Ten months, twenty-three days, and eighteen hours. That was how long they had been living from the back of Lysander’s beat up ford truck. Most nights, it was their little trio squeezed together on an air mattress shoved into the truck bed. Hikaru to the left of her, threadbare blanket pulled up to his chin. Lysander to the right, blanket and shirt balled up under his head. And her in the middle, half their size but taking up twice the space - left arm flung across Lysander’s chest and right leg draped over Hikaru’s thigh.
Every morning for the last ten months, twenty-three days, and eighteen hours she’d be woken up at the cusp of dawn - the ungodliest of hours - by the rising of her inconsiderate companions. They’d jostle her one way and then the other as they climbed out of their mobile living area. They’d hiss and growl, the would-be alphas forever butting heads over any slight, whether real or merely perceived. She didn’t care that they wanted to rip out each other’s throats, she just always wished they’d take their bickering a few dozen feet away from where she had been trying to return to dreaming, and wake again at a proper hour.
But then if their bickering did not drive her from her nest, the stench of it would. It didn’t quite make sense how she hardly noticed their smell while crammed between them. She wouldn’t describe it as pleasant, nor was it unobtrusive, it just somehow seemed expected when sandwiched between two men who embodied the very essence of masculinity. It was musky when they were tangled together on a mattress.
But for ten months and twenty-two days, the stale air in the back of the truck would mix with their sweat, dead skin, dirt and bacteria. All the things that clung to them at the end of a hard day working, hunting, or running from the ghosts that pursued them. Musky turned acrid and sour and it permeated everything. It was baked into the truck by now. The truck, and the pillows, and the mattress. The stench sneaked its way into miniscule cracks when the night was warm, then became trapped in the surface when the nights turned cold. It was a part of their sheets and blankets, another thread woven into the fabric and no amount of detergent could part them.
But that morning, she lingered in the suffocating stench. Taking the time to breathe it in, to let it fill her lungs. She held it for a moment. The air was perfectly still and she was still with it. Every morning she would stumble out of the back bitching and grumbling at her companions about that very smell - as if she had not been the third ingredient that gave rise to that particular funk. And they would roll her eyes and shove a cup in her hands. Then she’d forget about it all when the first bitter taste of coffee danced across her tongue, and the day would start anew.
Today, she didn’t want to forget it. She wanted to burn it into her memory, she wanted it to weave into the fabric of her skin as surely as it had the fabric of the sheets. Sure, it might make it hard to make friends, but it would just be another foible or quirk that would help her weed out the ones that weren’t actually worth keeping anyways. What good were people who couldn’t even handle a little stink. She didn’t need weak people like that in her life, slowing her down. They were just a risk, a burden.
But then she let the moment go. The air left her body and she emerged from the truck bed in a graceless crawl. Like an infant giraffe tumbling from their mother’s womb. No doubt just as stinky.
“Thank fuck I won’t have to deal with that bullshit again” The words came out in a mix of Evenki and Japanese. She punctuated her statement with a firm slam of the camper shell’s rear door.
“Shani, could you at least try not putting the old girl through more pain this morning, eh?”
Shani turned towards Lysander as he seemed to manifest from thin air next to her. It was quite the feat for such an imposing figure. He was big, easily two heads taller than her with powerful muscles built as much through hard work as hard training. His big, calloused hand pressing her battered green traveler’s mug into her smaller but no less calloused fingers. He laughed when she answered his request with a sour glare, and then his lips curved into a smile as the first life-granting brush of caffeine passed her lips.
The bright, citrus notes were not what she had been expecting. Their brews were always bitter, stale, and too cold for her liking. A limitation of the tools and quality of ingredients they could procure. She couldn’t say she ever enjoyed her morning brew, but she did get used to it, even started to look forward to it, in a resigned way at least.
This cup, however, was brewed to perfection, like the handcrafted single cups that Ayumi used to brew for Satoru every morning. The perfect temperature, the perfect time to steep peak flavor from perfectly roasted beans. Perfect, perfect, perfect.
“Oh my god” Shani gasped. Her eyes were wide with wonder. When she spoke, her words trembled. “I think this is what ambrosia must taste like”
“Ambrosia, huh? My brews get lots of compliments but that might be one of my favorites”
Shani whirled towards the unfamiliar voice, every fiber of muscle in her body tensed to defend against the unknown threat. Her left hand held the battered blessed vessel of ambrosia against her chest, as the right reached behind her for the knife that wasn’t there. She would protect herself, her family, and her blessed gift from the heavens with her life. Woe be to anyone who stood against her.
“It’s alright, she’s a friend” Lysander cooed, resting his hand on the small of her back. His touch was tentative and gentle, far more so than anyone would expect from the imposing figure. At first he just rest his hand against her skin, then began to move it in slow, easy circles.
“I’m a friend,” The voice repeated after him. Definitely a woman’s voice. Shani clocked her thick accent as hailing from the emerald isles. That lilting brogue was unmistakable. “I’m Saoirse, Schindler’s mom - adopted mom”
Right. Schindler’s mom. They had been expecting her to drop by that morning. She was the generous soul who was going to let the three of them squat in the apartment above her cafe for a few weeks. Lysander had arranged it while she and Hikaru had lingered along the fringes of the quiet city.
Lysander had said she was good looking when he came back the week before. Lysander wasn’t a man easily moved by appearances, so she had been expecting their visitor to be quite fetching. However, she had no way of anticipating that the woman who was coming to their little makeshift campsite ten miles outside of Madison would be the most beautiful woman she had ever seen.
Which were the exact words she would have used to describe the tall dark-haired woman that emerged from the side of the truck. Shani stood frozen in place, staring at her with wide-eyed wonder. She’d been blessed to know many beautiful woman as she was growing up. Her aunt Mischa had been a striking beauty. Eva had been a true lady, the definition of feminine strength and fortitude, Keiko had been a terrifying beauty with a dangerous fist, and then there was May, her very own dark Aphrodite.
But this woman embodied everything it meant to be a woman. Where Shani was all sharp and uncomfortable angles, this woman was soft and curvy. Like a renaissance artist and mathematician had calculated the perfect arc to her cheeks and her breasts and her hips. Her dark black hair tumbled over one shoulder in loose, effortless waves. And then there were her eyes. They were so dark, in the deepest center of dense forest - green and mossy and endless.
No, she was not made from man. She was far too divine. A mother, the mother of all. The mother of the earth, of the world. From her sprang forth all life. And to her would all life inevitably return.
“The Great Mother,” Shani whispered, breathless with enraptured awe.
But the spell that had overtaken her shattered when the woman laughed. Shani blinked several times, her head tilting as she continued to stare at her.
“Oh my, I don't quite know if I'd say great... that's a lot to live up to” Saoirse grinned at her. “Schindler would probably say I’m alright, might get up to pretty good on a few special occasions”
“...What are you talking about?” Shani asked.
“Great mother?”
Shani’s entire body turned pale as Saoirse repeated the words back to her. “Wait…fuck did I say that outloud?! Oh fuuuuuuuuuuuck”
Her face flushed as the other two laughed at her. She went to hide her face behind her not so big hands. Hands which were half full with the coffee that had started the whole thing in the first place.
“Oh my god, just pretend you didn’t hear anything - let me drink this and then try again, okay!? Okay!?”
It wasn’t the first time she wished she had the ability to travel back in time.
“Oh no, no way” Saoirse was grinning as she strolled to stand right next to her. Shani had to crane her neck to look up at the taller woman. She was still a half-head shorter than Lysander, at least. “I think this might be my top 5 favorite first meetings. Nothing feels as good as leaving a pretty girl speechless”
Shani wanted to crawl into a hole and die at the compliment. It wasn’t that she wasn’t good-looking or couldn’t see how others could find her beautiful. She was, though in the much more polarizing striking way than the inoffensive pretty way. At least she would say that held true when it had been less than a week since her last shower. Or when her hair wasn’t a greasy, snarled mess. Or when she didn’t smell like the abandoned sock that had marinated for weeks in the back of a teen boy’s locker - or, what she imagined that smelled like anyways.
“It’s been a long time since anyone has called me pretty” Shani answered. How long had it been since someone had called her pretty? Certainly before Keiko and the Shibara Priestesses had stabbed the ancient runes into her flesh. Hikaru might have been the last person to tell her she was pretty - back when she was still a child just on the cusp of womanhood.
“Then it is my honor to be the one to do it again” Saoirse beamed at her. Her smile was infectious and Shani could do naught but return it, an awkward grin among her flushed features. “Shani, right? Schindler said you saved him…”
“Lysander and Hikaru did most of the heavy lifting” Literally and figuratively, in this case. They were the ones who had gone into the depths and tore through the legions of thralls to rescue Saoirse’s son and his friend from their undead captors. All she had done was slip through the carnage and compel one of the fallen thralls to open the way.
“She’s not good at receiving compliments” Hikaru came up from behind Saoirse. His dark hair was slicked back and his bronze skin glistened with sweat. His well-muscled chest and stomach rippling with each breath.
“We wouldn’t have even known he needed help, if she hadn’t been sensitive to him. I don’t think he could have reached Lysander or me”
That much was probably true.
“Shani’s always been the sensitive one”
“It wasn’t as if he was a disembodied spirit.” Shani rolled her eyes. Which technically she also would have sensed, but seemed irrelevant in the moment. “He was dreamwalking and he just happened to hop on the same frequency I was on. It was… just luck, that’s all.”
“I think you mean it was FATE” Hikaru emphasized the last word with a tap on her forehead. She bristled and glared at him, readying her most biting tirade of insults against the very prospect of fate. But there was a steeliness to his gaze that had been gone for a long time. One she hadn’t seen in ten months, twenty-three days, and eighteen hours. “Fate was the reason we found him. And the reason he brought us here. I can definitely feel it - our luck is going to turn around in this place… in Wisconsin”.
----------------------------------------
“Before we head in, I'm going to remind you to temper your expectations just a bit, alright?” She smiled wryly. Which turned out to be sage advice, because while their new home might meet the literal definition of a dwelling, it wasn’t the kind of place anyone with a choice would choose to live.
It was inside of the Rose Cafe, a quaint little cafe and bakery that Saoirse owned with her partners. The only entrance into the building’s basement was via an inconspicuous door tucked into the back of the small kitchen. The stairway down into the basement was narrow and rickety, and the old light flickered as the quartet filed downward. It was so narrow that Lysander had to angle his shoulders to squeeze through.
"Is this the only entrance?" Hikaru asked, both him and Lysander ducking to avoid scraping their scalps on the light.
“There is a storage room in the back that has an entrance to the side of the building." Saorise answered. "It'll take a minute to clean it out."
Saoirse yanked at the handle of a battered door at the bottom of the rickety stairs. The door was a valiant sentry, resisting these intruders with every ounce of strength the aged wood still possessed and screeching the alarm as they made their way inside.
“I’ll see about getting ya a new door”
“No,” Shani interrupted with a shake of her head and a small smile. “I like this one.” Saoirse studied her for a beat, half-frowning and raised eyebrow. Shani responded with a simple shrug. “We don’t have to worry about being surprised with this one”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Saoirse nodded and led the group inside their new home. It was pitch black inside without a single window to let the light filter through. Too black that even her enhanced senses couldn’t make out a single shape in the darkness. Then bright, cold lights flickered on and all three of the ragged beggars flinched away, quickly covering their eyes against the viscous light.
Saoirse laughed behind them. “What? Did ya all think there weren’t no lights down here? You’re not dwelling in a cave, friends, it’s a basement."
”Old habits die hard” Lysander muttered with a dismissive shrug. The trio were silent, contemplative as they took in the sight of their new home.
"It might not be much, but I’d wager it’ll be a touch more comfortable than a truck”
Schindler had described the apartment as cozy when he'd first told them about it. It wasn't the most spacious he had warned them. It was compact but comfortable.
He had really oversold the place. It felt tight even without any furniture to fill the miniscule rooms. The apartment itself was maybe half the size of the cafe above. Inside it was crammed a small living room, at the back was a sink and stove with a single counter between them.
“We can probably nab an old fridge from the Madison buy nothing page” It came out as more of a mumble than as if she was actually trying to talk to them. Shani started to press for her to repeat it, but Saoirse cut her off with a wry smile.
“There is just one bedroom” She said, motioning off to the left beyond the kitchen.
Shani glanced between Hikaru and Lysander, and then the two men glanced at one another. Shani thought they were going to start fighting for the bedroom - like a cat and dog competing for the limited territory. But they didn’t. Lysander simply shrugged dismissively.
“I can sleep anywhere” Shani knew from experience how true this was. Lysander didn’t even need to be sitting down to fall asleep. At least twice she’d had him nearly tumble over onto her after he dozed off leaning against the brick walls of a rest stop. He’d fallen asleep in a rowdy bar while a band screamed through poorly balanced sound systems - back straight and head sagging only slightly as soft snores trickled from his lips.
“YOU need somewhere you can stretch out” Shani told him. “This isn’t a one nighter before running wild. This is going to be our home. You deserve to stretch out when you sleep”
He looked around the small living room, and then shrugged. “Looks like there’s enough space for that around here”
Shani was about to argue, but Hikaru put a hand on her shoulder. He leaned down, his bright green eyes catching hers. He had that disarming smile that she always hated and could never bring herself to argue with.
“I think the pup is claiming the living room” He mused. “You and I can share the bedroom”
Shani couldn’t help frowning. It wasn’t that she was against sharing a room with Hikaru. But they’d been metaphorically attached at the hip for over a year - since even before Lysander had defied his clan leader to stand beside them and join their cause. The only times they were away from each other now was when they were pissing, shitting, or showering. And even that didn’t always hold true.
”The kitchen isn’t much but the stove works and the water gets hot.” Saoirse continued but Shani wasn’t really listening. She was floating towards the one lone room. The light flickered on and filled the room with a soft, yellow warmth. It crackled a bit, the way older fixtures always did and then there was the ever-present hum of electricity that they would all tune out in a minute or two. Just another note in the cacophony of modern life.
It wasn’t particularly large. Maybe they could fit a bunk bed in there? The ceilings were low but she was short so maybe she’d be able to sit up in the upper bunk, and the ceiling tiles looked softer like a white paint foam, so even if she did smack her head it would probably not hurt that much?
Her gaze flickered to Hikaru. Like Lysander, he was tall. But where Lysander was thick, Hikaru was lean, giving the illusion that he was as tall as Lysander even though he came up short a few inches. She also knew from dragging him unconscious through fire and brimstone that he was much heavier than he looked. Would they be able to find a bunk bed he’d be comfortable in?
Could they afford one even if they did?
“We did have a walk-in pantry installed when Will moved in - he loves to cook” Saoirse continued, as if she had no idea Shani was presently spiraling through a series of crises about what could and what would be the next phase of their chaotic life. She simply stepped into an unassuming alcove and pulled on the string that dangled above. The light was dim, but bright enough to illuminate the moderately sized pantry. It wasn’t quite half the size of the bedroom with shelves lining all three walls up to the ceiling.
“He must really love to cook” Hikaru laughed as he stuck his head in. “All that’s missing is a door and it could be a second bedroom”
“It might be a little small” Saoirse laughed.
“Kitty,” Shani whirled around, grabbing Hikaru by the arm. “You’re right”
“What?” Hikaru sounded as surprised as the others looked. “Shani, I was just -”
She was practically beaming as she whirled back to Saoirse. “It’s perfect!”
And it was perfect. It was clean, warm, and safe. It had running water and electricity. It had a door they could lock and sturdy walls all around them. It was some place they could hunker down in for a few weeks at least. Some place to take a few breaths and chart a path forward instead of running from a past that was constantly nipping at their heels.
How could they possibly ask for more?
----------------------------------------
When Shani’s eyes fluttered opened, she was on her hands and knees in the middle of… well, somewhere she supposed. Where exactly, though she had no idea. She was in some kind of room. That much she could make out by the limited information her surroundings provided. She couldn’t make out a size or a shape for the room, nor could she see any windows or doors. She couldn’t see much of anything really, except a few feet of the stone floor beneath her - lit up by the yellow light that flickered above her. Everything else disappeared into a darkness that encircled her. It was so thick and heavy, like if she reached out it would cling sticky to her skin like oil.
She was painfully aware that she was alone in the room. It was too quiet for another person to be with her. All she could hear was a rhythmic tap tap tap of water dripping in the darkness ahead. No sound of air moving through the room. Even the light above lacked the familiar electric humming she’d expect of an incandescent light bulb.
An aching familiarity sent a tremble down her spine. Her heart was starting to race, her face felt cold, then numb. She had to get out. She didn’t know where she was but she knew she had to get out and she had to get out now.
Shani scrambled to her feet. Her knees ached as the gravel fell away revealing cuts and indents where they dug into the soft flesh of her bare knees. Her fingers ached, and when she glanced at her hands she noticed the tips had been torn, the nails cracked and broken on both hands.
There was a rattling sound of metal against stone when she moved. Her eyes flew wide and her blood ran cold as she noticed thick metal clamped around her left ankle. The skin around the top of the shackle was covered in scabs and scars, accompanied by bright red flesh where a new set of wounds was starting to layer of the old.
How long had she been down there? Hours? Days?
She gasped and looked around frantically. How had this happened? She had just been with her mates, with Kitty, Lysander, Schindler and Saoirse - it was their weekly Taco Tuesday! She had tried her hand at fiesta shrimp tacos that evening and they had all had a little bit too much to drink! They were supposed to watch Bad Boys!
“No. Nonononononono” She whimpered, crouching down to yank at the chain. It thudded heavily against the stone floor as she yanked at the thick links. It was ungodly heavy and she had no idea where it attached to - but it was definitely attached to something. She pulled at it again - one, twice, a third time and it hardly moved.
“HELP! HELP ME!” She yelled as she continued to pull, but she was getting tired. The chains were heavier than she expected and her entire body felt weak. As if she hadn’t eaten anything substantial in weeks.
“PLEASE!” She kept screaming. “Please let me out!”
The only sound she heard was the rattling of her chains and the slow drip drip drip of water.
Spent, Shani flopped back on to the stone floor to gaze up tiredly at the flickering light. She needed to catch her breath, then she could try again. Or maybe the shackle had a lock somewhere. Her hair was still pinned up in a messy bun. Once she got her breath back, she could try picking the lock. She’d never picked a lock before, but how hard could it be, really?
A flicker from the corner of her eye caught her attention.
She sat up quickly, whirling down the end of what must have been a hall. Another light had switched on, thirty or forty feet away. It was the same kind of flickering yellow light that cast a warm glow over a figure on their knees and faced away from her. She couldn’t see their face, but from their back and short hair, she assumed it was a man. A younger man, she guessed from the way it was artfully tousled and the hint of red that caught the light.
There was a familiarity to them that ate at her gut. Something about the figure and their pristine white robes that were terrifying familiar and wrong in the dank cellar.
“H…Hello…” Shani called out to the figure. At first she was tentative, as if he might disappear if he realized she was there. But he didn’t move, didn’t even flinch. So she called out again, this time with more strength.
“Hey! You!” She yelled. “Please, I’m… I’m stuck! I’m chained up and I need your help. Please!”
But the figure might as well have been made of stone. She couldn’t even tell if it was breathing - it simply continued to sit there, kneeling beneath the yellowed light. Her lips parted as if to call to him again, but the words died on her tongue.
AGHHHHH the figure began to wail, gripping and ripping at its own head. The light above began to flicker wildly: On, off, on, off. Over and over as the man wailed. Shadows had surrounded him, the darkness made manifest and she could see the black tendrils crawl up the now ruined white robes, sparking embers as they did so. Red blossoms blooming across the white robe that was starting to burn.
“Oh shit, oh shit oh shitshitshitshit” Tears stung at Shani’s eyes as she yanked desperately at the chain around her ankle. “I’m coming! Just hold on! Just hold on a little longer! I’ll save you, just…just hold on!!!!”
Shani was still screaming when she woke in her tiny makeshift bedroom. She’d rolled off her mattress onto a pile of clothes. Her wild flailing sent the precariously stacked books toppling, an unfortunate few skidding out beyond the heavy curtains that served as her bedroom door.
There was a loud and sudden creaking of the old wooden floor that was accompanied by frantic thudding from Hikaru’s bedroom. She had just managed to untangle herself from her blankets and the books and clothing that had tumbled onto her when Hikaru was sticking his head in between her curtains.
She hissed against the dim ray of light that slipped through the break and invaded sanctuary.
Kitty was cursing - and she could tell by the tension in his jaw and the tremble in his voice that he had been terrified.
“Are you okay?” He sounded shrill when he spoke. “You were screaming - I thought…”
The words died on his lips, but she already knew what he was thinking.
“Just a bad dream…” She assured herself as much as him. It had all felt so real. But it wasn’t. She was in her home, the one she shared with mates. She had gone a little overboard with the experimental cocktails Kitty served. She could remember Schindler shuffling her to bed while she sobbed hysterically about the peacock green nail polish she’d just shattered on the linoleum floor.
She wasn’t locked in a dark room, nor was she was she forced once again to watch her own powerlessness and failure snuff out another life. Still, she instinctively reached down and rubbed at her ankle. Her fingers tracing the familiar ragged scars that circled the limb.
Kitty was still lingering in her curtains. He looked as if he might say something, as if he wanted to say something. But Shani was scrambling up from her bed before he can offer any more.
“A walk,” Shani quickly pulled on the leggings she’d been wearing before bed, then whirled around to dig out a hoodie from the pile she’d fallen on.
“Isn’t it a little late?”
Shani picked up the cheap smartphone Saoirse had scored for them back when they first arrived. The cracked screen flickered on - 1:52 laid over a blue-tinged group photo of Hikaru, Lysander, Schindler, and Saoirse.
“It isn’t even bar close yet, Kitty” She told him. Which he already knew given that Evan Murata’s primary source of income was as a bartender. “I’m just gonna go patrol the territory - I thought I sensed a aetherling over by the union - since there won’t be a lot of people out, it’s the best time for me to investigate”
“Do you want me to come with, Butterfly?” She almost flinched at the pet nickname. She never really understood why the Shibara had taken to calling her that. She didn’t know who had started it.
And now she never would.
“Don’t you have a shift upstairs tomorrow?”
“I mean, yeah, but -”
“I’ll be fine, Kitty” She rested her hand on his arm. Her thumb rubbing soothing circles over the corded muscle of his forearm. “Observe and report, that’s all.”
He yelped when she followed up the soothing gesture with a stinging slap. Then she was dancing around him, only pausing at the door long enough to slip into a well-worn pair of lime-green crocs.
“Just don’t cause any trouble!” He yelled after her. “That’s an or-”
The door to the cafe cutoff the rest of whatever Hikaru had to say. Shani fumbled her way through the dark cafe and out a backdoor into an only slightly less dark parking lot. She pulled her black hood up as she pushed forward into the shadows. Ignoring the itching around her ankles as she did so.
She was preoccupied by thoughts lingering on her dream. The images mixing and swirling with memories from a lifetime ago. She didn’t even notice the throbbing hum of music coming from Danny’s Pub as she turned onto the street. Her leg felt heavy as if the shackle still weighed it down and she shuffled awkwardly with each step. Her hands shoved into the pocket of her over--large hoodie and her gaze turned downwards.
She didn’t see the figure barrelling towards her until it was too late. Shani hit the pavement with a painful smack. Then there was a crack as a second weight crashed down on top of her.
“Agh!” She yelped, at first more from the shock than from the pain.
“Oh, oh god. I’m so sorry!” A young woman’s voice was stammering out. She sounded as surprised as Shani felt. “I didn’t see you at all!”
There were other voices coming up towards them, but Shani couldn’t make out much through the sharp pain that was starting to radiate up her leg. She couldn’t bite back another sharp cry as the woman crawled off of her like a newborn lamb.
“Shit, shit shit shit” She heard another woman’s voice on the edge of panic nearby. She struggled to understand what they were saying. There were several people there now - mostly women from their voices - and they were talking over and around each other, some too fast and others too slow. One of them had a strange accent that she couldn’t quite place.
Then there was more yelling, and Shani felt the worst of the pain and surprise give way to clarity. She shuffled up into a sitting position. She was a little dizzy - had she hit her head when she’d fallen?
Another voice had joined the frenzied chorus. A smooth masculine voice that countered the piercing sopranos of the frantic young women. It also had an accent but it was unmistakable - the posh accent of an aristocratic British prince.
“Professor Dawson, thank god you’re here. I think she needs to go to a hospital”
Shani glanced up, eyes wide and ready to protest when her pale grey eyes met endless ocean blue. The entire world fell away until all that remained was her and her prince charming. His pretty pink lips curling into what Shani thought was an amused smile.
“H….Hi”