CW:

Paralysis.

My watcher’s soul sags in exhaustion at this last dance as I drag my hands up from between her legs. Our fifth this morning as I straddle her form in the big bath’s tub.

The warmth, the… the biting I begged out of her, despite how worried it made her to see me bleed, but nothing is enough!

I huff, my soul already craving another fuck. But… My watcher is so very tired, her Amwella full and perfectly enriched twice over from my work to bring her pleasure and mingle our Amwella.

So I lean forward and just… lay my head against her chest. Wriggle our soul’s apart, but leave my Naranggas secured around her. And after a moment, I finally tell her what has tormented my mind these past days.

“Bulderii was there.” I whisper.

She… Ugh her soul sings of confusion. She doesn’t recognise the name.

“She was… Is a Reaver.” I elaborate. “She just… came in and spoke with me while you were with Getrik. Told me that Awnya was asking me to return to the Twilight Court. To help her dad and… and Usete.”

A long pause, and the turmoil in her soul is… it’s like… Worry, a little confusion. Maybe… anger? No… that’s annoyance.

At herself.

“It… Tretion you couldn’t have known she would be there. I don’t… I don’t even know how she found me!”

A pause, even more confusion.

“Um… Lyra.” She murmurs very carefully, moves an arm up to caress slow circles over my back while another wraps around my waist. “Are you saying she wasn’t one of your nightmares? That this Reaver was actually there?”

Oh. I didn’t even consider that…

I pause. “Yeah. I… the nightmares aren’t… they’re very weird and horrible but they’re always a sort of… memory. Never something new. I feel them more than see or hear or smell them.”

She sighs, and I can tell that only worries her more. Either my Waking Nightmares are becoming so bad that I cannot separate them from what’s really happening, Or a Reaver found us and wants me to go visit the Fae again.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

She lets out a huff, but turns it into a full hug. “It’s okay. You were figuring things out. I… I understand why you’ve been so hungry now too.”

A long pause.

“You miss her.” She sighs. It’s not a question. And while there is nothing but love and worry for me in her soul, I cannot help but fill myself bubbling up with such guilt and shame.

“I’m so sorry. I… I don’t… I can’t…” And then I’m shuddering with guilt ridden sobs.

She coos and snuggles tighter. “This is just like your nightmares. You need help healing here too. No apologies.”

“She… she said Awnya’s dad is dying.” I let out a big breath. “Tretion, what do I do!?!”

A pauses, and waits a long time before answering.

“I don’t like any of this,” She murmurs, tendrils wriggling through my damp hair. Soul alight with cold annoyance and suspicion. “Why send a Reaver? What about your curse on him could possibly be ending a Fae’s life? If I had to guess… Lyra, did Bulderii ask anything else of you?”

I shake my head, “I… I had to chase after her! She… I even asked if Thend–”

I can’t say her name now. Not without… without breaking down again.

“Her,” Tretion snugs me again, “I know who you mean. But… nothing? No threats or demands?”

“No!” I whimper. “I… I don’t think she wants me anymore. I’m just… too much of a danger to her with… with how messed up I am and–”

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Tretion coos and squeezes me to silence. “No, Lyra. I–”

“Then why!?!” I begin to shake again. “Why did she send Bulderii? Why didn’t Thendra tell me to come back!?!”

“Oh Lyra…” She murmurs. Soul sad and filled with anxiety at my words. “You shouldn’t go back even if she demands it.”

I freeze. Tears go still. No…. no no no no… Not–

“You deserve… so much more than either of us can give.” She notices my sudden stiffness. “But… I can see how she’s hurt you. And–”

“No.” I hiss, pull back and level such an angry glare at Tretion. Even managing to pull a Naranggas free to whirl about. “Her pain always meant something. It… she made me better. It’s horrible, but I needed it. Maybe…” I look past her. Another terrible thought rolling through my mind. “What if she can help with the Waking Nightmares?”

“Lyra…” She winces.

“They only began after I started living here. When I… When I decided not to go back.” I look back to her as her glacial soul withers at my words. Her eyes glimmering with tears.

“Please.” She whispers. “Lyra I… You’re getting better. Can go hours and hours without the hint of one. Give yourself more time.”

An old cold ache settles alongside another and I feel my glare die. “It’s… Tretion. I… This is my home. But… but she’s… She’s given me everything I am! And if… If I’m too broken for her to want me…” I tremble, shake my head angrily. “No. I need to… to try and fix things. I owe Awnya that. And… and maybe afterwards I can go back to Theradas…”

“Please, Lyra.” Tretion whispers with such terror rolling through her soul that I just start to feel a bubbling muck of a maybe nightmare beginning to rise. “Don’t go back to her. I’ll follow you anywhere. Fae wood, blighted rifts, even beyond the Dream itself. But please. Do not ask me to watch you suffer her.”

I stammer, close my eyes. “I just… I don't want to feel so broken all the time.”

“You're not broken Lyra.” She reaches up to cup my cheeks. “And going back to her will not help you. It will make this worse!”

I sag. Imagining… how she… how she might react to me now.

Can’t… I need to focus elsewhere…

C– can feel a Waking Nightmare’s shadow rising…

“B– But what about Awnya’s dad and… and Usete?”

Tretion calms, which helps me avoid the shadow of terror. “I… I’ll support you in whatever you think is best. Walk at your side and pull us out if things seem to be going poorly again.”

“B– But…” I look down at the water… and the pretty girl beneath looks back. “I’m scared. W– What if…”

I’d not told Tretion of my past. And… and my tummy turns over a few times as I realize it. That… that with just a few words I could risk all her love and affections. Cause her to think me a wretched and horrid thing.

All others will scorn or ravage you.

“We won’t let them keep us. It’s your life, your songs, your choice.” She murmurs.

Her words remind me so much of Awnya’s… of… of how she’d so easily accepted me. Even said that changing myself to this body made me more Fae.

“Tretion…” I whisper. “There’s… something… somethings I never told you. A– About me.”

She waits patiently, soul a little worried but much more… Curious? Supportive? Almost… huh a lot of anticipation. I’d never really told her much of anything about my past. Just…

“My first body was human. And… it was wrong. I was born wrong.”

She tilts her head, and there’s a spark of something inside her. An emotion I don’t really recognise. That worries me a little, but… everything around is calm and relaxed, albeit a bit tense.

Deeep breaths.

“I… I’m…” I have to just… breathe for a while before I can force a jumble of words out. “I’m a girl, but my first body was that of a boy. I used Fae songs to burn it away and craft this one.”

“Oh Lyra.” Without even a pause her soul sings of love and acceptance and such sorrow for me as I can feel her consider my words and the pain behind them. “Thank you for trusting me with this part of yourself. I can see that wasn’t easy. It… It explains so much.”

I peek up at her eyes, “It… does?”

“Mhm. And it only makes me more proud of you.” She pulls my forehead to hers, letting tendrils dance little affectionate circles through my mane of messy hair. “You are my beloved bound, and I delight in you. You are perfect and brave and so wonderful.”

I let myself dissolve into a puddled mess of sobs at her soul's overwhelming storm that harmonizes and emboldens her words.

Finally… finally feeling the cravings for intoxicating warmth beginning to fade a bit as the cold of her soul and flesh battle against the heat of the waters.

And I tell her more. Just… begin to gush out my past. All at once. I tell her everything up until… Until that first day in Theradas.

No more. Mostly because the heat is beginning to overwhelm us, but also because I… I can’t.

I don’t feel like it’s mine to give away.

* * *

Deep Breaths.

Four days. Four blighted days of trying to Reave open a rift back to the Twilight Court, and all we’ve gotten for my troubles was another mouthful of blood and bile and a mangled talon.

I whimper and bonk my head against the damp stone wall. Tretion is close at hand and rings slow circles around my back while trying to hold my broken talon in support.

“Only once more.” Tretion murmurs.

We’ve had to assume I’d fail. Had to… to limit how much I could try this else repeat the first night's mistake that forced me to sleep with an unhealed limb. But also, because I need to have Amwella to spare when we arrive so I can still sing.

“Kay.” I huff back.

I failed again, and spent the rest of the day singing a little song to heal the talon. It hurts, so much. Both due to the pain of the snapped fingers and the sting of the curse.

I’d rarely sung over this past year. Only endured the curse’s bite for this, Lenelope’s reawakening, and a few healing things to try and calm my body after a few particularly horrifying Waking Nightmares.

Another three days, and I almost have it.

After two more, I got it on the second try.

“Dreamer’s Tits!” I spit in joy as the soft seawater smells of the ocean wafts over us.

Tretion giggles at my sudden outburst, but it’s a nervous thing. I reach back, and take her hand after singing a quick pained healing song for the talon.

“Ready?”

She gives me a soft worried smile as my Naranggas wrap tightly around her. “I’m with you.”

I smirk, and we step through the rift to stand outside the same house where I’d seen Awnya last time. The vertigo of the shift passes quickly, and the first thing I notice is that the song on the winds seem so odd.

It’s a lilting thing, wriggling in and through and almost… almost…

I yawn. Move to shake away the sudden rush of weariness.

But then my watcher is lowering herself to the ground, and already snoring in her cute little way before the soft grass tickles her cheek.

“Tretion, we can’t sleep here.” I giggle and kneel down next to her, brush fingers through her tendrils. “C’mon you need to–”

I jolt, the nature of this song suddenly becoming clear.

Naranggas pull free of her soul and curl about us as I let out a wild and terrified hiss, glimmering eyes jerking about to find the source of the Fae song of sudden sleep. I spot their Amwella quickly emerging from the little home and blocking the path deeper into the Twilight Court, and fight to not just… rush them.

Wanting so badly to lean into old Reaver training.

B– but… that would leave Tretion alone and… and…

I shake her, hard. “Tretion! Get up! We need to–”

Then something hits my back, and I hiss again. Try to twist and–

Something’s moving, biting, stinging into me. I reach for Spite in panic, bear the sudden horrid sting of the curse to try and return the torments whatever is hurting me.

But… nothing happens as I bleed from my eyes at the horrid song, and this weird wiggling thing on my back tightens its grip, stills…

“Tretion!” I scream, twisting and curling around to try and pull this Dreamer blighted thing off!

Something plunges into my lower spine, and every muscle and bone in my body begins to scream in such pain!

Then… goes numb.

“No... No–” I whimper as even my Naranggas still their angry dance. Feel myself sag, then tumble into the grass.

“P–Please… Tre…” I whisper. Try to… to reach out. But my talon just kinda wriggles a bit, then goes still beside my watcher’s serene expression.

I feel the Fae approach. Let out a little hiss, try to… to call up my Amwella to spit a curse at them. But… It’s… it feels so far away and heavy!

And I’m just left a crying twitching mess as I watch a pair of Fae lean down to pick up Tretion and carry her away.