her to follow. “This is your bed. Mine will be here soon, and I will stay here with you.”

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

We're painting our house today and tomorrow, so I most likely won't get a post up until Sunday or Monday. Just a heads up!