Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The caves quake, the tunnels are a mess, and Lann’s casting about everywhere for a sword that should be right here but isn’t. It’s an untouchable sword in a stone. How far could it go?

A thunderous boom rocks him to the bone and he leaps aside just in time for pillars to crumble. Dirt and debris rain down as the whole ceiling splits. Dust scratches his lungs. He coughs, waving it off while a dry thump hits the rubble and sends out a cascade of pebbles.

He shouldn’t be able to see the sun, but it’s there now, a thin sliver stabbing all the way down to the slab that’s been dropped into First Crusader’s Hall. It sits on a hill created by the cave-in. Dust motes haze around the light.

The street groans. Or, rather, something on top of it does.

Lann creeps up the wreckage and peers over the edge of the slab. There, in the light ray, an uplander struggles to her side. Metallic hair like spun gold, dark skin, and a glowing ring above her head. No wings.

He went looking for an angel’s sword and got an angel instead.

A slash of blood weeps through the chest of her tunic. Hand over the injury she blinks at him, and he realizes the top half of his face must be a strange thing to wake up to. “Uhh. Hi. Sorry about the looks. We weren’t expecting guests.”

A smile flits across her face. “I wasn’t expecting to survive.” She looks up at the fracture in the ceiling and the impossibly long channel of rock straight to the sky. “This is still Golarion, right?”

It’s a better reaction than he expected. Lann folds his arms over the slab and rests his chin on top of them. “This is the underside of Golarion, where monsters like me live in an endless cycle of eating each other, waiting for the day our chief decides it’s time to go up to the surface and save the world from demons. I think it’s going to take a flock of angels to convince him at this point.”

“Demons are flooding Kenabres right now.”

“Then your timing couldn’t be better. I’ll take one real angel over a hundred imaginary ones. You, uh, wouldn’t happen to be able to sense a holy sword nearby? With all the earthquakes some of our kids rushed into danger and I’m not going to be able to get them without it.”

As they speak cuts and scrapes on the aasimar’s hands become dried red lines, wounds healing, all except the big one she’s keeping pressure on. There’s nothing he can do about that. Her best bet is to get back to the surface, and for that to happen he really does need that sword.

She studies him. He tries to look innocent as possible with his nightmare-inducing face, but, it’s hard to do when he’s mostly stressed about the kids in the Maze.

“It’s over there.” She points. Sure enough a glimmer flickers under the rubble. Relief shoots through Lann. Wow, that actually worked.

“You’re a life-saver. Here, let me get you down.” He slides his good arm out over the slab.

Wenduag’s voice growls from the shadows. “Why do you have to be so noisy Lann.” Ah-hah! So she is still here. “Someone’s coming.”

He’s halfway into the process of guiding the aasimar off the wreckage, trying (and failing) to not get blood on himself when three more uplanders emerge from the gloom. One limps, but she has a bow and the uneven odds are starting to make him nervous. Wenduag will back him up if there’s trouble, right?...

The lady in front has perfect hair, perfect skin, and a snotty aristocrat attitude that matches the crimson splattered over her expensive outfit. It’s on her face too. Not that Lann’s any better standing there with a bloody handprint on his shoulder and a cut-up aasimar in his grasp.

“Well?” Miss high and snooty says. “Are you going to finish eating this person while we watch, or are you going to run off before we kill you, demon?”

That’s more like it! That’s the treatment he’s been expecting.

“I… don’t think he’s a demon,” the paladin says.

It’s the aasimar beside him who responds. “He’s an underground crusader. People usually call them mongrels.”

Surprise. “You know about us?”

“Only that you might have existed. I came to investigate the Wardstone, but, now that it’s obvious there’s a problem, I better skip to fixing it. As to how I’m going to do that…” She looks at the ruins. “I’ll think of something. I hope. Let’s start with your holy sword.”

“It’s not my holy sword. I’m just borrowing it to convince Chief Sull to get moving.”

The group gathers around the buried weapon. Even Wenduag slides out of the darkness for a look. Lann has a plan for this. He figures if he wraps his palm thick enough he might be able pick up the sword, or tie it to his hand to get it back to the village without searing his flesh off. He just has to decide whether it’s better to use the less sensitive scales, or his skin. Holiness hates the Abyss, right? Skin might be the way to go.

The aasimar plunges her hand into the rocks and picks the sword up. He forgot to tell her it’d burn.

“How are you doing that!” Wenduag hisses.

“Doing what?”

“Thousands of gongs and no one has been able to touch that sword, and then you fall down here at a distance that should have killed you and just… pick it up?” Wenduag grits through her teeth.

“It’s a sword.”

“It’s a holy sword, you idiot!”

Said sword bursts into glittering flakes. They get sucked into the aasimar and she does catch fire, at least a little. Blue orange flames lick up the blood on her tunic. The wound there vanishes. “Shit, oops. That happens sometimes. I can get it back! Look—” Light blossoms in her hand and unfurls into the vision of a dagger.

It’s tiny. Though it does shine with divine light.

“It’s a lot shorter than I remember,” Lann says.

“Wait, wrong one. Holy dagger, holy handaxe, holy spoon, ah! Here we go. Lariel’s Holy Sword.”

The visages shift until it’s the legendary sword. And yes, Lann did just see the light of a holy spoon. “Who knew there were so many holy weapons on the surface? We should have gone up there a long time ago.”

Wenduag’s turned into a sourpuss. “I don’t believe this.”

“You have to. It might be the only chance we have to save the kids before it’s too late. Not to mention deal with the demons that are apparently raging on the surface right now.”

But Wenduag doesn’t do faith. She presses the stranger for details with a hungry gleam in her eye not unfamiliar to Lann. “You’re no ordinary uplander. Who are you?”

“Inquisitor Arcadia, in service of Iomedae the Lightbringer. It’s a mouthful. I’d stick to ‘Arcadia,’ but it’s usually faster to add Inquisitor and Iomedae and see who runs,” she says kindly.

“Hrmmm.” Wenduag itches to run, and it’s honestly a little funny to see her being the one caught up in a bunch of sticky words for once. Now she can’t skulk around unseen unless she wants to lose Arcadia’s trust. Which of course, once Wenduag knows Arcadia has unusual powers, she’s stuck to her like a toothfish while they head toward the village. “These holy weapons that you… absorb. How many do you have?”

“I lost count.”

“That’s a lot of power…”

“Please, Wenduag,” Lann says. “The last thing we need right now is one of your spiels about how the strong eat the weak.”

“It’s true though! Name one time you haven’t eaten something that wasn’t wriggling in your bowl, a lesser creature churned to pathetic gruel in the crunch of your claws.”

“Well, this one time on the surface I had an apple. It wasn’t particularly wiggly.”

She scoffs and turns away.

Seelah mutters, “I’m scared what’s going to be on the menu if we stay down here long.”

~ ~ ~

The uplanders rest at his hut. Lann is too excited to sit. Years he’s spent dwindling his pointless life into oblivion while he could be doing something worthwhile. He tried so many times to get Chief Sull to tackle the maze—every hint of a sign Lann would bring it back and say, look!—but it was always this or that excuse and never enough to leave. 

This time it’s going to work. He can feel it. This time’s different from all the other ones. Sull saw the Light for real… thankfully from the sword and not the spoon.

Food’s a good way to celebrate. If Lann leaves for the surface ahead of the other mongrels they’re going to need it too.

He races to the underground lake and snipes off a monstrous eel he’s been eyeing all week. Sloshing into the water to retrieve it he gets into a nice juicy fight with the teeth fish that are the whole reason he didn’t shoot the eel to begin with. Right now he’s too happy to care. He ignores the bites and brings his kill out of the water. All the fish unlatch from his legs closer to the shallows, knowing if they don’t let go he’ll kick them onto land and bag them too. So long, smart bloodsucking bastards! He’s going to the surface!

With the eel over his shoulders he returns to Neathholm all pride and puff and puncture wounds. The meat goes over to the cooking fire for preparation and the mongrels who take it off his hands are practically glowing. There’s hope where there never was any before.

Of course they’ll freak out when they realize their Lightbringer is an inquisitor, but, funnily enough Lann hasn’t met the monster he was led to expect. By now Arcadia should have everyone strung up by their heels while she laughs maniacally and waxes poetic about purging the world of corrupted mongrel souls. Instead, on the way to his place she got swarmed by the tribe’s children and their unfiltered questions.

“Where are your wings?”

“What’s that above your head?”

“Did Lann find you in the caves? Are you sun-crazy too?”

That made Arcadia hum. “Sun-crazy. What's that mean?”

“It means weird!”

“Oh, I’m definitely sun-crazy.” Playfulness had lit her voice.

Right: he should bandage and salve all the bites he’s bleeding from. The open flap to his hut greets him when he arrives. He’s only slowed down by the fact he has guests, two of which wait outside. Seelah occupies his favorite sitting rock, surveying the village with concern scribbled across her features.

Arcadia looks at him curiously. “What happened?”

“Hmm? Oh, I went out hunting.”

“I can patch you up. I noticed you don’t have a cleric.”

This stops him in his tracks. He forgets divine intervention makes healing easier, and that he suddenly has allies who might waste it on him. “We uh, kinda have to do everything by hand, since magic doesn’t like us very much.”

Arcadia pauses whatever she’s about to do. “Meaning…?”

“Meaning there isn’t a mongrel alive who’s anything like you. Or Seelah. Ahem. I mean, no divine magic. The rare mongrel who survives having arcane stuff turns out to be like Sark over there.” He tips his head to one of the hunters his age. “If you ask he’d be happy to show you. He’s not shy like me.”

The speed Arcadia’s brows shoot up impresses. They come down just as quick and she sets a thoughtful fist to curved lips. Drops it. Gives him an incredulous smile. “You’re not shy.”

No, no. He definitely is. He has no idea where it’s coming from but it’s nibbling on his toes right now. Inside his boots he scrunches them up. “Ordinarily I’d agree with you, but… must be the Light of Heaven made me all fluffy inside. Either that or we don’t get many visitors and I’m not used to being looked at. ”

Seelah guiltily shifts her attention to where Sark is gutting the giant eel. “I don’t mean to stare. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact you guys have been living down here all this time.”

Arcadia doesn’t look away. “Hold out your hand. You’re not bothered by touch, right?”

He chuckles. “If that were the case getting you off that pile of rubble would have been a true act of courage. And besides, you’ve seen my scales. Aren’t you bothered by touch?”

Her half-smile is mischievous. “Should I be?”

“No. I’ll give you my good hand.” He holds out the human one. She sets her fingertips into the cup of his palm.

Each dot of presence rests softly on his skin, and the unintentional tenderness does something to him. After all, any time he puts his own hands together it’s clashing texture, and this is… different. Coming from another person, who has a hand like his, and not the fine fur or coarse hide he’s used to.

Arcadia’s healing is the Light all over again. His pain goes away and so does the weight in his chest. It’s easier to breathe, easier to think, as if the corruption that lives inside him gets quieter. Yeah. That’s it. If he could have this once a day he’d live longer, but he’d also become an addict.

Her hand lifts off his palm. It tickles. He curls his fingers, dropping his gaze to rips in his pants, dark with the stain of injury but no longer bleeding. He’s never met an aasimar before, let alone be healed by one. “Does it always feel this nice?”

“It’s usually a relief to not be in pain, yes.”

“No, I mean…” He doesn’t know what he means. He smiles to himself. “Never mind.”

Arcadia slings her scabbard over her shoulder and treads down the slope to talk to Sark. Out of curiosity Lann watches them. It took a while for him to see it himself, but Sark is considered one of the more attractive mongrels in their tribe. Instead of one big obstacle of a horn, he has two tidy small ones. Short velveteen fur covers a well-balanced body. He’s a good enough hunter his cat’s tail hasn’t gotten docked by a monster and to top it off the end forks into a fun Y shape. Bonus feature: no claws.

Lann needs to grind his down on a rock.

He’d do it now but Seelah is sitting there.

Over the burst of self-consciousness he says, “Yeah… I’m going to call it now: I’ll be making a lot of dumb jokes. It’s something I do when I’m nervous. And, uh, any other emotion, really. Sorry in advance.”

“That’s nothing to be sorry about. Maybe I should be the one apologizing. If you expected a stick in the mud you’ve got the wrong paladin.”

“Darn. I love sticks and mud! There goes my mongrel dream of being smitten like a real demon.” His lip quirks. “Smited? Smote? It made sense in my head.”

“Smote. Doesn’t sound right though, does it?”

“The paladin smote a dozen dancing demons,” he tests. “Yep. Still weird.”

At the bottom of the hill Sark flicks the cup of his fingers to produce little sparks. They’re harmless. Arcadia discovers this by stabbing a finger into the magic when Sark suggests it. From here Lann can’t make out what they’re saying, but he bears the brunt of their attention when they look his way. Whatever it is it’s about him. Sark’s tail swishes.

Lann steps back. “I’ll… get my arrows.”

He ducks past the leathery flap. Everything’s as he left it. A paladin wouldn’t steal. An inquisitor might? But she hasn’t. And Camellia isn’t going to touch anything he’s touched. He could be contagious.

While he takes stock he absently runs scaled fingers across his palm. Cold, smooth, so utterly unlike what he just experienced. Would a paladin’s magic feel the same? Or is it just… Arcadia?

He shouldn’t fixate.

With a centering exhale he slows down to reset his deep cave hunting kit. Bedroll: check. Medicines: check. Food: all gone, as usual. He takes his remaining clothes out of a ramshackle driftwood shelf Rilla built and rolls them into compact tubes, stacking them inside his pack. He’ll keep his bloodstained pants on for now since the maze is bound to add to the carnage anyway. The sewing kit goes into the bag for repairs later.

One by one he goes through clay storage vessels. There’s no need to take every knife he owns. Most of them are pretty beat up, and, who knows? Maybe he won’t have to filet as many creatures on the surface. He already has his hunting knife, his eating knife, his carving knife, his knife… knife. He picks a backup knife out of a clay pot and adds that to the pack. Alongside that go the whetstone and leather strop for honing an edge.

What else?

Dad’s journal. Tough call. It’ll only weigh him down. He can leave it here, and it’ll be the third book the mongrels staying behind have to pass around the village. The subject matter is depressing but it might actually beat squinting through Coordinates of Major Constellations by Year, Vol. 5.

He lays dad’s journal flat and purposeful inside the shelf. They’ll know he meant to leave it.

After the essentials not much remains. As far as memorabilia goes, the hut’s previous occupants left a decorative seashell chime hanging from a beam. It’s staying. The beads he made loop around his belt. He pockets Dyra’s lucky gold coin.

“Not bad for a mongrel,” he tells himself even though everything he owns fits into a single set. At least he won’t have to cry about leaving behind all his worldly possessions. If the empty hut is supposed to make him sad, it doesn’t. He’s antsy to get on with rescuing the kids, and then… follow the light. Join the crusade. Something. Anything.

He’ll just, uh, break that news to Chief Sull later. Surviving the maze comes first.

With one last look and a decided nod, Lann steps out of the hut and drops the flap over his old life. 

The messenger to the nearest tribe must have returned because mongrels gather at the Chief’s place. Off to the side an unexpected mongrel seems to have joined the uplander group. Arcadia splits from them to meet Lann partway.

“Sark says he’ll come with us.”

“What?” Lann asks, dumbfounded, because Sark’s terrified of the Maze. “Really?”

“We could use another. Wenduag left.”

“She’ll come back.”

Arcadia studies him, eyes flicking between the two halves of his expression.

Well, the literal walking Light of Heaven might not believe, but he does!

~ ~ ~

Crap. The literal walking Light of Heaven was right: Wenduag doesn’t come back. Even worse, when Wenduag does show up, she has to be an insane madcat about it. What the hell happened?

He’s just going to compartmentalize that whole experience and set it waaaay over there, and not think about it. Ever.

Chapter Text

Garrison wreckage crumbles under his boots as they seek a way into the warzone. Screams and clashing metal echo off the walls. Lann’s making a list of things angels can draw Light from.

Weapons, sometimes. A tattered flag. Broken statue pieces. This really ugly painting in the back of a storeroom. He’s pretty sure the creature in the painting is called a goose. Its evil beady eyes menace him from longbow distance.

Lann says, “Lariel’s sword disappeared. Can’t you make that painting disappear too?”

Arcadia winces at the gold framed goose. “Even if I could, it’s better this way. It can’t follow us if it stays in this room.”

Seelah blinks. “It’s just a goose.”

“It’s not even real,” Camilla says, annoyed. “It’s a painting.”

“A painting I’d rather not add to my rapidly growing collection of memories, thanks,” Arcadia finishes.

Somehow, when she touched Lariel’s sword she saw the angel’s final moments. That’s how she knew Lariel’s name without being told. Lann’s curious how it all works. Since they don’t get much time to talk between clearing out the garrison and keeping up with Irabeth, he’s learning what he can via observation.

There’s a worn rug that runs the length of the hall they cross. Motes of light rise from frayed threads and trail Arcadia’s footsteps. Lann says, “Remind me: is it the inquisitor part or the aasimar part that’s making you do that?”

“Neither. I don’t know anyone else like this.” Arcadia shoulders a stuck door and rams it open with a grunt. “There’s some similar cases I read about. But. Never met them.” Fresh sheen glosses her unnatural wound. It bleeds through the fabric. Her jaw tightens and she averts her gaze, pallor dulling her dark skin.

The gods wouldn’t bring him the light just to take it away. They can’t be that cruel. His scales prick seeing Arcadia’s halo dim, and he draws slightly closer. Just because he’s an archer doesn’t mean he can’t stab a demon hand-to-hand if he needs to.

They rejoin forces with Irabeth and smash through another wave of demons to get up the stairs. A crusader falls to the attack. Their halberd clatters against garrison stones and holy sparkles lift from the weapon. They swirl around Arcadia. “It shouldn’t be happening this much,” she groans as the influx of divine energy slows her bleeding. “That was… his mother’s halberd. Dammit.” She drops a hand over her eyes and rubs. “Get me to the wardstone. My head is screaming.” Can a person look like they have a migraine? Because Arcadia sure does.

Seelah takes point by herself, going further and further out to draw enemy attention. Lann regrets Sark staying behind to protect the maze exit. They could really use everyone’s help right now. Each extra pair of hands makes a difference when you’ve got a short, fat demon barreling straight for you with slobbery pointy teeth and…

“Arcadia, the archers—!” Seelah yells.

Arcadia gets her sword stuck in the demon’s neck. “—are safe!” The blade digs into dead shoulder blades and she struggles to unstick it, looking sheepishly at Lann while the corpse makes retrieval silly and awkward. “Normally I can cut all the way through. I swear.”

Her attention stokes his pride when there’s four far more human archers on the line watching her pry the sword from the body. “You fell into a den of mongrels. If you say you’re having an off week I’ll believe you.”

“What if it’s an off month?” She throws her shield hand at a cultist, maybe to summon Lariel’s sword, and instead gets the holy spoon. She chucks it at the attacker with a frustrated growl. The illusory spoon passes straight through. But that’s just fine, because Lann’s arrow does not.

“There’s other months and a whole crusade,” he says. “Stay, and the demons will line up to be cut down.”

“And here I thought I’d go home after checking the wardstone. Clearly no one here has any problems an inquisitor might be good for. No curses, no supernatural events, no undead or demons or cultists.” Arcadia kills a cultist.

“The Worldwound’s a peaceful place! Come for the blood water. Stay for the screaming eyeballs.”

“Fantastic. I can’t wait.”

Together with Irabeth their unit advances to the top floor. The wardstone sits within arrow’s reach, but of course it’s blocked off by yet more enemies. In particular the eyeless demon Minagho keeps bragging about how awesome Baphomet is, as if that’s going to change anyone’s mind when they have a halo-hailed aasimar with a holy sword and a penchant for collecting light on their side. Even if they didn’t, Lann’s pretty sure Iomedae is better than a goat. Who would swear loyalty to a goat? He can’t even convince Dyra to give him a free knife, let alone swear undying loyalty to him.

Minagho holds out a cloven foot. “Pledge yourselves to Baphomet. Kiss me on my dainty hoof.”

“Eh,” Lann sasy. “I’ve seen dantier.”

“Then wait your turn. I’m sure I can find something dainty enough for your scaly face. Well, aasimar? Kneel.”

Arcadia looks at the hoof. “I don’t like feet.” She pulls her sword. “I can cut that off for you if you’d like.”

“Inquisitor,” Camellia purrs with such thick enthusiasm Lann actually takes his eyes off the demon for a second. Camellia’s face is flush with excitement. That’s not concerning at all.

Seelah scratches behind an ear. “You’re a lilitu, right? You’re supposed to be able to read a person’s secret desires. So, one of us must actually want to kiss feet.”

All the crusaders go quiet.

“Well it’s obviously not me,” Arcadia says. She looks at Seelah, who shakes her head and looks at Irabeth, who rolls her eyes. Lann shrugs. It’s not him. He’s followed by a chorus of me-neithers and confusion.

They all turn their gazes to the only silent person. “Camellia?”

Minagho stamps her hoof. “Oh, all of you shut up! You’re ruining the mood.”

“What mood?” Lann looks around the ruins, corpses, cultists chanting at the wardstone. “I mean, it’s got the trappings of a date, sure. But where’s the campfire? The pet cave slug? And, not to be rude, but I’ve eaten rocks and you severely overestimated how much I can stomach. Plus it’s a bit glowy for my taste.”

The demon’s furious pouty face is worth it. So is the spark in Arcadia’s halo. Gold eyes don’t leave the enemy but Arcadia’s sassy smile… he did that.

Brightness pushes at the shadows. Power so immense it stands Lann’s every nerve on end creeps from the wardstone, reaching for the crusaders, for Arcadia. She turns serious. Her commanding tone cuts straight to the cultists. “Last chance: forget Baphomet and his foot-crazed servant. Come back to the light.” Radiance flares over her weapon. “Or die by the sword.”

Mercy, or Judgement. Worry twists the lilitu’s bloodred lipstick.

The cultists turn on each other. Irabeth roars to attack. Despite the terrible odds an insane courage overtakes Lann. If Arcadia touches that holy relic…

Minagho senses it. “No,” she hisses, and throws her hands out. Fatigue crushes down on him. Crusaders slow as cultists pummel into the formation. Minagho leaps in front of Arcadia to block her path to the wardstone.

Seelah and Irabeth attack the lilitu while painted nails slash across Arcadia’s face, scoring blood lines. Cold steel uppercuts into Minagho’s wrist. Lann shafts an arrow into the same shoulder and magical defenses falter under blows from two paladins. Minagho’s lips split in an ugly sharp-toothed snarl. “Staunton, sweetie. I think I’m going to have to kill your new friends.”

Pain wracks Lann’s skull. White noise blots his vision and he shakes his head and breathes, forcing focus. He has to protect the Light, protect Arcadia. But oddly it's not her that Minagho aims for. It's the wardstone.

Magic crashes over the huge relic. Arcadia falls to her knees, clutching her head as waves of agony shutter through the calming aura that’s been easing Lann’s corrupt body. Under Minagho’s spell the wardstone quakes. The beginnings of a scream catch in Arcadia’s throat and she collapses on her side, halo puffing out in gold mist. At the same time Irabeth and Seelah force Minagho back. Fire roars from the lilitu’s fingertips, slaughtering her own cultists to burn the paladins.

Things go downhill the instant Arcadia does.

Like a fool Lann runs right into the fight. He drops to his knees, releases his bow to the tile, reaches for Arcadia. Green crescents lance his vision. He freezes. He bares his fang and curses himself. She’s unconscious Lann! She’s not going to care if you’re covered in scales or an entire layer of whipped cream—just, do something!

The roll of wrap zips from his pack in a ribbon. Fast and efficient he binds her cursed wound, keeping her propped on his knee just enough to wind the cloth round and round over her outfit. An explosion shakes the floor and debris pelts his hair and he ignores it, trusting the crusaders to keep Minagho at bay while he whirls the bandage roll across Arcadia’s shoulder. He pulls every pass painfully tight. The pressure should help because they’re going to have to move her.

“We can’t win this,” Irabeth roars. “Fall back!”

“That’s right little crusaders!” Minagho laughs silkily. “Flee! Flee and let me finish turning your precious wardstone.” A fireball cracks into one of the supports. Flames scorch armor and rubble rains down.

Seelah dashes over.

“She’s alive,” Lann grunts, trying to get Arcadia upright. “And, heavier than she looks.” She must be made of pure muscle though she feels oddly bony too, like a starved mongrel. Seelah scrambles to help and between the two of them they’ve got her. Magic sings through crumbling walls. There’s no time.

Irabeth lifts Arcadia off them and slings her over armored shoulders like a yoke. “I’ll take her. Follow us.”

~ ~ ~

Arcadia does not wake up.

Chapter Text

Lann distracts himself with crusader duties. Irabeth is unable to officially enlist him while the city’s under siege but it doesn’t matter because the survivors are desperate for anyone who can hold a weapon. She puts him on perimeter defense as part of a sniper squad. The crusaders eye him with trepidation and whispers about end times when they think he can’t hear. That’s the polite ones, anyway. The brutish ones gruff, “What’s wrong with your face?” or spit at his “tiefling” feet and blame him for the invasion. They’re quickly surprised into silence when Lann cuts them with wit or friendliness, or both.

At night he makes a space for himself among the mess of bedrolls and cots and refugees clogging the inn’s upper floor. People stare. He smiles back. They look away. There’s always a handful of nicer ones who don’t mind or are too exhausted or traumatized to care that the person next to them is a mutant.

He folds arms behind his head and watches the ceiling. He doesn’t long for Neathholm. Nor does he relish lying here, a stranger in a sea of strangers. Somehow it’s even more isolating than being alone in the caves staked out for days at a hunting spot desperate to bring anything back. In retrospect, and right now, both situations feel lonelier than they should. He misses the companionship with Arcadia’s crusaders, sniping insults at cultists trying to snuff out their strange little party.

Even wounded, Arcadia helped him. She healed him, she showed the light, waited for him even though Sark would have been good enough, she brought heaven down on Savamelekh and she spared the mongrel kids, she smiled at Lann’s stupid commentary, she…

What if she doesn’t wake up?

It’ll be his fault. He should have trained harder. Prepared more. Been closer, or faster, or more attentive. He’d been ready to destroy his body to bring the light back to the village, but apparently he’s too stupid to figure out how to do the same to protect that light when it happens to be a flesh and blood person.

Dawn slits through window shutters. Lann quietly rolls his things and steps around dozing refugees. He cracks the door to the emergency ward and slides in.

The clerics cut his slapdash bandage and rebound the wound. The top of a clean robe is pulled back so the constant, slowly leaking bloodstain doesn’t ruin it. Scarlet spatters boiled linen strips wound across her chest. The injury spreads straight over her heart. He doesn’t like that.

Except for the rise and fall of Arcadia’s breath she’s strangely devoid of life. There’s a fire of personality that doesn’t exist when she’s comatose. With the halo gone, he wonders if people would mistake her metallic hair and bronzy skin as inhuman, the way they mistake him for a tiefling.

He sighs and sinks into the chair at the bedside. His failure, his fault. It’s hard to look at her. It hurts. He scuffs a hand through his hair.

“I can’t really focus when you’re like this. I need you. To get better.”

For a fleeting second he wishes he were born a healer. But even a healer can’t fix this.

He frowns at the stained bandages. He was right, before, when he thought she felt underweight. Where the robe is tucked back muscles in her upper body lack tone. They’ve atrophied the way his do during especially lean times, or the way of old hunters when they stop moving as much, stop eating.

Superficial gashes across her cheek are gone but the clerics couldn’t change what was already there. Battle scars curl past bandages up Arcadia’s bare shoulders. They’re pale on the face of her dark skin. If not for this situation Lann would’ve assumed pretty aasimars were blessed by the gods and their scars healed, because nothing marks her face. She kept the rest covered.

He’ll pretend he never saw anything when she wakes up. When she wakes up.

Day three arrives. She's not waking.

~ ~ ~

“I need a holy sword,” Lann tells Irabeth after waiting patiently for an entire hour. The half-orc looks dead on her feet but that’s not stopping him from interrupting before another scout bursts in and tries to deliver a report. It’ll happen, mark his words.

“We all need holy swords Lann,” Irabeth sighs.

“Great. I’ll bring back as many as I can. There has to be something somewhere in this city. A temple, or, a museum, or, wherever it is uplanders put their old holy stabby stuff. Oh! I’ll even take a spoon. Does Desna have a holy spoon?”

“You would be able to find priceless artifacts at the Tower of Estrod, if it hadn’t already been robbed blind and occupied by demon generals. It’d be suicide to go that deep into Kenabres alone. I’d rather you stay here where you can keep the demons from clutching at our safe zone.”

Suicide, huh? Perfect. Lann dips his head, horn chasing shadows on the wall. “This crusade needs Arcadia. You felt it too, right? At the wardstone. I’ll convince people to help me, somehow. There has to be something left at this ‘Tower of Estrod,’ something glowy that got overlooked.”

“There’s a vault in the basement. But without keys and the access spell you’d need to be a magical thief to get in.”

“Where am I going to get a magical thief?”

A scout slams into the tavern office. They shove a cuffed tiefling forward. “Lady Tirablade! We caught the magical thief!”

Manacles clink as the tiefling raises them. “Hey, hey. Devlan, buddy. Could you stop shouting thief everywhere we go? You know I didn’t steal anything. You got the wrong guy!” 

“What I got is a thiefling off on his own, playing lookout for all his sorry friends that went running soon as he started screaming.”

“It was only a little scream—more like a yelp! You surprised me jumping out of a dark alley like that when all I was doing is thinking of which bakery might still be serving jam rolls while the demons are running wild. Whiiich, speaking of demons, if you let me go… why are you all looking at me like that?”

Irabeth thumbs through a sheaf of parchments and pulls one. “Woljif Jefto. I’ll give you three options. Enlist as a crusader, do jail time where you’ll be watched to discourage escape, or…” Irabeths’ gaze slides to Lann. “...community service.”

Woljif beams.“Community service, love it, always happy to lend a hand to those less fortunate.”

Lann doesn’t know how he thought he could pull this off with minimal effort. He’s in deep now. Blowing lost expectations out of his cheeks he digs fingers through the back of his hair.

“Woah, you look like you could be my pops. Not the one who walked out on me, the real one, the demon prince who rules the Abyss and is still looking for me, his long lost son. He’s just dying to give me his inheritance you know.”

“I’m a mongrel. Not a demon.”

“A mongrel, huh.” Woljif snaps his fingers. “Oh! Like the crazies on the street always say. So, do you kill and eat people? Snatch up kids in their sleep?”

“All the time. I’m thinking of doing it right now.”

Woljif has a cunning, but amiable face. It splits into a cheerful grin. “Do I detect sarcasm? Be sarcastic all you like boss, it won’t bother me none, you’ll see!”

“He’s all yours Lann,” Irabeth waves a hand for Devlan to dispense with the keys and the handcuffs.

Lann warns Woljif. “No… magical thief tricks until we get where we need to be. And don’t run, or you’ll find out how fast I am. After we survive this mission you can get back to your jam roll daydreams. I won’t stop you.”

“Survive, huh? I’m not liking the sound of that.”

“It’ll be easier once we find Seelah. Come on.”

~ ~ ~

Orange sky looms.

Hey dad, it’s your son Lann here, just… leading an expedition to rescue the angel that picked up Lariel’s sword, so, if you can hear this, a little help would be appreciated. You know because being in charge is so easy.

Woljif bolts soon as they’re out of sight of the Defender’s Heart. Lann gives Seelah a pained smile. “If you could excuse me for a second.”

A few beats later he tackles Woljif. The tiefling’s remarkable reflexes mean he surfs the dirt pathway without eating any of it. Facedown Woljif’s smushed cheek muffles his speech. “Ahah! Just testing you boss. You weren’t kidding when you said you were fast. A lot of these crusadery types are nothin’ but talk but I can see that’s not you at all, sooo, if you’d just let me up…”

Lann drags the kid up by the back of his collar and sets him on his feet. Woljif pats his leathers clean. “I don’t know exactly where we’re going but are you sure this is the right way?”

“Sure this is the right way to the giant crack in the ground?” Lann stares pointedly at the canyon shearing through the city, visible even at this distance. Woljif’s tail twitches and he lowers his voice.

“If we’re going to that side of the city it’s crawling with demons. While you and I could probably pass, our paladin back there, not so much.”

Seelah is the one who knows the way to the Tower of Estrod. They’re not leaving her. Meanwhile Lann’s being light on the details for Woljif, since he’s not keen on being robbed or cheated or abandoned so soon after the whole Wenduag thing.

“Hey, so, boss. Not to ruin your first day on the job and all, but.”

They both stop talking and turn to the back alley.

Many eyes stare at them out of the gloom. Six pairs. That’s twelve eyes.

A whole bowlful of eyes stare at them from the alley’s darkness. They're mismatched. Some slitted, some rounded, some shivered or creased or cracked with bizarre patterns. The eyes  hover above a mishmash of body parts. It's surprising Woljif doesn't run again. 

The mongrel teens Arcadia rescued cram cutely beneath the rectangular shadow of a wooden awning, the only reprieve from the sun. The alley itself the only reprieve from the uplanders that’ve probably been trying to kill them. Sark is with them but doesn’t look any less terrified than the rest.

“Guys! What are you doing here?”

“We want to fight.”

Oh. Right. It was him who put that idea into their heads. The kids, they’re not ready for what it’s like up here. If he lets them fight without training they might be dead by tomorrow, and it’ll be his fault. But if he tells them to go home he’s no better than Sull. Aaagh! He doesn’t want to be the one making these decisions! “Uh,” he says.

Defiance sparks in the teen’s eyes. Lann sighs. “Sure. Why not? Let’s go slay some demons together.”

A half lizard with an army of teenagers. This is going to be a real fiasco. He turns to Sark intending to beg the other hunter to lead, but Sark is spending all his muscle keeping his eyes straight ahead and not at the sky. Lann looks at Seelah.

She shrugs. “Don’t look at me. I’m a wanderer; I’ve got no natural talent for this sort of thing. Not unless you count getting friends into trouble.”

“Wander us into trouble then. We’ll, uh. We’ll follow you.”

Seelah heads toward what he hopes is the right way.

The mess they make on the way to the Tower of Estrod would be impressive if the city weren’t already in shambles. Lots of unclean kills, cultists with arrows in their knees, that sort of thing. It’s loud and bloody and draws enough attention their group gets stopped by a dwarf just outside the tower. Apparently it’s swarming with demons on the inside.

“Listen,” the dwarf Greybor says. “I have a job to do in there. Go in as noisy as you are now and it’s going to make my work difficult.”

Woljif flicks his tail into a question mark. “Oh, are you robbing the tower too?”

“No. I’ve been hired to take care of the lead demon.”

“Take care of,” Woljif says. “So like feed it, bathe it, change its clothes.”

Seelah grins. “A few hours and Lann is already rubbing off on you. Herald knows what it’ll be like when Arcadia wakes up.”

Lann tells Greybor, “We just need to get into the tower basement. Mongrels love dark enclosed spaces.” After experiencing an hour of terrifying sky the others nod agreeably. They’re not supposed to want—ah, whatever. “If it means less dying then we’ll wait?”

Seelah interjects. “If we wait those demons will go back into the streets and kill civilians.”

“The tribe comes first,” Lann says. “Focus on staying alive and getting our Lightbringer back, because if I have to do any more leadering I’ll scream.”

Nobody else is particularly enthusiastic about tackling the amassed demons inside the Tower.

“Only me then?” Seelah sighs. “Alright. We’ll wait.”

Sit and wait.

“I can’t believe I’m taking after Chief Sull. The world really has turned upside down.”

Eventually a group of demons file out of the tower. With enemy numbers lowered it’s clear to move. Inside, Greybor dispatches the leader with terrifying ease and the rest fall to Seelah and the mongrels.

The prize for clearing out the tower?

Books.

Of course it would be books.

Pawing through the stacks Lann tries to interrogate the senile museum curator, for all the good it does. “And you’re sure these are holy books?”

“Demon! Stay back!”

He holds up his scaled arm to protect himself from the sudden (but not surprising) attack as the curator whallops him repeatedly with a keyring packed with way too many keys. One second you’re having a normal conversation with a guy, and the next he forgets all his memories and thinks he’s fighting in the great war again.

Seelah steps in. “Teldon please. It’s Lann. Remember?”

“No! Who are you? Are you a robber?”

Lann sorts through the books while this is going on. Everyone is staring at him. The mongrels, Woljif, the spirits of Lanns’ dead ancestors, every god in Golarion, all watching as he peers into the depths of a random page of a random book trying to tell if it’s holy by the shape of the lines and squiggles inside. The words “the” and “a” dangle between words it’ll take him minutes to decipher. Words. Words words words.

Seelah asks, “Everything ok over there Lann?”

“A-hah! Yep. Just, doing some reading. Making sure these books are nice and glowy. Can’t feed our aasimar any non glowy material.”

Dammit. He shoves all of the books he can into his gear. This isn’t good enough. To hell with those thieves for taking all the real holy artifacts. There has to be something. The statues! The statues in the tower entrance. “I’ve got an idea.”

Back upstairs he drags his hands all over the stone surfaces, seeking. “Underground, our old exhibits would be holding things, or, there was this one with a hidden switch inside.”

Woljif says, “Give it a rest boss. Crawling all over those statues ain’t gonna do—”

Crack!

The tip of a stone feather rests firmly in Lann’s grip.

“Oh, Heralds,” Seelah laments. “I am so sorry. The city’s a mess. The demons are everywhere. Here we are, trying our best to do good. I promise we’ll fix your wing soon as it’s safe.”

“This happens sometimes in Neathholm, see, we’ll just make a paste and…” he grits the feather tip in place. Stone crumbles against itself. Seelah jumps over and snatches the broken piece with a nervous laugh.

“O-kay,” Seelah says. “Sorry Herald, we’re just gonna borrow this.” She jams around Lann’s pack until the stone feather crams under the flap with the books. “There. Perfectly fine!” she says. “Everything’s great.”

Woljif folds his arms behind his head. “Is this how you two are without your chief? I’m startin’ to see why you wanna help her.”

“We had a third, too,” Seelah says. “Camellia. But she won’t even listen to me; she just sits at the bar moping like the lowly crusaders are taking too long to clean this mess up for her.”

They got what they could out of the tower. If this doesn’t work how much time does he have left to try other places? On the way back Lann asks Sark to take the kids underground, and fight from there. They’re too riled by the sky and the buildings aren’t safe to hide in.

After that he runs.

“Lann! Slow down,” Seelah puffs.

He sets his jaw. He tries to slow down. Just until they get to the perimeter. He has to stay with the group until the perimeter.

It’s the most excruciating trek he’s ever made. Once, in the caves, he went all the way home on a splintered leg. He’s thinking of driving an arrowhead into his knee to recreate the pain just so he’ll have something to focus on not focusing on. Frustration balloons in his lungs, a yell he can’t let out.

They cross the market square gap. Every step could be ten times faster. Come on, come on.

He sees the two-story building the crusaders use as a watch tower and bolts. Seelah roars, “It’s us! It’s us!” across the distance to spare him being shot at. Lann zooms past buildings, through the palisade gates, into the tavern, and up the stairs.

He tears the books out of his stash so fast the light doesn’t have time to respond. He wedges them all in a row at Arcadia’s side and sets the broken stone feather on top. Fingers and claws sink into the edge of the mattress as he hovers, staring, like some idiotic zealot, really—

Light particles appear with their characteristic twinkling rushing noise that gets louder and louder. She shines. Sunlight beams through the wound like she’s made of it, bright rays burning away the blood.

Arcadia’s breathing changes. Lashes flicker. The transparent outline of a ring fades in above the pillow and grows brighter into the halo he knows. Something he lost floats back into place, that small slice of inner peace.

She turns just enough against the pillow to focus on him. Her weak smile breaks his heart and pastes it back together again as roughness grates her voice. “Lann. You’re okay. Did we win? It doesn’t feel like it…”

Emotions swell. He swallows them. “You were asleep for three days. Don’t… don’t do that again.”

“Heh. I’ll try, but at this rate I’ll get used to waking up to you.” She stiffly sits up, gathering the robe so it covers her scarred shoulders. Now it hits him that he’s half a lizard too close for comfort, leaning in on a life or death prayer. Shame sticks him between hiding the ugly monster or hiding the human that cares too much. Can he just disappear?

Arcadia’s hand bumps the line of books. She looks down. “That bad, huh…”

Seelah saves him from his personal hell by clanking through the doorway in full plate, breathless and noisy. She grips the door frame. “It worked… it actually worked. Praise… Iomedae…”

Woljif peeks under her arm then over her shoulder. “Oh man. They didn’t tell me you were an aasimar. I just thought you were boss’s—”

Lann’s death glare stabs Woljif.

“—chief! Yeah, his chief. Hi chief. You won’t cut my tail off, right? Or throw me back in with Irabeth? Or… hey, since I helped, and with you bein’ all righteous and all, maybe you could… do me a small favor?”

Mhmm. That explains why the kid didn’t run away the second Lann took his eyes off him. Woljif isn’t just trouble, he’s in trouble.

Seelah lets go of the doorway to come into the room. “This is Woljif. He’s doing a little community service for the crusade to set his record straight.”

“And, long as I’m safe here under your wing…” Woljif peers curiously past Arcadia trying to discern if she has any “...I can get you anything you want. No questions asked. Or maybe some questions, I mean, you can’t expect me to be completely quiet if you’re trying to buy some of Count Arendae’s bathwater.”

Arcadia blows amusement through her nose. “I’m starving and thirsty but not that thirsty. Can food be on the list of ‘anything I want?’”

Woljif eagerly turns on his heel and struts around the corner to the kitchen, tail curved in an upward arc.

Chapter Text

“What a mess,” Arcadia remarks.

The magic shop has been ransacked top to bottom. Bookshelves are toppled across the floor and shattered glass shards out from beneath them. Broken items dropped in the rush lie abandoned. Cabinet drawers hang from their slots, yanked open to remove the contents and left ajar. Things crunch under Lann’s boots.

One of the drawers on the back wall rattles. Seelah draws her sword. “There’s something in there.”

“It’s probably a rat,” Lann replies.

A couple of the drawers shake.

“...How big do surface rats get again?”

Arcadia strides to the bank of drawers, clasps the handle of the noisiest one, and slides it open. She stares inside.

“It’s a fox.”

“What’s a fox doing in the city?” Seelah asks.

They all very pointedly don’t look at the kitsune they found wandering the streets of Kenabres an hour ago.

“Forget I asked,” Seelah says. “Sure, a fox in a box. It’s better than a demon.”

Arcadia hovers her armor-clad hands over the drawer. “I think it’s stuck. Or… fat? I’ll just—it’s okay, come on.” She wedges her hands into the compartment and gets ahold of whatever chirring, cackling critter is inside. It literally sounds like it’s laughing.

“Wufff wuff wuff whiir whiir, chrrr!”

Demons be damned, it is a fox. The inside of its laughing mouth is a ridiculous blue color. Arcadia has her hands around the body. But, uh, the more she lifts the more fox there is. The animal continues coming out of the drawer in one long fuzzy stroke. Its tail end slips over the edge and the whole fluffy snake hangs in the air. Arcadia has the silliest surprised expression. “Where are your legs?”

“Pipefox,” Nenio notes. “Native to Tian Xia and known for their intellect, multilingual proficiency, and shyness.”

The pipefox’s dangling body wiggles like a dog’s tail while it tries to lick Arcadia’s face.

“This one appears to harbor none of those characteristics. Perhaps it ate something.” Nenio stabs her snout into the drawer. “Such as ordinary tea leaves. I stand corrected. The pipefox is simply lacking in intelligence.”

“It’s stupid?” Woljif summarizes.

“It’s perfect,” Arcadia says, coiling the furry critter into the open flap of her pack in the midst of an adventuring party made up of a bigger fox, two orphans, and whatever Lann is. If you do the math, between him and the pipefox you might have one fully functional snake.

The pipefox’s head sticks cutely from the bag while it looks around and barks, “Pip!”

Might.

“Seelah,” Lann says, “Do you ever get the feeling that maybe you don’t fit in?”

“I fit in just fine.”

Chapter Text

Lann doesn’t belong anywhere in the military camp. The others settle in easily with their groups. Seelah has her band of friends, Camellia has shadows to skulk around, Woljif weasels his way into the merchants, etcetera etcetera, and the Commander is… well… the Commander.

The world moves around Lann as if he’s not even there—except for the stares and glances and evil eyes. But he’s been on the surface before so he’s used to that. He knows how to care for himself too, so there’s no harm when Ember finally drifts off to a campfire after he tells her he’ll be fine on his own.

“Okay!” she says. “But if you get lonely you have friends.”

“I have friends,” he says. “The kind who stab you in the back and sell your kin to demons.”

“Those don’t sound like real friends.”

“Tell me about it.”

Thinking of Wenduag leaves a sour taste in his mouth. He wanders into the darkness beyond the tents. The truth is he misses the friends he did have in the tribe. The cave-ins killed some, the demons the rest, and the few who lived stayed back. It’s off-putting that Ember senses the emotions Lann medicates with self-defeating humor. No use crying over spilled mushroom soup. Lick it off the rocks and be grateful.

If there’s anything that does bother him it’s how useless he is right now. He needs to matter. He’s a fire that must be set to the enemy before it burns out. Traveling the open corruption of the Woundworld with a body like his means he’s only got so much time.

Lann banishes his issues by going through kata, one set of practiced movements at a time, until his mind tunes to a hunter’s blank keenness. In the dark his lizard eye sees better than uplanders might imagine. So he notices Woljif materialize out of the shadows between the tents and head in his direction on the outskirts.

“Not interrupting anything, am I?” Woljif says through a mouthful of flaky jam-filled pastry that most definitely is not on the list of army provisions.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Funny story. My aunt has a cousin whose friend works in the camp kitchens. They had a little too much jam, and it was attracting all those woundwasps—you know, the ones with the stingers that stick so far in you need magic to pull them out—so they made these rolls to use up the extra jam and were just handin’ em out.”

“Uh-huh.” Quite the story. “So this baker, their tent is located…?”

“Oop, too late, they already packed up and moved on.” In the middle of the night, sure. “Arcadia said to come find you. Make sure you had a place to sleep and all that.”

Lann’s brows go up. He thought he was on his own. She was thinking of little ol’ him in this encampment of one thousand souls, more people than the entirety of mongrel civilization? (If you can even call it that.) Arcadia seemed interested in his ramblings, but it’s still strange to imagine that someone might actually care about him when he’s not the main source of freshly hunted monster meat. Unless the Commander has a predilection for rat tail soup. Maybe angels have a thing for it. Could be why that Lariel guy was down in the caves all those years ago.

Lann decides to not write off that possibility. If Arcadia wants rat tail soup he can certainly provide that. It creates a logical reason for her interest in him, because, as far as the other possibility…

He’s a mongrel . She’s an aasimar . Seriously, Lann? Really?

He smirks to himself. Shake that dead end hope before it can begin. He tells Woljif, “Really, I’m fine. It’s sweet that you guys worry about me but I’m sure the crusade isn’t going to end just because they’ve got a scaly half-lizard stretched out on a pile of furs nearby. Just make sure none of them shoot me on accident.”

“Naaahh, that’s no good. Listen, if it’s the horn, I gotcha covered. There’s a handful of tieflings in the crusaders and sure, everyone gives us the weird side-eye, but the discrimination’s not so bad when the troops think you’re going to kick the bucket for their cause before you have time to sell them out to the first demon who bats a wing. And don’t worry. They’re not part of the Family. Not all of them anyway.”

“And here I was looking forward to the family potluck. I was thinking it might involve just as many entrails as ours do.”

“Only if you get caught. Come on, right this way.”

Lann realizes if he doesn’t take whatever sleeping arrangement has been set up for him, it’s possible Arcadia herself will come out here. A tickly feeling in his chest makes him want to decline Woljif and find out. He knows better to give in to that impulse. He doesn’t want to inconvenience the crusade commander when she’s busy enough as it is.

From then on Lann has a place in a tent along the perimeter, where one of his bunkmates is a tiefling who at least understands what it’s like to be a monster mixed in with the rest.

~ ~ ~

Lann lounges on the trampled earth beside a merchant pavilion along the main promenade. It’s close to the sweeping flaps of command central. From here he can see who comes and goes from Arcadia’s tent. She’s in there now, holding war council with a bunch of people significantly higher ranking than him.

He should be on the outskirts. That’s the only place for a misfit mongrel like him.

But more and more he takes to hanging around center camp. He just… has to know she’s okay. Be close at hand in case she needs a sacrificial goat for some insane tactic. So he finds a spot where he won’t get trampled and fletches arrows, sharpens points, cuts bandages, keeps an eye on the sky for trouble, and hey, sometimes even exists without doing much besides feeling the sun on his scales. Congratulations Lann, you survived another day.

His preference for being in view of the main tent is not unnoticed. He knows what the soldiers call him when he’s not around.

The Commander’s pet.

“You and me both,” he tells the pipefox when it slides out of Arcadia’s tent and decides to join him.

“Pip,” the fox responds. It’s a similar noise to the one it makes when it stretches its furry snake body up off the ground, ears perked at sounds of movement in the wastelands when they’re traveling.

“You know I’m pretty sure I ate something like you once.”

“Pip,” Pip says. It knows it’s being talked to but has no clue what he’s saying. Lann guesses that might be one of the benefits of pets. They make great listeners.

He reaches into a pouch and pulls out scraps of a meal he hasn’t finished off yet. “What’ll it be? I’ve got moss, some of these mushrooms that are probably not cursed, and this gem here, this is called hard tack. It really gives powdered rock biscuits a run for their money.”

Pip sniffs the hard tack and gives it an inquisitive lick. Lann saws a piece off with his hunting knife. “You have to soak it first. If you explode from eating raw hard tack Arcadia’ll have my hide. Here.” He pours some of his flask into his scaled palm and sets the piece inside. Lets it sit. Lowers his hand when it’s ready and marvels at the way the creature gnaws up the damp bread. Fuzzy snout and whiskers brush his scales but he can’t feel them. He only feels pressure when teeth scrape his palm in the work it takes to collect the bread without any hands.

Pip chews, sloppy and open-mouthed, with lots of tiny fox teeth and a funny way of turning its head to roll food from one side to the other. Feels like home. The animal is wholly uninterested in the taste of the hard tack. It’s just happy to have been given a snack. Something they have in common, Lann supposes.

So the mongrel and the pipefox sit outside together, the commander’s two pets, watching the ongoings of the other crusaders.

“It’s not a very fair competition,” Lann says. “You are significantly more fuzzy and cute.”

“Chrrrr?” Pip offers, looking for more food. Lann isn’t about to give up any more than that right now.

“Bring me an apple and then we’ll talk.”

Chapter Text

Lann palms a big, red, juicy fruit and sinks his teeth into it.

“Lann that’s a tomato,” Arcadia says.

“Oh I know.” The juice and seeds run down his chin. Camellia glares at him, so naturally he offers up the mangled tomato in her direction, one very obvious half-fanged pulpy chunk missing. “It’s delicious. Want some?”

Camellia looks like her skin is about to peel off. “Disgusting.” She averts her eyes, lip curled. And that’s one point for Lann.

Now that Camellia isn’t paying attention he wipes his face and takes a less gruesome bite. Dry amusement marks Arcadia’s voice. “I never thought about eating them raw like that.”

“They’re even easier to eat than apples. Just, ah, don’t keep them in your pack. Unless you want to wake up with everything in it slightly more red and significantly more wet than it was before you decided to use it as a pillow.”

This time when they pitch camp he doesn’t make that mistake.

A couple days ago he offered to keep Arcadia safe. She agreed to it. He’s still glowing on the inside from that interaction.

Lann has his arms folded behind his head and is lying on his bedroll watching the sky, listening to the others set up their things. He travels light so he’s always the first one down. Everyone else goes to their customary spots based on that. Easy enough.

Except this time Arcadia brings her things over to his end of the fire. “Is that offer for protection still good? Because Seelah snores and I think it’s safer on this side.”

This is a pleasant surprise. “I’ve been protecting you already. Look at the company I keep.” On his right Daeran very carefully removes every bramble, twig, and small insect from the ground. On his left Ember feeds Soot scraps. Arcadia looks at the kid, looks at Lann, and raises a brow.

“I’m serious,” he says. “Soot wakes me up every morning thinking she can pick through my pack without me noticing.”

“I think that has less to do with convenience and more to do with those dried apple slices you keep in there.” Arcadia considers the space on his other side.

“Daeran bites.”

She scoffs, grinning. “He does not.”

“Only if the participants are willing,” Daeran says.

“ I’m not,” Arcadia insists, unrolling her bedroll between the two of them. A crooked smile breaks across Lann’s face.

“I might be,” he says.

“Lann!”

Daeran’s voice is dry. “Interesting. And here I was under the impression any act of intimacy between your kind is a thing of beauty and grace, considering the illustrious stories you’ve regaled me with.”

“Ha! Ha ha ha.” Harshness edges Lann’s burst of laughter. He’s not shy about sharing his tribe’s grotesque physical appearances, and it’s easy to extend what that might mean to the bedroom, but also Daeran has no real experience.

Arcadia casts a glance at Seelah’s side of camp. “I’m questioning my choices. Seelah’s snoring may be safer.”

“No, stay,” Daeran says. “I’m going to find this much more enjoyable with an audience.”

“Tch.” Lann bounces the leg that’s crossed over his knee. In the end he doesn’t mind whether Arcadia sets up on his scale side or his skin side, he’s just happy to have her close.

~ ~ ~

“So if you don’t speak common underground, what do you speak?”

“Oh you know, GRRR, RRRRGH, SSSSS. Ordinary sounds of a typical cave dweller.”

Arcadia chuckles. “No really, Lann.”

“Kind of a bastardized style of undercommon. Or basically that, but now imagine speaking it with half your face missing. That’s if you’re lucky. If you’re not…” he thumps his scaled hand to his chest. I , he signals. Hesitates on what to say. Surprises himself by flowing his fist in a small circle and flicking up the endmost finger.

I trust you.

It’s more than that though. Underground there’s a phrase for hoping someone will come home after a hunt, even knowing they could die at any time. So it’s more like trusting someone’s strength and wishing them safety because you care about them. The gesture is one swish away from turning into, I love you. Safe hunting.

Lann looks askance and rubs the back of his neck.

“A language of hand movements?” Arcadia asks.

“Yeah. Everyone’s fluent in it. It’s not a complicated language though, mostly phrases and feelings.”

“Like being hungry.”

He grips his chest and twists.

“Or being angry.”

He knocks the bottoms of his fists together. It’s a swear, too. Swearing at the Commander without her knowing makes him grin.

“Love?” she asks.

He falters. He can’t show something so close to the signal he already made. “The romantic kind? There’s a friendlier one that’s like this.” He swooshes the movement that thanks a friend for their help.

“So there’s no ‘I love you?’”

He hides his human side. “There is. It’s embarrassing.”

She laughs. “You’re not teaching me the wrong signs, right? I don’t want to accidentally propose or curse somebody’s mother.”

“Ha! No. You can use angry as a swear though.”

Arcadia knocks her fists together. It’s strangely satisfying to watch. “Useful,” she says. “Only the mongrels are going to know how hard I’m cursing.”

Chapter Text

Lann was 100% sure he was a monster.

Key word: was.

He has to gamble away a couple extra rations to win the mirror shard that gets passed around the bunks sometimes. The prized item isn’t going to end up in his mismatched hands any other way. Does he really want to look? No. He sticks it in his pack and lets it ferment.

It cooks there for days.

Seelah keeps being nice to him. Ember continues to check on him. Daeran stays an ass, and Woljif watches after Lann in his own misguided way. He’s not certain what they are seeing, but he’s damn well near sure it isn’t the image he has burned into his own head.

Lann leaves the military camp perimeter and finds a place to be relatively alone before settling down on a withered stump. Reaching into his bag reveals the beaten leather scrap wrapped around the mirror shard. He pulls it out and unfolds it. Polished metal gleams under the Wound’s orange haze. It captures a sun too bright to be hidden but not so bright it blinds. The sun hangs there like a weird flat dot. No glow circles it.

Just gotta tilt the mirror this way.

He stalls, rubbing a thumb across the warped edge where the mirror probably broke in half. He extends his other hand like a claw. Bigger crescents plate the tops of fingers up his arm. Flipping to the palm, the underside is covered in tiny hexagons. Chicken’s foot , he thinks. One man with a big green chicken’s foot for a hand.

But the underside is softer and squishier than one might think. Balancing the mirror on his knees he pokes the pads of his fingers. It’s not that bad. Smooth. In the dark a drunk person might not even notice the difference!

Arcadia doesn’t drink much. She sees at night almost as well as he does. Thanks, intrusive thoughts. Not helping.

Hell. He angles the mirror at his face.

“Ugh.” On reflex he winces, making it even worse. Half sharper teeth and a fang threaten intensity that looks like hatred. There’s no two ways about it: the demonic side of his face is scary. And the human side? Looks like his hopes and dreams just got crushed.

Cramming his eyes shut he rubs two fingers to the center of his forehead. It’s been a long time since he’s seen more than a distorted reflection in cave water or scrap metal. After a while he stopped looking altogether.

What did he expect? A couple of uplanders don’t throw rocks at him and he thinks maybe he matured into his taxidermied body? Smiling bitterly he returns to his reflection. Only half his face shows the emotion. The other won’t cooperate unless it’s angry. He frowns. Scowls. Bares his teeth. Picks at the fang.

What he is on the inside doesn’t match. He doesn’t feel like he looks.

The slitted pupil glares dangerously. His scaled cheekbone flares into a sharp ridge, the sort of bony protrusion you’d see around a monster’s eye. He can draw a finger across its edge. It seems stupid that it doesn’t go anywhere, no lead to frills or spikes or even an ear. He can hear on the lizard side but the structure is internal. It makes him look like a burn victim or a zombie, all the hair and features melted off and tarped over in scale.

He cards hair toward the balding side. Not much improvement.

The longer he looks the less there is to like. It’s confusingly paradoxical that the more his friends look, the less bothered they seem. So much so that he forgets this—he jams a finger to the scales—is what they’re talking to.

He exhales through his nose and watches the haze-covered sun.

Yesterday, Daeran gussied up his white gelding, including a spell that gave it a unicorn’s horn, and paraded around camp until he got the Commander’s attention. Daeran then gave Arcadia a long-winded farewell, which she listened to with a widening grin, and only after he was done talking did she calmly take the reins of his horse, turn him right around, and lead the animal, Daeran and all, straight back to the command tent. Queen Galfrey went in with them.

Daeran came out looking dead inside, a new level of expression that gave Lann a good laugh. Though he felt bad for the servants who had to unpack all of the count’s things.

The mirror shard is warm in his hands.

Arcadia has a way with people. Not even a vainglorious bastard like Daeran can escape it. Lann’s watched her quip the man’s venom like it’s nothing and then turn around and let Nenio literally poke her in the face.

“Heh.”

In the reflection his human side softens. This part, if you square off the horn and deformed ear, it isn’t so bad. Smooth reflective metal slides under his scaled fingertips. He can still feel, where it counts. Even under the thickest scales he can feel with enough pressure.

Still, he thinks with a wry smile, you’d have to be a nutcase to even consider…

He thumbs his lower lip. Texture flops from one side to the other.

Yeah, you’d have to be out of your mind.

He wraps the mirror and gambles it away soon as the sun sets.

Chapter Text

Believe it or not, there’s a world outside the Worldwound. Dust turns to scrubby grass, which then becomes longer and greener than possible. Trees have leaves. Lann spots a few dogs and it takes a second to realize they are wolves. They’re small compared to the infected, plagued, undead things that haunt the Wound.

The forest of Chilly Creek teems with life. Birdsong trills from depths of the woods. River water runs so clear he can see stones underneath and minnows flit in shallow pools where the tide is calm.

“Did I die?” he muses.

“Nope, this is really what it’s like,” Seelah says.

Most of the world lives in a fairy tale and they don’t even realize it. He’s almost afraid to taste the water cupped in his hands. When he does, it’s so pure it has no flavor, only clean coolness. How is that possible? Water always has a flavor, like blood, or filth brewed off the surface, or bitter alcohol. The Abyss poisons it all with sulfur and rot that never quite boils out.

They’re only going to be camped in Chilly Creek for one day. It’s one day of fresh water and food that will probably extend his lifespan by a year.

The flourishing forest is almost overwhelming. He can’t see the sky well. Leaves don’t protect the way a cavern ceiling does. Demons could come from above. Heck, they could come through the trees and his only hint will be noise crashing through plantlife.

Arcadia went off alone a while ago. Solitude is impossible to come by at the military camp so he understands. Lann has no reason to worry. Ice still slowly claws its way into his chest as her absence gets longer. And longer. It’s not unusual for a mongrel to go deeper into the caves and just… disappear.

He heads up the river in the direction she went. Not far from their squad’s camp the trees thin. Long flat slabs compose the river bank and he has to do some light climbing to get up the slope the river cuts through. All the plants give way to a meadow. He finds Arcadia at the top, sprawled out like a star in the grasses, soaking up sun with her eyes closed.

She’s pretty. He’s thought that since the moment she didn’t scream and try to stab him after nearly falling on his head in Neathholm. The good first impression stuck. He hasn’t been able to unstick it, and now, seeing her peaceful in the fairytale grass, it’s stickier than ever, the stories of aasimar majesty and beauty making sense now that he’s spent time with one.

He sits next to her so he doesn’t stare. The sound of the river is nice and birdsong makes a pleasant backdrop.

Then Arcadia ruins it.

“There’s a spy in our camp.”

She’s thinking aloud.

“Lann, is it you?”

“Ha! Yes, this is all part of my intricate plot to disarm you. Is it working?”

She doesn’t respond, and as the continued silence sets in it hurts his pride. She’s serious. She really thinks he might be…? Like he didn’t witness enough times when his dad got in trouble for being a “demon spy,” now it’s his problem too. Smarting on the inside he moves to stand up. “Well don’t mind me, just going to report back to my demon masters.”

She groans and drops the back of her hand to her forehead. “I didn’t mean it like that. Don’t go.”

“Really? I’m curious. Explain it to me: what are you seeing that makes you think I’m an agent for the demons? Besides the obvious.” He flaps a hand at his scales. “What is Lann the Traitor thinking?”

Lying in the grass, hand to her forehead, eyes closed to the sun, Arcadia collects her thoughts. “He’s angry about what happened to him and his family. He wishes he were different. Someone promises him they’ll take care of all the mongrels, give them a better life, or cure the influence of the Abyss, and all he has to do is win the crusade’s trust.

"At first they won’t ask anything of him. Then it will start small. Little tasks, here and there. All the while they’ll tell him the real evil is the uplanders who take and take and don’t care for their own, who spit on the mongrels and treat them like demons. Maybe if he’s angry enough they skip all that and go straight to big stuff. Plant these traps. Give the Knight Commander this advice. Lead the crusaders into an ambush.” She bites her lip. Lann can tell there’s more.

“Say it.”

“Maybe he and Wenduag had this planned all along. Good mongrel, bad mongrel.”

Ouch. Ow. It doesn’t help he couldn’t bring himself to actually shoot Wendu, other than brokenhearted warning arrows. He’d believed they were friends. He’d trusted her, thought he knew her. He’s not certain he ever did.

The idea Arcadia might be feeling the same about him is distressing. He’s got nothing to say to her false accusations. It’s easier to prove someone is a spy than to prove they’re not. He can’t even bring himself to joke about it right now. He’s just sad, looking over the field and the stones leading to the river. Flowing water mixes with the breeze.

Chief Sull always told him he was too trusting.

For once, Lann wants someone to have as much faith in him as he does them. But Arcadia doesn’t. She thinks he could be Wenduag.

“That hurts,” he says, and his shattered voice makes it pretty clear how much. “I trust you. But, I guess, you’re an angel… it’d be dumb for me not to. And you’ve given us all some of your holy powers besides.”

Slapping her hand back into the grass Arcadia dissolves into frustration. “What am I supposed to do when I know there are double agents? Not trust anybody? That’s stupid. But if I’m too trusting, people will die. I don’t know what to do. I just… I…”

He waits.

“I shouldn’t be telling you any of this,” she finishes. “I expect the others to mess up and give in to their vices. I do it too. But if the spy turns out to be you, Lann, that hurts the most.”

Disbelief punches him hard enough he’s not sure it happened.

She sighs. “I’m sorry I said anything, it’s a war, of course there are going to be spies, I’m just scared of who they’ll turn out to be. I thought… I don’t know. I guess I wish there was one person who’s not going to run off, or defect, or get bored, or turn out to be a demon.” She scrubs hands over her face. “I just… I wanted someone to trust, to talk to, someone…”

“I’ll do it,” Lann says.

Arcadia stops.

“I won’t run. I’ll listen. I’ll take any of your orders, even the suicidal ones.” He pinches a grass blade between his fingers. The roots are strong and the long leaf resists being picked. “All I want is for you to trust me. Because… I feel like, if I’m with you, then I won’t die in vain. It’ll be worth it, whatever it is. Even if it’s just to protect you. Because you’re important. To the crusade.”

He’s silly. What is he even saying? “Sorry. That’s probably what a spy would say.”

She turns her head against the meadow to look at him. Green stems obscure the half moon of one golden eye and her irises glows brighter than usual. It’s not the piercing gaze of an inquisitor she considers him with. It’s more fragile, more wishful than that.

She rolls back to the sun and covers her eyes. “Spies say the same things as everyone else, so don’t worry about appearances.”

“Ha! A mongrel not worry about appearances? I’ll bet it costs thousands of gold in therapy to cure that line of thinking.”

A smile tugs the corners of her mouth. “How many therapists should I be thinking of recruiting? There’s a whole army that could use them.”

“At least two. One for us, and a second for the first therapist after they listen to us.”

Arcadia’s smile becomes real. She lifts her hand briefly to glance at him again. Then she drops it. Relaxes. “I’ll either regret this tremendously, or it’ll be one of the best decisions I ever made.”

“Recruiting a therapist?”

“Trusting you, silly. Confiding in you.”

He blinks. Stammers. “Y – you’re really going to?”

“You come up with these assertive, confident promises and then always seems so surprised when I say yes.”

“It’s easy to wish on a star but nobody expects the star to talk back, let alone grant the wish.”

She snorts. “Do mongrels wish on stars?”

“Sometimes. What, did you think we wished on bones?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you’re right. We do.”

“Darn it Lann, you made me think I said something offensive.”

“You’d have to try pretty hard to offend me. Saying I’m working for the demons is close.”

“I’m sorry! Can you forgive me?”

“Nah, I’m thinking I’ll keep poking fun at it for a couple more weeks, get it out of my system.”

She groans overly loud for show. “Fair punishment. I’ll live with it.”

Chapter Text

“Lann, I don’t want to alarm you, but I think Camellia is a vampire.”

“That would explain a lot. The pale skin, the good looks, the insatiable appetite for blood, the snotty attitude.”

“I’m serious.”

He looks up at the cursed orange sky. There is definitely something weird about Camellia, but honestly, it’s not that far a step from an ordinary mongrel (oh she’d love to hear that comparison), and on top of that, whatever’s wrong with her could be just about anything. He means—besides assuming the world owes her something because she was born into it but doesn’t get to claim it because her father is an impostor, yatta yatta. Lann scratches face scales with claws. “Let’s say she is a vampire. What are you going to do about it?”

“I dunno. Nothing?”

There’s a pause while they both think.

“Has she been eating people?” Arcadia wonders. “Every time I catch her by surprise there’s a body around.”

“Oh yeah, there was that one dead guy at her feet during the gargoyle attack.”

“When she first met Anevia and Seelah, she had a body with her then, too.” Arcadia ticks off evidence. “She likes hanging around the infirmary. Her dad had all that weird torture equipment.”

“I thought a dedicated torture room was standard for all nobles,” Lann grins. Arcadia smiles back, bumps him with her shoulder and tells him to knock it off. He says, “she does wear a weird amulet, and I can never really tell what her intentions are.”

“Hmmm.”

“Hmm.”

“Do you think she’s the spy?” Arcadia asks.

“Nah. She’s too weird for that. A spy would have to be someone normal, right? Someone who doesn’t stick out a whole lot. Who you trust, who is very close to you, who has green scales and horns and fangs…”

Arcadia interrupts him with a chhh through her teeth. “You’re going to make me worry again.”

“Deception tactics are not my strong suit. Underground we usually just kill each other with rocks tied to sticks. If a mongrel has a problem with you, you’ll know.”

“Or will I? If he’s dead set on sugarcoating everything with sarcasm?”

“You’ll know.” He nods, serious. After she has time to absorb his honesty, he breaks the tone with a lopsided grin. “...when I come for you in your sleep!” His hands curl like claws.

Arcadia rolls her eyes. “You’re not going to do that.”

“Look at you so certain.” But she’s right. If he had the guts to break into her bedroom he would’ve already done it.

She says, “If you wanted to kill me in my sleep you would have already done it.”

Killing wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but sure, he’ll go with that. “I’ll let you know if Camellia shows any signs of being a murderous undead nightmare, but, she kind of already is, so…”

Chapter Text

They’re camped in the wake of the main army’s advance on Drezen. It’s easy to see that a military force traveled this way. Only stumps remain of the Wound’s scrawny gnarled trees and cracked dirt is churned to dust under a thousand bootprints. Rock outcrops litter the dead earth, the army’s trail cutting the simplest route around them.

Sitting across the fire Seelah circles a finger over her own chest. “Ah, Arcadia. Your… you know.”

Arcadia looks down. To Lann’s alarm he sees it too. A wet, dark stain is spreading over the heart of her shirt.

“Shit,” Arcadia sighs. Pip slides off her lap as she stands up. “I’ll deal with it.”

Arcadia wrests a few things from her pack and goes around one of the rock formations. Every time they break camp Lann scouts the area so he knows the spot. Two of the bigger rock tumbles are close enough to make a kind of a crevice that quickly tapers into a dead end. If they have to hide from insane Wound weather it’ll be there.

Maybe he’s nosy or he cares too much or he has a hard time sitting still when she goes off to lick her wounds in private; either way, Lann twiddles his thumbs for as long as he possibly can while knowing Arcadia could be bleeding out in the dust. She sure is taking her time. Whatever that wound is, it can’t be good, and judging from how long she’s been gone it’s being difficult.

Lann casually pushes up from his spot and heads away from camp. He circles the rocks to find Arcadia lounging against one of the bigger boulders, one hand pressed to the injury. She’s stuffed a thick pad of cloth under her shirt to soak up the blood. Resignation draws her expression.

“The demons did something to me, Lann.”

“It’s not getting any better, huh?”

“No. It might be worse. Hard to tell.”

“You haven’t found anyone who knows what it is?”

“Not even divine healing will work on it. I’m… pretty sure I’d be dead if it weren’t for Terendelev.”

Lann moves to the opposite rock wall and slides down to sit mirroring her. In the distance the others talk, cook, clean their weapons. Campfire crackles. “How long have you had it? How’d you even get it?”

“The short answer is: I don’t know. It was fresh when I met you.”

“And the long answer?”

She’s silent for a while.

“I had… a group of people with me. Kind of like now. A small team on detachment from Lastwall to help with the war, each of us with something different to do for the crusade.” She frowns. Fingers resting on her leg curl closed. “We were about two days from reaching Kenabres when we came across a man and his son stuck on the side of the road. Their cart was ruined, the horse’s head was missing and the body ravaged by monsters. I knew something wasn’t right but I couldn’t put my finger on it fast enough.

“The man looked at us and that’s the last thing I remember. Crusaders dragged me on a stretcher into the festival square. They said I was by the walls of the city. I didn’t know it was possible to be in so much pain without losing consciousness.” Her single laugh is empty.

“That festival, Lann, it wasn’t supposed to happen for another month. The demons had their claws in me for a whole month and I don’t remember any of it. Everyone who was with me—gone. Anevia looked into it. They never made it to the city.”

Arcadia exhales and tips her head back against the rock, eyes closed.

Lann rolls a pebble in the dust. It draws a track through fine powder. “The demons let you go. Why? You’re the worst thing that’s happened to them since the crusades.”

“I think they tried to corrupt me.”

“It didn’t work.”

“I get these nightmares. I feel this… this rage. I see…” her voice drops to almost nothing. “I’ve seen Baphomet.”

He tries to smile. “You’re kidding.”

She isn’t.

Arcadia keeps pressure on the compress under her shirt. There’s several bloodstained cloths beside her. If the demon wound is still oozing it’s coming slower now. Lann rubs his neck. “I wish there was something I could do. You gave me a chance bringing me to the surface, and all I ever do is get under your feet like one of those rock newts, where you have to kinda trip over yourself to avoid squishing the thing.”

Arcadia blows an amused huff through her nose and shifts against the stone. “Lann. You know, of my literal army of admirers as you call them, do you know how many personally came into my tent to say they cared?”

“...Nine?”

“One. You.”

“Shoot. I really thought it’d be more than that.” He did. “It’d be crummy to offer after somebody else beat me to it, or worse, be the last person in line to say something, so… I hurried and hoped I was first.” Embarrassed, he looks into the twilight outside the crevice, fiddling with ridges in his horn. “You’re serious no one else wanted to keep you safe?”

“Wanted to, maybe. Offered? No,” she says.

“Then they’re probably just scared.”

“Seelah doesn’t frighten easily.”

“Come on, I’ve seen you two shield blows for each other. You know she has your back. Or side.”

Arcadia gives him a sly look. “She does. And yet where is she right now, I wonder?”

Seelah could butt into these dialogues whenever she wanted. In fact the whole party could. And they don’t. Slowly Lann draws a spiral in the sand, tighter and tighter to the center. “It, uh. I’m not… messing up some uplander privacy thing by being here? I can go back to the fire if you want.”

“Stay, please.” The note of vulnerability vanishes as Arc waves to the clotted bandages. “As long as you don’t mind seeing all this. It’s not great for morale if the army thinks I’m mortally wounded so I try to keep it to myself. They’re already skittish over my inexperience, my age, the fact I’m a foreigner, the way I wander out for special missions, you name it.”

“None of that matters. You’re a good leader.”

“Heh. You sound like the people back home. We elect our leaders.” Sparks coming off Arcadia’s halo calm. She looks distantly into the evening, shadows around the rock enclave morphing in sync with her light.

“What’s it like? Lastwall, I mean.”

A wry smile cracks her facade. “Compared to this mess it’s downright peaceful. The Whispering Tyrant sits quietly in his prison while his former orc and undead allies attack the borders nearly every week. But if you’re not on active duty at the frontline… it’s beautiful. Mountains, forests, Lake Encarthan. The Wound is so flat and empty I sometimes feel like I’m going crazy. And the people living here, I think they have. It’s like they’ve fallen into despair. The whole system is chock full of corruption; I’m amazed the previous Knight Commander died from a demon strike and not a knife in the back.”

Hard gold glints Arcadia’s eyes. Lann does not think backstabbers are going to succeed. After being held demon-captive for a month she’s regaining her strength. Bulk is returning to her frontline frame, control tightening over gathered Light, discernment hooded under a friendly exterior.

He picked the right leader. The crusaders complain, but they’ll see. They’ll see when Arcadia performs some crazy miracle on top of a tower. It’s bound to happen.

He wants to be there when it does.

Chapter Text

Drezen. A sea of weapons and armor scream behind Lann while crusaders and demons swarm the city with adrenaline-fueled fighting. Death draws pools across the flagstones. Arcadia’s determination is the thread of sanity he’s following under jaws of a huge red sky and carcasses raining down from catapults on the battlement.

Din of war falls muted under the archway into the jail’s lower levels. The unexpected interlude breaks his concentration and pitches his emotions into a confusing mess when he watches his commander do something other than slay the demon they find caged there.

Arcadia talks to it through the cell bars and the demon… sings. This time, when Lann feels the ripple of Arcadia’s powers through him there’s something else with it too. Green sprouts unfurl from cracks in the dungeon floor. Ghost butterflies dance on the walls. Two supernatural forces mix and one of them is the demon’s.

He’s afraid the succubus already has her claws in Arcadia’s head, and the problem is, he might be able to protect Arc from physical blows, but what is he going to do against the magic of the Abyss?

He’s scared of losing her, dammit. And right now in this uplander prison he gets to see how easy it could happen on the sweet words of some sex demon who says exactly what she wants to hear. How can Arcadia be so worried about a spy in her inner circle when she so readily accepts an actual demon into their party?

“Oh I see,” he says aloud. “Taking pity on monsters and freaks is just something you do.”

Arcadia stabs him with the hard gaze she’s had since this morning. In the dungeon’s darkness the rings of her eyes glow.

“...not that I’m complaining,” he adds, trying to undo his own harshness.

“It’s not pity,” Arcadia says stonily. She turns away and the cell door screeches open, its horrible noise muted by yells and explosions outside. The succubus comes out and she doesn’t spare any of them a glance. She has eyes only for Arcadia.

The force of Lann’s emotion strikes him with agonizing clarity. He knows what it is now.

It’s jealousy.

He wanted to think he was special. That the way he and Arcadia got along, and how easily she accepted him into the crusaders, was unique; that whatever happened between them had nothing to do with him being an underdog, a mongrel , and instead was about… him. As a person.

But you can’t separate a person from their circumstance, can you? Can’t tear the beast out of the man. Not without killing him anyway.

Lann’s scaled fist is so tight around the bow his claws might cut. He takes a controlled breath and lets the energy spread up his arm.

“Camellia,” Arcadia commands. “Report back to base. Everyone else, with me.”

The succubus clings close to Arcadia’s position in a spot that is usually his. Their group climbs up the stairs, out of the dungeon, back into the fire and blood of the upland. As soon as they’re out Lann strides straight to the fore and puts three arrows directly into a demon before it can even turn around. Its body hits the cobble.

Seelah’s brows go up. “Anyone ever tell you how terrifying you are with that thing?”

“No. They don’t live to talk about it.” Another arrow, straight through a babau’s ugly mug.

A bull roar and sounds of metal crash through the air. Lann hears the thundering two-step gallop as the minotaur breaks through Irabeth’s ranks and charges. Seelah’s moved elsewhere. It’s just him, exposed on the left flank, and an avalanche of muscle and matted hair.

It doesn’t occur to him to run. The minotaur is not after him. It wants the shining halo beyond, and he just so happens to be in the way. The monsters always want to break into Neathholm and take everyone he cares for. He’s not about to start stepping aside today.

The first two arrows staple the minotaur’s hide. He doesn’t get a third.

Pain and toppling sky and the taste of rock disorient him. His horn nicks cobblestone when he tries to move. He’s on the ground. Two hooves crack, bits of gore and metal and mud falling off the bottoms. He needs to get up. He can’t. His leg is caught.

There’s a sickening sound of sword in flesh. Iron salts the air followed by a stench of rotten eggs. Fur thumps next to him, the minotaur gurgling and wheezing and thrashing.

“You’re okay. You’re okay. It only knocked you down. I saw it, I wasn’t fast enough.” Arcadia’s voice falls over him. Her palm spreads wide, hot as a brand on his bare chest. Healing.

“Man,” Lann wheezes. “I should really watch where I’m going. I don’t think that minotaur liked that I bumped into it very much.”

The succubus is there too. She struggles to pull a shattered barrel off his leg. The wood staves prickle where they’re nailed to the barrel’s iron rim. After a second the whole xylophone of a thing is wrenched away.

“Come on.” Arcadia clasps his arm and hauls him to his feet. Lann glares daggers at the succubus, who shrinks like a salted cave slug. It’s going to take a lot more than pretend charity and a helpless damsel act to fool him.

Arcadia outfits the succubus with a bow and it promptly murders two of its own kind. See? Not helpless.

Arcadia knows he doesn’t like the new recruit. She’s saying, “You wanted to change things, push the demons back, mean something.” She slots her sword and pulls a longbow. “Change doesn’t happen if you don’t give it a chance.” Yanking arrows off dead cultists she sends them soaring into vrocks terrorizing a ground unit. “I believe in change. And I believe in you, Lann. I’m not going to forget about you and I’m not going to let you die so easily. In fact, I’m going to make it so hard for you to die you’re going to wish you had a different commander.”

“Not dying is generally a sign of a good commander!” he yells over the crunch of catapult barrage hitting the rooftops, and the arrows singing off his bowstring.

He planned to die, didn’t he? Yet they’re winning Drezen. It’d be a shame to keel over now, and his Commander just told him not to, so, why not put it off another day? Plus he’s not such a jerk he’d leave her in the hands of a random succubus. Or any succubus. Nobody needs another Wenduag skittering through their sock drawer.

~ ~ ~

Arcadia and Seelah carry Iomedae’s banner up the stairs. Do they know its light is gathering into Arcadia? Every step trails a glow. Sparkles gather around the brim of her halo. The force inside him spreads like an elixir of life after a long and exhausting hunt. Banner fabric changes in her hands the same way simply being around her changes something in him. A better Lann than he was before.

She’s bleeding again. The droplets catch fire. Iomedae’s relic fights Arcadia’s wound and as it does so, the relic transforms. Gold colors the Sword of Valor and winged imagery dapples into existence. Arcadia folds the material over the rampart. 

He can only imagine what that must look like from the ground—the banner unfurling under burning gold blue bloom of heavenly light. It radiates off Arcadia, her halo expanding with prismatic flame. Amazing as the view from the central square must be Lann isn’t down there. He’s here, by fate, or luck, or maybe sheer stupid coincidence, right where he wanted to be. He stands at the crux of the crusade while radiance spills forth. It’s everything he imagined. It’s more than that. Divine colors wash over him and their secretly mischievous flavor is so like Arcadia that he couldn’t hide his smile even if he wanted to.

She isn’t an aasimar. She’s an angel. He knew it.

Beside him he hears Arueshalae breath words of exaltation. Butterflies dance at her feet. Daeran’s unimpressed sarcasm is covered up by Seelah’s triumphant roar. Drezen is theirs.

Decades of imprisonment and the city is finally free.

Chapter Text

Cremation fires burn for days outside the city walls, and Lann learns there is one unfortunate druid tasked with repressing the stench when the winds blow the wrong direction. He can always tell when the air carries a sickeningly sweet perfume that clings to the back of his throat. He’s just glad it’s not the same vescavor stink that damned halfling tried to get them all killed with.

Drezen is pure chaos with cleanup and back and forth between the military encampment as they begin moving it into the city walls. There are people who lived in Drezen while the demons were in control. Some of them have been driven mad by the experience, but most are relieved. Arcadia being an aasimar puts them at ease that the new leader won’t be so bad. An angel? Even better. Discrimination is definitely working in the crusade’s favor on this one.

The locals are so used to demons doing whatever they please that Lann gets a dose of surprise at how easy it is to exist in Drezen. Here, if people believe you’re a demon, it’s just another average day at the market. He ends up doing odd jobs for an older couple whose kids got taken by demons, and he rents the top apartment of their ramshackle house with the stipend he gets as a crusader. Not needing to live in the barracks is an amazing luxury.

He hasn’t seen Arcadia since the fortress was won. Okay that’s not true: she is very easy to spot when she has an actual halo over her head. He catches her glow at a distance every now and then among the rebuilding efforts. One of the first things Arcadia does is get Seelah and some of the knights to drag the bloodstained bed, and all of the bedroom’s contents, into the center square and burn it for all to see.

If Lann wants to spend time with the crusade’s commander he’s going to have to brave the castle, the guards, and all of the advisors. It’s not like it was before at base camp. He can’t hang around the planning tent until everyone else goes away. He also can’t do nothing, because being apart for this long is starting to hurt.

He hopes the strain in his chest is for that reason, and not something else. He checked his aim. It’s still good. His speech is clear, his memory isn’t failing, he hasn’t gained any new features. Which would be more inconvenient? A tail? A second horn? How about… half a wing?

This is what’s on his mind on the way back to his place after morning training. He sees the stone house and the rickety wooden stairs that go up its outer wall. Up top is the door to his private rented room. Except, today, there’s someone standing on the landing. Waiting at his door Arcadia scuffs a boot on the planks and looks around curiously.

He calls up at her. “Suspicious angels hanging around is a common problem in this neighborhood. Should I get the authorities?”

The way she lights up when she sees him is what he imagines an honest hug to be. Strong, comforting, maybe even a little fluffy. Pip-like. Meanwhile mongrels usually clasp hands and elbow each other in the ribs to say hello. Somehow that seems too chummy for the Commander. He’d rather greet her with words and his best smile when touching isn’t an option.

“Lann!” She’s happy. So is he. Funny how that works.

He says, “How’d you find me? Besides knocking on every door in the slums one by one.”

“Anevia. Sorry.”

Ahh. He forgets that.

“Are you busy?” she asks. “It’s nothing important. I have some errands and wanted company.”

“With you, errands could mean a week hiking through the Abyss to kill an ancient dragon.”

“Grocery shopping.”

“Shit. I better get my holy arrows.”

There’s a bit of a kerfuffle as they switch spots on the stairs since the steps are too narrow for more than one person. Lann changes his gear and rejoins Arcadia at the bottom. A pipefox snout pokes out from the satchel slung over her shoulder. There’s a fwip noise as the rest of Pip’s ears and head squeeze past the flap.

“Pip!” Pip barks. The satchel wiggles happily.

Arcadia rolls her eyes with a smile and ruffles the pipefox’s ears. “Yes it’s Lann.”

“Chrrr?”

“He’s not going to give you a treat just because you’re being cute.”

They head for the stairs to Drezen’s second ring. Pip squishes its chin into the lip of the satchel and stares up at Lann with puppy amber eyes. Eventually, while Lann’s telling a story about the mongrel kids feeding the rats so much it created a swarm, he fishes in a side pouch for a walnut. He cracks it in his palm and picks the meat out, holding it pinched in his claws toward the satchel. 

Pip snips the walnut up and disappears into the bag. Muffled munching ensues.

They walk the market. Stalls pitched in the streets and blankets spread out on the cobble display wares. Hawking, haggling, the tang of an anvil, and a fiddle from the far corner overlap city noise. Every stall has a different smell. Rich waft of clean leather, spiced heat of curried potatoes, smoke, something sweet, something tinny with smithed metal. Wild colors decorate booths and people. The sky is huge. It would be overwhelming if he hadn’t been camping with an army for the last few weeks. It’s going to be tough on the mongrels when they get here. But they need it.

Arcadia stops at the quartermaster and checks in with the weapons provisioners. She pokes through a couple of the food stalls and local merchants. Lann has questions about “what is” for so many of the things he sees, but he keeps his mouth shut to not look like an idiot. That is, until they cross a stall with a range of household mechanical devices. The contraption he’s looking at is long with a hand crank. Lann asks the vendor, “What’s this?”

“It makes noodles.”

“Noodles.”

“Roll your dough, feed it through the press to flatten it. Then put it through here. Turn the crank and it cuts them into strips. Hang, dry, and that’s yer noodles.”

Uplanders have machines for the craziest stuff. Lann marvels at the device and its sole noodly purpose. Dyra would go nuts for this thing. Well, she’d probably go feral in any uplander market, so there’s that to look forward to.

Arcadia grins. “I don’t think the crusade needs a pasta maker.”

“I’m curious,” he says. “Don’t mind me.”

“I can tell. You look like you got dropped in a dragon’s lair and can’t decide which treasure to pick first. I take it you haven’t had time to explore the second ring much?”

“Not… closely. Drezen may be used to demons but I didn’t want to press my luck.”

“As long as there aren’t any demons, you’ll probably have more luck with this floating next to you.” She flicks a finger up at the halo. “And if you see anything you want to know about, I promise I don’t mind answering questions, even if they seem stupid, even if you have a thousand of them. If we were in Neathholm I’d be the same. It’s like another world.”

He flashes a smile. “I might make you regret that offer. But if you think you can handle a cave monster that barely remembers what the sun is like, then…”

He starts with magic items he’d never dream of finding in the caves’ death pits because the materials they’re made of are worth too much. Many of them are things the “noble” demons would have wanted, not useful for a crusade. There are enchanted mirrors that show what the user would look like in different outfits. Gem encrusted pins the width of his hand turn out to be hair decorations. He thought they were weapons. Arcadia says you can still stab someone with one in a pinch.

Lann sneaks in the stupider questions until he’s not paying attention at all whether he seems dumb or not. He finds out the tippy thing with weight sets is a scale for precise measurement. A shoe horn is a scoop that makes it easier to put footwear on without ruining the backs. There’s long ones so people don’t have to bend over. Oh! And game sets for games he’s never heard of until now, with little pieces shaped like beads, or horses, or colored stones.

He could use a proper deck of cards or dice once he’s saved up, but, maybe he could try something new instead? He’s seriously considering it when he catches a passing child’s remark.

“Dad, there’s a dragon.”

Arcadia hears it too. Her lips purse in an effort not to grin.

“Why’s he like that? So he can be small?”

“That’s one of the commander’s soldiers chicklet. See the color of the wrap on his bow?

The kid’s awestruck. “Are all the soldiers dragons?”

Their dad chuckles. “Who knows? There could be a whole squad of dragons in disguise, here to fight the demons and keep us safe.”

After a few beats Lann glances over and the kid’s still staring away, trundling along behind the parent holding them by the hand. Dad’s distracted so Lann turns fully, sticks a finger to the unresponsive side of his smile and pulls it up to match. His single fang peeks out. The kid’s eyes go wide. Lann quickly faces the game boards, pretending at nothing, smiling to himself.

Arcadia nudges him, laughter twinkling in her voice. “I think you just made that kid’s day. They’re going to brag there was a real live dragon at the market.”

“Yeah, well, what can I say. Momma dragon said if I kept making that face it’d stick like that, so here I am halfway between, forever.”

Internal light of a good mood brings out Arcadia’s glow, even during the day. Under the game pavilion’s shade her eyes are gold bright and all for him. “You don’t try to hide yourself, even though you could with a cloak and a hood.”

“I never saw the point. If they treat me any different just because I’m prettier in the dark, I’d rather not.”

She tilts her head, friendly teasing. “Even prettier? I’m not sure I could handle that.”

“I’m told a drink or ten takes the edge off.”

“True. It is hard to see while unconscious.”

A puff of a laugh sneaks out of him. He rocks a game piece on its square. “As you can imagine that doesn’t make for the most exciting love life.”

“What, being blind, or being unconscious?”

Lann makes a show of scritching behind his horn. “You know, if only I could remember. I might have been unconscious.”

She beams, eyes crinkling at the corners, and positive energy pours into a prompt to look at the booths across the street. She may as well take him by the hand and run. He’s just a silly mongrel who’d follow her anywhere.

Collapsible displays hold carved flutes. Containers stuffed with powders, feathers, insect parts, and miscellaneous magical components sit on tables. One vendor sitting on an extravagantly patterned rug offers Arcadia a look into the scroll case holding expensive rare spells.

They’ve been exploring for a while, and the strange thing is that Arcadia hasn’t bought a single item. When they make it to the food vendors her behavior doesn’t change. He at least expected her to pick up… what is it surfacers regularly eat? Cabbages?

“You didn’t just want company for errands,” he says.

“I like talking to you. But you’re right, I have an ulterior motive. The more people see us together the easier it’ll be for you to get around the fortress.”

“Are you sure? I have a very forgettable face.”

“Oh, of course. Who are you again?”

He’s smiling a lot today. He’s probably setting a record. The feeling is sweet at the corner of his mouth, not bitter or acidic or self-hating.

If he’s got the blessing of the Commander’s time he’s not going to waste it. He’s about to ask more (probably dumb) questions about what some of the plantish vegetables in bins are when the delicious aroma in the same direction drives him to distraction. It’s wholesome like meat with fresh seasonings he’d die for in the caves.

“That smells really good,” he says. “What is it?”

“I actually don’t know. Wanna find out?”

“I, uh…” Lann realizes she’s offering. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I’d like that.”

The source is a covered hand cart. A metal bowl with flame inside sears skewers of meat. As they approach the dwarf running the place hands off finished skewers to customers, props open the cart’s lid, and withdraws a container. Frost clings to the bottom. Spearing new skewers into fresh marinated meat, the dwarf sets them to the bowl with a puff of arcane fire. Fat sizzles. A second fire flick cleans their hands.

The food smells amazing. Lann keeps Arcadia on his “dragon” side so she doesn’t have to suffer any overeager hope on his face, or the sudden bashful stab in his heart getting to be next to her while she talks the owner out of their secrets. She doesn’t know that eating good food by a fire is peak romance for a mongrel. Right next to killing cave monsters together.

He tries not to take it personal, but he can’t avoid the flutter when she hands him the second skewer. “Thank you,” he says. Darn, he hears the butter in his voice.

“Careful with that around Pip. You’d be surprised how fast a pipefox can steal food.”

“Hah. I don’t plan on it lasting long enough to be stolen. But I’ll keep an eye out, just in case.” He fangs off a small bit of the top chunk so it cools faster. Crisp outside peels into juicy, flavorful inside. Steam condenses on his scales and he’s not going to pretend this side of his face isn’t useful when it comes to impatient hot food straight off the fire. Arcadia blows on hers while they walk toward Drezen’s stairs to find a place to sit.

The street meat skewer is the best thing he’s ever tasted. Part of it’s the savory ingredients prepared by an expert. Part of it’s the company.

Sitting below the banner draped over the fortress gates, feeling the goodness that steadies him when he’s near it, holding this food that would be a priceless treasure in Neathholm, Lann realizes: he’s never going to starve, ever again. He hasn’t gone hungry since he left the caves. He has coin if he needs to buy anything, and a place to live. He’s healthier and heals faster above ground. And he had no idea how lonely he’d been until he suddenly wasn’t.

He just… he’s happy.

Really happy.

Arcadia looks away. “You have an amazing smile, Lann.”

“I won’t be able to stop if you say things like that. Anyway pay no mind to that side of my face. Clearly I have no control over it.”

She laughs, and that seals the deal for him. He might have only a few years left, and he will probably throw himself early into the maw of death to make a difference, but he’s absolutely certain of one thing.

This last stretch will be the best part.

Chapter Text

“Go on,” Seelah says, bumping Lann’s shoulder. “Ask her.”

He chuckles. “Ask her what?”

“To dance! Don’t think I haven’t noticed what you two are like together.”

Is he that obvious? Lann tries to drain his tankard and finds it already empty. He fills it with whatever is nearby. This is a bad idea, but like a kid going from cave gruel to sweet cinnamon baked apples he can’t bring himself to stop.

The alcohol actually tastes like apples…? “What is this?”

Seelah ignores that question. “Ask,” she insists.

For a tipsy second Lann considers it. Then he remembers. “I’m not going to ask her to dance; I barely know how. That’s not a joke. I’m better off asking her to spar. That’s something we do a whole lot of in the caves.”

“You want to spar with the Commander in the middle of Count Arendae’s haunted mansion party?”

He drinks. “Sure. Why not? I think Daeran may even appreciate it.”

“That boy has more than enough excitement in his life. I don’t think he needs any more,” Seelah snarks. A dancer wearing almost nothing does a backflip off the long table.

After a few drinks any frustrations Lann might’ve had file down to smooth-brained peace. Music resonates off the mansion’s vaulted ceiling, tambourine mixing with the jangle of dancers’ outfits. Unlike Neathholm where movement and chatter stretch long shadows by the fire, this party is bright, loud, and savory with the scent of roast pork.

He’s lost track of Arcadia. She doesn’t stay put. One minute she’ll be on the balcony and the next she’ll be strolling through the archway to the eastern wing. He’s not sure she’s eaten anything. At the same time he’s trying to keep tabs on Arueshalae (currently hiding in the bushes), Ember (stopped pouting when the music began), and Woljif (stealing an urn off the mantlepiece).

Woljif knows he’s been caught and carefully eases the vessel back into place with an innocent I was just looking expression.

Lann’s new favorite drink is called cider. There’s a hot mulled version with spices but they don’t serve it until winter so he better cling to life long enough to find out what it’s like.

Wine? No good. It’s all sour. Red, white, pink, whatever color: ‘s all vinegar. Worse than vinegar. He’d rather drink vinegar. Seelah rolls her eyes and says it’s an acquired taste.

Lann practices acquiring this taste. It’s probably working. He’s got zero worries right now. Maybe he should… something. Something about a dance. Arcadia!

He whips his head to the side and regrets it. The tall ceiling makes everything far away and swirly. He misses the Commander, but she’s fine. Doesn’t need him. She’s not shy. If she needs him she’ll ask.

“Hypothetical,” Lann tells Seelah. “The dance thing. If an uplander doesn’t ask you to dance… does that mean anything?”

“Not that I know of. That sounds like a Daeran question. Daeran!”

“Yes, my radiant and amusing suit of armor?”

“Lann wants to know about dancing.”

Lann says, “Teach me your weird uplander courting rituals.”

Daeran claps his hands with new, unnerving light in his eyes. “First, let’s do something about your terrible taste in costume.”

“Not a costume. I can’t take it off.”

“He means your rags, Lann,” Seelah says.

He looks down. Folds his arms. “Ehh, I’ve heard enough about all that. I’m not changing them. They’re comfortable. And they smell like me. Which is good.”

Daeran arches a brow. “Is it?”

“Yes. If I can’t be proud of my looks I gotta be proud of something. Nice smell. Check.” He warns Daeran with a stern “no” when the man leans suspiciously close. Or it might be Lann’s unsteady posture. His head is drowned enough it’s not immediately noticeable that Daeran has snatched his hand and pulled him toward the music.

“Fine,” Daeran is saying. “We’ll broach this topic another time. For now: music. I can’t be expected to teach without something to drown out your incessant jabs, of which I’m sure there are to be many.”

“I’ll make sure to start with your feet.”

Daeran acts like he can’t hear.

So: uplander dancing. There’s footwork involved. It’s like sparring except with no adrenaline and hardly any touching. Lann laughs, feeling like a ridiculous mongrel. If he weren’t so spinnily inebriated he might be paying better attention.

At one point it’s a group dance with a bunch of folks holding hands in a circle, Daeran on Lann’s one side, Ember on the other. Step step spin. Peppy music travels the circle in one direction. At intervals that make no sense the direction changes and Lann’s gaily pulled along. Ember giggles. This has to be the silliest thing he’s ever done. It’s fun.

Another round of liquid courage and Daeran makes him hop around more, declaring Lann will be the pride of the peasantry. A ring of light bobs through the guests and brings Arcadia around to watch, astonishment flighting her features. It settles into a bemused smile.

“Perfect,” she says. “If the two of you are drunk enough to be getting along this well, go spend some time in the courtyard after.”

Daeran shines with glee. “Commander. Do I detect a hint of jealousy?”

“A whole bottle of it. 4630 vintage.” Arcadia lifts up a corked wine. Surprise stutters Daeran’s expression. “Also,” she says, “I gave Nenio a crate of black powder. I wondered if she knew anything about pyrotechnics.”

BAM! SNAP!

Noises patter the sky outside and startled partygoers mill towards the courtyard. Arcadia wiggles the bottle. “I’ll pour for you on the balcony, if you’re interested. Bring Lann and the musicians. Or… I can just tuck this back in its hidden nook.”

“And here I thought you’d make me choose: my companion, or the wine.”

“Don’t I get a say in any of this?” Lann asks.

“It’s my birthday,” Daeran answers brightly. Lann groans. He’s herded out of the mansion into the thankfully fresh night air. Colorful sizzles zooming around the darkness must be the pyrotechnics. Nenio’s gotten into mixing them with illusions. Tiny sparkly demons flit across the balcony railing before exploding into chunks with cute squeeing sounds.

The band reorganizes themselves on the walkway that spans the mansion’s outer walls. Arcadia sets a clean wine glass on the balcony railing and pours.

“Ah, served by the only steady hand left in Heaven’s Edge. I fear the party’s gone amiss if the Commander herself is not enjoying it.”

“Pssh,” she waves Daeran off. “I’d have never found this if I were drunk. And I usually get more enjoyment out of food over alcohol. Strange, I know.”

Lann adds, “Where I come from the alcohol is what makes the food edible.”

“But Lann,” Arcadia says, “if you’re too drunk to tell the difference between a regular rat and a poisonous three-eyed rat, how is it safe to eat anything at all?”

“See, that’s the fun part. After the morning gong we find out who has a hangover and who needs antipoison.”

“Better make sure the count here doesn’t need antipoison by the end of the night.” Arcadia’s voice lowers. “Thanks for keeping him company.”

Lann lightly shakes his head as if it’ll knock the confusion swimming around his skull. Was he keeping Daeran company?...

Arcadia seems to be missing, all of a sudden. She’s been missing most of the night. Or maybe it’s the alcohol. Standing around the wine barrels with the rest of the gang Lann puts down his cup. “Ooo-kay. That’s enough for me,” he says.

Seelah agrees. “Yeah? Me too. I’m not used to the amount of stuff Daeran’s got here. Let’s just… sit tight for a while.”

Oof.

It’s a long walk back to the encampment. For future note, he should be a bit more careful around the uplander booze, unless… unless he wants to forget. Which is a lot.

Ah well. That’s future Lann’s problem.

Chapter Text

One of the “perks” of being chummy with the Crusade’s Commander is ending up on one of the steering committees. Everyone in Arcadia’s core group is expected to be part of one of the councils. And that means everyone . Even the succubus bashfully defending her presence in the war room.

“I want to help if I can. I don’t want to be the only one left out just because I’m… I think I could have good advice! But if you want me to leave I will. I’ll try not to get in anyone’s way.” Her voice tapers off meekly.

He feels sorry for Arueshalae. But, she is a demon. Feeling bad for her is all part of the game. The longer he spends near her the more he starts to feel she might actually be on their side, and that’s the real danger. That’s how they get you.

So: two monsters on the logistics council, led by a halfling who looks grizzled herself. They should all get along splendidly.

Then there's the diplomatic council.

Even Arcadia is surprised. “Lann? How did you end up on two councils?”

“Honestly? I have no idea. Logistics makes sense to me. Diplomacy? Hah. I’m under the impression that uplander politics and honesty do not mix.”

“He is absolutely right, of course,” Daeran says.

The council head Lady Konomi explains the role Lann is supposed to have. He notices Arcadia’s eyes light up with laughter at the idea of claiming him to be some kind of Mongrel Prince. She is going to tease him about this later he’s sure. He doesn’t mind representing the neather tribes, but he’s definitely not going to lie about how many of them there are, or pretend to be offended on their behalf. No. If he’s offended they’ll know.

Arcadia says, “The ‘Garundi Prince’ strategy is brilliant, but Lann is the wrong person for the job. I need him on logistics, besides. Let’s find someone else.”

Thank Gods. He's freed of that second council before it even begins.

As he gets used to the logistics meetings, he also gets used to being around Arcadia’s part of the fortress. It's easier to stop by to complain about whatever sorry state the troops are in, or boast about how easy it is to spar certain squad leaders into the ground. So, more often than not, he climbs Drezen’s stairs to visit the top.

This afternoon Arcadia’s in the war room contemplating items lying in front of her.

“What’s that you’ve got there?”

She settles her chin in her hand and indicates the two wands on the campaign table with a wave. “Funny story. Daeran decided to make a donation to the crusade this morning.”

“But they look so…”

“Evil?” Arcadia lazily picks up one of the wands. It’s black. The end curls into a decrepit, clawed hand holding a glowing sphere. The second wand is covered in pustule bulbs. Not something Lann is too keen on touching. “I said thank you,” Arcadia continues. “But I’m pretty sure he’s trying to send me a message.”

“Don’t ask me what it might be. I have no idea what he’s thinking any of the time.”

“Something along the lines of, ‘Ahhh, you priggish angel, thank you so much for dragging me into this mess. I hope your skin withers and festers with boils.”

“Wonderful,” Lann says.

“Alternatively, he might just be amusing himself with the idea of a celestial using necromancy. That’s exactly the kind of thing he’d enjoy.”

“I’m going to go with the second one.”

“It’s probably that.”

“Probably.”

Chapter Text

Arcadia has been watching him closely lately. He’s not sure what it’s about until she breaks one of their usual tavern conversations with, “Is your horn okay?”

“Hmm? Oh. It needs to be trimmed but it’s not exactly a fun process. Harder to do alone.”

“I’ll help.”

He laughs. “Eager to get your mitts on a bona fide monster? It’s fine.” He waves it off, trying to cover his nervousness. “I’ll take care of it tonight so you don’t have to look at it anymore.”

“Lann.”

“Woljif has it twice as bad as I do. How does he keep those things so tidy? We should ask.”

Arcadia sets her elbow to the table and rests her chin in her hand. She’s going to change tactics until she gets what she wants. “How does horn trimming work? I take it they keep growing.”

“Yep. Until they pierce something important. Maybe I can suggest that to the demons as a new form of torture. As for the upkeep…” He sips from the tankard in front of him. “A special wire and a file will usually do the trick.”

“Go get the wire. I’ll wait.”

He looks around the busy tavern. Imagine having the commander’s hand planted to his head against the bartop for leverage, wringing the wire through his stupid horn. Won’t that be a sight? Ha ha. Ha. His lip quirks. “If you insist you may as well come with me. Otherwise it’s going to make quite the scene.”

“It’s really that messy?”

“You’ll see.” He swipes up their empty mugs and deposits them with the bartender, watching the empties disappear with a twinge of worry. He likes having a clear head but for this particular thing another drink might not be a bad idea.

They leave together. Late summer sun turns the cobblestone amber as it sets. Instead of parting ways at the main promenade Arcadia stays with him, past the niceties to where buildings become more practical and less pretty. Stairs to the second story entrance of his place squawk with extra weight.

He lets her in and digs around for the tools. “I’ll get it started. You hack through the rest. Ignore whatever pitiful sounds I make. I really can’t help it.” He drags fingers up the horn’s ridges, feeling for where might be safe. He shouldn’t have let it grow so much. Slotting the file shorter than the length he likes, he makes a groove. White dust sprinkles the air.

He puts the file down and wraps each end of the wire saw around a separate stick. That makes handles for pulling back and forth. “The real challenge is holding my head still enough for this to work. I might be able to use the wall.”

“We could try Hold Person.”

“Paralysis might be hard on my muscles. But sure, why not!”

Arcadia draws the spell out, its glowing bits sparking in the dimming light of the room. Her inquisitor magic fades and nothing happens. She smiles. “You’re too tough.”

“Wall it is.”

He gets his scaled face up against the surface and waits, heart unhelpfully thumping away with a combo of horn trim anxiety and Arcadia being so close. She tries to thread the wire into the notch in his horn without touching him. He can still feel her presence like a blanket, boxing him in against the wall. She’s trying to be polite but it’s not going to matter in the end. It takes real force to cut through thick keratin. His fault for letting it get this bad, really.

Arcadia decides fuck it. She grabs him bodily by the horn. A nervous laugh escapes him; it’s not like he can feel much besides pressure, but still. “Ahah. You could really do a number on a man’s head pulling him around like that.”

“Oh, hush. You’ll live.” The wire skips into the slot. Lann crushes his cheek against the wall, hard, trying to hold steady. Arcadia pulls the wire tight and starts sawing. As always the sensation shakes his bones. Agh.

“Lann hold still.”

“I can feel the vibrations in my skull. Imagine tickling but make it hellish.”

“Tickling is already hellish.”

“Exactly.”

She tries a couple more times to get a good angle. There’s mirth in her voice. “I can’t… ugh. Are you sure this is easier with two people?”

“Hey give me some credit; I like to think I could come up with a better excuse to invite you over. ‘Please saw my horns off’ sounds like something out of a succubus’ handbook.”

“Do they even make those?” Arcadia’s given up all pretense at trying to be gentle at this point. She paws him in the face, trying to hold him flat. He can’t blame her. Ever try to hold a ram in place when it doesn’t want to be? Yeah.

Lann chuckles and frees himself from the wall. “Forget it. We’ll do this the real way.”

“The real way.”

“I lay on the floor and you step on my head.”

She’s laughing at the idiocy of this. “No! No.”

“Yes Lann, yes,” he says, picking up a clean rag and sitting down in the middle of the room.

“There has got to be a better way to do this.”

He stretches out on his side and uses his arm as a pillow so he doesn’t get ground into the floorboards. “Press a little for leverage, that’s all.” He flaps the rag over the good side of his face. “Step away.”

“Iomedae have mercy.” Arcadia quickly loops the wire around the notch in his horn and gets down to business. She’s able to stand on one foot, use the other to hold him down, and pull back and forth on the trimming tool. Ridiculous as the scene must be, it is about as comfortable as it’s going to get for him, considering he’s having a wire sawed into a bone attached to his skull.

“Normally,” Arcadia says, her foot stamped to his head. Saw, saw, saw. “When people leave a tavern together it’s for fun.”

“So much fun,” Lann grits through his teeth as the wire pierces the core of his horn. Pain flares, hot and stinging. He’s bleeding for sure. “Don’t stop.”

“Almost done.”

Clack . The cut piece hits the floor. Pressure lifts off his cheek. Tension in every muscle unseizes and he sags against the wooden planks. It’s over. He manages to swab the rag off his face and take his involuntary tears with it, and lay there.

“Oh, Lann. You should’ve told me it was going to bleed. It must hurt.”

“Bury me with honors.”

She sits beside him. “He died the way he lived. Full of sass and apple cider.”

Lann feels something change, and realizes it’s a light touch at the end of his horn. All the pain fades away. All of it. Not just the bleeding, but the aches and bruises he gets from having a body stitched together the way it is.

It’d be inappropriate to tell her how good she feels. Still, he thinks it, quietly lying there while she treats him. When the magic is done her fingers linger. Lann’s heartbeat decides to make itself known, an increasing thump the longer she stays.

He hears the shiff of sleeves as Arcadia traces ridges in his horn. It’s careful and curious. He hardly dares breathe in case she keeps going, all the way into his hair, and he can pick himself up off the floor to lay his head in her lap, and wind his arms around her waist, while she strokes his scales like she really loves him.

It’s a fantasy of course. Desna doesn’t begrudge him nice dreams at least.

Arcadia lets go. “The square end is sharp now,” she says.

Reluctantly he sits up and rubs his neck. “I’ll file it later.” It’s a relief to notice the difference in weight. “Man, that feels a million times better. I forget how heavy the thing is.”

She picks the cut piece off the floor. It’s wound into a tight spiral. “You wouldn’t believe the demon I got this off of. Ten feet tall. Breathed fire. Told jokes.” She hands it to him. “What are you going to do with it?”

“I’ll probably sell it. Powdered horn has its uses.” He sets it aside, unable to get the smile off his face. “And… thanks. I feel like I’m always saying thank you. Hope that doesn’t make it sound like I don’t meant it any less. Because I do. Mean it, I mean.”

“Any time. But I will be asking Woljif what magic he uses, in case it’s any easier.” She smiles too, and there’s the playful sparkle in her eyes that Lann can’t get enough of.

After she goes, he sits in glittery daydream for a little bit. Then he gets into bed with a nice sigh and lots of good feelings.

Chapter Text

Lann picks his way up the rocky tumble. The others watch from below, making note where the rubble is less likely to crumble away under their boots. At the top he hauls himself over the edge and looks back down. Pulling Seelah and Arcadia up that last stretch with all their gear is going to be… real fun.

Arcadia stands at the bottom of the slope and waits for the others to follow Lann’s trail, one by one, until she’s the last. He helps her up.

“Thanks Lann,” she says, repeating one of his self-praise mantras. But instead of mockery it’s a playful quiet voice just for him. “You are so awesome, Lann.”

He has to turn his face to the bad side to hide the smile that takes over. At least from here he can still look her in the eye without betraying how giddy hearing that sort of stuff makes him. From the lizard side he can always see her without showing his feelings. He uses that to his advantage a lot.

She grins, gazing directly into his reptilian features without so much as a flinch. She always does that. First it was with curiosity. Now it’s something else. While he’s searching the flecked gold of her irises for what it might be, her smile widens. Then she says his name for the sake of it. It pours over him like sunlight in a cave. “Lann.”

Well if that doesn’t make his heart burst at the seams.

Seelah calls over, “Are you two good or do you need a moment?”

“Nope, we’re good. I got my moment,” Arcadia replies, and heads up the trail.

It might be that event that inspires him to pick a seat on the same fallen tree when they unpack for the night. Arcadia cleans her armor. He stitches a reinforcement into one of his quiver's leather straps, snapping the thread off between his teeth.

She says his name and it grips him. “Lann.” She must know the effect it has even though he keeps her in his yellow eye, the one that sees so sharp and clear when she calls. He’s glad she can’t witness how warm his cheek is or how painfully his heart throbs.

Did he have to sit this close?

Arcadia leans back with a somewhat wicked grin. She says, “Did you know your pupil goes bsssh!— ” an exploding alchemists’s fire, her fingers spread wide “—when you like something?”

It does? The impression of a cat’s eye appears in his mind. He had a tell this whole time. He had no idea. “Ah, you got me. Love hearing the sound of my own name,” he jests.

“I’m sure that’s it,” she teases. “I can get Nenio over here to say your name a bunch of times. Lann Lann Lannalanna Lann.”

He scoffs to hide the silly feeling bubbling up while Arcadia slurs his name together over and over. It’s a mongrel thing to push your comrade’s shoulder to shake them off their game. He nudges Arcadia this way on reflex. Her delighted little laugh spurs his surprise and an urge to rile her more.

Lann hides his smile. She’s easy to be around. His dumb eye is a dead giveaway that it’s not just his name he likes hearing. It’s her.

He’s besotted and way out of his depth. How much touching is appropriate for uplanders? How friendly is too friendly? If he’d pushed her with his scaled hand would she have flinched away? Would inquisitor instinct have kicked in? He shouldn’t be thinking about any of this!

But he can’t help himself.

Demons have nothing to offer him. All the temptation in the world is right here beside him with a halo on top.

Chapter Text

First off, Ember sees through people in a way nobody else can. It’s a life-saving skill when your enemies are demons who could look like any one or any thing. Second, the poor kid’s seen enough that she can’t be any more traumatized than she already is. It’s not like Lann would somehow be a better person if his dad refused to take him on hunts just because it wasn’t safe. Nowhere’s safe. Not when your fingers are missing and your eyes are black and you’re covered in burn scars. You’re better off having experienced veterans around that can keep you alive while you learn to survive.

Or at least that’s what Lann thought until two seconds ago.

“Just like always. Just like always. Just like always,” Ember whispers on and on. It reminds him of a friend that got sick in the head and went around and around in circles until their nervous system collapsed. It’s terrifying.

Lann gives Ember his good side, careful not to touch her in case it triggers worse. He doesn’t take his eyes off the man on the Wintersun throne flanked by demons. “Don’t be scared Ember. Only the bad guys are going to get hurt.”

She’s almost crying. “Do we have to hurt anyone? Please don’t let anyone die.”

He can’t guarantee that. He says nothing. He’d squeeze her shoulder to communicate that he’ll do his best, but again, no touching.

Dammit. Maybe they shouldn’t have brought a kid onto a battlefield.

“Forgive me for saying this,” Seelah says, “but I can’t stand here and watch while this man kills more people.” She reaches to draw her sword and Arcadia catches her hand. The Commander’s voice rises through the lodge.

“Your protective rune stones are fake. They won’t keep the demons out anymore. Go. Look. I’ll wait.”

The villagers run out to verify. That’s a few less people caught in the crossfire of what is about to become a battleground, if he knows his Commander. Demon mind control and illusions? No, she won’t allow that.

Arcadia lets go of Seelah’s hand. Both draw their weapons. Across the room illusions and enchantments burst over the demons and the lunatic who’s cursed his whole village. Wintersun’s very own Wenduag.

It happens in an instant.

An axe sprouts from Ember’s clavicle and clatters to the floor. Blood spurts. She gives a withered gasp and claws at her throat in surprise. A second, third, fourth throwing axe chop into the child’s body.

The barbarian kills her first.

Faster than thought Lann empties one quiver into the man. Then he reaches into the second. Soot screams. The entire back end of the lodge explodes as molten meteors crash through the roof, and heat sears Lann’s scales. Demons are surrounding him. Teeth sink into his side and he fires through adrenaline-fueled painlessness. Arrows stab the barbarian’s fake mirrored images. Just when Lann manages to land a hit the barbarian casts more of them.

Arcadia throws her hand up, the illusions vanish, and it doesn’t matter. The barbarian creates more, she dispels them, and he just casts illusions again, over, and over, while axes and demons cut through Lann’s friends one by one. Daeran is on the ground with metal lodged in his gut. Arueshalae’s broken body isn’t moving.

Lann bleeds from a dozen places. Warmth slides down his temple.

“Well, great.”

Everything goes black.

~ ~ ~

He isn’t out for more than a few seconds. Fire smolders inside the ruined lodge. Blood smears everywhere. It’s mostly theirs. Arcadia and Seelah manage to get Daeran up, and the aasimar’s pretty face contorts with pain.

Lann knows better than to move until they get to him. He senses Ember lying above his head, right where he managed to step away enough to not crush her. It’s good she’s up where he can’t see. He doesn’t want to look until he has to.

Fire crackles around the throne, consuming its blackened husk, and Lann can pretend they’re just at their campfire same as any night.

Ember’s bloodcaked whisper nearly makes him swallow his heart. “...did we… kill… anyone?”

Red drags from the spot the barbarian should’ve been. “Only the demons.”

“...okay…”

Arcadia and Seelah come over to them while Daeran goes to deal with Arushalae. “Ember first,” Lann says, though he doubts it’s necessary.

Ember is trying to apologize. “...I… think I used… all my magic…”

“Don’t talk, sheesh,” Seelah complains.

How they all survive to stand up is a miracle. Arcadia seethes. She’s not finished.

It’s not hard to find a dying man trying to crawl his way back to his demon master. The insectoid abomination shows itself only for this moment. It tries to cut a deal that is shitty no matter which way you look at it, and has the gall to ask if it can keep the man sniveling at its feet.

“I’m sorry Ember.” Arcadia faces the false altar. “Lann?”

He gets it. He steers Ember around. “Let’s uh… go over this way for a little bit.” He looks over his shoulder and sees Arcadia draw her sword.

She’s an inquisitor. He doesn’t even hear the man scream. Ember doesn’t have to know. Lann wishes he’d hear the bug demon scream, but, it’s going to escape through stupid demon magic rather than fight.

Arcadia and the others rejoin him shortly. Arcadia tells him, “I’m worried about what that demon will do before I send it to the abyss.”

“It’s different than the other demons, is it?”

“Yes. I took away something it had, and now it’ll try to do the same to me.”

“So: Drezen.”

“No.” She rags blood off her sword. “Something else.”

Lann does not get a good feeling about that.

“Let me see your beads for a minute.”

He unhooks the worn rocks without hesitation. His silliness must truly know no bounds to hand over his comforting knickknacks without a thought. What else would he give if asked?

Musings fade while Arcadia’s light threads around the beads. Celestial patterns spread over the pebbles before vanishing in a sparky mist.

“Keep those with you, okay?”

He always does.

Chapter Text

It’s dark and the air on the frontlines stinks like scorched fur. Fireballs whistle through blackness. They explode in showers of noise and stone, bodies and armor and shards of siege weaponry. Other fireballs slam the magical barriers. Flames lick and pour around glimmering magic, swallowing entire sections of the army from view, orange-blue tongues lapping at the boundary of death. Sweltering heat draws sweat down Lann’s skin.

War is hell. The only difference between the unit he’s in and the one next to him full of fire and screams is pure damn luck. He could easily have been over there, or the demons could have chosen this side to kill all the mages holding the magic barrier.

This is nothing like the hunting he knows. It’s insane and random. All that holds combat together is sheer morale: as long as nobody runs, as long as the formation holds, you can repel attacks. But you have to stand next to dying comrades to do it. Even experienced soldiers come off a battlefield irreparably fucked up. If Lann is able to stand here and shoot, and keep shooting, it’s because he’s already fucked up.

A messenger pushes through the fray. “Lann! Striker team. Report to sun quarter.”

Special ops striker team. The Commander must have something crazy planned. Lann navigates out of the group and withdraws to the back line, moving past hastily erected medical and supply bays. Activity thins until the only notable thing is three figures waiting at the edge of the perimeter.

Lann is not used to seeing Arcadia without any celestial glamor at all. Night darkness blends with her rich skin and he’s pleasantly surprised he recognizes her even when those twin firelight irises don’t glow. Her radiant hair and halo are hidden too but he still knows it’s her. Thanks, lizard eye.

Arcadia has Greybor and Woljif with her. They’ve been busy. Ripped Baphomet cultist attire throws over their usual armor. As for Lann, well, he and Woljif already look like demons. They can march their “sacrifices” right to the altar behind enemy ranks if need be. Iomedae knows Woljif could lie his way out of a locked mimic.

It’s a nutcase risk, but in such a small group they move quickly off the main battleground, assassinate a handful of flank scouts, and slip around back. Arcadia means to kill the general. Her quiet, intense concentration says it’s taking effort to repress the glowing eyes. Shadows feathering off her hair mean Woljif probably had to help with that part.

A few more dead demons and they make it to the back rank before their luck runs out. By then it doesn’t matter; Lann and Woljif have a defensible position on a heap of fortress rubble, and he’s already nocking arrows to kill the hulking horned kalavakus general bearing down on Arcadia.

Lann doesn’t get time to hit that target. When the fight breaks out he has to put arrows into several demons that try to breach the combat ring. They get the message quick. Step in range and die.

At Lann’s back Woljif chants under his breath, “I’m not gonna die. I’m not gonna die. Just scare ‘em off with your secret powers.” Occasional sizzles of acid and ice punctuate Woljif’s mantra. Lann tunes it out.

If he can just pierce the demon’s brain through the eye socket. He’s shooting fast as he can but the general moves all over the place. “Hold still, you piece of…”

Arcadia roars to draw attention and drives her sword into the thing’s ankle. It kicks her off. Lann sees her hit the ground but he can’t lose focus. Kill the monster. Protect her by killing the monster.

His arrow thuds into its eyeball. Still the demon won’t die. Fuck, Lann thinks, as it swipes for Arcadia. A killing blow rushes down.

Out of darkness Arcadia’s brilliant halo blasts to life. On hands and knees she lifts a palm and holy light lances from it. Brimstone burns across veins in the demon’s hide, lighting its arm up like cinders in a charred log. Its bellow shakes the earth. Lann shoots again. The arrow catches through the sidewall of its stretched jaw.

Lann doesn’t realize what Greybor’s done until the general’s leg spasms and it falls to one knee. Blood spurts from an arterial gash. The ground hisses where it splatters. In its death throes the demon tries to crush Arcadia only to be hit with her pained yell and a second holy bolt.

Soon as the general falls the demon ranks break. Chaos ensues.

It’s all Lann can do to keep the monsters off them.

Something’s wrong with Arcadia. She’s been hit. Still on fours she claws at her breastplate, trying to undo the finicky leather straps and buckles, her face a wreath of pain. She can’t do it alone. The armor stays on. Greybor gets her off the ground but her teeth are grit hard enough to crush. Lann can’t hear well over the screams and metal of one army destroying the other.

Arcadia’s voice strains. “Get me off the field. Find Seelah. Lann… Woljif…”

“Alive. It’ll be easier for them with you out of here. Move.”

Woljif doesn’t wait. “And now… we run! Two demons in an army of demons, hell yeah it’ll be easier for us. Gogogogo!”

“But—!”

Woljif’s tail disappears between two raw-skinned ugly ass babaus. Meanwhile Lann is on the wrong side of enemy lines being a heroic idiot when he doesn’t need to be. “Damn.” He kills a couple more demons along the escape route before he’s forced off the rubble pile. Forget fighting. He slings his bow over his back. Stones crunch under his boots when he lands on the opposite side and bolts.

He’s rushing to find a healer when he sees Seelah with the Houndhearts cutting straight through the center file toward the Commander’s position. Lann slides into the formation, breathing heavy, covered in slick and gore from a fall and maybe a few of his own injuries. If none of the knights stab him it’s thanks to Arcadia parading him around Drezen. Not a demon. Not a demon.

He gets Seelah’s attention. "Arcadia,” he huffs.

“I know. Hold tight.”

Lann doesn’t know where he gets the energy to support the knights. He stays at the center and snipes the enemy. His arm is on fire.

“Lann,” Seelah barks. “We got this. Go get cleaned up.”

The halo up ahead is a bright flaming beacon. He can’t leave until he’s sure. He has to be sure, and then he is: Arcadia rejoins Elan’s unit, every feature stiff with the effort of hiding pain in front of her soldiers. If they don’t attack Greybor on sight it’s because he’s cutting off his cultist tabard with a celestial right next to him.

Arcadia says, “Send a flare. The general is dead. I have to get back to command.”

The message spreads across the night sky in blue firework bursts. An army taking a decisive victory is vicious in its triumph, like a predator with a mind of its own. Lann doesn’t stay to see the crusaders slaughter fleeing demons like bugs.

Seelah marches Arcadia to the main tent. Arcadia’s pain is so intense can’t focus on anything; she doesn’t register he’s there at all. “The armor. I can’t breathe.”

“I gotcha girl. Calm down,” Seelah says, prying blood crusted buckles open.

“Not here. Inside.”

Seelah shoots Lann a semi-terrified look. “Keep watch, okay?”

“Mhmm.” It’s bad. It’s bad enough he might puke. Pip comes out of the tent and makes a sad, worried squeak at Arcadia’s feet. Seelah drags Arcadia inside and drops the flap.

Lann drives a ditch around the perimeter of the giant tent with the force of his circling. After a minute Pip zooms off with a message envelope. A cleric of Iomedae comes. Then leaves. Then Arueshalae arrives, breathless and wide eyed in blood-speckled armor. She hurries into the tent and does not come out.

A field medic shows up with instructions to treat Lann, and he’s forced to stay still, wash the drying viscera off his scales, have his wounds sealed, and drink a potion he can barely stomach. It’s been silent in Arcadia’s pavilion for far too long.

All around the crusaders celebrate the night with no idea at all something’s happened to their Commander, the light and life that’s managed to push the demons back for the first time in forever. Without her—well, Lann can’t imagine a crusade without her. So forget it.

Eventually two guards from Daeran’s side of camp come to relieve Lann of his duties so he can get some rest. Lann pokes them with a couple passive-aggressive jokes to be sure they’re not demons. Satisfied, he’s free to abandon his post and, what, exactly?

He won’t be able to sleep. He goes to a favorite spot around the tent's side where he can laze around a couple crates that make good back rests. Crusaders carouse and play music and drink, the cheer of it warming lantern-lit darkness. Lann overhears a rumor that the Commander is not to be bothered because she’s celebrating with a beautiful man, and he snorts, wondering how the hell Daeran figured out something bad happened, and why he can’t cover it up with a better story.

The only reason Lann is as calm as he is right now is because Arcadia’s powers are doing it. As long as he feels that inner glow he knows she’s alive.

He stays by the crates.

Seelah and Arueshalae find him. “She’s fine,” Seelah assures him. “That wound bled a lot but I don’t think it was dangerous? I don’t know much about demon magic but if Terendelev said it would recover, it will.”

Lann is less sure. Not that he wants to doubt a dragon…

“Don’t worry, Lann,” Seelah insists.

“I think he’s going to worry until he sees her,” Arueshalae says. “You can drink the horse, but you can’t lead it to water. Is that what the humans say?”

Lann smiles despite himself. “Yeah. Just like that.”

“Okay! I’m so glad I got it right.”

Seelah shakes her head and lets him get away with it. The pair are definitely hiding something from him, but he can’t imagine what it is that it’d be protected by starry eyes and good spirits. Seelah and Arueshalae head their separate ways and he’s left to his semi-official protectorship.

Maybe he should try to get some sleep.

He sighs and watches the sky. Sometimes, in the Wound, you can see stars up there. It’s scary. Deeper than any cave he’s ever seen.

It’s not as scary as what he hears muffled through the canvas. Arcadia’s voice strains.

“Pip. Go get Lann.”

Chapter Text

Sitting by the back of the Commander’s pavilion Lann clears his throat and tries to make this not look stupid in case anyone’s watching. “I’m uh, right here. Sorry. I was worried.” Fortunately everyone else is either drunk or partying and doesn’t notice. He hopes.

He hears movement that brings Arcadia closer to the canvas. “Oh. I thought you left. I missed having you nearby like this in Drezen. Um. I think. I might. Need some help, or advice, or…” she sighs, nervous. “Come in. But don’t… freak out.”

“That doesn’t make me worried at all.”

Ignoring the anxious spike in his pulse he gets up and circles to the front of the tent. The sentries give a barely-nod when they notice it’s him. Lann doesn’t wait. He jams his hand into the closed flap and squeezes through. Canvas muffles shut behind him.

It’s hard to tell which he notices first: Arcadia’s entire upper body wrapped in bandages and the bloodstain on the front.

Or the wings.

They’re gold. Even tucked behind her back the arches are clearly visible and the span must be huge fully spread. There’s a depth to the color that Lann would never have imagined in an angel. Now that he’s looking the feathers are mostly gold, but each begins as a rich black, the color of a warm and safe sleep.

“O-oh,” he stammers.

“That bad?” Wings furl tighter.

“No, I’m… in awe?” He has too many thoughts. He wants to see them. A mongrel would be blessed to have such a nice feature. Can she fly? What do they feel like? Is her wound okay; is she in pain; where’s her shirt? What can he do to chase the fear off her face?

Arcadia’s worries pour out now that they’ve started talking. “I can’t wear my clothes. My armor doesn’t fit. I can’t sleep. I can’t sit. What if I break one? Shouldn’t they be white? Is something wrong with me? How am I going to leave the tent tomorrow? ”

“Woah, slow down there champ.”

“Do you know anyone with wings?”

She’s asking about the mongrels. He thinks. “Not… like this. You’d be lucky to get something like this.”

“I wanted Arueshalae to look at them but she can’t touch me, and she was able to turn off her wings when she changes form. She can’t now, though…”

“You want me to look?” he asks. “I’m used to coming up with solutions for weird body parts. Every mongrel’s an expert at it.”

“I hoped you’d say something like that.” Her lopsided smile is encouraging.

There’s a clean shirt spread on the planning table. Lann sees the trio had gotten started on cutting the back out and hemming it so Arcadia doesn’t go out in bandages. He hums. “A button or clasp aught to fix that. We do have a handful of half-wings in the tribe. That’s usually what they do. Got a spare shirt handy?”

Arcadia goes behind the partition to her sleeping quarters and returns with a plain, well-worn linen top. Lann spreads it facedown on the table. “I’m no dressmaker but this is what we’d do.” He draws a finger over the fabric. “One hole for each wing. Then cut all the way to the bottom. You’ll be able to slide it on like normal.” He taps under the first imaginary wing hole. “This is where I’d put a button. Lower, if it’s hard to reach.”

He folds his arms. “The armor is going to be trickier. I’m used to making leather. It’s stiff when you harden it right, so I think I’d just leave slits all the way down the back. But you could do a sort of scale mail too. There’s a lot of options. When we get back to Drezen I’m sure the blacksmiths will have ideas.”

She sounds nervous. Nervous isn’t a think his Inquisitor-Commander usually is. Arc paces. “Maybe we should do a strength test. Push or pull on one so I have some idea what my limitations are. If it’s going to be easy for demons to break I’ll have to rethink my strategy.”

“You… want to do it standing?”

“Hah! No. I… no. Come here.”

Jittery, he follows her around the partition. Unlike the bedrolls everyone else has there’s an actual straw tick mattress. But, all in all, nothing luxurious. It’s a traveling war camp. “So. The Commander’s bedchamber. Looks cozy, compared to sleeping in the caves.”

She snorts with a small amused headshake, turns, and sits down. Wingtips drag against the bed. She angles her wings and flops them around, trying to get comfortable. With a frustrated growl she gives up and lets them sit folded. Pinions stream along the mattress.

“Yeah, it’s a real pain, isn’t it? You’ll get used to it.”

“At least I can still wear a hat.”

“Ha! Lucky.” Sitting beside her he glances at the halo. He’s been curious for a while if a hand would pass through, and whether it feels like anything.

Meanwhile Arcadia mutters, “I’m shy about this. Ugh. You always have my back, I don’t know why now… whatever. Look, just make sure nothing’s messed up. It doesn’t feel like they came out wrong but I can’t see without a full size mirror.”

Fwwwwip. The outside wing slides off the mattress when she reseats with her back to him. She gathers her hair and slips it to the front, clearing the view and also exposing the curve between her shoulder and neck. Bandages hug silk skin. Lann, uh, swallows.

This close he can see where her wings get their beautiful color. Each ebony feather threads with gold that intensifies all the way down to its gilded tip.

He… isn’t really thinking when he reaches out.

Arcadia’s feathers slide under his fingertips. They’re soft. Softer than anything he has ever touched. He wouldn’t have expected there could be a material more gentle than pipefox fluff, or that arrow fletching is nothing compared to the texture of a wing. He slowly slides his hand down the plumage and the folded shell of Arcadia’s wing starts to open, just enough to explore the contour of strength underneath. Smaller scalloped feathers flow like a dream beneath his touch.

She slowly spreads her wings and he doesn’t stop.

Her voice is a whisper. “Lann…”

He yanks his hand away. His pulse runs hot with the sound of his name like that. There’s a boundary friends aren’t supposed to cross, and he just… He. Clears his throat. Arcadia won’t look at him. Her wings snap shut tight.

“They’re strong,” he says stupidly. “I’ll, uh, make sure we have a good healer in case anything happens to them.”

Dumb, dumb, dumb. Lann winces. Gods help him, every part of him wants to keep touching her. This is why he shouldn’t have. He’s going to relive what he just got to experience a thousand times tonight.

The atmosphere in the tent feels like a wounded animal. Lann stands up from the bed and it’s as if he plunged a dagger into his own chest. He has to escape but the further away he goes the more he hurts. He backs up. Arcadia sighs; she won’t face him and her tone is carefully controlled when she says thanks to what he said about a healer.

Lann gives a pathetic goodnight and flees. He hates himself for the rest of the evening. He vowed he’d never doom himself like his parents did with their relationship, but here he is, where running away might be the worst possible thing he could do, worse even than giving in.

Arcadia is not a mongrel. Sure, they’ve talked about it, but there is a difference between hearing him say how fast his kind age, and her actually living with it. Uplanders don’t know. They don’t know.

Lann doesn’t realize what he’s done until red drips from the back of his hand. A welt of missing scales opens his flesh. He sheathes the hunting knife while fear freezes his guts. He hasn’t done this in ages. Not since dad caught him. That was right before they left mom, and went back to the caves for good.

He kicks dirt over the green crescents and walks to the fanciest part of camp, propriety be damned. Decorated tent flaps lie open and two guards bar the entrance before Lann even gets close. He ignores them. “Daeran,” he barks over crossed halberds, raising the injured hand. “Fix this.”

Daeran doesn’t look up from the book he’s reading. With a nonchalant finger flick the pain stinging the back of Lann’s hand recedes.

“Thanks.” Lann marches away. He doesn’t have to look to know the unnatural pink color that will be left. It’ll take a few weeks before his scales regrow. How is he going to explain this? ‘I learned in school how different I was? I tried to take off all the parts I hate?’

A story he knows Arcadia is going to hear anyway because he tells her everything.

“Damn. Damn. Damn.”

Chapter Text

Fire flickers at the center of camp, its orange shadows licking the darkness. Lann should be sleeping. He has second watch later. Instead he’s sitting on his bedroll, thoughts empty. Except for Arushalae the others are on watch further out or deeply asleep.

In the distance firelight barely reaches Arcadia’s wings. Scalloped feathers blued by midnight rest quietly. She stays awake to keep the corruption at bay, her back to everyone.

He remembers the softness of her wings.

“You love her,” Arueshalae says.

Lann’s silence is enough.

“You think it’s going to hurt her.”

“Now you sound like Ember,” he says.

“I wish I could have Ember’s insight into the goodness of the world.” Arushalae turns her chin down to the campfire like she’s ashamed. “This situation is the sort a demon would enjoy taking advantage of. When I watch you, your dream is so beautifully clear. Simple things, like a hug, or a brush on the shoulder. Sitting side by side. You want to touch.”

Lann’s gaze slides off Arcadia to the demon across the fire. “And you don’t?”

“No! I—I would never… I…”

“You’re a succubus.”

Arushalae’s torment intensifies. “I do. I want to. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Lann cuts her off. “That’s my point. You want to touch her, but you also don’t want to suck the soul out of her. You care. That’s why you haven’t done anything.”

Arushalae lapses into silence.

After a while Lann finishes basking in the peace he gets when Arcadia is focused on purifying the corruption that’s hounded him most his life. He settles down on his bedroll to get some sleep.

The cinders in the fire pit begin to die out.

He’s barely awake when he hears Arushalae. Her voice has that haunting melodious quality to it, somehow close and private, a message just for him that hopefully doesn’t send him straight to hell.

“I never had a dream until I met Desna. I’ve been learning so much, and, I think I can maybe have more than one dream? Or it’s one of the things you call hopes? A-anyway. One of them isn’t about me. It’s about you, Lann.

“It’s a dream where you realize you aren’t a demon.”

Chapter Text

“Neathholm. Underneath Home.” Arcadia grins. “Why didn’t I notice before?”

“Yeah my ancestors were not the most creative bunch,” Lann says.

“How does it feel to be back?”

The caves he’s known all his life are turned around from Deskari’s destruction. Even if they were the same, Lann doesn’t think there’d be a strong emotion to seeing them again. That’s kind of messed up. This should feel like home to him, he guesses. It doesn’t. “You know,” he says, “I’m really looking forward to giving Daeran a tour. He missed the first one.”

Daeran responds from the back. “I stepped in something, my foot is wet, and I believe I may die.”

“So soon?” Lann asks.

“Unfortunately. You’ve told such wonderful tales of mongrel life I was truly looking forward to recreating them. Lying in a hut of some monstrous creature’s hide, sampling local cuisine, enjoying company of the most physically fascinating mongrels I can find.”

“We should have left you in Drezen.”

“Oh no, but then you wouldn’t be able to bring two angels into your light-starved underground.” A halo flares into existence above Daeran’s head.

Arcadia starts. “You have one. I wasn’t sure.”

“I hate using it. But it well may be worth it, this time.”

Unfortunately, Daeran’s legendarily bad first impressions are the least of their worries when they reach Chief Sull.

~ ~ ~

Lann leads.

He has no choice. Only he knows where to go.

This cave. The cave. Wow, he hasn’t thought about this place at all, let alone imagine coming back. Wenduag better be here. Otherwise they’re going to waste a bunch of time combing through the tunnels one by one. He’s not gonna abandon Dyra unless it becomes a necessary evil. Which it might, if he’s wrong about where to look, because he took the crusade’s Commander away from the crusade for this—for a pack of mongrels nobody’s cared about for so long they’ve been forgotten underground at least a century.

The crusade… his tribe… he’s fooling himself. He can’t leave until he finds Dyra. If nothing turns up Arcadia will return to Drezen and he’ll stay until he sorts this out. As long as it takes.

He thumbs the lucky gold piece. Dyra, fed up and impatient with waiting for the Light. She wanted to go to the surface more than anyone. She would have done it too, if Wenduag’s dad had not collapsed the exit after everything that happened. Then they’d all been rats trapped in a literal maze.

Lann and Drya, the two sun-crazy mongrels. Had that been Dyra’s finger in the box? His mouth flattens into a grim line. Probably.

What the fuck, Wendu.

He can’t understand it. He glances down the line. Arcadia is in the back. She never marches in back.

Focus on the mission, Lann.

Outside the village luminescent mushroom towers become clusters, then single mushrooms, then nothing but occasional glowing blips in the lake. It’s silent save the sound of their footsteps. It’d be dark too, except Arcadia’s halo drapes light past his feet, making fuzzy elongated shadows that vanish into the gloom. Sand turns squishy. Water forms pools on either side of the land bridge to the hidden alcove where the cave entrance starts.

Wenduag will hear them coming. She’ll see them coming. Grumpiness clamps down on Lann’s mood. Whatever she thinks she’s going to get out of this hiding spot she’s wrong. One way in also means only one way out.

He closes his eyes, huffs, and climbs up the ledge to the entrance. In the back of his mind temptation begs to pretend it’s a difficult ledge he needs to stay behind to assist the rest of the party with, so he doesn’t have to be in front anymore.

Though he’s not sure he wants to run afoul of the dark mood brewing at the back.

Entering the cave, soil firms into dry rock. Crackle of a campfire echoes through the tunnel. Lann leads on until the passage widens and the full cave opens up overhead with enough space for glowshrooms to grow again. Bone structure of a disassembled tent stands stark next to the fire.

Wenduag crouches over a shredded carcass. The pulpy scarlet mass is unrecognizable. It’s on her hands. On her face. A darker oily sheen on dark fur.

“You’re still alive,” Wenduag drawls. “That’s a… surprise.”

“I don’t want anything to do with you. Where’s Dyra?”

Wenduag does not answer. A smile slowly crawls across her fangs. She flexes a claw from the pad of her finger and dips it, down, into the raw meat. The humanoid shaped meat.

Lann’s emotions cease. He can’t speak. The others gather at his sides. When his voice does come, it’s punched thin with disbelief. “You. You did this on purpose.”

Wenduag licks blood off a finger. “She was such an easy target. Always going off alone. So sure of her own strength, so trusting of others. Just like you.” A mocking gleam flashes in her eyes. “I wonder what your precious uplanders will think when they know how many times I bested you, had you writhing on this very floor covered in claw marks like a useless sheep. We were never equals, Lann. The weak are just tools for the strong.”

“You’re not Wenduag. Who the hell are you?” he asks, baffled.

“Didn’t Sull tell you? I’m the Chief.”

“No.”

Her grin is malicious. “I decide who lives or dies. I choose what’s best for the tribes. They’ll stay and become strong serving the demons. It’s more than you’ve ever done, abandoning them here.”

“Enough.” Arcadia’s voice rings through the cavern. It takes Lann a second to realize it’s her and not the Hand of the Inheritor. Her tone commands. “What am I to do with you, Wenduag?”

Wenduag sneers. “I’m the one who decides what to do with you. ”

The arrow screams. It sinks shaft deep into Arcadia’s sword shoulder, straight between gaps in the armor.

Lann sees red.

Belatedly, it occurs to him he might have just killed Wenduag. She twists backwards with the force of arrows and Woljf’s crossbow bolt, catching herself on her fingertips. Still alive.

He’s going to roar. He’s going to strangle her, shouting for what poison she tipped the arrow with. Arcadia is ten steps ahead of him. It’s not even a spell: she snaps her fingers just so Wenduag knows, and sees, the magical flow that scrolls around the sunken arrow. Its bug-winged shaft continues to jut from her shoulder and she ignores it, unflinchingly strolling forward, no weapon drawn. This is no longer the Commander. This is the Inquisitor.

Wenduag does not know when to quit. Dagger out she hisses and leaps at Arcadia, who grabs right into the attack. Wenduag is thrown full force onto her side, onto the bolt sticking from it. The dagger skitters across the floor. Arcadia pulls her sword.

“Stop,” Wenduag rasps. “Enough. I… I was wrong, about you.”

“Wrong?” Lann shouts. “You’re insane!”

Weduag’s bloody chuckle turns upward toward Arcadia. “He doesn’t understand your strength. I… I am unworthy to even speak to you! Allow me to become your slave! I will serve you, I will be everything you command!”

“She’s not a demon Wenduag,” Lann says. “She doesn’t care about any of that!”

“Quit talking Lann,” Wenduag snaps, “You think you’re wiser than her?”

Wenduag spits and raves at him about how he doesn’t understand anything, how he’s stupid and always will be. He can’t believe he ever listened to someone like this. He has to wonder how much of his own self-poison is from spending too much time with Wenduag.

She begs and prostrates herself at Arcadia’s feet, lamenting how she’s lowlier than a worm, and whatever other drivel the cultists taught her to repeat. Arcadia’s expression is a stone mask of nothing while she watches the creature crush itself to the cave floor, wriggling and writhing and trying to please.

A campfire burns in the cavern and it should be warm, but the atmosphere chills with the cold certainty of Judgement. Lann can rarely tell what Arcadia is thinking in these moments. Her choices are sometimes his and sometimes not.

It takes Wenduag this long to realize her ploy is the wrong one. “Let me follow you. I will learn. I will be stronger, better. You celestials. You have… so much mercy…”

Arcadia’s sword hangs loosely from her hand, tip down, no holy glow, nothing. “Sometimes mercy means cutting a plague before it spreads.”

Wenduag smears her forehead on the floor and laughs.

“Dyra should have lived," Arcadia says.

“Admit it: you’re scared of me. You’re frightened of what I can do to you and your little friends. Are you going to kill me because I will surpass you? Are you? Tell me!” Wenduag’s eyes gleam feverishly. A bloody fanged grin hangs from her lip.

Lann needs this to end. “Tell her what she wants to hear. It’s the only mercy for someone so far gone.”

Arcadia has never looked more like one of the statues in the First Crusader’s Hall than in this moment. Lann can’t read her at all. Her voice is flat. “It’s as you say Wenduag. You’re too dangerous to let live.”

Tension goes out of Wenduag’s pose and she smiles, satisfied. “I knew it.” Sickly yellow eyes turn on him. “Learn from the best Lann. No mercy.”

But he’s not listening. Not to her. Not anymore. “I hope your soul at least finds peace, since clearly this life wasn’t enough.” Though he knows she’ll most likely become the worm she so wished to be. He’s heard enough from Arueshalae to know that.

In an instant Arcadia’s sword lunges through Wenduag’s heart. The corpse falls over top of gored remains on the ground. For all Wenduag’s boasting she hadn’t been able to move two steps from where they’d found her.

Spider legs twitch, curl, and fall still.

Arcadia stands over the scene without moving. In the silence a blood drop slides off the sword and taps the ground. Then her wings spread straight up, all the way open, straining, tips bending across the ceiling, and she roars horrible agonized anger. “RRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” It echoes off the walls. Woljif nearly jumps out of his skin, tail thrashing once he lands on his feet.

“Gave me a real fright there chief. You sure screaming down here’s the best idea? Should I do it too?”

Lann’s skin prickles. He’s never seen this behavior before.

Arcadia’s wings fold. She covers her eyes with a hand. “Woljif, take anything useful. Mix it in with the rest and don’t tell me where you got it. Greybor, burn the bodies after everyone’s done here. I’m going back to the village.” Her hand falls and she leaves without looking, without waiting for anyone.

Lann rushes to follow and is stopped by Seelah’s hand clapped on his shoulder. “I better take this one. Maybe give her space for a bit,” she says.

He watches Seelah head off down the tunnel. “...Was it something I said?” If the others hear they don’t answer. Woljif whistles a tune while he easily uncovers stashes Lann never knew existed. Food, supplies, medicine. Things the tribe could have used.

Lann drags his gaze around the secret cave and suddenly feels ill. It’s easier to focus on the bodies and imagine he’ll help Greybor. He finally gets a good look at what’s been done to Dyra. If Chief Sull had not said Dyra was missing, Lann would not have recognized the parts.

And now he knows why Arcadia chose not to bring the remains back to the tribe. It’s one thing to hear a story and another to be a witness. Fresh blood that isn’t Wenduag’s trickles from her dead mouth, and that’s the last thing Lann sees before Greybor hefts her carcass like a sack into the fire pit.

Her lies and manipulation won’t hurt the tribe again.

Greybor indicates what’s left of Dyra. “Is there any specific way you’d like me to take care of this?”

“We, ah, aren’t as strict about burial rites as some of the uplanders. Death is too common, there isn’t always a body, and when there is, it can’t be left to infect the water or spread disease or come back to life. Not that that stops the smugglers, slavers, and demons from throwing their dead down here.” He looks away. “Burning is good. There’s an airway in this cave so we won’t suffocate.”

Nobody stays after the burning begins.

Chapter Text

“Welp, it’s stuck.” Lann keeps tapping on the door controls anyway. Every press on the panel makes the surface light up red.

Two hours ago when Daeran took one look at the controls and said, “Hell if I know,” none of them had realized they were locked in Blackwater’s fortress.

They realize it now.

Seelah pushes on the thick metal exit doors.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Arcadia says. “We’re stuck here.”

Which, ordinarily, would be fine. They’d either slaughter everything in sight until they got results, or they’d be the ones getting slaughtered. Live or die: straight and simple!

But no.

Lann laughs.

They’re too strong to get hit by the augmented demons, and the augmented demons are too strong to get hit by them. So. A stalemate.

“This is the wrong team for the job, but it’s not like we can go all the way back to Drezen and get Nenio or Ember or Woljif, can we?” Arcadia says. “We have two of these lightning rods, and we’re absolutely sure none of us can use them?”

“That’s the short of it,” Greybor says.

All six of their current squad and not a single arcane caster to go around.

Now, Lann himself might not have any magic, but he’s certain by this point they’re tapped. Out. Kaput. The first encounter with the head-viced demons made sure of that. Except their team does have all its healing spells left. They could fight an eternal battle where they heal while the demons regenerate and so on. It’d take ages but eventually by stroke of luck someone will die. Seelah and Arcadia have no problem dispatching the demons once they hit the ground, but it’s a matter of getting to that point. Nothing penetrates those thick hides. Arrows flop off them like a fistful of straw.

Arcadia folds her arms. “Alright. Gather ‘round. We’re sleeping here.”

Seelah stops trying to force the doors. “Arcadia, I’m not sure we can sleep here. Not with demons and… whatever these are… hanging around.” She waves a hand at the zombielike workers sweeping a floor bloodied up by everyone’s bootprints. The prints go through one door and back again on all sides. It’s a visible zen path of confusion.

“We have to rest,” Arcadia says. “It’s not a matter of choice. Otherwise we’re stuck here until we starve. And that might take a while because I’ll bet Lann can make up something to eat out of all this.” She spreads her wings to the entirety of the underground fortress, excepting the corridor stuffed with more augmented demons. The part they ran from.

Lann had really thought they’d bested Blackwater when they made it through the fiery chamber in the center. It seemed like the big bad boss fight to him. If that wasn’t it, imagine what the real fight is going to be. How will they make it through?

Daeran sets the trigger for his crossbow. “I do not want to die down here and become one of these unthinking lackeys. Whoever created their abominable head contraptions has no eye for beauty. And I’d rather not see the inside of Lann’s brain.”

“Oh no worries on that score. As long as they cut into your head first, the molten gold inside oughta make them lose all interest in me.”

It takes Arcadia a handful of frustrated minutes roaming the corridors to find a place they can all agree is sleepable.

Lann unpacks camping equipment into the metal hallway. “This brings back memories. Think of it as a perfectly cut cave.”

“It’s my first time sleeping in a hallway,” Arueshalae says.

Daeran’s brows go up. “It isn’t mine.”

“You must’ve been drunk,” Lann says.

“I was positively sloshed.”

Lann’s a cave monster. Sleeping in a tunnel is rote routine to him. The flat cleanliness of the metal is new, though. It makes it easy to spot movement. He keeps hoping he’ll see something scurry past that he can slip into Daeran’s stew. It better be extra wiggly.

There’s no gong to mark passage of time, so in the “morning” when everyone feels energized they reconvene.

Arcadia prompts: “Plans on how to get out of here.” 

“We overpower them,” Seelah says.

“With our wit and can-do attitudes!” Lann adds.

“I was more thinking with our muscles.”

“We tried that.”

Seelah chuckles. “Oh no we didn’t. Not all the way.”

“Brute force,” Arcadia says. “I like it. Next?”

Daeran brushes a fleck off his overcoat. “I’d offer to bribe the owner of this place to release us, but they haven’t been forthcoming about their identity.”

“Or the keys to the exit,” Lann says.

“That as well,” Daeran acknowledges. “Arueshalae, could you not simply drain the life from all of them?”

“Um. No. I can only stomach doing it once. It’s a lot. Overwhelming, intoxicating, like your alcohol must be. I’m afraid I’ll lose myself.”

“That is precisely what alcohol is for my dear,” Daeran says. “Losing oneself.”

Seelah says dryly, “We could drink ourselves into oblivion, but all that’s going to do is kill time. Then we wake up in a lair of crazy demons without anything to dull the pain.”

“True. But it could be quite fun!” Daeran adds.

“We’re not throwing a party in Blackwater Daeran,” Arcadia says. She waits, and once the silence goes on long enough Greybor speaks.

“Since we skillfully got past the first gate without it, I’d like to put this on the table as an option.” He reaches into his pack and removes the glowing, ominous bottle of energy that can only be something far worse than holy water or alchemist’s fire.

“A Numerian bomb,” Daeran muses. “I’ve never seen one in action.”

Greybor says, “Me neither. So we should be careful how we apply it.”

“Lann’s fast,” Daeran points out.

“That I am. I also have no idea how to use a bomb. Do I just throw it, or…?”

“No!” is the resounding chorus.

“Please take this seriously Lann,” Arueshalae pleads. “I want us all to live.”

“I am taking this seriously. There’s a direct relationship between the number of jokes and how serious, nervous, mad, happy, enthused, and/or unenthused I am.”

“Oh.” Arueshalae blinks. He can see her mind turn inward trying to process what he just said, reevaluating every single one of their interactions. Oops. He, uh, didn’t mean to do that.

“Note the quality of Lann’s jokes is not a factor,” Daeran shoots. Harr harr.

Daeran and Greybor teach him how to activate the bomb and the killer weapon is entrusted to him for when Arcadia says ‘when.’

“We’re going to overpower them with wit and muscle,” Arcadia announces. “Seelah?”

“I’ve been waiting to do this.” The paladin takes her bag of holding, sets its opening to the floor, and slowly drags backwards. Bottles and flasks and jars of every color imaginable pour out. Seelah sets a stack of scrolls next to them.

Arcadia has her own notes. “I made a list of all our natural spells. Resistances, divine intervention, blessings. We’re going to cast them all at once. Then we’ll drink the potions and apply the scrolls.”

Arueshalae’s eyes widen. “Everything?”

“Everything.”

“For ten minutes we shall be gods,” Daeran finishes.

And they are. For ten minutes they’re virtually untouchable. They storm the halls, slaughter every augmented creature there is, spring all the traps, and break into the main compound. The owner starts into their grand speech about mechanized mortals.

“Lann?” Arcadia catches him with the signal. “When.”

They blow the fuck out of the entire chamber.

Chapter Text

The ex-Wintersun demon’s name is Jerribeth. Lann doesn’t care to remember. He’ll just think of it as ‘demon’ for the next few minutes.

Demon buzzes its mosquito wings and… smiles?... at their group. It curls a pointed finger at Arcadia. “You took something of mine so now I take something of yours.”

The finger draws from Arcadia to him. The weird insect singles him out and watches expectantly. He doesn’t feel a thing. But, he walks on over to the demon’s side, just like a good… whatever these men she keeps around her are. Servants? Pets?

Good ol’ mongrel Lann walks just a bit past the demon and turns around. It seems pleased with its nefarious plan and highly successful brainwashing. Ignoring him it directs its attention to his friends. “Over time this one’s feelings for me will grow. I hope you live to see it Commander.”

Lann casually nocks an arrow behind the demon’s back.

“Oh no. What ever shall I do,” Arcadia says flatly. Everyone in the group parts to the left and right. No need to get hit by an arrow on accident. The demon seems confused by the formation? He can’t tell. He’s not adept at reading bug emotions, especially not from the back.

He lets the arrow fly right as the demon happens to turn around to check on him. The tip plunges through its mosquito face, soars away with the lightweight body, and pins it headfirst into a decorative wood bath partition. Purple ooze splatters. “Oh-hoh! Did you see that!” He’s already got the rest of the bug pinned with arrows.

You’d think the demons would race back to the Abyss to save their sorry hides, but it’s either fortunate or unfortunate that they’re too arrogant to understand how fast the Commander’s crew can cut up a lone demon. The creature doesn’t get another spell. Its manservant lies magically sleeping, slumped over the bedside table.

Seelah inspects Ember’s work.

“It’s another demon,” she announces.

They cut the disguised demon up too. Its true form turns out to be a hulking pile of crab meat and soup horn. Arcadia’s shoulders relax as she sighs. “Gods. I was worried for nothing. Blackwater was much worse.”

“We do not speak of Blackwater.” Lann flicks the hand sign for warding off evil spirits.

“Let’s clear the place so we can go back to Drezen,” Seelah says. “I want a drink.”

~ ~ ~

Arcadia gets diverted by council business so Lann’s down to his usual drinking buddies. At the tavern Seelah leans back from their table. “Lann and the Knight Commander. Name a more iconic duo.”

“Daeran, Lann, and the Knight Commander,” Daeran says. “Anything with me in it is infinitely better.”

“That’s… no. And you can’t include Arcadia in that. If either of you spent half as much time flirting with her as you do each other I’d need my brain washed. Arcadia must’ve said something special to get you to back off, Dae.”

“Since my interest in our leader was so heartlessly rebuffed, I’ve been left to prey upon the weaker, smaller members of the group.”

Lann pauses his sip of ale. “That’s not a very nice thing to say about Nenio.”

Daeran redirects with a playful smile. “But have you seen the tail? There’s nothing weak or small about that, oh no.” Daeran settles into his cushioned seat, the nicest chair in the whole tavern he pays Fye to keep in the back and take out only for him, and, wineglass in hand, lets his attention drift to a tail daydream. Now all the normal people can have a conversation.

At Lann’s request Seelah starts into a story about a border town he hasn’t heard of yet.

Nenio practically kicks the tavern door in. She shoves her muzzle into the faces of multiple patrons, staring into their eyes, trying to recall if this or that person is one she spent several months traveling with. It takes a couple surprised strangers pushing her off before she sets her sights across the tavern, on Lann. He should congratulate himself for being slightly more memorable than the average alcoholic.

Nenio hurries over and slams a deck of cards between everyone’s tankards. “Cards! I request you teach me this at once. The tiefling boy is a statistical anomaly and I must discover why.”

“It’s called cheating,” Lann says.

“Don’t listen to him,” Seelah cuts in. “Here, sit, I’ll show you how to play.”

Lann enjoys his drink while Nenio learns the game in three hands and then summarily beats Seelah almost every single time. Seelah scratches her brow, somewhat muddled. “Remind me to never play you for stakes.”

“There are stakes? Wagers?”

“Usually it’s coin but it doesn’t have to be. Sometimes it’s an embarrassing act.”

“Excellent. I could use these cards to acquire volunteers for my experiments.”

“Err...”

Daeran pipes up. “Oh, yes. I think you should play one of us right now.”

“Mongrel boy, duel me so I may have the anatomical drawing I’ve requested.”

“Godsdammit,” he mumbles under Daeran’s laughing. “No. I said no. For the last time.”

Chapter Text

He needs to do this while he’s still feeling high and mighty. Walking directly into Drezen’s fortress command center no longer intimidates. Now the scary part is doing that to ask for Arcadia’s time, probably with witnesses and an audience.

Once he gets to the top of the stairs the “turn around, go back, nothing good will come of this, quit hoping for yes” demons kick in. Lann steels himself as he's ushered into the waiting area. Scribes and fortress staff and foreign faces come and go. Drezen is a busy place. Most of what it takes to operate a military flies far above his head.

Eventually a group of aasimar mages leave the war room and the attendant ushers Lann in.

In front of the long table and all the advisors he says, “Sorry to bother you with this, but, I need a training partner, and the crusaders won’t cut it because I’ve already whomped all of the ones who agreed to a duel of fists.”

Irabeth sighs heavily. “I heard about that. The soldiers were placing bets on a self-proclaimed ‘Cave Freak with a Horn.’”

“That’s me!” He grins.

Arcadia looks thoughtful. “Irabeth could train with you? Or if it’s technique you’re interested in there’s also Woljif, Greybor, Seelah…”

“Wait! It has to be you. I’ve seen you fight a hundred times. You’re different from everyone else—I mean, the way you fight.”

He explains the rest of his feeble plan. If anything Arcadia is amused. “Let me make sure I’m understanding this,” she says, “You want to spar with me.”

“Yep!”

“Up on the fortress wall.”

“Mhmm.”

“Where everybody can see.”

“Uh-huh… oh. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I wasn’t sure you’d say yes.”

“Lann, you grew up with hand-to-hand combat. It’ll hardly be a fair fight.”

“...Please?”

Arcadia looks to Irabeth and Anevia. Anevia shrugs. Arcadia’s wings drop when she gives in. “Who could say no to those dragon-pup eyes? Fine.” She calls a guard to clear the top ramparts so there are fewer witnesses. “I’m curious if you’re going to take this seriously. You realize not very many people are willing to punch an angel.”

“The demons don’t seem to mind.”

“It’s hard to practice with someone who actively wants to kill you.”

Lann follows her out onto the huge wall. “So what you’re saying is you’re either being punched too hard, or not hard enough, and you’d like me to punch you somewhere in the middle. I think I can do that.”

She laughs. “I don’t want to be punched at all. But you’re right, practice is good, and… you look so happy. I’m worried I’ll disappoint you.”

“I can’t be disappointed. I got what I wanted. Even if you beat me into the ground I’ll die the happiest man alive.”

“Killing the happiest man alive isn’t something I want on my conscience,” she grins, unstrapping her scabbard and a few other things and setting them in the corner between the parapet and the tower door. Lann adds his hunting knife to the stash.

“You’re in charge," she says. "What are your rules?”

“No magic. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t kick me in the groin. And, I’ll try to be careful with the horn, but don’t forget it’s there.”

“Is that all?”

“It’s survival fighting, but let’s go easy on each other.”

“Good. Because I won’t be able to hit you if it’s fair.”

Lann rolls his shoulders and does a few stretches to limber up. Arcadia does not. Relaxed, she watches with her arms folded. If it were appreciative watching he’d show off, but he realizes it’s not. She hasn’t looked at him this way before: assessing, measuring. It’s almost intimidating.

He is just her subordinate after all. Isn’t he?

But Lann’s too far into this to back down now. Edge from the fight he finished before running up Drezen’s stairs returns. Tension of this weird situation with Arcadia builds. He keeps his stance loose and ready to adapt to whatever she throws at him.

Which, so far, is nothing.

He scoots closer. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

She hasn’t moved out of that relaxed pose. Without any stance it should be easy to knock her over, but, the closer he gets the more his danger sense prickles. It’s unsettling to approach someone who won’t engage. Lann weaves a bit, fists up, seeking a reaction to size up the opponent.

He tries to fake her out with a few quick moves and she doesn’t flinch. She knows he can’t hit her at this distance. So, he steps in range—

FWOOOSH

Lann lands on his feet out of the danger zone. Wide gold black wings stare back at him, having done nothing but open very suddenly.

“Scared?” Arcadia asks.

“Wary.”

Her smile is kinda dangerous. She hasn’t taken her eyes off him this entire time. Lann was right about this: Arcadia doesn’t fight like anyone he’s dealt with.

Now that she’s startled him she spreads her feet and raises her hands. She keeps her fingers loose. So she thinks she’s going to grab him? We’ll see about that.

Up on the battlement they circle each other, gauging weaknesses. They exchange a few light swipes. Being taller gives Lann the advantage. He’ll always have a chance to hit her before she’s close enough to hit him, except for the wings, which she’s been keeping tight to her back. It’d be dangerous to let someone get ahold of one.

Lann decides to aim for them to see if she’s learned that lesson yet.

He tries to snatch the edge of a wing. She rebuffs it with a wrist and nails him in the side with her opposite palm. He attempts again at a different angle and she slams chest-to-chest against him, digging knuckles into the exact same spot.

They separate, still circling. “Damn. You keep hitting me there.”

“You’re leaving it open every time you try to get what you want.”

“Can you show me?”

They go through a couple patterns so he sees what he’s messing up. It’s close physical contact, positioning hands on arms, hips, nothing out of the ordinary from professional combat training. She handles him without hesitation.

The next time he tries for a wing he doesn’t leave the opening and get hit. He still hasn’t managed to catch any feathers though. “You’re not going to let me have this, are you?”

“Arueshalae said not to.”

“Not to what? Let me win, or—” he dodges a blow and lands two strikes “—let anyone touch your wings?”

“The second one.”

“No wings, huh? Then…”

He baits her into throwing a punch, grabs her arm, and whips around to wrack her in a headlock. Instead of struggling she maneuvers to escape. Before she can he hops the lock to her chest and drops his weight. Arcadia crashes to the battlement. Lann lands partway on top of her. Brute force jerks in his clenched arms a couple times before she goes lax acknowledging the point. He lets her go.

Standing, she wipes her grin. “You’re holding back.”

“So are you.” He brushes the bruising spot she’d picked on earlier. “You could keep hitting me here and really make it hurt. I’ve seen you do it to demons over and over.”

“Do you study everyone this much?” She sets her feet. “Or is it only me?”

He smirks at the obvious trap. “I’m not going to dignify that with a response, Commander.” Then he lunges.

SMACK! Lann isn’t sure how, but he flies tail over end and slams onto his stomach. Arcadia’s boot presses between his shoulder blades and his arm is pulled taught, straight up. One yank and she could break it. His forehead stings a little on the human side.

Surprise hammers his heartbeat. “You slapped me.”

“I’m trained to give cultists a spanking when they rush me like that.”

She lets him up and they quickly square off. “A spanking? I hope I’m worth more than that.”

“Come find out.”

Competition flares. The bouts turn fast, circling, swipes blocked and twisted and thrown. He brings her down again. If he weren’t fighting for his dignity it’d be fun to see what sorts of positions they could scrap into. But she’s better at hand-to-hand than she let on, so he doesn’t get to choose how to hold her. If he manages it at all he’s lucky.

Arcadia pokes him, slaps him, smashes her open palm to his face and pushes his head back any chance she gets. Those damn open hands surprise and distract and throw him over his own momentum more than a few times. In return Lann pummels her with flurries of blows and compromises her footing, armlocks her, headlocks her, wrestles her to the stones until it’d be dangerous to go on and she gives.

She turns defensive and it becomes difficult to even touch her. He lets himself take two hits to get her in range. Then he trips her.

She curses. “You got that from Woljif.”

Lann revels in his tiny victory. He clasps her hand and hauls her back up. Arcadia shakes her head and brushes her outfit, embarrassed at being landed by such a petty move. “I told you that you were going to win,” she says. “I’d stay and be a sore loser, but I don’t have to. Because I learned from Woljif too.”

She turns tail and runs. Lann gawps for a half a second before chasing after her.

“I don’t have to fight you!” she shouts joyfully, tearing across the wall.

“Wait! I’ll stop!”

“If you want your victory so bad you’ll have to take it!”

It’s a game. Lann closes the distance fast. Arcadia hits the far tower and tries to scramble up the top. She makes it onto her elbows before he catches her around the waist and wins a ridiculous, playful shriek as he drags her down. Fortress stone scratches scales and his dumb smile buries into her back.

“Gotcha! What was that about victory?”

“You can have it! You can have it!” she flails, clawing at the ledge for freedom she’s not going to get, her laughter shaking into his bare chest.

Lann hoists and pushes her to the top like they’ve done a hundred times climbing ruins in the Wound. Once she’s up, his claws scrape into mortar between stones. He hauls himself over the gap in fortress crenellations. They sit atop the westmost tower, panting for air. Distant crevices of the Worldwound coat the background. Joy and the desire for more swirls.

“How about this,” Lann offers. “I’ll admit defeat if you can catch me. ”

“Heralds know that’s never going to happen.”

“Are you so sure?” He stands, paces to the tower edge, and aims to leap for the wall.

“You’ll break your legs!”

No he won’t. He takes a lithe running jump and lands neatly on the wall, then turns around to see if she’ll follow. Between the crenellations Arcadia peers down. Then her face disappears. She’ll come for him, he just knows it.

Tap tap tap tap! Footsteps fly to the edge and let go. Golden feathers flow open and there’s a few glorious seconds of an actual angel swooping down on him.

He’s tackled into the stones. While they wrestle to get up he has a silly idea that now’s the time to try for her wings again. She doesn’t make it easy. They end up tussling on the wall like a pair of pups, and he somehow manages to get her pinned face down while she squirms and laughs because her wings are ticklish. Lann makes fierce use of that new knowledge with a big stupid grin on his face.

“Lann! Haha! Lann stop!” she giggles breathlessly, writhing, trying to keep her wings folded. “I’m going to hit you on accident! Ha! Hahaha!”

She’s fun. He loves that. “Do you yield?”

“No!”

He eases up anyway, if only to give her a chance to flip over and defend herself. She tucks her feathers and turns between his pinned arms, landing on her back with a huff. Then she gazes up at him with a gleam in her eyes. He expects to be thrown off.

Instead they watch each other, panting with exertion. He’s all worked up from fisticuffs and play and his thoughts are going soupy from the feel of her between his knees. Being this close is special. Lann keeps waiting for Arcadia to kick him, remind him of his place, and assert superiority. It should have happened minutes ago. In fact it should have happened days, weeks, months ago. Hell, when they first met.

And it’s not until now, lying on the parapet together, that he realizes there can be love without one person having to win all the time.

Spread under him Arcadia closes her eyes and lets her head collapse back on the stone. Metallic gold hair fans in an energetic mess. Her chin drops to the side and exposes the sweeping curve between her jaw and neck. Total vulnerability.

She’s letting him have this. Lann might be drunk. He stares. He thinks aloud.

“You’re… really pretty right now.”

“Oh. So, you’re into the submissive type.”

“WHAT?” He jumps off her. “No! No, I… Hah! Hrmm. That’s not what I meant at all.”

She doesn’t believe him. Shit, he’s really not like that. “I am so sorry. I’m an oaf. I thought… I don’t know. I got excited by a string of victories and thought I could use the confidence to get you to spend time with me? Gosh that sounds stupid now that I’m hearing it out loud.”

Arcadia sits up, massaging a kink in her shoulder and wincing a little. He went way overboard. What was he thinking? He wasn’t. He got caught up in being alive with her.

He’s alive when he’s with her.

Dammit. Looking at the desolate landscape he grates hands through his hair. Arcadia scuffs to her feet, and it’s only as an afterthought he realizes he might’ve helped her up, except that would mean touching again. Everything’s weird because he had to open his mouth. His fists clench, fingers finicking anxiously against each other.

“It’s fine, Lann. I got carried away.” She sighs. Curling a wing around so she doesn’t have to look at him, she preoccupies herself with smoothing feathers by hand before huffing a weak laugh. “I can’t believe you got me to jump off the tower. I can’t fly you know.”

“I know, but you’ve done so many other things, and… when I look at you I feel like you could. Uh, because, there’s the Hand of the Inheritor with those big wings, and yours are big, and… you know, I’m going to stop talking. It’s not my strong suit.”

She peeks at him over the rim of her wing, seemingly unoffended by his rambling. “What would you say is your strong suit?”

He’s going to joke. Say spades and talk about cards. But he doesn’t. He rubs his claws, ground down nearly to the quick to keep them human as he can. “Um. Providing.” Telltale warmth floods his face. “You know. Shelter and food and stuff. But, that was in the caves. Up here wealth and status seem pretty important, and I don’t have any of that.” A self-deprecating smile twists his lip. “After… this …” he waves his hand vaguely, “I can think of at least two people who are going to tell me I don’t have any common sense either.”

“Seelah and… Regill?”

“Daeran,” he clarifies. Regill though? “Hmm. Make that three.”

Arcadia's wings fold. “We probably shouldn’t train together, or else… you know.”

“Right. Wouldn’t want that to happen again.”

Wrong. He’d love for that to happen again. Ha. It’s not going to—he gets that straight in his head. No more sparring. In his experience that’s basically a prerequisite to any, uh, further development. So, without sparring that begs the question: how does Daeran do it? Lann’s pretty sure the guy doesn’t battle every individual, entity, and thing he beds.

N–not that Lann is thinking of…

(Okay, maybe a little.)

(Ok a lot.)

Ugh. He groans, playing it off as training soreness, and follows Arcadia back to the war room.

Chapter Text

“You keep saying stuff like that around me,” Arcadia says.

“Hmm?”

“Pretty. Beautiful.”

“Huh. Guess I do.” It’s not something he thinks about. It just happens.

Arcadia rubs the side of her face, put off by something. She sighs. “I’m not known for my looks Lann. You know that. I have scars and I promise they’re not pretty at all.”

He turns his expressive side away. He has to, because how he feels is too much. “You’re beautiful. Maybe my opinion doesn’t matter much, y’know, considering. A guy like me probably thinks everything’s beautiful, right? But I’m not all that attracted to people I don’t know. Call it what you will.”

And Lann knows Arcadia. He knows her in a way he doesn’t anyone else.

He knows if he looks close enough there’s glitter in the gold of her eyes. When she’s feeling gentle the fire in her halo smolders a little quieter. Passionate and it burns. He’s seen more angels with wings than any mortal has a right to and hers are hands down the best. The shade of her skin is lovely and warm. Her face carries all kinds of emotion, and he likes being able to look and see how she feels. She treats him so well. He’d take a midnight bolt straight to the heart for her and not regret it, not a single second; only that it’d be sad to not see her anymore.

She is the most beautiful woman in the world. If she could see herself she’d know.

“Maybe it’s an uplander thing I’m missing somehow,” he says. “Did someone say you weren’t a stunning warrior maiden? Because that’s all I see.”

“Ha! Aasimar are supposed to be known for their beauty. You have no idea how many times I’ve heard, ‘Oh… I thought aasimar were prettier...’ Even Daeran says I’m surprisingly plain.”

Lann snorts. “Daeran wouldn’t know a good thing if it hit him in the face with a pair of scantily clad underwear.”

Arcadia brightens immediately. “You’re my light in the darkness Lann, you know that, right?”

“Being warm and fuzzy inside is a funny feeling when you’re usually considered cold and scaly.”

“Do you think you could get used to it?”

“Get used to an angel giving me compliments? I never even imagined something like that could happen. No, I’m not going to get used to it. I’m going to keep waiting for someone to slap me awake.”

She stutters a bemused laugh. They look at each other. Then look away.

~ ~ ~

After being paralyzed by indecision all week, Lann sprints up the million staircase to Drezen’s central fortress. He gets no more than a cursory glance from the guards before he plows into the war room. Irabeth, Anevia, and Arcadia all look up from maps over the table. Strategy this early in the morning? Is this going to be his fate too?

“I can’t be chief. Please demote me,” he announces.

Arcadia’s warm laugh disarms after all the suffering he’s done this week. Damn. She’s not going to fire him. He was really hoping.

“What happened?” she asks, motioning for the others to put a pin in what they were doing.

Lann is almost too worked up to see the conspiratorial look between Anevia and Irabeth. The pair slide their discussion down to the far end of the joined tables that Lann is sure get longer every time he comes in here. “There’s too many problems,” he says. “My people all want me to make decisions and I can’t do it.”

Arcadia is still smiling as she pulls a second chair to the head of the table. How can she be so bright and unworried about his performance? He’s a failure already!

“Sit with me?” she asks.

He circles the table and drops into the chair.

“So, Prince Lann, what ails the mongrel tribes today?”

He laughs. “I knew it. I knew you weren’t going to let that go.”

“Lady Konomi has no idea it came true either. Technically, we could even call you King Lann.”

“I’d rather be called Lann the Smug and Scaly.”

“I’m sure some of the Nerosyan politicians would eat that up. It sounds wild enough.” Arcadia’s wings relax. “All silliness aside, I’m listening.”

Where does he even begin?

He rants off the top situations he’s supposed to deal with. Mainly, that they brought everyone here, and as a result of that… everyone is here. The kids, the elders, the cave slugs some of the families keep as pets. And now Lann is the one who hears about it when there’s complaints from the neighbors about suspiciously slimy basements. He tosses his hands up. “What am I supposed to do, demand they all get pipefoxes?”

“They shed.”

“See? There’s no solution.”

She chuckles. “There’s plenty of solutions. You mentioned several of them while you were talking. Any of them should work. It’s more about making a decision.”

“I can’t choose. What if I say we’re letting everyone stay in Drezen, and because of that, someone catches fire, or dies, or catches fire and then dies?”

“Then we’ll put out the fire and bury the dead.”

“I… guess… we’ve done that plenty of times before.” Huh. No really, they have. It seems slightly easier to make a choice knowing most of the options probably aren’t going to lead to gargoyles flying down on an army in the middle of the night. “How about this one then? Arran wants to marry an elf. I’m supposed to give a blessing as chief, but I can’t do it. They’ll be miserable. She has ten years; he has a thousand. It’s better off for them if they let it go now.”

“Are they miserable right now?”

“No. They’re pretty damn happy. I’m kinda jealous.” He looks away. Scratches his cheek.

“Is there a law forbidding mongrels from marrying outside the tribes?”

“There isn’t.”

“Then they’re happy, it’s not illegal, so what’s stopping you?”

He doesn’t want his parents to happen to anyone else. Or him, a half-breed. He says, “I see what you’re getting at. I guess I’m taking the wedding thing too personally.”

“What happens if the chief gets married? Who gives the blessing then?”

He swallows. “Oh. Uh. A friend, usually…”

“Appoint that friend to handle the weddings from now on. Arran wasn’t the first and she won’t be the last.”

Curses. She’s right. Why can’t he just get over himself? Arcadia makes everything seem so much easier than it is when he’s stewing over it by himself in his lonely apartment. He groans and drops his forehead to the table. His horn knocks the wood. “Is it possible I’m an idiot?” he mumbles.

“You brought everyone to the surface after generations in the dark. Maybe you don’t see it, but you’re a hero. I believe in you.”

Him. A hero.

Arcadia says, “I don’t think you noticed how excited everyone was to see you when we went back to Neathholm to get them. Sull has only good things to say about you. The kids adore you, and I’m pretty sure Rilla and Sark are in love with you.”

“R-really? I hadn’t been paying all that much attention.”

“Yes, really.” Arcadia picks this moment to give him a back scratch since he’s lying over the table. Gods, does that feel good.

He closes his eyes. “Mmm. That’s nice.”

“Don’t be afraid to make your own decisions. You’ll be fine, and if you need help I’ll back you up.”

For a little while Lann gets to enjoy the scritches and loosening tension around his shoulders. Arcadia keeps scratching, sheafing through parchments with her free hand. Eventually she adds, “You can stay if you want, but Lady Konomi and the rest of the diplomatic council are going to wonder why I’ve got a dead mongrel prince on my table.”

He feels too good to leave. “If it’s all the same I kinda want to hide from my problems a little longer.”

“Okay. There’s tea and cookies by the balcony. Indulge, try to look intimidating, and maybe we can scare Lady Konomi into being less pushy with the Queen’s demands.”

~ ~ ~

Arcadia sets her elbow to the table and rests her chin on fisted fingers. “What am I to do with you, Lady Konomi? You allow me to have diplomatic advisors, but it’s only a pretense of a choice. What you really want is complete and utter obedience. Which is interesting: why have a diplomatic council at all? Why not just send me the Queen’s orders and be done with it? I’d follow them.”

Konomi looks down her snout at Arcadia. “Then heed my recommendations.”

“I can’t. Doing so would be complacency, and when soldiers are complacent they lose their lives. What I’m saying is I have to disagree with you some of the time, on principle, and Sosiel’s advice is exactly what you said it would be: respectful to as many political parties as possible.”

Konomi’s silence sharpens with disapproval.

“I won’t let you bully me Lady Konomi. Maybe we should think of requesting a different political advisor from the Royal Council? You excel at politics, so it’s curious to me you haven’t resigned and moved yourself to a better post with more influence. It should be easy for you. Why do you stay?”

“Impudence like this will get you in trouble, Commander Arcadia.”

Arcadia sits back. “I’m already in trouble. I can tell.”

There’s a long, intense silence while fur and feather stare each other down. Arcadia digs a pen into a piece of parchment and rocks the tool back and forth. At length, she says, “As always I’m at the Queen’s command. Send the Andoran troops to the capitol, and you may explain to them there why it’s not in Mendev’s interests at this time to accept their help in a war that affects the entire world.”

Lann is reminded why he hates the diplomatic council, and it can only be a good thing that he doesn’t have to deal with it. Even after Arcadia accepts the Queen’s proxy advice there’s no relief and nobody is happy. Lady Konomi calls an end to the meeting, gives a slight bow, and strides out.

“You’re performing too well,” Daeran says. “We should have antagonized my cousin from the start. The result would be the same.”

Arcadia exhales and tilts her head over the back of the chair. Wingbones crack against wood. She rolls her shoulders and lets the spread ends rest on the floor. “What would you have me do? Throw a few armies into the jaws of the beast so I seem less threatening?”

“That would be a waste of resources better used making cousin Galfrey’s achievements look like swill next to a fine glass of Andorran red. I can only picture what the court is like right now. Imagine appointing a no name, no title, no nothing foreign inquisitor to be a nice inspiring figurehead, and she then goes and makes every dead hero in the last 100 years look like an incompetent prig. And her closest confidantes are a careless paladin, a cave man, a literal demon, and Mendev’s most delightful asshole.”

“You shouldn’t call yourself a cave man,” Lann says. “It’s insulting to the rest of us.”

Daeran gives his poison smile. “And what would that make you? A demon, or an asshole?”

Well, he walked right into that one. Lann takes another bite of a cookie and lets his fang show.

Chapter Text

Three sharp knocks snap Lann out of deep sleep. His toes skirt the floor as he tosses a robe over his scales. Whoever it is can suffer the sight of his clawed foot if it’s this urgent.

He throws open the door, ready to catch a knife or throw a punch. What he gets instead is sock regret and flush warming his face. “Commander!”

In the dark the halos of Arcadia’s eyes dart down to his feet. She’s fully dressed for war and this is unfair. Lann braces his arm on the door frame to tuck one foot behind the other. He clutches the robe’s opening tighter, fabric bunching in his fist, and breaks silence with amazing articulation that’d make Daeran jealous.

“Um.”

Arcadia’s attention flicks back up. “Night patrol?” she offers.

“Let me just…” he lifts an index finger in the universal sign for give me a second, and closes the door so he can sling his gear on. Quickly he locks up and slips the key into a side pouch, heading down the stairs to join his Commander at the bottom.

Arcane street lamps don’t quite make it to the slums. Dark windows stack the walkways and only the rare pane flickers with candle glow. Around the community fire, a peppering of hunched figures sit like shadows. Arcadia leads Lann past all this toward the main gate. Outwardly she's calm, but the mood’s strung with flavor of a deep cave hunt, the sort a wise mongrel knows not to tackle alone. Which must be why he’s here.

“Just another romantic evening in the Wound. Fully armed. In clothes we save for when it rains blood,” he muses.

“It’s not going to be fun. Or, it wasn’t going to be fun, but now that you’re here I feel better.”

“I’ll try not to cave under the pressure.”

Ignoring the huge closed gates they cross the main thoroughfare over to the other side of Drezen’s outer ring. Past a section of restored homes the buildings deteriorate. There aren’t enough survivors inside the city, let alone materials, to rebuild. Empty windows gape like broken teeth, dilapidated roofs sloping into the ground. Scattered clay and wood shingles crunch underfoot.

Everyone knows this place is a ghost town. Lann forbade the tribes from going here after Fernand turned up dead in the area, and he’s pulled one or two would-be deserters out of these rundown shacks by the ears (if they had any). He steps over a puddle with a clump of matted fur inside. Seelah can tease him about his date ideas all she likes after this. Look at what Arcadia invited him to. They’re a perfect match!

A building that looks like it used to be an inn or a tavern slopes against Drezen's outer wall. An empty rail for a sign hangs above the doorway. The door itself is missing.

“I think this is the one.” Arcadia signs for him to wait. She stands in the door frame, quiet, a wall of dark feathers. Her halo’s been off this entire time. Lann’s ear picks up critters rustling through trash in the street behind. Nothing concerning.

“Around back maybe?” she asks.

The side door is locked. Strangely a set of lockpicks is already engaged with the keyhole.

“This is it.”

The prepicked door opens easily. A chandelier lies shattered in the middle of the entryway and most of the place hasn’t been touched in a while. Ashes and soot spread where someone built an open fire on the floor weeks ago. Lann can already tell there’s no one on this level, but, the cellar might be a different story. Near the dreary staircase the tip of Arcadia’s sword lifts the cuff of a freshly discarded pair of pants. “This is going to be more embarrassing and weird than I imagined,” she says. “Too bad I can’t cut those things with a sword.”

“My arrows aren’t going to be much use either. But don’t worry, if embarrassing and weird is all that’s downstairs, well, I’m an expert. We can bury it with awkward jokes.”

They pause the conversation to listen. It’s quiet, save some light ruffling that could be nothing more than rats. Rats that wear human clothes and discard them at the door.

Arcadia’s sword drops the pant cuff. “Sounds like we’re too late to save anyone. So, which do you think? Go down there bows blazing, or, quietly sneak and see how far we get?”

“How about casual? I like when you do that.”

She scrunches a face that says: how could anyone want to be with an inquisitor on inquisitor business? But she lets it go with a huff and disbelief, sheathing her sword. “You’re funny. Okay. Casual it is.”

Arcadia strolls down the cellar stairs, Lann right behind her. Water-stained stone and wood beams carry musty scents with sour hints of long abandoned alcohol. Past the archway to the main chamber Lann scoots up beside Arcadia while she takes in the scene.

She looks at the pantsed dead man. Then to Camellia, whose hand is buried in the guy’s chest. Back to the pantsed man. Camellia’s so openly shocked it’s almost comical.

“Now Lann,” Arcadia says, “I know what this looks like, but on the surface we usually don’t kill and eat our mates.”

“Really? Dammit, I’ve been stalling for no reason!”

“I guess we should help Camellia. It looks like she got her hand stuck.”

“Commander,” Camellia purrs, pulling her drenched fist from the body. “How lovely to see you. And it seems you’ve brought an… unwanted attachment. What are you doing here, mutt?”

“Well, you know, the Commander and I were thinking of spending a romantic evening together and this was the best place I could think of.”

Camellia steps over the corpse. “How cute that you’ve deluded yourself into jokes about something you can never ha—” The pool of blood slips Camellia’s heel. She catches herself with perfect poise, hand fluttering to her chest. Her sweet, sardonic smile curls at the edges. “Excuse me. Even in this dark basement the shadow of your face disgusts—”

Lann coughs loudly into his forearm.

“Your face disgusts—”

“AAAAHCHOO!” Arcadia roar-sneezes into the crook of her elbow. She sniffs, sighs with relief. “Ugh, finally. I couldn’t think straight. It’s the mildew.”

Camellia pauses. As she glares at Lann irritation sinks into the corners of her mouth. “Your face is a disgusting—”

Lann asks Arcadia, “You’re not allergic, are you?”

“Not to mildew.”

“—a hideous—” 

He snaps his fingers. “I got it. Nutcase allergy?”

“Stop interrupting me!”

Unimpressed Arcadia fiddles with a strap on her gauntlet, casting broad attention to the dingy basement, the dead man, and his partial lack of clothes. “Yes I’m sure there is a rational explanation for all this. I’m listening.”

Camellia looks at the corpse riddled with puncture wounds. Then to Arcadia. “He ran into my rapier.”

Arcadia looks. “He ran into your rapier… fifteen times.”

“Yes. He was positively desperate to spear himself.”

“Wow,” Lann says. “You think he’d get the message the first time.”

“Pain is less intense when one is not expecting it.” Camellia caresses her rapier’s guard, drawing a finger along its arched bridge. “When a man anticipates pain, he will feel it before the blade even touches his skin. The actual incision then becomes excruciating.”

“What an interesting and sane fact. I’ll be sure to relay it to Nenio later,” he says.

Arcadia taps her own cheek. “Camellia, you’ve got something on your…”

Camellia flips a lace kerchief and dabs blood off her mouth. As this is happening Arcadia folds her arms, lowering her voice slightly for Lann’s benefit. “Is it you or me that’s attracting hot cannibalistic women?”

“I really don’t want to take the blame for this one, but I feel like I’m the one who started it, so…”

“Care to be the one who finishes it? I took care of last time.”

Camellia’s flowery laugh echoes off cellar stones. “You’re openly discussing which of you is to kill me?”

“Of course. Do you have a preference?” Arcadia asks.

Dark excitement shivers through Camellia’s tone. “How… interesting. You propose a threesome. Perhaps if you had different taste in present company.” Her voice drops seductively and she bites her lip. “I’d like it to be you, Commander.” 

Arcadia sighs. “You made it weird. Why’d you have to make it weird?”

Camellia feigns innocence and flits her gaze at Lann. “I am not the one to blame for any unappreciative weirdness.”

“Hey,” he presses. “I’m fun weird. You’re lunatic weird. There’s a difference.”

“Hush, dog. I’ve no need to spend these last glorious moments on you.” The rapier sings out of its scabbard. Camellia’s eyes burn with crazed delight. “Come, Commander. Fight me. Make me suffer, make me bleed, and moan, and sigh. Pierce me with your sword, let my blood flow into the palms of your hands, and I’ll make this a night you never forge—”

She flops backwards to the floor with an arrow through her forehead. Dead.

Lann lowers the bow. “So that’s one cannibal on your scorecard and one on mine.”

“I guess the next one’s on me then.”

He’s not sure he wants to retrieve his arrow. He’d have to touch Camellia’s face with his boot and he doesn’t want to get it dirty. “Is it too soon for a joke about wearing protection? Because, I mean…” he fans his palms to the half-naked man on one side, and the lady with an arrow through her skull on the other.

“I told her to wear a helmet,” Arcadia says, reaching down to snap the amulet off Camellia’s neck. Funny: if Camellia had worn the amulet the rest of their party uses, he wouldn’t have been able to shoot her in the face. Of course she’d still be dead, just from a less cosmetically embarrassing target.

Lann rubs the back of his neck and looks elsewhere. “This has been great and all, but do you think we could get someone else to clean up after us? I’m kinda tired.”

“One and done, huh? Do you want your arrow back?”

“Leave it. It might be contagious. Not even a demon deserves to be infected with… that.”

Outside the night air is thankfully clear and non-moldy, by Wound standards. Definitely better than a damp basement. The skull amulet’s shine flashes with red moonlight as Arcadia tosses and catches it. “Fifty fifty Nenio’s asleep standing up. I bet she’ll be keen to know the exact melting point of enchanted metal.” She pockets the amulet. “It should be safer for men to go out at night now, but let me walk you home anyway.”

“You’re too kind Commander.”

Chapter Text

The cave they’ve stopped in for the night contains very strange carvings and a big floor puzzle that Nenio was desperate to get her fuzzy hands on. Almost everyone is fine resting by the fire, but Nenio’s been out there for twenty minutes going nuts with tiles that have symbols on them. Surprisingly, Woljif joined her, zooming around the tiles, flipping them this way and that, talking at a mile a minute.

Lann pokes the fire with a stick. “Have you been feeding him something strange, or is it just me?”

“Here.” Arcadia tosses a pouch and Lann catches it in one hand. He peers inside. Hard brown seeds clack together. “It’s called coffee,” she says.

“So you can eat these.”

“I wouldn’t—”

CRACK!

“—recommend it.”

The ‘bean’ splits between his teeth. “Mmmf! That’s bitter. WOW. That is…” He swallows and tries to plate the flavor off his tongue. “...unpleasant.”

“So is raw tea! You boil them, not eat them,” she laughs.

Pip slides over and begs him for a bean. “No way,” Lann says, holding the pouch out of reach. “I have enough snake on my own; I don’t need a furry pup zooming around my feet for the next three hours.” He glances over. “Don’t tell me you fed this to Nenio too.”

“Oh no. She forgets she’s had it if I do.”

The campfire crackles. After supper when they sit together like this sometimes they talk, sometimes they don’t, sometimes they repair equipment, or break out a game of bones or dice or cards, but usually only if they feel like getting the whole party involved.

Tonight’s just a sitting night.

“Arueshalae is watching us again,” Lann says.

“Do you want me to tell her to stop? Or, we could play a prank.”

Privacy would be nice. On the other hand: revenge for constantly being stared at.

Lann asks, “What kind of pra—” Arcadia nabs him by the nose. “—HONK!”

Arcadia collapses in a fit of howling laughter while Lann rubs his nose, shocked. Now everyone except Arueshalae stares at them. Him, for sounding like a loud goose, and Arcadia who cracks up even more at his sheer bewilderment. Their friends have no context and gods only know what everyone thinks was happening over here two seconds ago. Arcadia rolls.

“Bartender,” Seelah calls to Daeran. “I’ll have whatever those two had.”

Arueshalae’s blush pinks enough to be visible in the low light. She looks anywhere but at him and Arcadia. That makes the situation even more incriminating! Smiling sheepishly Lann plunges his hand into Arcadia’s feathers and tells the others, “Guess I’m 2% goose. Who knew?”

Meanwhile Arcadia writhes, breathless and laughing through the tickling she deserves. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! But your face—hahah! You were so surprised! And loud! Haha!”

~ ~ ~

After a quick team change in Drezen they’re back out in the Wound casing Areelu Vorlesh’s lab for information. Naturally that means getting sucked into yet another magical, inescapable prison.

Lann doesn’t remember going to sleep in Areelu’s creepy experimental hellhole, but hey, one second he’s walking through a door and the next it’s sunk into his brain that he’s having a dream about being a pirate captain. He snaps out of it.

“What the hell was that? This place is making me lose my mind.”

Seelah and Arcadia stand in front of him, and he’s just quick enough to see intense worry flash out of Arcadia’s eyes and be replaced with laughter.

“A pirate? Iomedae help me I thought I was going to witness something I didn’t want to. Lann, really. I’m so glad it’s you.”

Embarrassment claps him in the face. “Don’t tell me you saw that too.” He turns away. “My mom used to tell pirate stories. It’s no big deal. It’s not a thing! I’ve never even seen the ocean! Bloody demons messing with my head.”

But now that he knows he’s not the only one with visions, curiosity gets to him. “What hyper-realistic illusion did you get?”

Her smile is a little sad. “Nothing.”

“Huh. Guess that means you’re satisfied.”

The smile turns genuine. “There’s no way that’s true. I bet it’s more like the ghosts here didn’t crack me open for some reason. They keep saying ‘who are you who are you.’ Guess I must’ve freaked them out.”

Who are you? a wispy voice intones behind Arcadia’s shoulder. She flips a hand to show this is exactly what she means. A silver semitransparent dwarf stands behind her.

Lann pauses. “That is a ghost right?”

“Seems so,” Seelah says. “We’re not all just seeing things. Or maybe we are, but at least it’s the same things.”

He looks around. Apart from the ghost there’s nothing here except sky and perfectly cut platforms. Past the edge there’s more sky. If he falls off it’ll be into the sky. The dream was creepy enough: this must be the nightmare.

The three of them start down the stupidly long staircase. He says, “That’s one of the best things about living in Drezen’s outer ring. I don’t have to deal with the stairs.”

“I’m with you there,” Seelah says. “Whoever put the barracks entry on the lower level was a smart person.”

Arcadia grumbles.

“Don’t be like that,” Seelah teases. “You’re the Commander! You get to make everyone come to you.”

They break Ember out of dream jail. Daeran follows, and his fantasy about the Queen is such a perfect piece of material Lann would make fun of it in mongrel sign if he wasn’t lucky enough to have words. But he does have words. “I will remember this moment every time you complain about ‘cousin Galfrey’ from now on.”

Daeran’s expression is a flat line. It takes him a good few seconds before he retorts, “Oh? And what did you dream of then? Clean underwear?”

“You, with your mouth shut, saying absolutely nothing. It was perfect.” Lann heads to the next stairway and looks down to be sure it’s safe. “Jokes aside what I saw is something I can never have. So drop it.”

Arcadia keeps her eye on each step as they descend. “It’d be a long trip, but we could go to the ocean someday if you wanted, Lann.”

“And now I am intrigued,” Daeran says.

Lann sighs. “Not all of us are as dirty as you are Daeran.”

“I beg to differ. Where’s Arueshalae?”

Oh no.

They witness her obsession last. Arueshalae might die of suffocation from covering her face with her hands like that.

Arcadia cocks a confused grin. “Why was I so tall?”

“I was wondering that as well,” Daeran says.

“Oh my gosh Desna please forgive me.”

“What a great way for us to all bond over our deepest darkest secrets!” Lann says. “Let’s never do it again.”

Daeran taps the guard of his rapier. “Actually you may be on to something Lann. We should capture the demon and make use of it at my next grand event. Experience all your wildest dreams, right out in the open for all to see.”

“We are not doing that,” Seelah says. “Not even as a joke.”

“Oh-hoh. But I wasn’t joking.”

“I know you weren’t. That’s the issue.”

~ ~ ~

Another evening alive after Areelu’s crazy capers, another camping trip in the Wound. Cooking fire crackles. Pip lies on its back, eyeing Lann’s hands while they hover motionless mid-play.

He plunges them into belly fluff. Pip writhes, cackling. Pipefox lips curl into an uncontrollable smile while Pip flips to and fro. Fake growls rumble in the back of Lann’s throat as he ruffles fluff. “Grrr. Rrrr, grrrrr!”

Pip goes nuts, thrashing and grinning. Flashes of open-mouthed blue wriggle against the rocks. “Ha haaa hah whirr whirr,” Pip chitters.

“Rrrrr! Grrr! RRRR!” Lann rolls his shoulders with full body roughhousing. He shakes his head in time with the growling, which makes Pip flip out even more. Lann’s face might split with the force of his own grin.

He yanks his hands up and waits. Pip pants, chest puffing rapidly. A teal tongue peeks out before dipping back to huffing. Huff huff huff, whine. The tail end of the pipefox flicks in anticipation.

Two… three… four…

Lann attacks.

“Chirr!” Pip squeals in excitement. The pipefox contorts in impossible curves that can’t avoid Lann’s grasp. Satisfying fluff cuffs his hands. Creamsicle fur sticks up wherever he rubs against the grain and leaves it.

He growls Pip into a fun frenzy. The smile brims off Pip’s silly face, ears flattened to its head, long body twisting. Pip lightly maws Lann’s scaled arm while whining heeheehee noises. Fox teeth flash and knock his human side. It pinches. “Ow! Okay, hey, scales only.”

“Haaaahah hah hah! Pip!” Pip barks, eyes wild with absolute joy. Lann’s created a monster.

He can’t help himself. He digs his hands in. “RRRRRR! Rrrr!”

“Aaaaaa!” Pip yowls gleefully.

All the noise draws Arcadia. “Get him Pip! Get him!”

Pip squiggles out of Lann’s war and swirls up his side. Wetness laps his chin, cheek, nose. Rapid whiskers tickle and fox breath dampens what isn’t already slobbery. “Aaagh. Gross, Pip!” Lann’s laugh rolls from somewhere deep and alive while he tries to hold the squirming noodle off. He’s not doing anything besides playing with a dumb pipefox. And Pip loves it.

“Come on Pip, come get a treat!” Arcadia calls.

The second there’s food involved the fur ribbon abandons Lann. He wipes his sleeve over his face. Fur’s somehow gotten in his mouth. “Pffft!” He tries to smear that off too. Doesn’t come off the tongue that easy. “Bleh.”

He looks over to where Pip chews on a drumstick. “Do I get a treat too?”

Arcadia tips the second drumstick meant for Pip between her fingers. All the meat’s gone, nothing left but cartilage and a shine of fat and oil on the bone. The marrow’s still inside.

“You’ve spoiled me Commander. I’m not that hungry.”

“I wondered if you’d take it,” she chuckles, handing the treat off to Pip. Lann could’ve accepted the drumstick and gnawed it down to soup in front of Arcadia and she wouldn’t care. If this had been months ago he would have, too.

Pip snatches the second bone and scuffs and rolls its smiling fox face against the ground, intent on digging a scoop to bury the treasure in. Life without hands is tough.

Lann goes over.

“Whirrr!” Pip complains.

“I’m not going to take it, look.” Claws pierce soil. He drags a shallow trench. Pip sniffs Lann’s work, disagrees with the lizard stink, and rubs its face all over the dirt to purify it. Then it’s okay to deposit the bone and happily nose earth over the treasure.

“Yeah. Let it rot for a little bit. Brings out the flavor.”

Smiling, he stands. It’s an insane miracle they’re all still alive. On a wing and a good mood he wonders: what if it stays like this? What if he keeps living?

He sidles up to Arcadia with a totally not suspicious question. “What were you planning on doing after the war?”

She huffs a laugh. “I barely remember anymore. Do you know how simple this was supposed to be? Go to Kenabres. Fix the Wardstone. And yes I know that would’ve sounded crazy to anyone else, but I’m an inquisitor. Solving unsolvable problems and breaking unbreakable curses is what we do. Or what I do anyway—some of us run around killing cultists.”

“Hey, in the Wound, you get to do both.”

“Lucky me. Maybe the church will pay double.”

Lann tsks. “Greybor is rubbing off on you.”

Arcadia rubs her neck. “After the war… if I live, and that’s a big if. It’d be good to reunite Ember with her mom. Set Woljif on a path where he’ll have the right friends around, real ones. I’d like to see my family for a little bit. And then, well. Lastwall. I don’t think there will be any shortage of insanely dangerous missions for someone with supernatural abilities. I’ll need to find a way to hide my wings and practice my disguises. I rarely needed to bother with them before.”

“So, just to be clear, you weren’t think of retiring to the countryside to herd ducklings and raise apples?”

“Why? Is there someone waiting for me at this imaginary duckling apple farm?”

“Let’s say for the sake of argument there was.”

“Interesting. Then, for this purely hypothetical situation, let’s say I still chose to wander around Golarion. What would the other person want to do now that they’re free?”

“They’d probably go with you,” he says.

“Even if there’s sea voyages? Or airships?”

“Especially if there’s sea voyages or airships.”

Chapter Text

Lann had been thinking it might be nice to see what an uplander wedding was like, for future reference, just in case. Let’s just say the ending ceremony is a bit… unexpected? And even though he can’t see Arcadia over the demon-driven commotion he’s not all that worried because he hears her opinion on the matter loud and clear.

“Can’t have a wedding in the fucking Worldwould without a bunch of fucking demons!”

“I’ll make note of that!” he shouts over the crowd. Next to him Pip sinks fox fangs into a demon that apparently possessed a dog. The demon thrashes wildly, pipefox attached to the side of its neck, and Lann puts a stop to that with a few arrows before Arcadia’s noodle companion gets crushed. “How did you even get over here? I thought you were busy eating that marzipan skeleton.”

Pip zips up Lann’s side and vanishes somewhere into his gear. Hopefully he pulls another regular arrow instead of a snake fox arrow.

Arcadia shears the head off a babau. “Why is it so hard to have something nice!” she shouts. “One nice day, Seelah! That’s all I’m asking for!”

“Sorry,” Seelah grunts, slashing into another demon. “I guess a wedding outside Drezen wasn’t such a good idea after all.”

“Not your fault. You didn’t plan it, and—” Arcadia keeps hacking the same demon, unaware it was dead two strokes ago “—we should be allowed to go outside!” Hack. “Without this!” Hack. “Insanity!”

They’d been this close to going a whole day outside Drezen without incident. It’s like the demons waited until the last possible moment to make everyone suffer. Well, that’s what demons are for, Lann supposes. Making things terrible.

Arcadia swings around the pews, stomping across demon corpses, barking about one that stole the jewelry. “How did that one get away? Why?”

“It teleported,” Daeran sighs.

“Teleporting is banned. I’m banning it.” Arcadia stamps. “No more demons allowed to teleport, anywhere, ever. It’s annoying.”

Lann strings his bow over his shoulder now that the fighting’s done. “All you have to do is expand your magic flag’s influence so it encompasses the entire multiverse. Then everyone except the demons can teleport.”

“Great. I’ll get right on that,” Arcadia stews. Lann’s hopeful he can coax out her usual humor. Up until the demon attack things had been going well. He’d sorta been looking forward to tonight, after the ceremony…

Things fall depressingly quiet now that nobody’s panicking. Smashed pews splinter around the wedding platform. Blood stains nice clothes. The grass is strewn with bodies.

“It’s not that different from a mongrel wedding,” Lann decides. “We exchange amulets and then a bunch of cave spiders crash the party. One lucky couple even got eldritch abominations. Some necromancer decided to dump their failed experiments down the well that day. We should’ve thanked them for making the wedding so memorable.”

Seelah says dryly, “I don’t think Elan’s going to forget this wedding any time soon. Or ever.”

“What a disaster,” Arcadia mutters, looking across the unconscious citizens. “Right under my nose… the Mendev Inquisition will sneer at me. Gods, I’m pissed. I paid that man. I’ll execute him over top of his own cursed jewelry. Let’s go back to the shop Seelah.”

“I’m as angry as you are. I knew something was off about him, but I thought he was just another greasy salesman.”

Arcadia’s voice grows distant as she marches off. “He’s not stupid enough to still be there after this. But I wish he were. Stupid, that is.”

“If he were stupid we would’ve caught him sooner.”

They leave and Lann stays with the others to sort out the mess. Somehow the pleasant evening got a waterlogged ratty blanket thrown over it. He frowns. It’s not as fun when Arcadia doesn’t banter back with him. She usually does.

She must want a break. One nice day, like she said.

~ ~ ~

At the end of the week Lann goes to Drezen’s rich uplander area. It’s a huge compliment to make it all the way to the mansion without being stopped by a suit of armor and a bunch of questions.

Daeran’s doorperson is blunt. “Who are you?”

“A demon here to make a bargain with the Count.”

The door closes in his face. Lann grins and bangs the knocker again.

“Go away.”

“Lann Neath, Mongrel Chief, Hero of the Fifth Crusade, personal escort and bodyguard to Knight Commander Arcadia, and Count Daeran MillionName Arendae’s best and only friend.”

“...I’ll see if the master knows you.”

Lann presses his cheek to the door. “Make sure to recite all my titles. Otherwise he’ll pretend he doesn’t.”

A little while later he gets let into the building. Unlike the Arendae country estate, Daeran’s Drezen mansion builds upwards in multiple levels of luxury. Lann is so far out of place in his nice clean rags that the servants eye him with a mix of wariness, curiosity, and something along the lines of ‘what horrid Arendae spectacle am I going to have to clean up today?’

The attendant takes Lann to a big librarylike room. Daeran sits at the back behind a desk, shockingly doing some kind of work. Quill in hand he doesn’t look up from the paperwork. A glass of wine rests beside it. “What can I do for you, lizard mine?”

“I knew it. You do like me.”

“It’s a passing fancy, nothing more.”

“Teach me how to do something nice with almost no money.”

Daeran playfully sets aside the quill and lifts his gaze, a flash of impending assholery setting his smile. He circles the wineglass’ lip. “Almost no money? So, ten million gold? Or perhaps a single million?”

“Think 127 gold, non-specifically,” Lann says.

“Wow, you may as well organize something nice with no funds at all.”

“Thanks. I’ve been saving up to zero. Think I’m finally there!”

Daeran sits back, taking the wine with him. He swirls it. Oh, excuse this uneducated undergrounder: he aerates it.

Daeran sips. “You propose an interesting challenge. Money is by and far a most effective tool for getting what you want. So, what’s a poor man to do? What do poor people do that’s ‘nice?’ Eat rats? Have a beer at a tavern? I’m at a loss.”

No he’s not. Lann waits patiently.

“Oh who am I kidding. I’m never at a loss. Something nice with no money. I presume this is for a romantic occasion. Have you considered offering… yourself?”

“Hah! No. No—!” Daeran’s mouth clips open and Lann cuts him off “—I’m not into any of your weird kinks. I don’t even want to hear what you’re about to suggest. And besides, even if you shatter my expectations and say something even remotely normal about offering myself, it doesn’t matter. There’s no point in gifting something the person already has.”

Daeran falls quiet for a long while after that. Lann enjoys his victory in smug silence. Err, wait, wasn’t there a point to coming here besides ribbing each other? He always gets sucked in and forgets.

“This person you mentioned,” Daeran says. “Do you think they know that?”

“Of course! They. Maybe… do.” Doubt creeps in.

“Then I’d suggest making that clear some time. Who knows? The rewards may merit the risk.”

“Or,” Lann says, “I could end up drowning at the nearest tavern before throwing myself on the frontlines.”

“If that’s the case you may as well get it over with, so you can move on to the next unattainable treasure. In my experience that’s a much more effective way to handle rejection.”

Hello? Mongrel talking. “There is no next one for me. I’m too old.”

Daeran bursts out laughing. “Lann? Too old? My dearest reptilian compatriot, you could have the pick of the litter and you don’t even realize it. You’re not too old. You’re too stubborn. ”

Lann scowls, something both sides of his face are more than capable of. Daeran, totally unaffected, smiles into his cup.

“Visit the fortress. Tell Anevia you want two uninterrupted hours of the Commander’s time. Bring something to eat. Go literally anywhere that is not a room packed full of demons.”

“That easy, huh.”

“That easy. Now shoo. I’ve no patience for friendship.”

“I’m going. I’m going.”

And it really is that easy.

Chapter Text

Lann sits up on a stack of crates, the mongrel chief’s throne, trimming leather straps for kids’ practice bows. Across the way the slum’s eternal community cooking fire burns. Skewers with birds, rats, market meat, and vegetables stick in the fire stones while their owners stand nearby conversing.

When the mongrels first moved in everyone kept their distance, opposite sides of the fire. These days the city’s poor mingle a little more. A couple of kids play marbles by the far building, mismatched horns and claws mixing with healthy humanity in an odd jumble.

Sometimes Lann only truly realizes how different he looks when he sees another mongrel alone in the sea of citizenry. They’re immediately noticeable.

So is Arcadia.

Down by the fire her halo sheds calm flame while she talks to Rilla. Arcadia’s hands sprinkle into the sign for rain, one of the handful of new words they’ve got since coming to the surface. Lann hasn't been keeping track of the silent conversation. Up on the crates means he’s open to tackling tribe issues, so he gets visitors, and he needs his eyes for handling the leather besides.

His attention snaps back to Arcadia and Rilla only because he catches the flow for family and friend in the midst of what must be a relationship talk, one that is getting beyond Arcadia’s vocabulary. She stutters through a series of signals, pausing, thinking. Drawing the next.

You and Chief? Rilla asks.

Chief… Arcadia then holds an L and draws a finger arrow across it. His name sign forms in her hands. He never told her. His heart bumps. Lann.

He’s not sure what to expect. She knows the shapes for friends. Rilla must be teasing because whatever Arcadia wants to say she can’t find the signs.

Lann is… important. To me. He is…

And because she doesn’t know, she invents a gesture. She says important again but folds her hands to her chest, tender and close, eyes closed. Wingtips curl in a light embrace until the ends touch.

He’s my heart.

Heat warms Lann’s skin and he rubs his cheek. She can’t mean that. It’s an accident.

Rilla’s only response is a wicked grin, to which Arcadia tosses her hands in good humor. Arcadia signs, I don’t know! Did I say anything? She cuffs her fists together in a curse and scuffs a hand through her hair with a laugh. What did I say? Chief eats cockroaches! Chief is a fat eel! And he fucks like one too!

Lann chokes. Rilla’s mute laugh scratches across the cooking fire. She signs slowly, Chief fucks like a fat eel?

Arcadia calls over. “Lann, what’s—” she swims two fingers.

He calls back. “You know” fucks “but not” eel?

Yes…?

“Eel.”

Arcadia bubbles into laughter and whirls her wings on him, almost blocking his view of the conversation but not quite.

I don’t know, she tells Rilla. I haven’t fucked an eel. She pauses before adding with a twinkling smile, or Chief.

~ ~ ~

Call it mongrel curiosity. Lann does what the note Nenio shoved under his doorway asks, and goes to Drezen’s inn. Second story. Third room on the left.

“Ah, excellent! You are both at the appointed spot.” Nenio takes a knee and sorts through her case of crazy stuff to withdraw a sketch pad. Already Lann doesn’t like where this is headed.

Arcadia looks sidelong at Lann. “You wanted to see us both?” she asks.

“Yes. Multiple times I’ve attempted to make an anatomical drawing for the encyclopedia and each has failed thanks to unwillingness of the subject. However, based on my current analysis, this experiment is much more likely to succeed if angel girl and mongrel boy are together. So: begin.”

Lann exchanges a cautious glance with Arcadia.

“Well, go on,” Nenio prompts.

Nobody moves. Nenio waves a charcoal stick between the two of them. “Assistant, I believe mongrel boy may need prompting. Remove your clothes.”

Lann barks a laugh. Arcadia covers her smile with a knuckle. Flips it around to cupped fingers. Turns it into a fist. She can’t settle on a hand shape to use. Lann should’ve known what this was about but now that he’s certain he stabs a claw at the kitsune. “Leave me alone Nenio. For the last time I’m not posing for your nude sketch obsession. Just give it up already.”

In his peripheral Arcadia pulls the index finger of her armored glove until it slides off. She removes the second one and drops them to the ground with a slap.

“Now Commander, I don’t think we actually need to hit Nenio…”

Arcadia shrugs off the strap for her scabbard and unbuckles her belt, letting the leather and its pouches coil onto the floor. She reaches for the topmost tie of her gambeson.

“Wh—?” Lann’s head whips back and forth. Beautiful angel undressing while Nenio stares unblinking at him, charcoal at the ready. “What are you looking at me for?” he snaps.

“I have no further need of semidivine anatomy. The shiny one was more than willing to stay still for those drawings.”

Daeran. Lann snarls. “Of course. Of course.”

Arcadia arches a brow and pulls the tie. It comes undone. The top lip of the gambeson loosens into the beginning of a parted Y. Arcadia says, “Seems like we have no choice. It’s for science."

Lann’s face goes up in flame. “You… can’t be serious… I—no! Because she’s,” he flails a curse sign at Nenio. “Not while someone’s watching!”

“But it’s okay if it’s just us?”

Lann stammers. Dammit, if he were Daeran he’d just haul Arcadia off right now.

Charcoal poking Nenio’s muzzle draws a smear without her realizing. “Chances of success are rapidly deteriorating.”

Arcadia stops pretending. She is pretending, right?!

“I’ve compiled this list based on mongrel boy’s stated preferences. Girl, you may bring me one of the following that he will find more appealing.” Nenio quotes: “A hairy legged cave spider. The gelatinous membrane of a dead whitterbeast. A clump of moss in the shape of the queen’s favorite tiny, irritating little dog.”

He says for Nenio, “You do realize I don’t actually want any of those things?”

“Without evidence your claim is unsubstantiated.”

“Substantiate this!” Lann slings Arcadia’s belt pouch over his shoulder, grabs the gloves, and snatches Arcadia’s hand. Nenio gets the full force of his glare as he storms off, angel in tow. They’re going far away from this nonsense.

Arcadia’s dark skin is rosy. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a cave spider?”

“Yes. But if you like we can catch one to put in Nenio’s stew.”

“I’ll convince her to stop bothering you.”

“Please. And thank you.”

Chapter Text

Lann’s come to expect two things from demon dens. It’s either going to be a violent massacre or a chamber of plush pillows. In reality they’re both the same thing but on the surface they look different.

So is it a surprise when they make it through the Midnight Fane’s corpse barricades only to discover silk pavilions, fruit, and a hot spring?

No.

“Here we go again,” Lann says.

Arueshalae warns them not to underestimate the lead demon. Lann isn’t all that worried. He could count the times Arcadia’s made deals with demons on a fingerless hand. It doesn’t stop Nocticula’s priestess from giving a speech about how she’s in awe of the Commander’s glory and wants to be touched like a holy relic.

Arcadia’s feathers curl with disgust. Lann fishes a scrap of jerky from between his teeth.

Are sex demons stupid? Aren’t they supposed to be able to look into your mind and see what you really want, or something? Baffled, he watches the demon's "seduction" unfold. It’s like watching a blackout drunk person attempt to seduce a lamp post. Daeran cringes.

In fact the way the demon priestess pleads for attention and talks about how much she wants to give up her Midnight Fane key is familiar. Oh! He knows what this reminds him of. Wenduag. That thing where she’d pretend to grovel and worship and then slash you in the back. Such good times. How could he have forgotten?

Arcadia gets sick of it almost immediately. “I don’t deal with demons. Die!”

Well, shouting “die!” is new. She’s impatient today.

Out of nowhere Lann’s struck in the gut by overwhelming heat. It rolls off the succubus priestess, a paralyzing punch straight to the brain. Her image shimmers and transforms. Familiar ebony gold wings unfold from a certain angelic body… one with no clothes on whatsoever.

Lann’s knees hit the ground. “Unh.”

He doesn’t want to look. Can’t look. So his forehead hits the ground too. “Mhmm. Yep. Just gonna stay here.”

From the sound of it everyone except Arcadia collectively drops at the spell. Each of them sees what they want to see. Arcadia curses and the air hums with celestial summoning magic in the face of a volley of arrows. Good thing Seelah shakes off her vision so quick. “No! Not today demon!”

“Kay Arueshalae,” Lann grunts into the dirt. “You got me. I underestimated the sex demon.”

“Aaaaa,” is Arueshalae’s contribution. What in the godsforsaken abyss succubi show to other succubi isn’t something Lann wants to find out. He’s good here faceplanted to the rock while swords and arrows and spells whizz around.

A heavy metal clang and thump tell him Seelah hit the ground again. That can’t be good. Falling once to succubus magic: fine. Twice? Seelah’s unconscious.

Soon as it happens a bizarre magic blast ruffles his hair and sparkles over his skin like glitter. Giant arachnid clicking skitters into the combat din. Near Lann's spot on the floor Seelah groans, clanks, standing up as she fades back into consciousness. He hears her armored self lunge into the fray. Raining arrow shafts clatter over the cave floor. Spiders squeal. Seelah does too.

“Spiders, Arcadia? Holy spiders?!”

“I don’t know! The crusaders bring back weird crap all the time!”

Daeran murmurs from his dazed position. “Oh? I found the Voracious Jumble particularly charming.”

Before swallowing another bout of arrows that knock her out for a second, Seelah shouts, “The Jumble was a mass of flesh Daeran! Moving flesh!”

“Precisely.”

Nocticula’s priestess screeches, “Would you all just shut up so I can kill—MMPHF!”

There’s a specific sound for having a giant spider leg jammed in your mouth. Who knew?

If Lann remembers right, the ring Arcadia’s wearing should only call one holy spider per fallen comrade, but, eh. Magic stacks weird.

Seelah blacks in and out of consciousness. Every time she does, there are two more spiders.

“Why are there so many spiders?!” Nocticula’s priestess shrieks. Lann hears her thrashing around wasting all her attacks on arachnids. He pictures Arcadia, wings spread, sword pointed, a legion of spiders pouring over the sex demons. Imagine one moment eating grapes being fanned by servants and BAM! the next there’s an angel barging into your oasis with giant gold spiders spewing out of her hand. All you wanted to do was have a nice tasty mortal soul! And now this!

Seelah jabs him with an armored foot. “Good gods Lann, snap out of it.”

He peeks over. Nudity and angel still occupy the spot the demon is supposed to be. He smashes his face back to the stone. “I’m good. Thanks.”

Vaguely he’s aware everyone else except him managed to get up. Spiders swarm. It takes a long time, but finally magic and arrow sprays stop. The dizzying grip on his insides vanishes. No more demon.

Honestly, kind of embarrassing that he missed out on the entire battle. Crawling to his hands and knees he takes a second before getting up to face whatever ridicule he’s about to get for his weak will.

Daeran tsks. “Lann Lann Lann. What temptation did the demon show you I wonder?”

He pretends to not hear. Nearby Seelah bristles with arrows. She’s a creature of metal and fletching.

Lann snaps his fingers. “A porcupine. I saw it in a kid’s book.”

“I’m going to go to black out again. Wake me up when the arrows are gone.”

Arcadia jumps. “Wait! Seelah!”

But it’s too late. Two more spiders join their big happy crew.

Chapter Text

Lann whistles, running a hand down the bone as they walk. “Get a load of the size of this thing. The tribe could’ve lived off this since the first crusade!”

“Is food all you ever think about?” Daeran drawls.

“No. Sometimes I think about sleeping.”

After a brief tour of the abyssal crystal mine and a fruitless search for a safe place to rest, they quickly discover it’s possible to get back to the depths of Drezen through the rift. So they go back.

It’s pitch black apart from magical lighting in the demons’ hallways. An impenetrable rock mass clogs the staircase they originally descended. Lann is all too familiar with this sight. “She did it. She really caved us in down here.” He laughs bitterly. “This must be what my ancestors felt. Throw us into a hole with a few weapons and ‘here, protect us from the demons while we enjoy our lives on the surface!’”

There’s nothing left for them in the Midnight Fane, so they return to the Abyss. Arueshalae’s voice drops back to that terrified whisper. “This place is a death sentence.”

Daeran responds, “Now now Arueshalae, it’s not nice to point out cousin Galfrey’s intentions so clearly. A public execution would spell an end to the crusades, and we couldn’t have that, could we?” His bright eyes tick off the succubus and Arcadia, and then turn inwards. “Though I must admire her ability to get rid of so many problems all at once. I’m sure the legends will remember us as great heroes who went into the rift for the sake of humanity.”

Seelah says, “It’s a good thing the Hand can’t hear you talk like that.”

“What a grand idea. Let’s repeat this conversation further up. I’m curious what the Herald thinks of my righteous cousin’s not-so-righteous actions.”

“You didn’t have to come with us. You could have stayed behind with Greybor and the rest.”

“And be subjected to our lovely Queen’s command instead of the Knight Commander’s? Ha, no. Lann’s been teaching me there are benefits to dying below ground like a rat in a cave. And besides, someone needs to take care of Ember.”

“I can take care of myself!” Ember says cheerfully.

“Ember might just be the most terrifying person we brought down here,” Seelah says. The demons are not prepared for kindness and empathy.

~ ~ ~

Their first foray into Alushinyrra is peppered with bloodshed, drugged booze Woljif snatches out of Lann’s hand and pours over a demon’s head before Seelah can purify it, more bloodshed, buildings that move, cutpurses, stalkers, and slavers. More than once Lann sees a slave collar stop abruptly midair, the demon holding onto it angered by its sudden inability to rush their group. The Herald’s invisible company hides Arcadia’s wings and she goes without a halo, but in the Abyss there’s a stark difference between a regular tourist and a plane-touched person like her. Daeran’s presence makes it worse.

Turned around in the constant moving maze of the streets, it’s tough to keep their group together. Woljif gets yanked aside by a figure in a heavy cloak. Bandages wrap their entire face and a red glowing dot serves as an eye.

“Got a good looking aasimar there. The guy. How much?”

“Hey, ya mind?” Woljif’s tail thrashes. “Those two are mine. Got them trained so well they don’t even need collars! Yep, that’s how good I am.”

“All I want’s an honest trade.” Movement of a spell in progress flickers under the cloak. “You got a problem with me?”

Lann puts an arrow through their skull.

“Not anymore!” Woljif says cheerily, pocketing the corpse’s purse.

In general the amount of street violence is a bit much, even for him. Living in the caves he’s never felt like the kind of prey he is here. Only some demons simply want to eat you. Most want to own you. Drink your suffering, consume your soul, kick your favorite pipefox, that kind of thing. They look at Lann and lick their lips. They look at Arcadia, lick their lips and crack their knuckles.

She doesn’t spare them a glance.

Arcadia walks past a pair of cambions bashing a slave’s head against the wall. She ignores the beggars groveling at her boots. In plain view one demon slits the throat of another and she doesn’t intervene. There are no speeches about how the demons are wrong, no righteous ceremony, only cold hard silence. When she speaks it’s with an air of frigid indifference.

“Your slaves,” she nods toward a platform of weakened, beaten humans at the flesh market. “How much do you want for them?”

“Who’s askin’? You look like you belong in a collar yourself.”

“How. Much.”

“Fifty thousand gold and piss off!”

“Forty or I’ll piss on your grave.”

With a hint of fear the demon accepts the staggering amount of forty thousand gold pieces and hands over the keys to the collars.

“Seelah, watch the merchandise while I browse. Kill anyone who thinks they can steal from me.”

“Err… aye-aye, Comman—ahem—Captain.”

It’s like being around a completely different person. Lann accompanies Arcadia while she circles the market, pauses at each vendor, looks into the eyes of the chained and bound at a distance. Then she buys them. Or she doesn’t. Lann has never seen so much money in his entire life.

“Arc, you can’t keep this up. What are we going to do with all of them? They’re not fighters. At least take those ones over there, they look like they could do some damage if we tell them to.”

There’s a flicker of her usual self. “We have mercenaries at home, sweethorn.”

Lann jolts straight up. He looks at the others to see if he’s nuts, but they’re all busy rallying the purchased slaves. Arcadia is joking with him, he knows. The silly name still hits him in all the soft vulnerable squishy parts. If she wanted to shut him up it works.

Suddenly feeling responsible he takes stock of the people she’s gathered. The slaves are only slightly more diseased and sickly than a pack of mongrels. If Lann led his kin to the surface, surely he can do it again, from the depths of a different plane, with people that are in worse condition.

He nods to himself. He can handle this. They’ll need food, water, medicine. Warm clothes, if possible. Bedding to sleep on.

~ ~ ~

By the time they get back to camp there’s a hardness to Arcadia that’s twisted to the point of being painful. She spends a lot of time with the Hand of the Inheritor. The two talk, or stand in calculating silence looking out over Alushinyrra’s islands. Lann and Arueshalae usually hang nearby. Even once the site is blessed against corruption, whatever pull the Abyss has on him lessens when he’s near the angels.

After equipment maintenance and a nap Lann wakes to disconcerting emptiness. He could just be hungry. Or, it could be when he looks out toward the portal ledge the normal-sized angel in the pair is missing. So is Arueshale, and the others. They must have gone inside the cave for food.

Cracking a stiff shoulder he heads down the cliff to join them. Through the giant skull’s jaws, freed slaves sit in separate small groups along the mineshaft. Further in the cooking fire burns low beneath a cauldron scavenged from the abandoned mine. Ember ladles stew into bowls for their rescued charges. Back against the wall Woljif hunkers down watching the soup line, twirling a spoon through his fingers over his empty bowl, waiting for an opportunity to slip in for seconds. The others camp out by the cauldron. Lann’s angel sense stays quiet.

“Have any of you seen Arcadia?”

Seelah says, “We thought she was with you and the Herald.”

“She was. I fell asleep and everyone snuck off.”

Arueshalae says, “You were peaceful; I didn’t want to wake you. She was still there when I left.”

“Hm. I’ll look around,” he says, heading off with a wave.

Tunnels fill the crystal mine, some short, some longer where the miners followed a vein to its end. Anything useful is stripped away but the walls still sparkle with pink flecks. Tiny embedded crystal shards too small to use flicker as Lann passes. The blue dark of Abyssal stone shot with occasional sparkle is pretty in its own ominous evil way.

Lann explores the caves. He relies on his lizard eye. He knows the correct tunnel long before he turns the bend, because crystal flakes go yellow the more he walks.

At the end he finds her shelled up so no one can see, wings wrapped in a protective barrier. Long pinion feathers crisscross over each other. Even in the pitch dark he catches the dim reflection of gold and black plumage.

“There's a light at the end of the tunnel after all,” he says.

“You always find me at the worst time.”

“Misery loves company. So, want some? Company I mean. I try to keep the misery to myself.”

She sighs and feathers unravel. Wings make space for him. He plunks down beside her, the sparkling dark tunnel stretching past his boots.

Arcadia rubs her forehead. “If it’s going to be like this the whole way I don’t know how long I can take it. I’ve been reviewing our options. Gladiator style murder, which will probably involve killing slaves and celestials, demon politics that’ll turn us against each other, or cozying up to a succubus queen. And I don’t mean Arueshalae.”

Arcadia looks away. “I keep thinking what will happen if the Abyss takes you, one by one, until it’s just me again. Much as Daeran hates this place I doubt he can resist the allure of something called Ten Thousand Delights forever. Woljif gets mixed up with bad influences on accident, Ember would let the demons sacrifice her, Nenio doesn’t even realize where she is right now, and you… I mean, I thought being a ship captain was a joke until today. That’s your dream, isn’t it? Freedom.”

He palms the back of his neck. “There’s no freedom when you look like I do.”

“You could cover it with magic. No one would ever know.”

But… that’s not… what he wants. “You worry I’m going to be tempted by a handful of coins and a couple promises of adventure? They didn’t even offer me rat tail soup.”

Arcadia remains silent. She truly is worried about this.

“I won’t leave you.” He was going to add ‘Commander’ at the end. But he doesn’t.

He’s not going anywhere.

Arcadia rests her head on his shoulder. After a heartbeat he slips an arm around her waist. For a while they sit like that side by side in the cave’s darkness, looking down the tunnel and its gold chips of crystal fragment.

If only he had some roasted rats, it’d be a dream come true…

“Let’s make a wager,” he says. “I’ll wager we kill the crystal trade and leave this place in one piece. Nobody gets left behind. Nobody dies. And we’re all only slightly more mentally scarred than when we got here.”

“Am I supposed to bet against that? I want to lose.”

“Fine, bet me something small then. Let’s see, for my end, I’ll wager…” His heart hammers, not that it matters, because he doesn’t plan on losing anyway. “...an amulet.”

Far as he can tell she’s blissfully oblivious to what he’s just done. Straws of celestial hair tickle his shoulder when she moves, thinking. “Hmm. Do I have anything in particular you want? Gold? Food? An excuse to skip logistics committee?”

“I’ll take any of those.”

“Alright. If you win, next time Dorgelinda calls an especially bad committee meeting you can play hooky and take Pip down to the market for treats. Get whatever you want and I’ll pay the tab.”

“I look forward to it. Speaking of food, have you eaten?” he asks.

“No. I don’t suppose they left anything for us.”

“Mmm. Someone was pretty determined to fill the camp with hungry refugees, if I’m remembering right.”

“I'll make something,” Arc says. “There’s ingredients in my kit. I’m not an especially great cook though.”

“Me neither. We can fumble through it together. Maybe if we look pathetic enough somebody will take pity on us and help.”

“If we make it look like an experiment we can get Nenio to cook for us.”

“Is that how you manage that? I could never figure out how you convince her to do it.”

A hint of a smile peeks through Arc’s voice. “It’s easy. I’ll show you.”

~ ~ ~

Later, he unhooks his beads from his belt and brings them over to Arcadia. “So I don’t forget our bet. And to show I’m serious.”

She takes them, thumbing through the polished rocks she enchanted once before. “You always have these. Did you make them?”

“Yeah. Not a lot to work with underground…”

The gold shell of a dark wing unfolds. Thoughtful fingers brush through the softer feathers (he squirms for knowing the texture), and select a scattered few, plucking each with a firm fast tug. It must pinch but she doesn’t show it. Blessing magic scrolls across the plumes and sinks into their pretty ruffled edges.

Arcadia presses them into his palm. “I get the feeling this isn’t weird for a mongrel. Just don’t let Woljif have them. He keeps trying to sell them as good luck tokens.”

Lann is left dumbstruck with a handful of feathers. Or, he is, at least for as long as it takes to start thinking up ways to hang them where his old worry token used to be. Some beads, some leather cord to create a charm of bright gold proof that maybe he matters.

Chapter Text

He’s fine.

His insides roil. He’s trying not to throw them up. 

He’s definitely not fine. But he’s not going to be useless in front of the others. Especially not Arcadia. She’s having a tough time down here; the last thing she needs is to babysit a whining mongrel.

“Lann?”

No no, he can’t have that fearful tone. “I’ve survived worse.”

He hasn’t. This is killing him. He can feel parts of his innards dying off and he’d do damn near anything to end the pain. Blindness clouds one eye and something sticky keeps oozing in wet clots down his face. It’s everything he can do to just keep his stomach down. Thick, rotten liquid clogs his throat.

He’s not going to die on the goddamn street for no reason. He’s not. He’s not.

Sudden burning sears up his chest, chokes off his thoughts. It flares so hot his head whines. Things go white and he has no sensation at all. He’s dead.

He gets a lizard eyeful of everyone circled around him. He just needs a second… to catch his breath… get off his knees… Arcadia hovers over him seeming ill herself.

Lann rasps. “Do… you need... to stop? You look like you might be sick.”

“I am getting close to throwing up out of sheer anxiety.”

“Great. Maybe we can puke on each other.”

Daeran sighs. “Of course not even dying is going to put an end to your disgusting yet fascinating advances.”

They make it to the doorway of Savamelekh’s lair. The demon has a fucking mansion, because of course he does. While Arcadia is distracted Lann has Seelah drag him up the stairs to the doorway. Arcadia stares at the closed entrance, chin tipped down toward the doorknob, in what must be a very intense invisible discussion with the Hand of the Inheritor.

Arcadia’s hand slips off the handle. She turns around. “I can’t take you in there. Let’s go back.”

“No,” Lann grits. “You’re going to… leave me behind.”

“You’re not well.”

“Don’t go without me. I… need to be… with you… in case anything ha—” he’s forced to close his mouth and turn away. Claws dig into his thigh. “Ready to break that demon’s neck any time now…!”

Arcadia looks at him, then at the door, then back at him. Indecision wracks her in a way Lann’s never seen before. The rest of the group chooses not to butt in and the atmosphere strings taught with the knowledge that this is it. This is the death Lann’s been telling them about the whole time.

Yeah, now they know what it’s like to watch a mongrel die.

He’s done. He steels his gaze and plods cleanly as he can to the door and opens it. His decision.

They pass through the foyer to an elaborate main room. In the depths unblinking mongrel eyes watch from all directions.

Savamelekh poises, one gray emaciated leg crossed over the other on a fancy chair with a stupidly tall back to support his webbed wings and towering skeletal frame. His skin is starved so thin it’s almost translucent on the bones. Two sets of fingers tent diplomatically together. The other pair of hands hold a knife, and a drinking goblet, respectively.

It’s not wine. The whole place reeks of butchery. Crooked daggers glitter within the demon’s reach.

“Welcome home, my child.”

“Ha!” Lann barks. Then chokes. He hacks up acrid bile and smears his shaking forearm across his mouth. Darkness crowds the room. In the fading light, red glow of the eyes nearest him cast shine onto gore-stained trails down that mongrel’s chest. Their gaze is empty. No: trapped.

“What did you do to them,” Lann wheezes.

“I made them strong.”

“Oh, fuck you. I don’t need to hear this again.”

“My my. So insolent. And, I think you do. Have a seat Lann.”

He hits his knees. He hits his side. Nausea sweeps his breath, kicks him in the stomach with uncontrollable heaving that splatters the floor. Hot specks freckle his skin. Arcadia’s light is the only thing left in the room and he crawls away from it, fumbling for his dagger with the other hand. He’s going to put it in his teeth. He’s going to cut Savamelekh’s toes off one by one and see how close to eight he gets before he suffocates alone in the darkness and stench and vomit filling his lungs.

Savamelekh won’t shut the fuck up. “One upon a time, in a land where the Worldwound was still fresh…”

Lann must have eaten something truly awful this morning. Slow, tarry, thought by thought he remembers, scrape by scrape across the floor.

“...angel came down from Heaven to help the poor stupid humans. His name was Quarael, and all the crusaders…”

It was stew. It had mushrooms in it.

“...a stranger. Not one of them…”

Oh yeah! And meat. Of dubious origin. Maybe it was that.

“...lost… darkness… hunger… kill…”

It was supposed to be chicken. It didn’t taste like chicken and he knows because sometimes—“aaaaAAAGH!”

“...your real family, my son. Never be lonely or hungry or lost again. Lie at my feet and accept…”

—because sometimes he goes with Arcadia to get chicken skewers. And he loves them! He loves being alive and eating damned street meat! Panting, he elbows the knife over the big clawed shape he can barely make out in the dark against the tile. Victory shakes his teeth.

“...are not the only one with mythic power, Commander. Once my son embraces my gift I’m returning to Drezen for the rest of my children.”

Lann cuts. “...ONE.”

Savamelekh kicks him in the face. His head cracks back. The floor is everywhere, nowhere, his body a jumble of parts. Senses swirl.

“They’re sinners. They belong with me, and I, as their father, will punish them as I see fit.”

Distantly, the story Savamelekh spilled about mongrel origins tears Lann's mind apart. Sounds of a scuffle snap across the tile. A noise zips next to his head.

Savamelekh teleports right up in Lann’s field of vision. The bat-furred foot oozing black goo fills his view while imminent harm looms overhead. Dumb demon dad. You’re not the only one with multiple knives.

Lann grunts his guts out. Dyra’s blade sinks through the outermost toe. “TWO.”

Said foot comes down on him. Consciousness squeezes out.

The next thing he knows he’s dangling. Pitch black. Tension wrings his neck. It vanishes and for an airless second he soars.

Unyielding surface impacts ribs, knees, skull. He slides.

“Take the aasimars for their meat. Kill the rest. Oh, except for my wayward son. Lock him up for a while. I have a feeling I’ll have a child to be proud of once he willingly eats the heart of his own commander.”

And then it finally happens. Arcadia loses her goddamn mind.

Light roars into the chamber. “I’ll kill you,” she says. Pent-up rage explodes. The Herald’s enchantment breaks and bristling wings materialize out of spacetime. Sword out, halo on fire. “I’ll kill you! You fucking demon!”

Savamelekh, being an asshole, does the asshole thing, and teleports to Drezen. Straight up vanishes. Boop. Gone. Leaving Lann with an absolutely ballistic angel and her equally violent friends.

Lightning and fire shear through the mansion. Crossbow bolts lodged in bodies burn. In six seconds every tainted mongrel is slaughtered. Gored chunks fly from being cut down by an oversize sword. Arcadia, who could stand shoulder to shoulder with the Herald right now, whirls, and launches down the grand stairs in a fwoosh of blood-specked feathers. Wings arch like talons. She slams an arm onto Savamelekh’s table and swipes. Cups and platters and gold crash on the tile.

“Papers! Evidence!” she roars, digging through clutter. “Anything that scum wrote, every scrap of information, I want it. Arueshalae, check the balcony. Woljif, empty the bookshelves. Daeran, Lann.”

One spell and Lann’s good as new. Soon as Savamelekh disappeared he felt better physically. Mentally he’s a wreck. It matches the carnage happening now as the room tears apart. The circular rug burns and flames catch bodies and faces of mongrels who should’ve died of old age 15 years ago.

“I need to clear my head. I’ll be outside,” he tells Seelah, and then wanders out.

Demons in fine jewelry and clothing populate the street.

No, Lann realizes. What he needs is to not think at all.

Chapter Text

Let’s review.

The alcohol is definitely drugged.

He’s out by himself. Common sense says that’s a stupid idea. Logic says Lann is stupid—so, another drink.

Turns out the wine is also drugged.

Let’s see… his ancestors murdered and ate an angel. Everything he thought he knew about his history was a lie. So there’s that. And he, the great great great great grandson of a bunch of traitors and cannibals and angel killers… he’s…

Lann winces. Drinks.

He’s in love with an angel.

Go figure.

He’s been told by a demon that everything he feels, this, let’s call it, “hunger,” is probably nothing but a fucked up poisoned urge to do all the things he’s seen the demons lusting for when they look at Arcadia. That really does not sit well with him. He’d like to tear his horn off.

But that’s not all!

He led everyone right to Savamelekh, and then could do nothing but leak his black guts out over the floor. Some protector he is.

Wenduag was right. He’s useless.

Another drink to quiet that thought. It kinda sorta doesn’t work. By drinking he’s made himself more useless, unable to aim straight, a theory he tests with a bar stool on a demon who’s been appraising him this whole time. He’s been to the flesh market. He knows what that godsdamned assessing look means.

The chair hits the wall. His stalker gets up and slides over.

“Hey!” The bartender barks. “Ya fuckin’ break anything in here and I’ll be taking payment in your blood.”

“Did you know?” Lann slurs. “In the Abyss a stool is worth more than a man’s life.” Now that he’s got a point to prove he yanks the nearest bar stool out from under a demon. The first chair he threw; this one he whirls by the leg into the slaver’s face. He doesn’t miss.

Someone grabs him by the horn. A rookie mistake. Lann wrenches his head and feels pressure hit its mark. He gores them pretty good and gets a claw in the face for it. The rest is a little fuzzy. The barkeeper hates him. He’s out on the corner, surprisingly without a slave collar. For now the beggars keep their distance but he figures his time is limited so he’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

It could be that he just looks so pathetic no one wants him.

Not even a demon would choose him. He lived in a cave where cultists hand-selected the strongest and took them away. Lann never got picked.

He braces a forearm on an alley wall. By the looks of it people come here to be sick or die. Both? How about both. This is definitely where he belongs. It’s going to take a while to sober up—if he ever does. Whatever was in the drinks makes him so, so thirsty. But he’s good. He can go without. He’s gotta get to where he can walk well enough to make it back to camp.

What a fun time. Highlights of today?

His head goes blank for a while.

Hitting a demon in the face with a chair can be today’s highlight.

Biding his time against the brick, too braindead to think deeply about what’s happening in Drezen, he hears the ruckus of the abyssal slums. Blood, vomit, tails dragging in the muck, grinding buildings on the move, catcalls and screams and empty laughter. Someone dumps trash out a window.

In all the chaos there’s a certain quality to the footsteps of two crusaders. Also Arcadia’s aura laps over him.

“I thought we’d find him here.” It’s Seelah.

“Give us a minute?” Arcadia says.

Lann must be more wasted than expected, because he can see Arcadia’s wings, even though they’re in the city and the Herald should be shielding her. The job Lann failed to do.

“I see when you say you need to clear your head what you really mean is the exact opposite,” Arcadia states. “How drunk are you?”

“I mighta had a few. Just tryin to wash the poison out… with more poison.”

Being intoxicated and being around Arc at the same time is a bad combination. It doesn’t seem like there’s a good reason to hold back all the things he normally thinks. A filter? What’s that? Something for coffee seeds. “I let you down. Didn’t think you’d want to see me again… after I made a mess of myself… and now. I hope I forget all this.”

A feathertip traces the edge of his jaw. She looks him over. “You were really sick, Lann. You scared me. Where’d this claw mark come from?”

“I roughed a couple demons up. After that I was thinkin to go to the Ten Thousand Delights. All I have to do is kill off one demon. They’d have to call it the nine thousand… nine hundred… ninety-nine… delights.”

Gashes on his face fade under the feather touch. She’s intent. He says, “I had something to tell you. But now I don’t. Because I can’t.”

It’s one thing to joke around together and another to come out and actually say it. But now it’s even more than that. Now, he’s a predator. Great great grandson of a cannibal. He thought he hated himself before? Ha! Wait until you find out all your ancestors are evil, and there’s nothing you can ever do to earn forgiveness, and all your children will suffer too, for ever and ever.

Fuck. He did not drink enough. “I don’t want you to see me like this. I want you to trust me. To be proud. Of me. But look… at what I am… it’s still on my face, isn’t it…” he scrubs, and scrubs, at the black smears. “I want to make you happy! And instead I led you to a demon and wallowed in my own puke!”

“Right. So the next time I’m bleeding out on the ground from Areelu’s soulcut curse, are you going to think I’m pathetic and weak and deserve it? Because that’s not how I feel about you. At all.”

He shakes his head. The ground spins. “You don’t understand. When that happens, I…” The rest of her sentence about feelings catches up with him. He has to say it aloud to process. “You’re saying you… feel… about me. You care about me. You care… about me…? Oof—” he’s thudded against the wall. Arcadia’s fists ball on top of his shoulders, like she’d shake him by the scruff of his robe if he had one. Heartbreak cracks her voice.

“Of course I care about you!”

Wings drop limp. Her forehead falls to his chest and she rocks her fists, bumping him into the wall again. Feathers smear in the filth and detritus of the alley and that’s not right so Lann drunkenly tries to gather the huge wings, arms around her, soft plumage everywhere. It’s an impossible task but his hands have something to do other than latch on and never let go. Her hair smells like one of their campfires, probably from burning the demon’s palace, and it’s five hundred times better than the city’s stench. He should plant his face there and not wake up. That’d be for the best.

Except it wouldn’t. He’s gotta kill Savamelekh.

He hugs Arcadia a little. She’s nice. Everything’s nice.

She peels off him with an exasperated sigh and rubs between her eyes. Looks at him. “I’m taking you back to camp.”

Sadly Lann is drunk. “I’ll follow you anywhere, beautiful.”

“Mhmm. This is what I was afraid of. Seelah! A little help.”

Seelah sloshes through the alley. “Man, the smell. How can you even have a conversation? And those wings. Is the Herald going to help out, or should we just kill all the demons on sight?”

“After today? I’m walking with my sword out and they can shishkabob themselves for all I care.” Arcadia sighs again, thick and heavy. “But you’re right. I’ll call the Hand. Give me a minute.”

Her wings vanish. Lann does a double take and yes, they are gone.

Seelah’s the one who drags him off the wall. She’s the one he laments to while they lumber through the streets.

“Everybody said I was a good hunter. But now I think, they were just sayin’ that t make me feel better. Because if I was that good I’d’ve ended up in the maze. Wenduag, she didn’t take me into the maze. Why? I was so stupid I would’ve followed her.” He trips but Seelah’s sturdiness catches him. “They took everybody good. That’s why the tribe always struggled. All the strong mongrels they took and turned into monsters. So I… must be… even worse than I thought…”

Seelah frowns. “Is this what’s going on in your head all the time? It’s awful.”

“Yeah. This is why it’s easier t’ remember everythin’s funny and none of it matters.”

Arcadia growls. “I doubt you’re going to remember any of this Lann, but the reason Savamelekh didn’t pick you off is because he went for mongrels he had a chance of converting. You would’ve stabbed him in the face before he killed you to keep you from warning the others. And I don’t want to point it out, but he had to leave someone strong in each tribe, or there’d be no kids at all and everyone really would starve. It’s hard to manipulate dead people.”

That’s a lot of information. Lann’s brow furrows while he tries to sort through it. He never realized how weird the tension between scale and skin feels. It’s harsh. Stiff.

He’s easily distracted by Seelah’s even gait as she sorta hauls him along. How does a paladin walk so perfectly, even with a drunk lizard on their arm? Nenio needs to investigate this.

The ride is smooth enough Lann gets to keep an eye on Arcadia. She’s angry. Understandable: he’d be upset too if a sad sorry drunk mongrel hit on him in a filthy abyssal alley. Arcadia stomps in front with her sword drawn. A dead quasit skewered up to the hilt swings like a prize kill. He doesn’t remember how it got there but the quasit does a good job redirecting gazes toward easier prey. He wonders what it says about him that he’s not put off by the violence. Quasit or not he’d rather be clinging to Arcadia’s shoulder.

But Seelah is safer. Lann really said that ‘follow you anywhere beautiful’ thing out loud didn’t he? Dammit.

And she said she had feelings for him.

So… maybe whatever he’s doing is working? Maybe he’ll just keep being his weird, awful self. He could do without the excessive drinking though. Things were better without it. Especially because he just stumbled over a harmless pebble that is so puny he considers scooping it up as a gift for Daeran. It reminded me of you: small and barely noticeable.

“Wait, Seelah… stop…”

He collects the pebble.

The whole way back to their hideout the world wobbles unhelpfully. At some point his helper switches to be the one he’s daydreaming about. Arcadia brings him through the portal. He slides off her shoulder so he can sit pretty in his favorite near-the-angel camping spot. “I kinda don’t want to let go. You’re the closest I’ll ever get to heaven, but I dun care ‘bout heaven. I care about you.”

“I’m surprised you’re still conscious.”

“I figure if I talk about how brave and fun you are now, that’s future Lann’s problem.”

Arcadia hands him his water canteen. “Future Lann is going to ask me what past Lann did because he can’t remember.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“Only the most embarrassing parts.” She stands and zips a finger across the curve of his horn as she walks away. “Handsome.”

Hope arrows him in the heart. She’s teasing, but intoxicated Lann also thinks it might be possible she’s attracted to him. He watches her stroll to the book pile and settle there. Wow, she really ransacked Savamelek’s entire lair. Pulling a tome from the top she skims the inside cover before riffling pages like a deck of cards.

She might really like him a lot. If given the chance maybe she could even grow to love him. This isn’t a sober thought but Lann fixates on it nonetheless: Arcadia loving him back. They could be together, even at the end of the day, when night sky takes over Drezen’s atmosphere. He could love her with everything he has.

She’d hold him. She’d kiss him…

It’s a wonderful warming fantasy that quiets everything else while Arcadia picks through the stack. Noticing his attention, gold eyes flick his way. He looks bashfully off toward a distant floating city segment. Minutes pass before he sinks into contemplating the nature of love again, and watching her parse through the texts.

He starts to wonder what might happen if he held her gaze.

Lann watches with single-minded curiosity. He could… die of shyness. His insides could squee so hard he turns into a bubble and pops. Or maybe his scales will blush red and stick like that. Then he’ll look truly demonic.

Arcadia ropes Nenio into helping search the books by using some sneaky inquisitor talk, something about mongrel encyclopedia entries for Nenio’s big glory book, yatta yatta.

Nenio rubs her snout. “Is it possible to go any faster, assistant? I’m having difficulties keeping up with your less-than-enthusiastic speed.”

“It’s important I don’t miss any details. Otherwise the entry in the Encyclopedia Golarionnica will be incomplete.”

Nenio eyes the pile of books. “What details are you looking for? And what is the purpose of flipping through books upside down?”

“To get anything stuck between pages to fall out.” Arcadia pulls out a parchment. “Here’s a comprehensive list of relevant topics. Fold the book page if it looks useful and set it here. Everything not worth remembering goes in this stack.”

Nenio’s eyes scan the list. Then she reaches into the unsorted pile and starts going through books too.

After everything that’s happened it’s strangely peaceful. His head gets heavier and heavier until he falls asleep.

~ ~ ~

They don’t make it out of the Abyss without eating a bunch of Areelu and Nocticula’s drivel about how they corrupted Arcadia’s soul with Nahindryan crystal. Lann has no idea who the demons think they’re talking to, but it’s not whoever Areelu meant to put in Arcadia’s body.

You’d think the wings and the halo would make that obvious.

After some horrible revelations they go charter their own airship, Nocticula’s offer be damned. Arcadia folds feathers no longer hidden because the Hand abandoned her.

“Hey Lann. Our wager? About slight mental scarring? I think you owe me that amulet.”

Lann checks her expression. She has no idea what she’s asking. He really made a mess out of this. “It’s, uh, at home.” In pieces. That he has to put together.

Chapter Text

Lann wonders what the upper limit to crazy experiences is. Like, let’s say he lives to be 100. What would things look like by that point, if each new event were more insane than the last?

Arcadia stands at the foot of Drezen’s church while two gods bicker on either side about what she’s supposed to do with her life. Okay: one god and one demon that aspires to be a god, but, close enough.

‘Bicker’ might seem a strong word to use between a force of absolute justice and another of absolute depravity, except bickering is exactly what’s happening. In the midst of it Arcadia takes a swig from a silver flask.

Lann glances at Seelah. “Isn’t that Greybor’s flask?”

Seelah looks down their line of friends to Greybor and the empty slot on his belt for hard, undiluted liquor. “Greybor, where’s your flask?”

“The Commander said she might need it for something.”

In the background Nocticula calls Iomedae a nerdy prude. Arcadia takes another swig.

Lann says, “I’m having a hard time seeing what that need might be other than getting drunk in the middle of holy debate club.”

Arcadia isn’t paying much attention to anything at this point. She swirls the flask, staring out into the middle distance, and drinks.

“That… isn’t what she’s doing, right?”

“It would seem so,” Greybor responds.

Squinting at the flask Arcadia dizzily unfolds an envelope and lines the paper lip to the nozzle. Red-black glitter pours into the drink. Some of it sloshes over the rim and dusts church steps while she interrupts the two arguing deities. “If thproblem’s the crystal I’ll jus get rid of it. I’m strong enough now I think I can do it. Iomedae this is embarrassing, sorry I’m such a disgrace.” Arcadia downs the liquor, cuffs a fist to her mouth, and sways for a second. “Ugh. Y’know, I learned this method from someone… very…” She jabs a wingtip at Nocticula. “Shhh! Don’t interrupt.”

Nocticula, who wasn’t saying anything, cocks a bemused eyebrow.

“Oh no,” Lann groans. “Don’t learn from me. Not that.”

Arcadia smiles apologetically to Iomedae. “It’s good you float.”

And then she whirls around, spreads her wings, and hurls. She plants her hand to the church doors and loses it in front of everyone: her troops, her travel companions, a demon queen, and Iomedae herself.

“Haha,” she laughs weakly behind the screen of feathers, “What will… the bards say…”

The crowd stares speechless as more noises splatter stone in the least heroic way possible. With two immortals watching nobody knows how to react. Purple, glittering Nahindryan liquid seeps past Arcadia’s boots. She can’t stay upright and slumps to her knees, still heaving. Feathers tremble.

Seelah snaps out of it and sprints up the stairs. “Heralds, Arcadia!”

“Hey… Seelah. Lann. Can you maybe. I think I need.” She burbles another burst of crystal goop. “Presdigi… pressidigi.. prestidiger… whatever that spell is! Nenio.”

“I am already here, my weak-willed assistant! Look at this fascinating liquid you’ve conjured.”

Seelah jumps. “Nenio, don’t put your fingers in it!”

“What? It’s a bodily fluid. I’ve no plans to ingest it, nor have I any open wounds, so fears are illogical. Worry not!”

Daeran announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Fifth Crusade.”

“I can see why… Lann wanted… to die of shame,” Arcadia pants. “This is awful.” 

Nocticula sighs. “You can’t simply puke up my gift, you ridiculous pretend angel.”

“Oh? Watch m—”

Well, that didn’t get far. Or it did, depending how you look at it. Glee rings in Daeran’s voice. “Commander, would you mind turning just so? The only thing that would make this more joyous is getting your esteemed gift on its benefactor. Or, if you move the other way, you can polish Iomedae’s boots in fine Nahindryan crystal.”

Iomedae floats ever so slightly higher. Given the holy radiance Lann can barely bring himself to look at her, but he attempts, him and Seelah trying to get Arcadia up while she wallows, keeps flapping them off, and mutters about humiliation. He clears his throat. “This… can’t be what you had in mind when you said you’d take her powers away?”

“Certainly not. To clear the corruption I would need to cut the bond to all her abilities, including those of heaven.”

An angel wing flops around awkwardly. “Mmm not doing that. No. Then I’d be… I dun even know. Half a Lann. Need both halves. Doesn’t work with only one.”

“Oh boy.” Seelah hefts Arcadia’s arm over her shoulder. “You are really drunk.”

“And also! What happens to all their powers?” Arcadia flails the palm not held to the spreading bloodstain over her heart. “Thass not crystals. They need… all the holy stuff… in me.” Her wound hand drops and a fistful of crystals tinkle across the church landing, spattering red in their wake. “Mmm… losing… a lot of blood. Have to do this now. With… Iomedae. Can’t. Without her.”

Then Arcadia tosses her Nahindryan cookies again. It’s the only thing that prevents Nocticula from diving for the bloodied crystals. Seelah cracks them under her heel, which jostles Arcadia, who moans sickly. Dearan’s hands glow.

“You must wait,” Iomedae says. “The methods are… unusual… but she will not manage to purify her blood if you heal her now.”

Daeran grinds through his teeth, “And how long are we expected to wait, O Illustrious One?”

“Until the task is done.”

“So we’re all just gonna stand here and watch her puke?” Lann rubs Arcadia’s back. He doesn’t get an answer, so, he’ll take that as a yes.

It’s the weirdest gathered silence he’s ever experienced. Err… mostly silence. There’s an awful lot of goop for one person.

“Lay me down,” Arcadia slurs. “Lemme lie in it. I won’t remember it anyways.”

“That is truly funny,” Daeran realizes. “You won’t remember a thing. What do you think we should tell her tomorrow? I’m not sure I can think of anything more outrageous than present circumstance.”

Arcadia’s energy flags. Blood drops crystalize at the tips and fall. Every so often Nenio rubs her snout, flicks a hand, and the mess vanishes.

“...Where is all that going?” Seelah asks.

“Oh! It is an alternate plane, where all items cleaned by magical means deposit their essence for later use. Some day, when a wizard chooses to recreate purple goo that contains crystal chunks, they very well may get this exact substance. Or—it may be altered, and its magical properties reformed into most anything you can imagine. Including the food you eat!”

“So… those magic Heroes’ Feasts…”

“Are really just dirt, grime, and excrement cleaned off innumerous objects throughout every known plane of existence? Yes! Of course!”

Lann is busy trying to keep a slippery angel upright. Did she drug herself too? “What the hell did you put in there?”

“Mmm. Mmmidnight Bolt.”

“What.”

Greybor taps pipe ashes into the square Nenio’s cleaning. “A while ago the Commander met one of my contacts who specializes in… powdered spices. The sort of thing you’d add to a drink for a good night’s sleep. The Commander paid, provided one of Areelu’s midnight bolts, and I thought it wise to not ask questions.”

“Daaang Chief. That’s some hardcore drugs for a newbie like you. You sure you don’t want to cut it with, I don’t know, angel dust or somethin’?”

Lann gives Woljif his disapproving stare. “This better not be coming out of personal experience.”

“Who, me? Naw. I’m just saying, if you want anything, I know a guy who knows a guy. Don’t want any of my buddies to go sniffing up any ol’ thing off the street. Nan did that once and she turned uglier than a harpy’s scrambled egg.”

Nearby, Nocticula’s expression mashes with fury as she hisses about the wasted bolt and crystals. Woljif’s tail turns into an arrow. “There it is. That’s the face right there.”

Nocticula disappears in a puff of smoke. The bigger threat is Nenio. She pounces at the midnight bolt information. With Arcadia on one shoulder and Nenio’s snout in his other hand, Lann manages to keep the inquisitive kitsune at bay like a contorting pipefox after a tasty snack. It doesn’t stop Nenio from talking.

“Consuming powdered essence of a midnight bolt—what an unprecedented event. Are your atoms being ripped apart? Is it affecting your angel blood? Or is only the demonic influence of the Abyss being removed? How interesting! How fascinating! The brightness of your halo has increased by at least 425 lumens. The possibility of an exact measurement to compare with previous notes I made while you were asleep on our last excursion is fairly high.”

“Good Gods Nenio,” Seelah says, shifting the rest of Arcadia’s weight over to her sturdy support while Lann dedicates himself to staving off Nenio. He pushes her snoot down but she just curves it to the left.

“Quick, somebody invent a random experiment,” he says.

A voice rises from the spectators at the base of the stairs. “Uh. How many vescavors does it take to fill an empty healing potion?”

“Greater? One hundred and fifty two,” Nenio announces.

“How the hell do you know that?” Lann grits, keeping hold of Nenio’s constantly swiveling muzzle. “Weirder, please!”

Someone else calls up, “How long can a song be stuck in a person’s head before they go insane?”

Nenio’s ears perk and she hops backwards, popping her nose from Lann’s fist. There’s a shuffling of parchments and a dozen multicolor tabs while she switches sections. “This part of the encyclopedia has yet to be completed but I’m confident your data will make a useful addition.” Nenio jumps from the church stairs into the crowd to drag off the unlucky volunteer.

Seelah frowns. “That person just sacrificed themselves for the crusade. We’ll remember them with honor.”

“I feel better now.” Arcadia considers the cobblestone for a while. “I’m hungry.”

“I wonder why,” Daeran says.

She is definitely not better, but none of them are going to point out the obvious to an inebriated angel. Arcadia sighs and slumps her head to Seelah’s armor. “Do you think Lann will get gray hair when he’s older? What about scales? Silver scales. Maybe my feathers will go white. We’ll match.”

Seelah looks hopelessly back at Lann. “Not that I want to, but I’m going to forbid you two from drinking like this until I get a turn. At this rate I’m not sure I want one.”

Oh, right. This whole spectacle just happened in front of a goddess. Iomedae prepares to depart. “It is done. But she’s chosen to keep her connection to the Worldwound. If she closes it, she will die.”

Then they’ll just have to ask Areelu Vorlesh to do it, very, very nicely, won’t they?

“Cool,” Arcadia says. Then she blacks out over Seelah’s shoulder.

Chapter Text

Lann steps over the home’s threshold. Planks creak and a very fine dust coating outlines his boot prints. Activity from the street outside filters fine particles through open windows. The family didn’t shutter them before leaving.

Unwashed plates and bowls sit arranged on the table. Whatever was in them is long dried away, not so much as a crumb for a fly left. A battered rug softens his steps. In the center of it, beneath the safety of the tabletop, a stocking sewn in the shape of a pipefox with button eyes and embroidered nose lies ghostly without its child.

Lann circles the room. Canteens and carrying vessels for food and water sit unused. Travel bags hang undisturbed along the wall. A drab curtain partitions the single doorway to the small bedroom. He folds it aside and enters.

Tidy patched quilting covers the bed on a handmade frame. Lann kneels and checks under the mattress for any evidence. Herbs stuffed into the straw emit a very, very faint sweetness. They’ve gone stale.

He searches the shelves. Spare clothes are folded neatly inside. Hooks by the curtain where bows, spears, or swords would hang are empty. They took the weapons. Only the weapons.

This is the fifth house. They’re all going to be the same. He looks into his palms, one normal, one a scaled claw. Helpless rage swells in his chest but instead of screaming he breathes deep and acknowledges the feelings, lets them exist.

Screaming might be worth it, though.

He exits the home and closes the door behind him. Drezen’s streets are more messy than ever before. Corpses, both demon and human, litter the sidelines. Lann counted none of his own among them. They must have left before the city was overwhelmed.

Thumbs hooked in his sash, head down, he kicks through the road to the next place. He can’t stop until he knows for sure.

“Chief! Chief Lann!”

The familiar voice catches his long ear even at a distance. He turns to the sight of Arran’s husband breathlessly charging down the lane, bow slung over his back.

“You’re alive. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t dare hope,” the elf pants before straightening up. “Something happened. Arran, she disappeared. Everyone did. She wouldn’t leave, she wouldn’t.” Fingers wrap around a wedding amulet.

A twinge of sadness and maybe a little jealousy mixes with the empty spot at Lann’s own collar. He quells the impulse to touch bare scales where his heart should be. Fool that he is, he told Arcadia he couldn’t conduct wedding rites between a mongrel and an elf. Then he did it anyway instead of appointing a representative. Now look what it’s come to.

“Please tell me you know where she is,” Arran’s husband begs.

“Sorry. I don’t. But I will.”

“I’ll do anything.”

“Then keep yourself alive. I’m going to bring them back. Soon as I find out where they went.”

~ ~ ~

It’s dark when he goes to his apartment. No light illuminates the main floor where the old couple lives. He prays they evacuated with the rest of the citizens when the Queen ordered it.

Upstairs on his table he finds a folded parchment in the elderly woman’s script that explains exactly that. He would’ve expected the owners found new tenants after his six month disappearance into the Abyss, but apparently they didn’t believe a hell full of demons was enough to kill Lann or his angel. The note says he’s welcome to stay.

Everything remains as he left it, but dustier. He wicks a lantern on.

Without any inhabitants Drezen falls eerily silent. The smallest clutterings and voices outside carry across fortress rings. Irabeth runs a bigger night watch now that Arcadia’s banner is gone.

Lann hangs his bow and quiver by the bed. He unhooks the belt with all its tools and pouches and sets it aside. Filling a basin with water he washes up by the lantern, yellow light drawing a circle around the darkness of his bedroom. It’s quiet.

Loneliness creeps into the hollow of his heart. Every night through the Abyss, and the chartered airship, and even that horrible mine, Arcadia’s bedroll stretched next to his. They haven’t been apart in weeks. Does she miss him now? Does Pip curl into the usual spot by her thigh?

He pops the nightstand drawer. The handful of crescents inside slide. He scrapes them into his palm and lays them out on the table beside the light. On their own they’re pretty pieces that will shine with some polish. Smaller than dragon scale to be sure, but a good size.

With all the battles the scales that typically come loose are damaged, but on the rare time he’s lost a good one he kept it. He even cut and braided fine, soft leather strips into a cord. Every time he’s feeling brave or lovesick he thinks about this drawer.

He picks the three best scales. Then he files the edges into shape and polishes them until they’re smooth and bright. Green, like the grass in the meadows outside the Wound. He’d like to see that again. He’d like to see the forests in Lastwall, and the mountains, and the lake. Carefully he presses a knifepoint into the back of each scale and twists to carve a hole.

When he goes the tribe can pick a better chief. One that will settle them somewhere nice, with apple farms and ducklings. Arcadia will help them find a place in all the territory rescued from the demons. He’s not worried.

He ties off the amulet. It’s simple and comfortable and could rest under clothes and armor and whatever enchanted necklace might loop around a collar. He folds it and puts in his belt pouch.

At least now when he dwells on it, the amulet he promised is never far from hand.

Chapter Text

There’s a very good chance he’ll die tomorrow.

He’s been telling himself the Abyss messed him up a little. Being surrounded by murder and sex and lies and cloying, choking miasma of Ninety Nine Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety Nine Delights, and whatever the bar spiked those drinks with—it’s all gone to his head. That’s his story as he climbs Drezen’s stairs. That’s the reason why, in the Storyteller’s abyssal tower surrounded by sumptuous furniture, Lann’s mind kept providing unhelpful ideas about which nice cushioned sofa or daybed or, hell, fancy rug, he could ruin with a certain someone. If they’d spent the night they could have gone away from everyone else, locked the doors, and…

…and he knows he’s not having these ideas because of the Abyss.

Drezen’s stairs are tall. Taller than they’ve ever been. Countless obstacles step up into the night sky and Lann takes them two at a time, slowly. He can’t feel Savamelekh’s influence at all. Tomorrow he will when he finds the demon, even if he has to do it alone. Though he thinks Seelah will come. And Daeran, if only to watch him suffocate on black bile and laugh and say, ‘I told you so, you stupid lizard.’

Lann only survived the last encounter because the demon escaped. This time he’s hoping maybe, maybe, he’s fast enough to stuff it with arrows before he, well, suffocates on black bile. He’s been practicing firing on his knees so it should be possible to free his people at the cost of his life. Unfortunately that’s sorta the price of getting close enough to Savamelekh to kill him.

Lann has to be the one to do it. He doesn’t know much about curses but he knows this. It has to be a mongrel. It has to be him.

So he ascends the city with this tale of being influenced by the Abyss, knowing he’ll die tomorrow, pretending those are his reasons. But really… there’s just something he’d like to do. Last minute seems good a time as any.

The night watch stops and questions him at the top gate. So do the pair of guards outside the fortress itself. And the pair at the front of the hallway. He says he wants to see the Commander.

They let him pass.

In the dead of night the empty hallway echoes like a cavern. Dull orange magic wicks sconces in the walls. He follows the slate path, past the war room, past the offices, to the very end. A huge lion’s face emblazons big double doors of the Commander’s private quarters.

Lann chews his lip, sighs, shakes off, puffs up confidently, deflates just as quick. Drops his knuckles to the doors twice. Knock knock. Shuffling and heavy footsteps thump on the other side. There’s a moment of dawning horror at the weight of the sound. It’s not Arcadia. The door whips open.

Irabeth glowers down at him. A heavy crossbow aimed point blank at his chest might mean he’s leaving Golarion earlier than expected. Killed by a half orc in pajamas.

She lowers the weapon. Wide-eyed Lann peers past her into the massive bedroom and married couple’s home life. Anevia’s voice curls around a partition. “Didn’t hear a body hit so who is it?”

“Lann,” Irabeth growls.

Anevia just laughs. “Well well. Inn’that interesting.”

Lann claps his hands and takes a step back. “I clearly have the wrong place. Funny and all, thought the Commander would be in the Commander’s room… unless I’ve mistaken something, uh, very complicated.”

“She’s never been here,” Irabeth says. Anevia appears under the arch of her wife’s arm, also wearing pajamas. Lann gives them his scaled side. Check all his other assumptions: he’ll be dying tonight of embarrassment. There’s no sane reason for him to be up here at this hour.

“I should go. Rethink my life.”

Anevia chuckles. “Maybe rethink it at the east tower. Stay on the wall and there’s a locked side door by the stairs. The assassins rarely think to look there.”

“Good luck,” Irabeth says.

Lann retreats. Whatever plan he thought he had is shot. A drink or ten would be welcome. But he can’t quit. Not now.

Out on the wall the sky spreads a different type of dark from the caves. Boundless night borders square tooth crenellations that go by one by one. As he walks, the far tower emerges out of the shadows. Nestled beside stairs to its peak is an unremarkable wooden door with black wrought hinges and clasp like any other. Lann’s intuition says if this is really Arcadia’s door it’s not as ordinary as it looks, but it won’t harm him unless he earns it.

Well, here he is. Door #2. How can a normal door be so much more intimidating than big ones covered in a lion’s fanged scowl? This is crazy. He’s crazy. He has nothing to offer; he didn’t even bring flowers or food or wine. If he had he’d open the bottle right now, give up, and sit on the battlement alone. All he brought is… himself. I–is that really enough?

He sets a finger to the door. Real, regular ol’ wood. Maybe there’s nothing special here, just the inside of a guard tower. Anevia and Irabeth sending him on a hilarious feathered angel chase in the middle of the night.

Yeah, it’s probably nothing. He steels himself with the same two knocks as before.

Silence. There must be wards of all kinds on the tower. Thinking about it now, it wouldn’t be that big on the inside. Nor would it be too small. That is, if it isn’t a supply closet.

Click.

Just seeing Arcadia floods him with stupid nervous joy. She looks surprised as he feels. Yeah, it really did take this long for him to work up the courage to come over.

Without a word she moves aside like it’s the most natural thing in the world to let him in. Except, Lann can’t cross the threshold. Shy heat warms his face and he might pull his finger off with the force he’s twisting it. “I was wondering if… I could keep you company tonight.”

“Sure. I’ve got dice. Cards. I don’t drink much but there’s some things here.” Arcadia goes to a hutch on the back wall and clinks through unopened bottles.

Lann comes in, closes the door, puts his back to the wood and goes no further. His palms rest on the grain. The misunderstanding of what he meant is probably his fault. He’ll get his piece in, and then he’ll leave… or he won’t.

Imagining staying strangles him with swirly hope.

Arcadia’s tower room is simple, built for someone used to being on the road, and as he’s looking at the wooden floor and walls paneled over fortress stone, the bed in one corner, tub in the other, plain shelves, a pantry where Arcadia’s poking around for snacks, the cute area for Pip by the bed again, a spacious table stacked with parchments and books open in the middle of a task he just interrupted, Lann realizes something. She’s in her inquisitor clothes. He smells coffee.

“You’re still awake,” he says.

“There might be a safer way to break the curse. If I had time…” she drifts off. She’s talking about him. His curse. Even now, at the end of it all, thinking of him. “We can’t leave it. Still, I knew I could get at least one more day of research.”

“What are the chances it’ll help?”

“Almost zero. It’s not zero though!”

Next to the coffee mug a cluster of empty caramel wrappers and crumbs from something more filling scatter. Divine light bobs in a magical lantern. Pip is swirling around his legs. There’s so many details he’d like to get to know. He doesn’t have time. And he just… wants.

He wants so hard it feels like a need, like starvation twisting his soul. Maybe she can see it in his eyes when she looks at him.

Her smile fades. “What’s wrong?”

Fingers and claws nervously bunch against the door. “Listen, the thing is, I can’t stop thinking about you. And tomorrow I… Maybe this is an insane thing to ask. If it is feel free to kick me out; I’ll get the message.” He looks at the floor. “If we were camping I’d slide my bedroll next to yours and damn what the others think. But we’re not camping and I still want to be with you. And, um.” His eyes dart to the bedroom area. “The pipefox bed is pretty small, but I think we could both fit, if we really, really tried.”

It takes few seconds for his plea for love to sink in. He sees it dawn on her, folded wings easing, empty mugs for two gradually lowered to the table, forgotten, everything slowing down on a bated breath. Each second is a decade and he should be dead by now waiting for the rejection that must be coming but maybe by some miracle isn’t.

A quiet, careful smile tips her lips. “It’s a good thing I have a real bed, then.”

He remembers to breathe and a relieved exhale thumps the back of his head to the door. What was he afraid of? He pushes a hand through his hair feeling even more ridiculous. “Heh.”

Arcadia casually sits against the table edge, watching him with mischief. “To be honest I’m waiting for you to add, ‘as friends.’”

He blushes. Hides it.

She plays, “No, ‘let’s sleep beside each other as friends?’ Because we’re comrades and we care about each other? We’re just two good companions having a friendly sparring match up on the wall?”

She’s ridiculous and so is his smile. “There’s no way I said it that much.”

“In the beginning.”

“That was then. You know, before we nearly died a hundred times.”

Happiness tilts her inflection. “Which of those near-deaths did you realize it might be more than friendship?”

“The first one, when you almost fell on my head.”

She snorts and looks at him like she loves him. Oh. Oh…

Lann leaves the door behind. He crosses the room to be close, close enough she can probably feel the bashful heat radiating off him. Somehow his good hand finds hers. It’s new, this tentative feeling of fingers tracing each other out. When they thread together Lann marvels at the zigzag.

Slight crimson fans Arcadia’s dark skin. Confidence carries her tone but the color of her complexion hints otherwise. “What were you thinking as far as keeping me company? Snuggling? Or something more physical?”

“Anything you want, really. I… I meant it, when I said I want to make you happy. I, um, hope there’s a physical component to that. Because if there isn’t, we probably shouldn’t…” He winces a little. “But if there is I’ll do anything to make you feel good. Anything.”

She smirks. He verbally backs up. “Well I mean let’s not get too crazy…”

Arcadia laughs and it tugs on their intertwined hands. His heartstrings go with it. She looks up at him, all bliss and smiles. “A kiss would be nice.”

Forgetting himself he leans in, grinning. “A kiss, huh. Is that all?”

“To start.”

He sets his lips to hers before courage can falter. It does in the sweetness of her unbroken, pure texture. Now she knows what he feels like, and it must be strange, and… His brow wrinkles and he draws back, worried about her reaction.

She watches him through softened lashes, reaching up and tenderly brushing a thumb across his scaled cheek. All he sees is happiness. Affection that’s always been there for him warms her features and it’s somehow even more than it was before. Gods, she’s gorgeous.

Idiotically emboldened by such a tiny success he grins. “I knew you liked me.”

Colors in her halo swirl, and a laugh catches her voice while she cups his cheek. “Like you? Lann, I love you.”

He kisses her again. He’s too giddy to do anything else. Half his mouth is upturned beaming smile, while the other half is the side that always scowls, so now for sure the sensation has to be strange. It doesn’t matter. She’s smiling too, and as it turns out two tight-lipped grins make for a pretty silly kiss.

“Wait,” he chuckles into her. “I’ll stop, smiling, just, give me a second. Let me try again.”

“Again?” she grins. “At this rate we’ll be at this all night.”

“That was the plan.”

They manage a somewhat softer but still joyful kiss. Lamplight casts their joined silhouettes out the nearest open window and Lann can only imagine what horned, feathered shape it’d look like to passersby if the tower weren’t so high up. A breeze blows through and shivers across his scales.

“I better close those,” Arcadia says.

He’s stupidly, deliriously, madly in love with her, and she’s happy to be touching him. Gods, that? A miracle. One he can prove by holding her hand while she tries to do the important work of closing the windows. He wants her attention, everything she’ll give him, which he shows with a needy sign into her palm and a hopeful sound in his throat.

She shoots a playful look over her shoulder and nicks him with a wonderfully odd angled peck that makes him laugh and die for more at the same time. It’s not enough. When she turns away from the first closed window they end up pressed together again. It’s more and more difficult to leave the heaven of her lips. He walks her backwards to the second window, kissing her, and she bangs against the shutters. “Lann, Lann,” she laughs, fumbling for the latch. “The windows. Everyone will see.”

“Then let them see. I want the whole world to know.”

“You want the whole world to see me in my underw—” He smile-kisses the base of her neck and tickles her wings so she squeals, feathers flapping across the lit window opening. He is going to let her close it, of course he is, but this is more fun.

“Someone call the guard,” she laughs into his shoulder. “There’s a dragon man in my tower and he won’t let me close the windows.”

Lann’s eyes sparkle. “A dragon man? That’s bizarre even by crusade standards, Commander. No one’s going to believe you.”

“You’ll believe me, right?”

“Lead the way. I have a few words for this dragon man about getting his own windowed cave. This one’s taken.”

She closes the shutters and throws the latch. She plants her back to the wall and reaches out to clasp his hand and draw him closer.

She says, “So you have been thinking about this.”

“A lot. For a long time.”

Soft, sweet, curious kisses. He can’t stop.

“Another,” she whispers.

He gives it. Fingers slip from his. She flattens her palms on the wall and spreads wings, leading him in. Being partway over her shoots a thrill through his gut and a tightening sensation lower still. Caution goes out the window. Lann presses desirously closer, peeling off his arm guard. Leather and ribbons clap to the floor.

“Thank gods,” she breathes. “Never thought I’d get you out of that thing.”

“Eager now, are we?”

“A little.” She kisses down the side of his neck. Swift and sudden she swaps to the other side and nips into his scaled shoulder. The slight pressure rakes excitement out of him. Arcadia must know. She bites harder. A surge of pleasure makes him huff and clutch her sides.

“Okay,” he groans. “So you’re clearly not afraid of that half.”

She releases him and he gets the radiant joy of her cheek resting on his scales while they hold each other. “It feels funny,” she says.

“Mmm. So do these.” He tickles fingers into the bridge of her wings. She peals with laughter and squirms against him. The breathy, silly mess that is the two of them is the happiest he’s ever been. His heart aches. “I might die,” he says.

“You’re not going to die.”

“Will you resurrect me if I do?”

“Of course. I’ll message Daeran; we can have him wait outside on standby.”

Lann is busy pressing kisses anywhere he can so her body arches into his. “Nah,” he murmurs. “I’d rather it were just us…” He finds a sweet spot that makes her curse and dig fingers into his back.

“Fuck. Lann.”

His blood runs hot. They thump against the wall, desperate and losing their minds. She tastes like salted caramel. Every thought reserved for survival turns toward passion. Everything feels good. Arcadia toys with the sash around his waist. He wants to free her wings but it’d be clumsy smashed against the wall like this.

They pause, panting, foreheads pressed together. His pulse hammers in his ear. Heat and building pressure thrum with the beat. He’s heard of older mongrels dying in the throes of ecstasy. If that ends up being him he doesn’t care anymore.

He swallows, catches his breath enough to step back and decide if this is going to go any further. His angel looks so smitten it makes his head spin. Smatters of gold glitter on her dark skin where he’s been kissing. Gods. He scuffs a hand through his hair while he gathers that if he wants more it is going to mean less clothes. Specifically, on him. He’s not sure he’s ready for that. On the other hand he’s boiling alive without it. He growls. Part frustration, part arousal.

“Too much?” she asks.

“I’m. Ah. Shy.”

Arcadia’s smile broadens, and then softens. Of course he’s nervous. He hasn’t been with anyone who isn’t a mongrel; he has no idea how she’ll react to all of him. He’s not exactly a marble statue in the queen’s garden. Sculpted? Sure. Entirely human and healthy looking? Ehhhh.

“Do you want me to go first?” she asks. Lann rocks on his toes and clasps his hands behind his back. He honestly is shy all of a sudden, dammit.

“That might help,” he says.

She’s at least as flushed and jittery as he is. Even so she makes her way across the room, curling her wings in the funny way it takes to reach behind and undo back buttons. “I might… have a few scars,” she says shakily. Walking past she pulls the shirt over her head.

There are a lot more than a few. And Lann knows there will be another across her chest where the Wound comes and goes. The scars produce an interesting milky thatch across her skin. He yearns to touch all of it, and while he’s watching, she steps out of the last of her clothes, whirls around, and sits on the edge of her bed.

Air squeezes from his lungs. “Yep. This is definitely going to end up with me naked, so…”

A gold-black wing opens to the space beside her and that’s all he needs. Sitting on the bedside he can’t keep his right hand to himself. He risks tracing the length of a scar that cuts down to her knee, still somewhat gobsmacked any of this is happening. Feathers behind him wrap around. Light tips brush his side uncertainly.

“I hope I’m not too disappointing,” she says.

“Are you kidding? I’m so in love with you I’m scared I’ll wake up.”

“Lann…”

He can’t not kiss her when she says his name like that. He starts at her shoulder and she turns for him, makes it easier to go up. He presses closer, skin against skin. Feathers curl around his back. Her body is so silky under his good hand and her returned kisses are so sincere he can hardly stand it. Claws fist the blanket. Heated little puffs escape his mouth and he’d shut them up, except they seem to be winning him more of everything good.

This time when her touch seeks into his slipping sash, he takes it off. He takes everything off.

She brings him to the center of the bed and he crawls on top of her, all heat and electricity and nerves.

“Be gentle with me,” she teases.

He shoots her the quirky half-smile she loves so much. “Always.”

And he is.

Chapter Text

Lines of sunlight draw across the floor beneath the tower’s closed shutters. Waking up together proves that just one tryst was not going to be enough. Besides, their clothes were already off.

In the midst of it Arcadia suddenly bursts into breathless laughter. The back of her hand falls to her forehead. Lann pauses, warm on the inside at seeing her so happy, and maybe a little confused, but less so when she manages to flick a finger toward the edge of the bed.

He looks over. Pip’s fuzzy face peeks over the mattress. Now that Pip has their attention it wiggles and chirrs, breaking into the ‘please pet and feed me’ smile.

Lann drops his grin into Arcadia’s chest. Not caring at all what’s going on Pip noses further up the covers. Still giggling like mad Arcadia paws Pip in the face. “Pip, no. Gods. This isn’t cuddle time. Lann, I’m sorry, this is—” she’s trying to wrestle a pipefox with one hand while the rest of her is pressed flush under Lann’s body.

He’s laughing too. Forget it: whatever momentum he had is gone and they’ll have to restart. He should be mortified his moxie is slipping away, but seeing Pip’s dumb face being pushed off the edge of the bed and the dull flump that follows is too ridiculous for much else.

Arcadia covers her eyes, skin aglow with everything they’ve been doing plus ten tones of embarrassment. “If you don’t ever want to sleep with me again…” she quits that thought. “I can lock Pip out.”

“Don’t bother. You have no idea what kinds of audiences we’d have in the caves. Mice, rats, bats.”

“Pip would eat them all and then stare at us, probably with awful breath.”

“Good. That should scare off all the other lizardfolk interested in you.”

“Oh, because there are so many.”

He smirks, leans in, and picks up where he left off.

~ ~ ~

Lann snuggles closer into Arcadia. He’s ready to face anything. He’d scale the tower of Iz itself with nothing but his bare hands and a chipped dagger between his teeth if he had to. But the thing is… he’s not ready to face his own death. He’s been lying to himself about that.

Now that it’s time to do it he doesn’t want to.

Lazy mornings like this for the rest of his life: that’s what he wants. Or, even just one more. One more full day with Arcadia. One more night.

He’s the Chief. He can’t. Sighing he presses lips to the back of Arcadia’s neck before untangling himself.

“Time to find the demon, huh?” Arcadia murmurs.

“Time to find the demon.”

They get dressed. While Arcadia feeds Pip, Lann takes in the sheer amount of materials stacked around the room, likely all to do with Savamelek’s curse. No cure unfortunately. Or at least none Arc is willing to attempt. 

She says, “This is your score to settle. How do you want to do it? Bows blazing? Stealth? Poison? A couple of really bad puns?”

Lann picks at his claws. “I was thinking… maybe I could let him poison me. Maybe it’ll help me get through to the corrupted mongrels, and I could live a long life, and we could be together. Buuuuut I have the sneaking suspicion I’d be the one unlucky case that dies. Y’know, the rare symptoms on the potion label where you get hives, or jelly legs, or, only your clothes turn invisible.”

“Demonic rituals usually kill people.”

He scrubs a hand through the back of his hair. “Yeah. I figured you’d say something like that.”

“Lann. I know you prefer a heroic death over suffering—I’m the same way—but have you ever considered what happens afterward?”

“I… go to get judged by Pharasma?”

“No. What happens to me,” she says.

Arcadia without him in the middle of a war. That’s uncomfortable. He always figured after he sacrificed himself the world would be slightly better and no one would miss him all that much. Existence is a massive thing and he’s a tiny unimportant blip.

Except. Well, except everything, now.

Arcadia says, “I want you to know if you decide to be a dead hero, that’s fine. But then I will fly straight to Threshold and close the Wound myself.”

And then she’d be dead too. He chuckles weakly. “Even if you could fly...”

“I will fly. Straight to Threshold.”

He believes it.

Everything they’re doing right now is to close the Wound and end the war without dying. In fact it’s… probably selfish that Arcadia is still here. How many lives would be saved if she left now? That question must keep her up at night, the same way he stays awake knowing each day away from the mongrels means more of them succumb to Savamelek’s poison.

Threshold. Closing the Wound. It dawns on him that she just threatened him with her own safety. Lann blinks at his crazy angel. He can hardly believe it; it makes him smile. “Inquisitor Knight Commander Arcadia, are you blackmailing me?”

She calmly folds her hands. “Yes. This is blackmail. If you go off on some crazy hero solo stunt, then I get to do my crazy hero solo stunt. And I promise to make it ten times as ridiculous as yours.”

“Right,” he says. “Let’s take double suicide off the table then.”

“Thank you. Now, your plan about the demonic ritual. Why not take a page from Woljif’s book? Pretend you want to do it.”

“ Pretend I want some demon to shove its sting in me?”

She wrinkles her nose, some of the light returning to her eyes. “Why’d you have to make it sound…? Anyway, no, the other one. If you have to get close to Savamelekh at all, act like you’re thirsty for aasimars.”

“Hey, now who’s the one making it sound…?”

They watch each other, arguments and plans all forgotten at the foot of something better. Damn, you’d think he wouldn’t be able to blush at this point, but no, that’s a curse he’ll have to live with.

Arcadia rubs the cover of a leather book sitting on the table. “I didn’t expect to see you last night. Or… anything after. You surprised me in the best way but it is making it hard to think straight. I’ve gone a little stupid for you I guess.”

“I tend to have that effect. The party’s been complaining about how much dumber everything is with me around.”

She laughs softly. “It’s not dumb. You’re not dumb.”

Maybe he’s not.

Together they spend the end planning Savamelek’s death. Lann will be the one to do it. Arcadia will bring her posse of living Wardstones to prevent the demon from teleporting. It worked on Baphomet, so stupid lesser demon Savamelek doesn’t stand a chance.

Time to go be a hero.

Chapter Text

It’s easy. Skulking through the ranks of Crimson Rage infected mongrels is easy. It’s a piece of cake to choke back the pain and ooze dribbling down his face from the demon’s proximity. Pretending to come over to the dark side plays right into Savamelek’s overinflated ego. Instead of taking the sting it’s simple for Lann to stand there and raise his bow, and roar, and snap his tribe out of it with the first of a thousand arrows that pincushion the demon. They’re not leaderless now. They should fight.

And they do.

Hissing blood spatters and pools around the dying monstrosity. Lann smirks into his draw arm as he carries out another volley. For all his bluster Savamelekh is nothing when he can’t run away like a coward. Glimmering anti-teleportation barrier glows overhead.

“You think I’m going to let you live?” Savamelekh sneers. “You’re my creation and you’ll do as I say.”

Savamelekh scrapes a bow off a fallen warrior, tears off his own stinger, lodges it into the string, and fires.

Lann watches Savamelekh bleed to death from all the arrows, not to mention the crush of a dozen mongrel attacks. Skeleton thin skin sags, turning to goop on its frame. The demon dies. It dissolves into black ichor rank with decay and death. Another stain on the Wound that’ll wash away with the next blood rain.

“Go to hell,” Lann says, feeling a little foggy. He turns around. Takes a step. His knee buckles and he collapses.

Immense pain. The crap coming out of his eyes and nose and mouth hasn’t stopped. He’s drowning in it. “Oh,” he wheezes into the stone. His hand finds the wet opening in his side. It weeps hot, sticky tar. “So… that’s where the stinger went…”

Fatal demon poison wasn’t part of the plan. Savamelekh didn’t intend to convert him; it’s a dose to kill. Maybe… he’ll survive it… anyway…

“Chief!” echoes around him. At least he won’t die alone. Scale meets scale as someone grips his hand, the rite for any mongrel on death’s door, to know… they’re not alone… out in the caves... Someone found him and took him back to his tribe. Maybe it was Hovlan. Except. Hovlan died, didn’t he? In the maze.

The healers will come. If there’s anything they can do. Demon poison. No, there’s no cure for that. But they’ll still come. The mongrel circle parts for them. For some reason it’s healers from all the tribes. Not just his. Why?...

Ahh. Right. Chief… Lann.

He’s been close to the end enough times to know this one’s different. There are some silences that can’t be broken. Of course it would happen now, when he wanted to live. Of course it would be out in the Wound where the scent of freshly poisoned meat draws everything dead and alive.

A great shadow falls over the gathering. His kin scatter as the weight of it presses down. Billowing wind blasts dust and pebbles across his senses as the winged predator slams awkwardly on all fours, scraping in a rush toward him.

“Go,” Lann rasps, trying to set the mongrel holding his hand free. But his companion won’t release him. The charging monster’s scuffle turns into an armored rush. He’d recognize that sound anywhere. But how? She was on the cliff…

Feathered shadow covers him. Arcadia. “Fuck. Lann.” It’s a very different cadence from the “fuck, Lann,” from a few nights ago… ha… ha…

He’s so glad. He got to hear the other one.

Magic noises burst. A portal? He tries to move and the anguished cry that comes out of him bubbles with black liquid. True panic enters Arcadia’s voice. “Daeran!”

“It’s dissolving his insides.”

Lann has to keep talking. “I was wondering… what that feeling… was…” It’s the only distraction from the death he knows is coming. It hurts so bad. But, he’s not scared. He’s okay. When he goes, he can beg forgiveness at Pharasma’s court, for his tribe, their kids.

Please forgive them. Take care of them.

Healing glow radiates from everyone on the field and he can’t feel it at all. That’s the difference between regular poison and a generational curse. Lann hasn’t the life to focus on more than one thing. He gives it all to Arcadia. He forces, “That… play… they’re making about you. Do you think I’ll be in it? How are they going to find a performer… weirder than I already am?”

“Stage paint.” Her voice is thin and clipped. She’s trying to cure him.

“No, no… more… interesting.”

“Arueshalae’s hydra-headed hamster. And it can wear a party hat. Cocked to the side it’ll make a pretty good horn.”

“Haha. Yeah….”

…

“Lann? Lann! Stay with me.”

“Hey… if I survive this… I have something to tell you...”

“Is it a joke?”

The amulet he made for her burns a hole in his soul. “The biggest joke on the face of Golarion.” He tries to laugh. It’s little more than a melted rattle. “Are you going to take everything off my corpse like we do all the others? Can you… make sure Woljif does it? I don’t want you to get the joke… without me…”

“Seelah. Diamond. The giant one from the dragon’s stash.”

Heh. He coughs. Pieces of his lung might be in it. “Pharasma wants a whole one of those? An ordinary rock would be good enough for me.”

Daeran’s voice fades in. “I’d say let him die and bring him back, but you’d have to be a god to restore the body he’d be trapped in. And no, I’m not just saying that to be a sardonic wit. He’ll die within minutes of resurrection.”

Arcadia’s silence is unreadable.

Everyone knows the truth. They probably knew when he fell. This is it. Consciousness flickers.

He’s pretty damn lucky, you know? Not many mongrels get to die with an actual angel shrouded over them. Feathers, ebony and gold. Her halo circles the sun. He can see… the sun.

Lann smiles. “I… love… you...”

…more than you’ll ever know…

But Pharasma only gives him the three words.

The goddess is right. They’re perfect. Just those three.

Breath leaves him.

“No. No. I don’t accept this.” Arcadia stands up, shouting into the heavens. “You want forgiveness? Take it! You have mine, you have Lariel’s, and Quarael’s. Let this suffering end. ” Her voice cracks, and the Light, Lariel’s sword, flares into existence in her hand. Under the sun’s ray the blade hones thinner and thinner into a rapier needle.

Arcadia flips the hilt like a dagger. The blade points down in a rush of light.

She drives the sword through his stomach.

Just kidding about his breath leaving him! “UNGH!” He’s past the point of pain; instead he feels the extreme discomfort of an intrusion into his torso, a horrible digging pressure that does not belong.

Seelah shrills. “What the fuck Arcadia?!”

“The curse stems from eating flesh. Just—keep him alive. No wait: pray. We’ll pray. Daeran, keep him alive.”

“Of course I will perform this impossible task. You are welcome. I assume I will be compensated in terrible jokes for the rest of my life?” Daeran says, but the reality is that soon as Lann had a fucking sword inserted into his gut, there’d been a burst of oracle healing to go with it.

Well, the pain is back. And it sucks. It sucks in the opposite direction: all his innards being pulled back into his rotting corpse, the boiling poison seeking the Light. He can’t talk. But he sure can howl and cry.

Boy, does he make a show of it too. Beyond his own torture he can’t see or hear anything. He has no control. He’s helpless. His least favorite condition!

“AAAAAAAHH!”

Not the greatest poetry he’s ever written.

Every fiber of his being screams to move but there’s too many hands holding him down. It takes a lifetime of self-control to be still as possible with a rapier pierced through his innards into the ground. An eternity passes. Clarity crawls its way past a red-veined haze. It starts as a crack of light and expands into blurry figures. They solidify.

Lann sees.

Seelah on her knees wreathed in serene light of divine prayer, and beyond her, so is his tribe… and the next… and the next. Every mongrel bows down with the weight of conviction that they can save him. That someone somewhere out there is still listening.

Ember stands at the fore looking directly at him.

And maybe, if the gods can’t forgive them.

Maybe they can forgive themselves.

He rolls his head so his cheek isn’t pasted to the ground. The rapier of light sprouts from his torso and a stream of black slowly draws up the blade. Near the hilt it burns away into fizzing, sparking magic. He’s got nothing to do but pant and whine as the tarry line of corruption reaches an end. Up the darkness goes, shrinking smaller and smaller, until it’s banished completely by light.

Lariel’s sword shines clear.

“I have to pull it out.”

“Fine. NNGH!” The second he speaks Arcadia yanks the sword free.

After it’s gone and his stomach knits together he shivers uncontrollably, not from cold, or any sort of feeling, but because he has nothing left. He lies on the stones while his body trembles and pathetic whimpers dribble from his lips.

The pressure between his spasming fingertips is Arcadia’s hand. She’s here. She’s… still here, and he tries to curl toward her steady presence, to hide in it, to die in it if it so happens. The most he can manage is barely twitching his fingers. I’m here, too…

It takes a while to breathe right. Instead of passing out he gets enough air, enough time, to try and move. It works. So, with some support from Seelah, he sits up, every internal organ bruised mush. Can your blood be sore? Because the little he has left sure is. His human side is practically translucent.

“Hey guys. Think I… finally found a cure for blushing.”

It’s surreal. He’s alive. Scales and all. So much for becoming a pretty aasimar.

He doesn’t have to look at the tribes to remember they’re there. With a slow, careful puff, testing the limits of his liquified internals, he drags his legs in. Gathers his nonexistent strength. Pushes weakly on Seelah to stand. She helps him up and he gets his bearings enough to dodder a couple steps in the right direction.

“Okay. Piece of cake,” he says, swiping blood sweat from his brow. “Who’s next?”

The mongrels bunch like cornered sheep, cutely huddled up against the ruins, looking at him like he’s a wolf. A great big plagued dire wolf with two and a half heads and fangs where its belly’s supposed to be.

Then he looks closer. He knows for a fact Rilla was born with Crimson Rage, but he’s certain even from this distance the red ring around her irises has vanished. Part of the mongrels’ bewilderment is that they’re cured. No more hunger, or fury, or corruption, or at least not the kind that comes from the Abyss. They’re free to desire things and get corrupted like proper uplanders now, all on their own.

“You’re kidding. I’m the only one who had to be poked with a holy sword?”

Arcadia says flatly, “You took a demon’s death wish and its mythic poison straight to the bloodstream.” The way her hand slides against his is careful. “How do you feel?”

“I don’t know. Haven’t had the chance to process any of this.”

They broke the curse. He’s… empty. In a good way. Like if he looks outside he’ll see all the things he put there, and he can bring them back into his clean den. He can take only the things he wants, and the rest goes away. Or maybe he’s listened to Arueshalae describe her dreams one too many times.

He counts mongrels. Names of missing individuals go to memory for later. Thanks to their time in Drezen the tribes have begun to intermingle, and there are still so many faces he doesn’t know, but he’s heartened to see young ones survived the ordeal, along with the elders, and those who were never warriors. Among them is Arran, whose husband showed up begging Lann to rescue her.

Lann thought he understood because love is like that. Now he understands for a different reason. The couple is expecting a baby. Soon, by the looks of it.

Still trembling he squeezes Arcadia’s hand and sucks up his exhaustion. “Let’s go. Let’s get everyone to the teleportation circle. Let’s get them home.”

Chapter Text

He doesn’t remember falling asleep. Stifling, slightly sour air like the press of bodies in a military tent breaks with a window breeze. There’s something long and fuzzy all the way up the side of his skin. He sits up. Correction: he twitches and immediately regrets it.

“Oh,” he croaks windlessly. “Gods. I’m so sore I can’t move.”

“Then don’t,” Arcadia murmurs, muffled and warmingly close.

With effort Lann cracks his vision to the uneven raftered ceiling of his bedroom. Through his lizard eye everything is tinted by the dark of night. Pip’s fur catches his periphery. The pipefox stretches flush against him. Arcadia sits on the floor in what has to be the most uncomfortable sleeping position ever, arms folded over the edge of the bed to box a place to lay her head. Limp wings spill across floorboards and partially over Sark’s velveteen fur-coated skin. He’s asleep, along with the handful of other mongrels piled around Ember. Seelah is passed out sitting against the wall with one arm slung over a bent knee, sword at her side. Outside Woljif’s irritatingly loud yawn sighs from the landing. The thief’s on watch and doesn’t want to be.

Lann manages one wheezed “ha” at the lack of Daeran. He always knew the guy couldn’t stand the stink of a pile of furry, scaly, sweaty mongrels.

Soot pulls at a pouch on the nightstand and knocks it to the floor with a clunk that splits Lann’s ear. “Damn. Just one day, is that too much to ask?”

“Go back to sleep Lann,” Arcadia mumbles.

“Come up here with me.”

“You’re too sore.”

“Yeah. Yeah… okay.” He knows he is. He hurts everywhere. But he still… shyly seeks a hand across the narrow mattress until it nudges Arcadia’s arm.

Her palm slides over his.

Holding hands, it’s much easier to fall asleep.

~ ~ ~

He heals slowly. It’s strange how long it takes because even though his pain refuses to dull right away, he feels somehow stronger. It’s as if his internal clockwork decided to calm down to the rate of a regular person. His heartbeat isn’t so rapid, his horn doesn’t grow and recurl itself so fast, his hair doesn’t need to be snipped every few days. His lifespan’s extending far past what it should and he can literally sense it. It’s weird. Like his body is being held in stasis. Like he drank from the fountain of youth.

All of the tribes act out their Drezen lives in a daze. While Lann plays Chief and patrols the streets he keeps locking eyes with his fellow mongrels, like nobody can really believe it. They feel the change too. An entire underground civilization yanked from the Abyss and sucked dry of the curse it’d been cannibalizing itself on.

Ugh. He ruffles his hair. The new normal is taking some getting used to. Even the kids aren’t roughhousing as hard as before. Fur, skin, and scale isn’t going to sew itself up in a day. Slower healing. Longer life. A gift he thought he’d never want or get to have. He just wanted to die a hero.

Now he has to live as one.

“Chief! Chief.” Sark skids to a stop in front of the communal fire pit’s crate throne and slaps furred hands to his knees, panting, Y tail swishing wildly. “It’s Arran. She… the baby…”

Crap. Lann knocks the back of his head against the wall. They didn’t make it. No matter how often he sits out the bereavement ceremony as Chief it never gets easier, sticking him with thoughts about his own buried siblings.

“Come see.”

That phrase doesn’t fit. Lann sits straighter. “Huh?”

Sark’s eyes shimmer. “They’re healthy. Just! Come on!” Tail whipping Sark darts a few paces away, waiting for Lann to follow.

How rare. How wonderful. And if Lann does his job right, the kid might even have a chance to grow up as only part monster in a Worldwound without demons. He scoots off the crates and trots behind Sark’s frenetic pace, out of the slums, up to the middle market ring where Arran’s husband keeps his small general store. The pair live in the loft above.

Entering the store Lann hears the midwife doling out care tips for the first few weeks. Sark calls, “It’s me and Chief,” padding up the stairs two at a time. Lann follows a bit more calm, a bit more reluctant, always concerned about what bodily mutations the new tiny soul might have to live with.

Arran and her husband glow. They’ll be good parents.

“Lann, look.” Arran unswathes the newborn just enough to show skin still mottled from being brought into the world, pudgy fists twitching for the blanket.

The baby isn’t just healthy. They’re completely elven. Not a single horn or scale.

The curse. It’s gone.

It’s really gone.

Lann’s smile spreads like an uncontrolled sunrise. “Hey, congratulations you two.” Giddy energy shifts his weight from one foot to the other, bouncing to tell Arcadia right now, fingers finicking the angel feathers where his beads once were. “A gift! Shit, I forgot the gift, what kind of lazy Chief… Mind if I…?”

Arran waves him off, her eyes only for the child swaddled to her chest.

A few windswept minutes later Lann bursts breathless and puppylike into the war room. “Arc!” 

Together. They’ve gotta go pick out that gift together.

~ ~ ~

Evening.

The flavor of the tavern’s apple brandy pie still sweetens his tongue as he and Arcadia toss coins on the bartop and flee when everyone’s distracted. Giggling helplessly they dart through the Wound’s eyeball rain, Arc’s broad wings arched overhead defending all the way to the slums. Lann’s apartment stairs squeal. In a silly jumble they pile into his room, Pip racing after the treat distractions Lann hid around the furniture.

This must be paradise.

He clears his throat. “Before you throw me onto the bed and ravish me—”

Arcadia laughs.

“—Before that, um. I sorta.” Lann fishes through his carrying pouch and hooks the amulet with a finger. “Our wager. I didn’t forget. I promised you this.”

Emerald dragon green hangs from the cord looped over his fingers, his own pieces polished and shaped into a simple arrangement with soft rounded corners, one big scale and two small scales either side. Heat prickles his human cheek. The amulet spools into her palm while says, “Just take it. Gods know it’s been yours for a long time. You don’t have to wear it or anything.”

A knowing look softens Arcadia’s expression, though a hint of mischief sparkles in those eyes. “Judging from the blush this means something.”

Lann is not going be able to squirm out of this one. He just had to fall for an inquisitor of all things. “Well. Uh. It’s basically what would happen if… we… were married! Or, more, I’d be married to you, but not the other way around, since there’s only one amulet unless you wanted to make one to show that you… love me back.” He bites his lip. “Not that I’m asking. No wait. I am asking, just…”

Smirking, Arcadia pulls a necklace from her coin pouch. “Rilla explained it to me.”

“Oh. Ahah.”

He blinks at the other amulet. Hope washes his voice.

“Really? You really…?”

“You have no idea how many fangs and claws I cracked trying to get this right.” The long, slightly curved bone threaded onto the cord is carved with notches in it to make it look like a feather. The amulet is both a claw and a feather at the same time.

She made this. For him. Half expecting to wake from a fever dream his pulse spins into overjoy. Through excitement he barely hears her say, “Do you want to wear it now or should I wait for the ceremony?”

Even his scaled side smiles. “To heck with the ceremony! I’m not waiting a second longer.”

The amulet drapes around his neck as Arcadia steps around back to tie it, her voice warm on the human side. “Nobody will be surprised Chief Lann eloped.”

“I’d say they probably knew before I did, but… I’ve wanted to be with you for a long time. I just couldn’t believe you’d ever want the same.”

“I do.” A playful kiss brushes the back of his neck. “Hopefully this shows it.”

He shines. He’s so happy. The claw feather sets between the heart of his collar bones, smooth and sturdy and perfect, its weight an ever-present proof that the rest of this adventure won’t happen alone. Every mongrel who sees it will know. So many emotions warm the spot at his collar he’d be stupid to try and name them, but, pride and happiness for sure. “I am never taking this off.”

“Really? We’ll see about that in a few minutes,” Arcadia teases. She coils her hair aside in one hand, presenting him with the amulet he made so he can do the rite properly. Even though they shucked the need for witnesses and an after-party, it’s still terrifying and wonderful to be allowed to slip the amulet over her head. “Lucky,” he says. “Jewelry and hats go right on without a horn.”

“I am lucky,” she agrees, soft smile while dark lashes fan. “But the hats have nothing to do with it.”

Lann’s commitment shells in scale colors across her shirt. She’s a vision while her attention’s tipped down to the amulet at her chest, all the light in the room slowly dancing with halo fire and gold feathers. His emerald hue fits far better on her dark complexion than it ever did him. Green, black, and gold.

“I love you,” they both say at once, then chuckle. The distance between closes with a kiss and Lann rests his forehead to hers in the breath afterward. “Let me show you again,” he whispers, “how much I do.”

Chapter Text

Two days out from Drezen they track down the ass hat who trapped people’s souls inside gemstones during that disaster wedding. After smashing a bunch of expensive jewelry Lann and the rest of the crew step back into the dusty plains of the southern Worldwound.

They’re out in the middle of nowhere. There’s little to see besides orange dirt and rocks.

“I have another errand to run,” Arcadia says.

“Is it grocery shopping?” Lann asks.

“Yes.”

She could be serious. Who knows, really. There could be a kobold out here on the rock flats selling fish.

A couple hours journey into the desert they come across a scene straight out of the mongrel fairy tales. A platform hewn from scraggly trees supports the tall stake of a pyre. Sticks and dried leaves pile around the base. The humans surrounding it wait purposefully, each in menacing inquisitor uniform.

Daeran’s flirtatious voice intones,  “Commander, how did you know it was my birthday?”

“You’ve been imagining out loud what terrible things I’m going to interrupt your birthday with for…” Arcadia flips a palm to Nenio.

“Twenty six days.”

“...so I had lots of time to prepare a surprise party.”

Ember shyly shifts, dark gaze flicking around at everyone like she’s the only one left out of the loop. “Sur-prise…?” she says, like you’re supposed to, but a lot more uncertain.

Daeran hums. “I must admit I am a tad surprised. You’ve invited the Mendev Inquisition.”

“I figured you’d like a change of pace from all the dancers and courtesans.”

“And the pyre with chains on it?”

“All part of the plan.”

“If I may be so bold as to ask at my own surprise birthday party, but what is this lovely little plan of yours?”

“We’re going to cuff you to the stake and then burn you alive.”

“Jolly good. When do we start?”

“Now. Here, I’ll walk you up.” Arcadia offers her arm. Daeran takes it. Baffled out of his mind Lann tails them all the way to the pyre platform stairs. He’s not going any further than that. Arcadia leads Daeran straight to the post and unhooks her grasp. “Okay birthday man. Who do you want to be tied up by? Me, or Lann?”

“Must I choose? I find all this monogamous business to be exceedingly dull.”

“Look at it this way: one of us gets to watch.”

Interest glitters in Daeran’s eyes. He inclines his head and after some thought says, “In that case I do believe I’d enjoy being tied up by the Commander of the Fifth Crusade.”

Lann places a hand to his chest. “Be still my broken heart.”

The heavy chain clinks as Arcadia picks up one end. “Sorry Lann. Looks like you got the short straw. Make sure the Count here doesn't run away.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Daeran says sweetly. Arcadia wraps the chain around him. Body and arms are bound to the stake. Once the chain runs short Arcadia secures it at the back with a couple of clicks. Daeran tests the bonds. “This is the most serious thing I’ve been secured with thus far. A step up from rope and silk scarves, I’d say.”

“Can you get out?” Arcadia asks.

“No. I can barely breathe. But thanks for asking. So, what next? Are you going to force me to watch a terrible play? Drink and be merry while I sulk here in indignation? Tickle me?”

“I’m going to light you on fire. Or, the kindling I guess, and then you by proxy.”

Daeran laughs.

Arcadia kneels. Flint and steel emerge from a side pouch and she sets to striking them. Sparks flick. The other inquisitors watch in open amazement. When it hits them this is really happening they hurriedly begin drawing a complex sigil into the sand. Lann catches a whiff of smoke and something acrid. There’s fire starter on the tinder.

Flames fan to life. Shock bursts in Daeran’s eyes. “You weren’t joking!” he shrills.

“The inquisitor’s circle will make sure you can’t be resurrected.”

On the stake Daeran goes still as a stone. “Run,” he whispers. Sickly light enshrouds his eyes. “RUN!”

What the fuck? Lann draws his bow. Weapons unsheathe around him. The… thing… pours from Daeran’s face, hundreds of severed ghost skulls whirling, writhing, green ethereal trails that wisp with red outlines in Lann’s lizard eye. He squints his human one shut.

“Finally!” Arcadia roars. She bats one angelic wing around Daeran, shielding him from the worst of the flame as she rips the chain round and round to undo it. “Kill it!”

Seelah swings at a cluster of ghost skulls. “Is this what happened to all those severed heads we kept finding?”

“We’re sorry,” Ember apologizes. “I don’t know where your bodies are, but maybe we could help you find them? Or, wish you peace? There’s no need to be so angry.”

“Ember! Kill it with fire!” Arcadia snaps, shoving Daeran gracelessly off the side of the platform.

“Okay. Goodbye mean ghosts,” Ember says cheerily. Then hellfire erupts from her hand and sears across the entity. It really does not like that. The skull mass swarms faster, trying to consume Seelah. Ember hits it with fire. It goes for Daeran next. Arcadia lifts her hand and gathered light sears through the writhing ghosts. They turn to her, Lann cutting several arrows through the red shiny parts his lizard eye sees.

Horrific wailing screams from all around, and then chokes off inside a fire maelstrom from Ember’s magic. The ghost skulls wither, gasping, their voices twining together in a final thread that pinches out. Their silence dies into the pyre’s crackling flames.

Lann’s bow arm drops. Baffled he looks over at Seelah. She’s just as confused as him. Ember smiles brightly like a bunch of ghosts was a planned part of the birthday surprise. Which, he’s pretty sure it’s not. 

Arcadia’s wing flicks smoldering crisps off of Daeran’s singed coat. “You’re free. Happy Birthday.”

“...”

“What, did I worry you?”

“Worry? Worry?! You burned my favorite coat!”

Arcadia clicks her tongue. “If you don’t like your present we can find a time lord and take it back.”

“Oh I’m sorry,” Daeran says sarcastically, “Does it sound like I have no idea how to respond to the most considerate thing anyone’s ever done for me? Because I don’t.”

“Thank you is fine. It’s rare candy to an inquisitor.”

“No. No, I don’t think I shall.” Daeran narrows his eyes. “You were going to burn me like a common witch. Next time, I expect at least a small city as an audience.”

“You’re welcome.” Arcadia claps him on the shoulder as she walks off to speak with the Mendev Inquisition.

~ ~ ~

Their next outing took them through yet another portal into yet another demon realm.

“Ineluctable Prison,” Lann says. “I think the name should have clued us in.”

“How is it that we keep wandering into places we’re not allowed to leave?” Daeran asks.

Arcadia kicks a piece of rusted armor into the corridor. The infinitely rolling bolder crushes it. “It’s fine,” she says. “Even if it is Baphomet’s personal labyrinth it can’t be as bad as Blackwater.”

Lann makes the go-away-bad-luck sign.

“Plus, I’m improving,” she adds. “This time it only took me an hour to realize we can’t walk out.”

Daeran says, “I would rather have never realized it at all. Then this could remain a gentle stroll through a demon-infested maze which we’d exit none the wiser.”

Arcadia rubs the hip of her striped gambeson. “Baphomet shouldn’t have made it so easy to get in. There should be a key, or a warning, or something.”

“Sure, blame it on the demon,” Lann says.

“I will. Happily.”

Once they've cleared Baphomet’s maze and stepped back into the real world, they head off to Iz. The scattered landscape is somehow even more challenging to navigate than a demon’s personal hell.

Lann stands at the edge of a cliff. That’s a big gap between this broken section of Iz and the next. But, no problem.

He jumps.

…???

The next thing he knows he’s flat on his back at the bottom of the ravine. Sky fills his vision past the looming rock walls on either side. Confused, he sits up to Daeran’s mild annoyance and Seelah’s hopeless chuckle. Arcadia is laughing so hard tears bead the corners of her eyes. “Lann, you died. ”

Woljif whistles a pair of fingers down, clapping his palms together. “Flat as a pancake boss.”

Daeran says, “Yes we all heard a surprised little shout at the end, and then utter blissful silence.”

Arcadia wraps around Lann, her laughter shaking into his collar bone where her forehead’s planted. “You… the crusade, an entire war. We went through the Abyss. We killed Baphomet. Two demon lords, two! You lived underground in the worst conditions for years! And then you just, off a cliff. You died from falling? ”

He stares up at the gap between the two ledges. “I should have been able to make that.”

“You,” Daeran points, “have a lemming for a brain. Would you like to try again? We’ll wait here.”

“Hey, maybe I meant to come down here. Look,” he waves to the canyon wall, “it’s faster to climb those ledges to the other side. We’ll do that.”

Arcadia peels off of him still sparkling humor. Once they finally get to the top of the ravine she lilts into an amused sigh and an occasional chuckle while everyone spreads out for a short rest.

Sitting beside Arc a smirk tucks Lann’s lip. He asks, “Something else funny about this lovely date to Iz you’ve dragged me on?”

“I was just thinking how many times demons and crazy evil things offered to make a deal with us. What would have happened if I agreed to them? ALL of them?” She ticks off her fingers. “There was that mind control guy in Blackwater, the surgeon in the Abyss, Xanthir’s notes, Daeran’s Other, the sphinx Areshkagal, Nocticula, Areelu and her creepy torture chamber book, and if we go way, way back, the Nahindryan crystals. You know the first time I felt that? Savamelekh’s maze. I could’ve cut his tail off and drank the poison straight from the cup.”

“That is… an awful lot of bad deals.”

“I’d be a crystal powered dimension door for a bunch of head-chopping ghosts, made up of bugs and demon parts, that craves aasimar meat and can’t control its temper. Oh, and all the bugs would wear little theater masks. They can buzz ‘no answer is an answer’ in ten different languages!”

He chuckles. “Not that I wouldn’t try, but loving a handful of bugs might be tough.”

“Is that so?” She grins and grazes a knuckle across his cheek. “I’m pretty sure I’d love you even if you were a talking sword.”

“Sex might be tricky.”

“That’s what sheaths are for.”

Damn, ha! Face warm, Lann thumbs the tip of his horn. “Yep. I’d like to quit this conversation now. Is there an option to do that? A button I can press… an escape spell…”

“Nope, you have to choose one of the pre-scripted options Nenio wrote for you. One, two, or three. There’s no walking out.”

Lann gets up and leaves. Arcadia laughs. “You can’t quit in the middle of a conversation Lann!”

Yes I can, he signs behind for her, still walking, smiling into the sun.

Chapter Text

The long table is not long enough to spare Captain Harmattan from Lann’s glare. He watches the man like a monitor lizard perched out on the rocks, waiting for one wrong move.

Seelah elbows him in the ribs. “Lighten up Lann; he’s not going to do anything. The way you’re glaring that ale’s going to get stale before you taste it.”

Over the rim of the tankard Lann keeps glaring at the Captain. He draws a sip before setting it back down. “Tastes fine to me.”

Seelah groans and rolls her eyes. Near the head of the table Harmattan’s schooled expression is as unreadable as ever. The guy better be feeling helpless, foolish, ashamed. He showed up intending to enact a coup and got welcomed with open arms, a bottle of brandy, and fresh food. Arcadia should’ve thrown flowers and chocolate on top.

“A banquet for all the traitors,” Lann mutters. “Whose idea was this?”

“Mine,” Seelah says.

“Oh.” Somewhat cowed Lann picks at a bread roll with his claws to stave off a blush. He forgot Seelah is on the leadership council. Beneath the table Pip pushes up onto the long bench between the two of them and Lann flicks ruined bread crumbs over his shoulder. The pipefox U’s over the bench. Noisy lapping and munching skirts under the soldiers’ raucous conversation and the aura of relief blanketing them. The troops Harmattan brought from the capital thought they were going to overthrow a despot today. Instead they’re relaxing with beers.

Even over the festivities Lann picks up the thread of Arcadia’s laugh. Seated at the head she’s talking to the other officers. They’ve all fallen under her spell, the rug ripped right out from under Harmattan the minute they sat down at the peace feast. Whatever silly story the Commander regales the officers with, a brief look of helplessness sinks Captain Harmattan’s brows. He’s been nonviolently, firmly, and totally defeated.

Seeing that look Lann watches carefully for even a flicker of any desperate last attempts. Harmattan not-so-desperately sinks a serving spoon into a platter of mashed potatoes and scoops peas and carrots from another, drizzling gravy on top. Across the table Arcadia drinks and listens to something one of the newcomers says, a smirk on her lips. Harmattan eats his peas. Lann narrows his eyes.

Under the table Seelah’s armored heel comes down on Lann’s foot.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Quit being jealous. Tell us one of your stories! The one about the octopus and the kids.”

He drags his attention away from the far table. Throughout the evening Seelah’s been hamming him up as a local celebrity. Soldiers peer at him with curiosity, eagerness, and/or mild disgust. Yeah, it's possible to be fascinated and disgusted at the same time: try sitting through Daeran’s poetry.

“I know it’s hard to tell, but I’m not from around here,” Lann starts. He takes a good long drink off the ale. “And when I say I have kids you’re probably wondering why the gods allowed me to reproduce in the first place, and after that, whether the tykes are as drop dead gorgeous as I am. Don’t worry. They’re not. I have three. One’s my good side, one’s a tiefling, and one is,” he hefts Pip’s middle up, “furry.”

Pip’s head swivels under its bowed body, panting happily over the table edge.

Lann grins. “Think I sired a strange beast? Nah. The tiefling’s adopted.”

Then he spins the octopus tale.

Much later when the feast winds down Seelah shows the new recruits (newly terrified of tentacles) to the barracks. Lann joins the guard escorting Arcadia up the long haul to Drezen’s war room. Harmattan and one of the other officers go with them.

When they arrive Regill and Daeran are already waiting. Arcadia strolls to the fore of the room and turns. Wings fold, stance straightens. Official business. Lann chooses a quiet spot by the exit and comfortably leans in the alcove there. Anevia catches his gaze. He shrugs. Nothing happened and nobody died. Surprisingly.

Arcadia frowns. “ Former Captain Harmattan.” The crystal oread winces. Demoted on the spot with a single word. “Treason? Really? Planning to arrest the Queen’s own appointed Knight Commander: why? You seem to believe in the crusade and Queen Galfrey. So, it must be me you don’t like. Is it the halo? Or the accent?”

Harmattan answers respectfully. “It was my pride. It blinded me. I’ve loyally served the Queen for many years, and yet when she appointed you, your deeds and command quickly eclipsed hers. To witness the person I admire so be forgotten: it angered me. Then she ordered me to serve you instead…” Harmattan drifts off, lowering his head.

The war room is quiet for a minute.

Surprised wonder tips Arcadia’s inflection. “You’re in love with her.”

“I… yes.”

When it comes to motives it’s rare to take Arcadia by surprise. She doesn’t bother to mask her lifted brows or the long introspective look. Taking that silence as a prompt to elaborate Harmattan says, “The day I met her my heart was lost forever. I haven’t dared tell her my feelings. I chose the path of servitude as it’s the closest I’ll ever get.”

Lann averts his gaze and rubs the back of his neck.

“It’s why I was unable to accept your command. I regret that. I will receive any punishment you see fit, even if it’s the sword.”

Arcadia lifts her chin. “I mistook your feelings. Be that as it may it doesn’t change what you’ve done. Your service is to the crusade, Harmattan.” Her mood smooths into cool formality. “I’m demoting you. Until further notice you are stripped of all rank and will serve on the frontlines with your fellow soldiers. When the war is over, if the Queen finds you worth reinstating, she’ll take it up with you once I’m gone. Dismissed.”

Harmattan clicks his feet together and bows his head, fist to chest, in a salute of reverence. Mercy is more than he deserves but he’s getting it anyway. If Arcadia believes he'll do more good than harm alive, she’s probably right. Lann can concede active duty serves a more useful punishment than the gallows but his bias still scratches for justice. Mutiny? On his ship? Absolutely not.

Glassy crystal cresting Harmattan’s head catches the sun on his way toward the door. The oread's expression is controlled as ever, no hint to what’s happening on the inside after admitting something to a council that he should’ve told his own love interest. Harmattan pined for the Queen at first blush, worked his way through the ranks, but either never did anything with those feelings or knew they were doomed. The Queen went to Iz and left him behind: a devastating blow to the heart no matter how you skin it.

Arcadia never leaves Lann behind. She was going to, once, at the door to Savemelekh’s mansion. Tough cookies to that.

Harmattan passes Lann without so much as a glance. Uniquely stony skin and gem hair stand out against the corridor of human guards. Maybe, in some alternate reality, that could have been Lann.

“If you wanted to help the Queen you should have helped us ,” Lann mutters out of earshot. No, he’s not like Harmattan. He didn’t abandon the mongrels to hole up with Arcadia. He didn’t hide his clumsy feelings. And if Arcadia were in danger he wouldn’t insist on being the hero who swept in for credit. He’d accept help from damn near anyone, even a certain philandering blonde asshole.

The last thing he’d do is mutiny against a good commander who wants the same things he does. Maybe getting killed by demons on the frontline will knock some sense into Harmattan. Funny: the man's decent prospects of survival are due to the effective leadership of the commander he mutinied. Or tried to anyway.

Irabeth speaks. “The Wary are gone. The path to your command is clear. All that’s left is to win the war.”

“Finally,” Arcadia says.

Chapter Text

“Well, there it is,” Lann stalls. “The Wound. Looks… woundy.”

A boundless vortex of energy and bugs roars in the center of the pocket dimension.

Areelu Vorlesh’s dark silhouette stands at the edge, waiting for them. Blood leaks from the bruised, spidered gash above her breast. It trails into the scoop of her dress and dampens fabric in wet scarlet rivulets. If he could just lodge an arrow into that ugly lesion he could put an end to this madness, and nobody but the demon will have to die today.

Except Areelu has to go into the Worldwound alive. If she’s dead her soul won’t be there to close the tear in reality. Then Arcadia will do it instead. Not an option.

So, even if he could shoot Areelu through the chest (and the magic sheen over her skin suggests it’s not so simple), he won’t. They have to beat her down without killing her.

In front of the ominous hurricane, leathery wings spread wide. “This is where I created you Arcadia. A failed test subject. As a researcher I aim to be impartial in my experiments but I think I may feel some regret for letting this one carry out so long.”

“I should have brought Nenio. You’d have a lot to talk about.” Arcadia doesn’t draw her sword. She strolls away from the group and Lann’s draw hand twitches with a reflex to hold her back. Squashing the impulse his arrow stays loosely held to the string, bow down.

Arcadia approaches the half-demon. Angel wings remain calmly closed. On the edge of the end, everything except Arcadia and Areelu hums with tension: the Wound, the others waiting to attack, insects swarming out of the burning electric void.

“Nenio would say most experiments end in failure. Then she tries again. So I'm guessing that’s your plan? Kill me, untangle whatever mess you made of your daughter’s soul, and try again?”

“That is exactly what I intend to do.”

“Could you possibly do it without a big giant rift between the planes?”

“No. It’s a necessary step to escape this hell you know as the multiverse. To be beyond the grasp of gods and men. You have seen them with your own eyes, so before I unmake you, tell me. Did you enjoy existing in a world where your entire life was predetermined? Where everything from your birth, to what happens after you die, was already deci—” 

Arcadia pushes Areelu Vorlesh into the rift. The whole purple bug maelstrom snaps shut.

Everyone stares at the hole where the Wound used to be.

Arcadia turns slowly with sheepish guilt. “I mean, it was worth a shot…”

In the resounding silence it’s Daeran’s wispy “...ha…” that slides off the walls. “Ha. Hahaha…!” His laugh turns manic with disbelief. The crossbow drops limp in his hand as he pushes the other through the crest of his hair. “You dragged me through a year of the worst time of my life, only so that I might watch you push a demon into a hole?”

Arcadia is somewhat shrill herself. “I didn’t think it would work!”

Seelah points out, “That monster thought she was your mother Arcadia!” 

“And?! Lann had a fake demon dad!”

“You two have issues.”

Lann slots the arrow back in its quiver. “Well, when push comes to shove…”

“ Do not ,” Daeran snaps, “finish this with a pun.”

“I thought I’d try a new form of humor. You don’t like it?”

“I despise it already.”

Arcadia looks into the hole in the center of the now quiet tower. Then she looks back at them, undecided. “I guess we can go home now…?”

Lann swears that every time the other angels show up the skies somehow part even when there’s no sky, and white light bands down with choir song. Targona, Lariel, and the Hand of the Inheritor pop in with their halos and feathers. Where were they when the whole battle with Areelu was about to happen?

“Arcadia,” Targona says, “There still remains the issue of Deskari. Let us strike him down while the opportunity awaits.”

“Let’s,” Seelah says. “I’m itching for the fight we didn’t get!”

“Do it,” Arcadia tells Targona, and the portal to the insect realm spreads its locust jaws.

~ ~ ~

Lann gets his arrow reps in for the day. Deskari’s huge gross corpse shell leaks goo under the gathering angels and Iomedae herself. The goddess speaks to Arcadia, bringing into existence a gold light gate, an invitation to the Upper Planes themselves.

“Is there anything you wish to do before you leave this abode of evil and horror?”

Arcadia raises a summoning hand. “Fire!”

Lann fires an arrow into Deskari’s dead shell. “Oh. Whoops. I thought you meant, fire.”

Actual holy flames lance from the heavens and begin burning everything. Arcadia directs them. He notes, “You’re on fire too.”

She is aflame, like she’s her own sun. Daeran offers a single word. “Hot.”

Seelah groans. “Really Daeran? Now? In front of the goddess?”

“I see no better time to make unwanted commentary.”

Fire licks and rolls off Arcadia’s skin, giving it a bronzed cast. In sun form the black in her wings hazes almost red against the gold. Flame tongues trail along feathers. Curious, Lann holds out his scaled hand. Heat scorches straight to the bone. It continues to blaze when he pulls back. “That is definitely hot. Touching you right now is just going to turn me into a seared newt.”

“It’s temporary,” Arcadia says. “I think.”

“You think ,” Daeran repeats, darting a flirtatious glance at Lann. “Perhaps we should consult Nenio as to whether anyone’s successfully achieved coitus with a fire elemental.”

Lann shoots back, “Why ask Nenio when the expert’s right here? So Count, can it be done?”

“With enough magic involved: yes.”

“Terrifying.” Arcadia wrinkles her nose. “I’m going to miss this.”

Seelah steps closer as everyone bunches up within the tightening circle of flame. “You’re not going to miss anything unless we get out of here. Deskari’s turning into a literal dumpster fire.”

Bug meat sizzles inside a blackened shell. Of all the people to comment, it’s Iomedae. “Ah. So he is.” That’s about as close as the goddess of righteousness is going to get to saying the phrase “trash fire.”

Arcadia strolls past the wide open pearly gates. “Targona? The Drezen portal please. I’m not ready to go to heaven just yet.”

~ ~ ~

By ‘just yet’ she meant the rest of her mortal life.

In Acadia’s tower Lann drops the last books into a crate. Everything is packed up to distribute around Drezen, all except travel gear. They keep only what a mismatched made-up family can carry.

“Have you been to break Daeran’s heart yet?”

“Nah,” Lann replies. “I’m thinking of doing that thing where I disappear suddenly like a ghost and never write or cast sending.”

“Ghosting?”

“Yeah. Less involved than an actual haunting.”

They haven’t decided where exactly they’re going, only that there’s more Light to be collected, and every piece of it makes Arcadia more herself. She gets to do her holy mission and Lann gets to see the world. Maybe they’ll find Ember’s parents on the way.

Pip digs into his bag. He wrestles the bag away.

Maybe he and Arc are the parents.

The tribes will be fine. Rilla and Sark can handle it. If the guilt about leaving everyone ever eats too deep he can always visit. But, the thing is, Lann could never sit still in the caves. Turns out he can’t sit still now either.

Outside on the wall the Woundworld’s as parched as ever. The rift may be gone but the scars remain. In ten years, what will it look like? Will the mark on Arcadia’s skin fade as grasses from the outlands creep inward?

If he’s lucky he might just find out. He’s got more time than he ever imagined and a big heart to fill it up.

She finds him on the wall when she’s ready. Excitement sparkles. This time the adventure isn’t landing on his head. He gets to actively seek it out.

“Well, Lann, we’re still alive after all that. What do you think? Should we go try to get killed on the frontlines of Lastwall? Or maybe, there’s that despot Razmir in the east. Never liked him. Thinks he’s a god. We could prove how wrong he is and then put Woljif in charge, see what happens.”

“How about you call the shots, Commander?”

She laughs. “I’m not a commander anymore.”

“But you’re still the commander of my soul, remember?”

Her amused groan sets off their first steps into the next adventure.