CW:

Sad songs. Mentions of rough sex. Re-growing limbs and painful songs. Awnya POV to start off.

One year after the Dreadsong sung:

The most unsettling part of the border between the Fae wood and the Dead Dreamer’s Wood is the silence. There is not like… real visual change, not this early in. Maybe… maybe everything in the Cursed forest is a bit darker right now but… It’s like… everything that’s on our side is alive and sensing danger. Pulling back as far as they can to avoid the Rot and Ruin.

And everything beyond is like… Normal looking. Too normal honestly. Because it FEELS like I’m at the shore of some great sea, and to take even a few steps beyond will draw me deeper, drop me off the edge, and drown me.

And I know without song or any sense I can describe, that I can step no closer. So it’s from here that I begin my song. Weaving in her name amidst the Fae litany of hope and love and desperate desire to see a cherished soul returned!

Lyra.

LYRA!

I start to walk along the edge, careful to respect the winding border while keeping my song as steady as possible.

Please girl!

Come back to me!

To us!

I can’t imagine that… that the volume of my voice will matter. But… Soon I’m just… shouting my plea.

TRETION'S ALIVE!!!

And… and Lyra she misses you SO much!

I have to stop, reach out to stabilize myself against a nearby tree.

PLEASE girl I…

I can’t do this alone…

I… I love her but…

She needs YOU!

I weeping now, I’m wailing a song as I’ve only ever heard my Fae lover do.

PLEASE!

Swim through the ocean, make your way through that old forest. Come back to this place!

I… I know it’ll hurt. But WE WILL take care of you!

No matter what flesh this horrid dream wraps you in!

Even if I have to weave your body myself, I’ll make sure your settled and happy and–

The song cracks, and I’m on my knees as the words falter into… into such nonsense things now. Can barely blubber out the rest…

Please… please Lyra…

Forgive me.

I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry I left you.

Please come back to us!

But… just like all the other times I’ve come here this past year, my lover does not hear my call.

Does not return to my arms from the blighted sea she was swept back into. So I settle my workings into the border. Hopefully a sign if she returns from her death.

And I am forced to continue to walk these rifts alone before returning to my watcher’s manor.

* * *

“I’m so sorry!” Tretion just… sobs into my chest as we cuddle amidst the silken sheets.

“Hey hey, none of that!” I coo as I run fingers carefully through her limp and twitching tendrils, place a soft kiss amidst the mess of them. “We agreed, no apologizing.”

“This is different.” She huffs, almost angry now. “I pulled you into my bed, enticed you and… and after all this time, after a year of us together! I… I can’t even follow through without falling apart!!!”

I hug her tighter. “Nope. Tretion this is… Dreamers Tit’s, This is perfect. Just… Meeting you and getting to hold you and… I mean yeah sex will be wonderful if we get there but there is no need to rush.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

She growls, sort of… pulls from my arms and fixes me with such a horny glare. And I can see behind her eyes the battle raging.

A soul caught between desire and old painful memories.

I give her a confident smirk “I’m not going anywhere Tretion, you have all the time in the dream.”

That cracks something in her, causes her face to twist into such a horrid expression. “No, I don’t. I… I’ve learned that. Nothing is… is…”

The broken promise she cannot speak flashes.

Nothing is Always and Forever.

I take her face in my hands. “I’m not going to leave you.”

She whimpers, and dissolves back into a puddle in my arms. Eventually is able to murmur, “It’s just… hard. Because you’re…”

She trails off before the final word... Fae.

“Yeah… I…” That stops me short, a flurry of worry that this was all a very bad idea devouring my words.

That being Fae is just… too much for her. That my affections will always just remind her of the beloved she lost.

She moves to sit up, fixes me with a hard look. “But you’re not her.”

That stutters the thought.

“You’re not even remotely similar.” She growls, all to herself.

At herself.

“Hey, Tretion I… I get it and–”

“No. I need you to understand me.” She maneuvers to take my face in her hands. “This has nothing to do with you being Fae!”

A long pause passes as her eyes fill with more tears. “You’re the only other woman I’ve been allowed to love who chose me first. And I… I failed to protect every single one of my past lovers.”

“Hey, c’mon that’s not fair to–”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s the truth.” She’s shaking now. “My… my first two lost to my horrid wretched family, then… then Lyra to…”

Her name hurts, but… we need to share it. Need to keep it close so we can heal.

“To the Fae and… and her Waking Nightmares and…” She releases my face and slumps a bit. “I just… want to be enough for you. But I can’t even leave this manor anymore! Can’t Riftwalk or incant magic well or…”

I move my fingers to her tendrils, begin gentle workings. Little things I’ve been using to try to coax more movement and twitches with. Sometimes even wriggles. Anything to help bring life back into her…

“Yeah. I feel the same way. I’ve had passing flames, but… but I wanted Lyra to be more.”

After a pause she whispers. “How did you meet her?”

We've... been careful about delving into too much of our past with her. Sure we've shared a thousand good sobbing bouts and murmured things but... We've tried to keep busy. This is the first time she's been able to ask me this.

So I settle into myself, harden my heart to the memories. “I… I was asked by her sibling to help. Expected to just… find some wounded girl who needed a friend or passing flame. But… Dreamer’s Tit’s Tretion I was not ready for her, for… for all the things she’s been through. For just how... how vibrant she was despite it all.”

Tretion shudders. “She… she told me of her past. A few nights before we left to go back to the Fae wood. Right up until Theradas and…”

She trails off before the haunting name. The cursed horrid fucking monster we try to NEVER talk about.

Thendra.

“The cunt, yeah…” I nod. “Same. I didn’t want to push her into talking about her time there but… now I wish I did. Because I didn’t understand how bad it was until it was too late. Until I couldn’t get her out.”

Tretion chokes through a sob. “I… I caught glimpses. During her Waking Nightmares. She would scream and beg and… and–” Tretion’s sobbing again. “All that seemed to help was when her wonderful soul tails would cling to my core and hold on tight. But that’s… that’s how I…”

“Oh Dreamers Tit’s, Tretion, what happened is not your fault!”

“I don’t feel it, but… I do know that. The Fae just kept pushing and pushing and… and she finally just… stopped trying to care. I saw it then… in her eyes. When she killed the two Fae with the bird one. She was just… barely holding on. I watched that fear turn to fury and… and I was so scared but also so proud of her, Awnya." She growling now. Head tendrils more wriggly than ever before. "I know that’s horrible to say but I’m so angry that I didn’t get to tell her that. To tell her that she had the right to kill any of those horrid people that sought to hurt her.”

I can’t help but laugh through my own tears. Oddly comfortable with how much I agree with her. How my own pain sharpens easily into hatred for my own kind. “We Fae have more than enough cautionary tales about what happens to idiots cornering a wounded and scared predator.”

I’m growling by then too. “They have no excuses.”

* * *

“Again.” Thendra demands.

I growl, shake the stupid talon, and try to Reave the dream.

Another failure.

A year of this. Of going with Bulderii and Reavers on odd… tasks. Then, every night, Thendra has me break the rest of myself upon this impossible song. The screech of a Reaver’s Riftwalk. Quick, precise, and without do overs or try agains. Something she demands I be able to slice open at my will.

With or without her command.

The curse’s sting is so odd these days. It always seems to sting me the exact same way, bleed my soul of the same amount every time. But… Dreamer’s Tits there are songs that leave me a mewling puddle on the floor, while others barely agitate me.

And again… another failure.

I pause… consider my song. Think on the random successes that brought me an early end to a day and wonderful dreamless sleep.

But… something just… isn’t right! The song feels wrong! But… as I consider each note and beat… it’s flawless.

“I’m missing something.” I hum to myself.

Little jellyfish coo, and I shush them. Need to focus.

Thendra doesn’t command me to try again, only thrums in pleasure as I pause to think. She’s perfect like that. The little piece of me in her soul lets her always know what I’m feeling, and honestly… It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that she can basically read my thoughts by now.

I’m stupid and they can’t be that difficult to parse out from my flittering soul.

I clench the right talon, let the broken bones sing agony into me, sharpen my mind and… and the pain feels right for this. Perfect for the melody.

But I can’t rely on pain to Riftwalk. That’s just stupid and dangerous.

I’d wish for a Fae’s Riftwalk… but to get that I’d either need to kidnap or convince one to share the melody with me.

Huh… I can’t help but grin as the thought of that blighted people doesn’t bring me anything but a sort of dreadful mirth. A desire to see them experience the agony they so desperately hide from, and to taste a few of their wonderful souls once mor-

“Again.” Thendra prompts, sensing my distraction.

I giggle, and obey.

Loving just… how seen I feel!

Never alone! Even when I’m off doing nonsense with Bulderii and her Reavers!

Another failure.

What am I missing though? Thendra’s method of doing this is… So much different and honestly seemingly limited compared to what I can do. So she can’t give me much to go off of.

Who can teach me this?

The little blighted things dwelling in the maybe parts of my soul perk up and gibber at me. I’m about to give them a soft growl of warning but… pause. Look down.

Can you teach me how to do this?

A… gurgling yip from a few of them. And I can’t help but grin as I call up my curse and sing their words. Lacing their form and will over my soft screeching melody while letting them slip down the right talon.

PAIN.

So much I… I almost lose the song as I drop to my knees.

My family is hurting me? Biting and clawing and nibbling at the stupid talon. And I… I can’t help but consider finishing what I started.

Shove the stupid thing In my mouth and beg Thendra to let me start weaving a new one when it’s gone. But… Now my family is in it and I don’t know if tearing it off could hurt them!

The song is a hissing gurgling thing now, and the talon begins to… to… For a moment I wonder if my dark goddess can see the bubbling colors and extra hooked fingers growing and jutting from the talon.

Oh… OH!

I’m almost sobbing through the pain and song as my family gives me a piece of the endless void we call home.

The Talon… No…

MY talon is Perfect! No longer a maimed thing of horrid pain and half broken nonsense, but a wondrous home for them! And for the first time in years…

It feels like mine again!

I giggle and shout in joy as they finish the flesh change, turning to my dark goddess to show her their workings. Her face is all contained possessive focus, but her Jade eyes sing with delight.

“Again.” She purrs. And in those words I know that she can feel the success my talon will always grant me.

I Reave a tear open without even looking, and pause only to bask in the wonderful smells the wound brings. Thendra can’t even stop the small smirk that touches the edge of her lips as I pull the tear closed and step up to her.

I don’t need to speak, just… let furious hunger consume my soul. The desire for her to reward me for this victory with body breaking mind numbing sex laid bare for her to sense.

And of course, my dark goddess keeps her promises…