CW:

Um.... good things. Yeah. Some songs and snuggles and panic. Mentions of self-harm and abuse. Lyra POV followed by Awnya POV. MhmhMHMHMHMHmhmmmm..!

Someone’s screaming.

Wailing such a song of wrath and ruin and horrid hatred for a Godthing that thought to devour my soul after…

After… Oh! That’s my wordless song! And… and no curse’s sting? Which means…

“Stop.” Comes such a command of pride and victory that brings tears of joy to my eyes and a wriggling of happiness to my soul as I lay writhing on some soft carpets.

My SOUL!

Dreamer’s Tits I can’t help but just… bask in how amazing it looks! Before it was a small thing with an awkward angry mass of stitched tendrils spreading out like a clutch of snakes bound to some rock.

But now it’s like the bed of the sea! A waving mass of ocean grass spreading out and hiding a core three times the size of what mine was before. And within those uncountable shifting tendrils, dwell my beloved family.

My jellyfish. Cooing and happy and so very safe in Amwella that so perfectly resembles our home amidst the blighted abyss. Bigger than before and… and forms shifting about into multiple adorable shapes I've never seen before!!!

“Sunrise to sunrise.” Purrs my Dark Goddess.

And that’s when my eyes snap open and I’m jerking over to stare at… A cold stone door and a glowing glyph that looks so familiar.

But… But where’s Thendra? I… what did she say? Something about the sunrise? But… I already came back like… ten years ago! Gave my everything to–

But as I’m struggling to rise as I become aware of a second song and… and shouting? I look back to see a strange writhing... girlthing shape flame guarding a hallway. All awash in a Fae song of warding and protection that thrums with... with a melody of... of love and...

Also familiar. Horribly so…

I back up as I understand where I am and who sits just behind that flame and song. Cold terror sending spikes of horror down my spine when my back finds the door.

Need to leave. NOW!!!

I reach back with a talon to touch the glyph, and with a simple effort of will I command it to open.

But… nothing happens.

I try again. Endless seabed of soul tendrils pressing and touching and poking the manor’s ward and the cluster of bubbles that have started to gather around me.

No.

The manor’s refusal amplifies that cold spike of fear down my spine ten fold. I jerk around, hiss and gurgle my demand at the manor in a soft song that brings such a weak sting of the curse.

Let me out!!!

And again, as I feel the heat die and the warding song fade, the Manor refuses me with a loud and resounding…

NO.

FINE! I growl at the stupid thing!!! Already twisting my song into a Reaver’s Riftwalk as I hear the first of them shout what sounds like my name. Curse stings hard, but… but It’s so much less than ever with such a heavy soul at my core. Easy to weave the song and…

And other than a quivering of my body and soul, nothing happens.

The manor’s will refuses to budge this time.

My eyes widen, panic starts to rise and consume me.

“Lyra!”

My soul tails go wild, twisting and dancing in a threat. A warning.

Stay away from this wretched monster!!!

I raise both talons to the unmoving gateway, digging their sharp tips into the unyielding stone. Hiss and snarl and bite out more commands as I feel the three souls stop at the edge of my tendrils’ border. Almost… It seems like twelve feet now! And that’s without weaving them together either…

“Beloved.” Murmurs a soft voice from my deepest nightmares.

My everything is trembling now.

I’m not supposed to be here after I killed the stupid pretty snake god!!! Just… can’t look back.

Don’t deserve to look back.

I’ll ruin all the happiness they’ve found!

But no matter how much I hiss and growl. Even spit a few horrid songs of threat and warning and fury this stupid manor won’t open!

And won’t let me Riftwalk.

“Lyra! Hey!” Awnya calls from behind. Voice just as perfect and lilting and brimming with loving confidence as I remember. “It’s okay girl! Just… calm down! You’re safe here!”

I can’t help but gurgle a wordless tune into my horrid little song.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

But you’re not.

“Lyra…” She huffs, takes a step forward, like… like she understands at least a part of my ugly growls and still thinks I’d never hurt her.

So short are the Fae’s memories...

Jellyfish dart out and hiss from where they were hiding. And I feel Awnya stumble back in surprise.

“The… what are…” She sputters as one of the others keeps her steady. “Okay. okay. I hear you. We can slow down. Just… take some breaths, yeah? You’re safe here.”

I press my forehead into the gateway as my growling song turns into little desperate things.

“Beloved.” Tretion calls out again, now to my left. Trying so hard to catch my gaze. Then I feel her kneel, just like… like she would do after my earliest Waking Nightmares.

Waiting and not wanting to force a physical touch that could hurt or scare me.

“I’m here.” She whispers.

Talons dig harder into the unbreaking stone. She has Awnya, what… What could she possibly want with me!?!

“It’s okay. Take your time.” Awnya moves to settle on the other side, and I feel the blazing horrid soul back away, turning to disappear farther into the manor and leave us. “Lyra you’re home. We can work out all the rest later.”

Home!?! No that’s… That’s stupid!!! This isn't my home! Not anymore! And... and why care about me!?! Why try to keep this stupid monster who killed your father and ate your lover’s soul!?!

Sliding down to the floor then, my growls fully melt into quiet desperate whimpers. Talons trailing down the gateway as I weave all my sorrowful pleading into the wordless ugly sounds as I realize just how trapped I am. Only way out is… is to either crack the manor, or… Or curse Tretion again.

I fall deeper into sobs at the thought.

Can’t do either of those things! NOT AGAIN!!!

Jellyfish gather close, preen and coo comforts to their wretched Fae mother. I claw and strike talons at the gateway, but… flesh cannot harm this incredible home. I’m just… just to stupid and weak.

So I call out to my dark goddess for help.

Screaming into my soul as… as I guess at the lesson she’s laid out for me. An impossible demand to kill this love that infests me once and for all. Kill and consume and Reave the manor asunder once again else be blighted and destroyed.

I wail into my own soul. Glaring at the shard still drifting so deep in my core.

Please!!! Just… just… Come get me!

LET ME OUT!

“Beloved.” Tretion shuffles just a little closer. Now just… just a hand’s reach from my Naranggas… “It wasn’t your fault. What happened to me.”

Everything without and within me freezes.

What? But… that’s just… She… she can’t…

“And… and I’m so sorry you’ve had to bear the weight of that all these years.” She whispers, and I hear the choking sobs in her voice. “I’m so sorry you were alone and… and hurting and… and I couldn’t come find you. That… that I didn’t even know you were still alive.”

My seabed of soul tails twist and… and whirl together. A few smaller weaving into a single larger limb. Reaches toward her and–

NO!

I yank it back, snarl at the stupid thing as my Jellyfish swim back out to the limits of my Amwella’s reach.

They radiate annoyance, but… not WITH me.

AT me.

LET US SNUGGLE! They all but purr. Suddenly so curious and burping happy little songs that seem to resonate with the melody thrumming from deep within my endless tendrils.

“Lyra… I’m here. I’m alive. And I’d delight in giving you whatever you need.” Tretion’s leaning forward. Very carefully, and holding out a hand toward my tendril. “I love you so much and am… Am so overjoyed to have you returned to me. My bound beloved back from death.”

A whimper escapes my lips, and… and it takes everything I am to hold that Naranggas and Jellyfish back from her as I rest my forehead to lean against the gateway.

I can feel Awnya’s smirk in her next words. “Dreamer’s Tits you’ve no idea how much we enjoyed holding you close last night. Or… just… just how much we’ve missed you!!!”

Then a second cluster of tendrils reweave to reach out to her at… and the realization that… That she found me.

Not... not my Dark Goddess?

HER!?!

Brought me here from that storming Rift and… and together they…

And in trying to hold both Naranggas and soul born children back amidst my trembling sobs, my focus slips. Each wriggling out to wrap around these two women’s Amwella as my heart lurches in terror. A haunting of memories of the last time they reached for this watcher's soul. But… the two limbs only curl gently around them. Swirl and wriggle –

Then I’m drowning. Slowly consumed by Tretion’s solid and glacial love, and Awnya’s blazing furious adorations.

Before I can recover and yank my tendrils back, the two begin to move. Push gently through my seabed of a soul to get close… A duet that so perfectly balances each other. C– Can’t… It’s hard to… to…like… I can’t focus on the fear when they’re pulsing with so much–

They're next to me now, one on each side, arms wrapping around me. Pulling me into a wonderful kneeling embrace, and I can’t stop the ocean of love that sweeps me into their arms.

“Wggg–” I try to force out through my worthless tongueless mouth. Trying to… To shout at these two perfect women to just… let me leave!

Go be happy without me!!!

“No.” Tretion whispers so softly through her own tears. But… Her voice is stubborn and so furiously resolute. “I’m never letting you go again, beloved.”

I try to hiss how stupid she’s being. How… how she’s clinging to the monster that killed her!

But honestly it sounds more like a whimpering sob.

“The manor is locked-up tight and stubborn as a goose. No one’s leaving or coming in. You’re stuck here, Lyra.” Awnya echoes, her own voice a wonderful melody of relief and joy. “We’ve got you, and we’re never letting you go.”

My next sounds just… they just… dissolve into a sobbing growl.

Any thoughts of escape are smothered beneath their cooing murmurs and furious hugs as Tretion’s tendrils dance through my hair. With words and soulfire they tell me over and over and over again how they will not let me leave. Murmuring and whispering and even shouting a few times…

Those three hardest words.

“I love you.”

“We love you so much!”

“–Adore and delight in my beloved.”

And through this all I am forced to feel it again as my ocean of a soul envelops us all.

Their unyielding adorations amidst gentle wonderful touches cracking so much of the shell I’d built around my heart over these past ten years. Overwhelmed in these twin flames that sing such unbelievable truths directly into my soul.

* * *

Eventually we coax Lyra into moving. Whispering soft encouragements every time she looks back at the gateway we’re leading her from.

So scared and desperate to escape. Her earlier song’s wails of such guilt and self-loathing and… and desire to return to the wretched cunt who would continue to break her.

But… we don’t let her go back. We just stop and wait, even settle back into kneeling hugs when Lyra collapses into deeper sobs. Allowing her to choose when to rise and go forward, but not letting her backslide to the gate.

Not a single Dreamer Blighted Step!

NEVER again!!!

We’re DONE with that! Done with letting the Dream hand Lyra choices that aren’t choices. It’s time she had people who love her be the ones giving her better paths to tread.

We can both feel from her wordless sobs and little titters of song how scared she is of hurting us. Even as her soul tails are nothing but gentle and just… desperate in their snuggles. I’d bet my entire soul that Thendra has been starving her of anything like this. Only dragging her through night after night of horrid torments and–

One of those little wriggly things paddles toward my soul. Interrupts what would have been a spiral that might have hurt Lyra as she seems to be clutching to the emotions our souls are singing over her. It’s… such an odd little thing, kinda hard to look at with how it keeps shifting its form. All soft furry shapes and wiggly little limbs that kick and paddle it through Lyra’s new soul’s embrace.

It just… swims right over to me through her massive Amwella tendrils and snuggles to my soul. Radiating… Love? Adoration!?! And Purring requests to share warmth with them and their… well… um… mother? I think?!? I… I’ve never heard of this kind of soul manifestation! Dreamer’s Tits, Lyra, what’s happened since I last saw you? Since you fell into the abyss between Rifts and swam amidst the Rot and Ruin?

As my own heart and mind settle into a sort of… curious adoration for one of these little wiggly things, Lyra seems to calm, and we’re able to get her to the door that leads to our room.

But… then she’s frozen again in obvious terror.

How different it must look to her now. Piles and piles of books, odd tools and weird shaped objects, and… and a little soft grove of wiggly plants that murmur and sway. This entire room smelling and sounding so much of my beloved watcher and I and all our nonsense.

“We can sleep in another room.” I quickly say. “It’s not a problem.”

But she shakes her head slowly, and… and takes those first steps back into an old life.

One she believes she broke and shattered.

Despite how healthy and amazing her soul looks, Lyra is sagging and exhausted and barely standing. Already melting back into a puddle of sobs as we get her to the bed. Mind must be a mess of.. all the things. Hopefully at least some of them are good.

And then we’re snuggled in. Lyra between us. Her soul wrapped tight about us all as we hold her in our arms. And more of those odd little wiggly things purring and snuggling either up against her core, or one of ours. Just… thrumming such joy and contentment in efforts to keep us all so calm. Seeming to enjoy the warmth our soul’s radiate.

We don’t smother her but… but okay yeah maybe a little. Tretion’s head tendrils are just obsessed with her messy short hair. And even if Lyra won’t meet our gaze, she’s clinging to our hands and pulling them close now.

Even… even once letting our watcher’s wrist brush her lips. I’m not sure it was meant to be a kiss, but to watch Tretion glow a bit at the little touch was worth everything in the Dream.

A subtle sign that Lyra still adores her. That not even Thendra could bleed that deep love from our girl.

But… soon she’s quickly curled face-down in a ball of anguish, gurgling a soft song of shame and guilt and fear again. Caught between her desperation for our affections and decades of painful self-hatred. So… I begin to hum my own melody.

A song of endless affections that fills the room with a thrumming of love and delight. Years of sadness and old pain suddenly shattered by the return of our lover.

I still remember those final songs I sang at the edge of the Dead Dreamer’s wood, so I mix in their stories. Sing to our girl of the life my watcher and I’ve woven together, and how every single day we’d have given very nearly anything to see our Lyra returned to us.

Will do more still to keep her here and safe and healing.

She’s sobbing again, but… it’s a sound of… of muddled disbelieving joy. Happiness she so desperately wants to keep but feels she can’t. Dreads the pain such a thing will bring to those she loves. Is begging us to just…

Let her go.

I’m not sure I ever stopped crying, but I can’t help but weave my fresh tears into my counter song as we pull her closer. Lean into our watcher’s tendrils that wiggle in possessive affections for our lover returned.

Sing back to her just how much her presence is healing old wounds we thought we’d never see fade.

Eventually that helps her calm enough to just… pass out. Allows the oblivion of sleep to shroud her from the woes of today. And for the second time in over ten years, we’re able to hold our Lyra close through the night.