#Khazri Il'harren

[thelioninmybed]

Fair_Feather_Friend said:

[...] Although Khazri and Imrael stay home and completely avoid any adventures and instead just eat a lot of food is not the stuff of exciting stories.

They should go somewhere warm and dry with plentiful food though, and where that food is not being used to fatten them up for a monster. Or to drug them!

“It’s hardly as dire as they were making out,” Imrael said, looking around at the hall’s high ceilings, the elegant, gilded carvings upon its beams. “It’s warm and dry with plentiful food - ” He shook his hair, rain-sleek as a selkie’s pelt, and sent drops of water pattering down onto the rushes.

Khazri examined the room more warily; the iron gates had flaked rust and the petals of climbing roses as they pushed their way through, but inside the hall was pristine. No soot from the hundred candles, no crusted tallow, no spiderwebs, and thank the Gods for that. No servants either, though the table was fully laid and laden with a sumptuous meal, roasts and tureens still steaming.

“Drugged,” Khazri concluded. “Or to fatten us up.”

Imrael smiled a smile that said ‘I’m humouring you.’ “For what?”

“To eat.”

“By what?”

Khazri shrugged and pointed, left-handed, down the room. His right hand had gone to his belt, drawing a knife under the cover of his sodden cloak.

At the head of the long table sat what had to be their host. Khazri had been born in the city of Zalach’ann, where magic was as common as monstrosity, and the creature sat in the lord’s place was some product of both. It had the muzzle of a wolf, distorted by a boar’s jagged tusks, a fowl’s claws in place of hands, and a crown of ram’s horns curled around its rack of sweeping antlers. Its body was swathed in threadbare purple velvet - the remains, Khazri guessed, of what had once been a fine set of curtains. 

“Hello!” said Imrael. Of course he said hello. “Sorry for barging in, but the rain was frightful. Is this your castle?”

“It is,” said the creature in a voice as rusted as its gates. Accents were hard in a second language, but Kharzi thought the lazy vowels and clipped consonants spoke of wealth and status. Or perhaps it was the tusks. “Would it were not so. Would that some other poor fool carried its curse in my place.”

“Curse?” said Imrael, ears visibly pricking up. “What sort of curse? Perhaps we can help, we’re very good at breaking curses.”

The beast laughed bitterly and this was closer to the rasping bark of a deer than a lord’s chuckle. “Do your eyes not lay the matter plain?”

“I don’t want to presume.”

It seemed pleased to be asked. “I was handsome once; more handsome even than you.” More rust shook loose with every word, and the tale itself held the polish of long telling, to oneself if not to company. “My mother died when I was but a boy, and my father was forced to go to war to defend her kingdom. He left me in the care of a trusted regent, but she desired power and desired me also so that when I came of age, she tried to wed me that it might be her kingdom in truth. When I refused her, she bribed an evil fairy into cursing me.”

In the villages below the castle, they told a different story. Monstrous vanity and starving beggars scorned. But then every village had a tale like that, and every monster too.

“I’m sorry,” Imrael said, sounding sincere. He’d sounded sincere when they’d spoken to the villagers too. Probably was sincere; Kharzi knew, better than anyone, the sympathy his lover held for monsters.  

“Only by true love can the curse be lifted,” said the beast, its dark eyes sad and liquid, while ropes of drool hung from its yellow tusks. On the table before them, the cutlery rustled, shifting like the ruffled feathers of a bird, and two chairs slid out invitingly.

“Love in what sense?” said Imrael, taking a seat. Khazri remained standing, dagger in hand.

“What?”

“Do you mind if I smoke? No?” Imrael slid a cigarette from its case and a spark flared to life at its tip. “Only romantic love? Or would familial or platonic fit the bill? Is it experiencing the feeling of love? A show of devotion? Love as a euphemism for sexual congress? Does it have to be mutual?”

If the beast had been fearsome in repose, when its lips drew back and its fur and feathers raised in anger, it was a sight terrible enough that Khazri and Imrael both stepped back. “Are you mocking me?” it snarled, unfolding before them until its antlers brushed the rafters. 

“Determining parameters! I suppose that’s why you took the girl?”

The beast said nothing. The cutlery looked, suddenly, much sharper, the chairs less inviting. 

“It’s understandable,” Imrael said gently. “Your story is a tragic one. But a prisoner cannot love their captor. I mean, I suppose they can come to it under the right - or rather wrong - conditions, which was why it’s important to determine the exact terms of the curse, and of course, from a moral perspective we can hardly endorse - ”

“Imrael,” said Khazri, derailing the ethics lecture before it could gain steam. 

“Right. Yes. You should really let her go home. Her family miss her.”

“And you’ll kill me if I don’t comply? I see your friend’s hand upon his blade. Well, do it.” The beast threw off its threadbare cloak, baring its patchwork breast for the blade. “Better a clean end than another day of this worthless existence, this unendurable loneliness.”

“You should never play along with a fairy’s games, it only encourages them,” Imrael said piously. “And I say that as one of the fae. We have a better plan.”

“This isn’t a better plan,” said Khazri, tightening his slipping grip on the crone’s ankles. She was doing her best to kick him in the head, never mind that the dwindling strength of his arms was the only thing keeping her from a broken neck.

“It was that or seducing him.” Imrael took a last drag of his cigarette and ground it out against the roof tiles.

“Or killing him.” 

“Khazri, please. I like to avoid violence whenever possible.” He leaned over the edge of the roof and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Oi! Are you ready to lift the curse yet?”

#Raised By Wolves #Khazri Il'harren #Imrael Sovelin #Fair_Feather_Friend #i mean they did GO to the place requested #then they (I) got distracted

[thelioninmybed]

It was a small trapper’s camp; only nine tents and twenty-three inhabitants. 

They got to twenty-three by counting up the bones. 

“What do you think it was?” said Imrael as ribs clacked light and hollow beneath their gloves. He likely only said it to make conversation; Khazri was the better tracker, but Imrael had performed enough dissection, prepared enough specimens to know the notches flensing left. You didn’t need any expertise at all to see the toothmarks. "Flensed and boiled and- and gnawed, but- there’s not much people won’t do if they’re pushed to it. If they were already dead- This might have been solved by the thaw.”

The heat had come a month ago, the land sloughing off the snow like a shed skin as slim, green fingers clawed up out of the dirt. Khazri and Imrael had eaten themselves near sick on hawthorns and nettles, revelling in food that wasn’t cold and tough and dead.  

But winter lingered some places longer than others and now Khazri shrugged and kept on digging through the pile. Was not surprised at all when his fingers closed on a jawbone, fresh pink showing deep in its ridges. He held it up.

Imrael wilted. “Aww, damn.” 

“Look.” Khazri tapped the hinge of it, where the marks of teeth were pressed in deep and clear as footprints in the snow. A human jaw could maybe do that. Maybe not.

“Wasn’t one ‘damn’ enough?” But this was a puzzle now, and Imrael’s drooping ears twitched up. “Do you know how a wendigo is made?” he asked.

Khazri offered the bone to Jeff and the dog snapped it from his hand. He shrugged again. 

“Ever heard of rabbit starvation?”

“Yes,” Khazri said. He did not say he’d spend his first winter on the surface shivering and choking, eating scrawny rabbits half raw, stomach taut like he wasn’t starving to death. Didn’t say either that the village had kept watch on their foot stores but he’d dug through middens, stolen stubs of candles and fought with the dogs to choke down the tallow. 

Imrael being Imrael, he took that as a cue to explain anyway. “A diet comprised solely of lean meat can be more deleterious than starvation. Fatigue, headaches, and a hunger that can’t be sated no matter how one-”

“These aren’t rabbit bones.”

“Right, right. The thing is, if they’ve starved long enough then eating another person’s flesh can have the same effect.”

“Ah.”

“You gorge yourself on the flesh of your friends till your stomach bulges, while your own flesh shrivels on your bones. It must feel like a curse. And if you believe that hard enough, well. What’s the difference?”

“I always heard it was evil spirits.”

“We can ask, I suppose," Imrael said, and Khazri knew from experience that he was quite sincere. 

They spent ten minutes arguing as to whether cremating the bones was a good idea, and Khazri finally relented on the basis that a fire wouldn’t hurt in the fight that was like as not to come. While Imrael assembled the skeletons in the best order he could, Khazri sharpened his knives and set snares, while the dogs went sniffing through the empty huts. Even the shoes and leather lashings of the tents had been boiled up, and Khazri tried not to think of hunger, blooming the stomach, crawling up your throat, coiling and choking until there was space for nothing else.

The wendigo came at dusk. Beryl saw it first, lurching through the woods, too clumsy for stealth. At her warning, Khazri strung his bow and aimed between the looming trees until he saw the fire reflected in her eyes. 

He nudged Imrael, who started, spread his hands and, though Khazri did not look to check, put on a welcoming smile. “We have food,” he said, voice pitched to carry. “Not much, but we’d be glad to share.”

The wendigo said nothing. Her - Khazri was not certain it was a her but ‘it’ would make this far too easy - hair hung lank as waterweed around a face that was all eyes and teeth. 

“Did you kill them?” said Imrael. “We understand if you had to. We can help you if you’ll let us. But this has to stop. One way or another.”

“This has to stop,” the wendigo said back. Her voice was surprisingly clear. She waited at the treeline, staring at them, or past them to the flames. Fire killed them, so some legends said, but the legends said a lot of things and they were only as true as you made them. 

Frozen hearts and mimicked voices, it was so much easier if you let yourself believe. 

“Please-” Imrael began and stepped a pace towards the trees.

Believe or not, Khazri knew what the look in her eyes meant. This has to stop. There was a yearning there he recognised and he took a deep breath and released it slow.

She lurched forwards, stumbling into a run, and went down at the first trip wire. Her head came up, lips drawing back from long teeth until pale gums were visible, and Khazri put an arrow in her eye. 

It was quicker than starvation, he supposed. 

Khazri was not strong, but the body was light enough that he could carry it by himself. Lean or not, the dogs would have appreciated the meat, but Khazri told them to go hunt, while he and Imrael burned her with the others. 

It was warm enough they didn’t need to, but they kept the fire high. 

They had supplies enough that they could have, but neither of them ate that night. 

#original fiction #Raised By Wolves #Imrael Sovelin #Khazri Il'harren #dedicated to my lovely June #and the horrible wikihole we went down #reading about rabbit starvation #and the franklin expedition

[thelioninmybed]

so you did a imrael/khazri meet-cute for if khazri's family never tried to kill him, but what would their first meeting be like if khazri joined the priesthood like his uncle suggested? :) thanks love u bye

There are eight gods in Zalach’ann - but no, that’s a simple lie, told so as not to confuse the peasants. The truth is that there is one god, and she is worshipped in eight aspects. 

The Lady of Spiders weaves the world and weaves us every one. She snips spent threads and she alone knows what will be left when her long labour’s done. Then there is Marath Who Rides Forth, rejoicing in war and bloodshed while her husband, Iavarin of the Hearth, preserves and mends what has been broken. There is dreaming Naphael, patron of poets, prophets and the mad, and Ilinya of scrolls and lore and secrets. Xolodano the Gilded is beloved of merchants and Valian is beloved of lovers. A whore’s god and our boy’s father danced in his temples once upon a time. The last and the least is Arteru, who walks in dark places, who is hunter and hunted, and if out lost son had kept his faith then it is Arteru he would pray to. 

If he had kept it - you understand there are some gods it is not fitting for a boy to serve? Well then…

Iavarin

“They say,” Imrael said, rising from his bow, “That the priests of Iavarin are the greatest healers upon the earth, and under it. I’ve travelled a long way to-”

“You and every other supplicant,” said the priest. He was a tall man, taller than Imrael, with a nose that would have been very handsome had he not been looking down it. “We do not barter away our magicks to pedlers at the gates.”

Imrael spread his hands, refusing to let his smile flicker. “Well that’s fine, I was proposing more an open exchange of knowledge.”

Behind the priest, one of the novices, robed in ashy grey, ducked his head to hide what Imrael was pretty certain was a smirk. The priest’s lip curled. “See him gone,” he said and turned away, robes swishing behind him, the great fire at the temple’s heart throwing his shadow out behind him. 

“I thought ‘Hearth’ implied, oh, I don’t know, homeliness,” he told the novice prodding him towards the temple gates. “Hospitality.” 

“We lean more towards ‘preserving’,” the novice said. He at least had the grace to sound apologetic. 

“I’ve seen pickled lemons less sour.”

 The novice smirked again. “I’m sorry. For a wasted journey.”  

Not as handsome as the priest but his face was far more appealing. “Not so wasted,” Imrael told him. “Buy me a drink, show me the secret passage into the temple archives, and we’ll call that hospitable.”

“A drink,” the novice agreed solemnly. “The tenets of my god demand no less.”

Naphael

“I thought,” said Imrael. “I thought. Eight gods, right?”

“One gods. God.”

“One god, eight whosits. I thought only the big one, spider lady. I thought only she could see. The thing. The fate of everything. So how come, how come your god. How come they get to do prophecy? It’s bullshit. Your god. Is bullshit.” 

That was probably a pretty stupid thing to say to a priest within his god’s own temple, but whatever they used to fuel their visions had stolen Imrael’s common sense along with his hand-eye coordination and he hadn’t had much of either to begin with. 

“It’s like a carpet,” said the oracle. He was draped across the floor and Imrael’s shins in a very good imitation of one.

“You gotta prophet harder than that. Or less hard because that actually was very prophety.” 

Propping himself up on his elbows, the oracle took another pull from the water pipe and said, less oracularly, “Can’t see much of it when you’re lying on it.”

“Ah!” Imrael cried. “I see. So you think it’s just a bit of blue with yellow squiggles, but then you sit up-” Imrael said, sitting up. “And it turns out that the squiggly bits are actually a dragon’s tail and the whole carpet is dragons fighting-”

“They’re not fighting.” 

“Dragons. But you didn’t know. Because you only saw a little bit”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.” Imrael stopped looking at the carpet and looked at the man draped across his lap instead. Pretty, in a dreamy, disaffected kind of way. “Hey, hey, if you can see the future, how lucky am I?”

“Tonight?” said the oracle. “Not very. I’m a priest.”

Valian

“Did you come to pray?” said the dancer. He wasn’t wearing much to speak of, beside a veil and some bodypaint that glowed luminescent in the temple’s dim interior, and so Imrael struggled to pay attention. “Because it’s not- um. If you go to the outer districts, there are…places. That will serve foreigners. It’s not done here.” 

“I actually came to propose an exchange.” Imrael coughed. “Of knowledge, nothing else.” That was absolutely not true, but Valian was turning out to be a decidedly conservative sex god and Imrael knew better than to push his luck in a city full of violently xenophobic misandrists. 

“Oh.” The dancer’s drooping ears lifted and his stance from self-consciously provocative to something more natural. There were other priests tending to petitioners, taller and lovelier, and actually smiling behind the veils, and Imrael didn’t think it was by chance that the one who’d been sent to talk to an encroaching foreign man was small and diffident. “If you want knowledge, the temple of Ilinya. Has it.”

“Not the kind I’m looking for. I’m a doctor-” Imrael said and then waited, as he’d learned to here, for the other man to say something disbelieving but he only tilted his head so that the glass beads on his veil clacked and chimed. 

“Iavarin is for healing,” he said.

“Preservation. But creating new things, that’s all on your guy, right?”

“I suppose.”

“And it’s criminally underresearched!” Imrael spread his hands, taking in the veiled lanterns and incense, the gorgeous frescos of gorgeous men and women engaged in anatomically improbable acts, and the shameful lack of academic rigour. “All that drive, all that desire - and that’s what magic is at the root of it - but a little squeamishness keeps anyone from considering the full potential!”

The dancer’s expression hadn’t been seductive to start with, and now it was something close to a smirk. “You’d be surprised. Most every petitioner’s here for research. Inspiration. I don’t know anyone that comes here just for sex.”

“That’s very unfair, and my purity of purpose is provable; you just said you don’t let foreigners worship.”

“I’m not very good at my job,” the dancer said. And, before Imrael could work out if that meant what he thought it did, “I’ll show you to the library.”

Arteru

People had said there would be danger - he’d rather counted on it - but he’d been anticipating the sexy, not-actually-that-dangerous kind. It turned out being stalked through the woods by a mostly naked man was not even slightly thrilling.

The moonlight gleamed on the hunter’s bare skin, pale as the bone of the wolf skull mask he wore. There was a knife in his hand of black obsidian, sharp enough it might not even hurt. 

“I’ve heard stories,” Imrael said, voice wavering like the wind-tossed leaves on the branches above their heads. “About your god. About your hunts.” He’d also heard conflicting tales of the priesthood of Arteru; vows of purity and bloody orgies beside their kills. He didn’t think it would be a good idea to mention them now. 

“You have to kill something worthy, don’t you? And that- that should be someone who can run more than a quarter of a mile at a go, someone who’s armed, which I’m definitely not, so there’s really no point in killing me, none at all, gods, don’t come any closer, please-”

The hunter’s face was as still as his mask and his steps were silent on the leaf litter, slow and sure. He was twenty yards away, and then fifteen, shadow-dappled muscles rippling with a predator’s grace, eyes hidden by the dark hollows of the skull’s sockets. 

Imrael paced him, backing up, faster and faster as the man came on, praying to any of the gods he didn’t believe him that he would not trip over a tree root. 

Either no gods were listening or they took exception to an atheist. He stumbled and went down hard, grazing his elbows. He didn’t feel it, even though he knew coat and skin both had been torn open. The muscles in the hunter’s thighs tensed and Imrael clutched his bag to his chest, with the vague intention of throwing it as a last, desperate defence.

(It would occur to him much later that he was a wizard, but Imrael did tend to lose his head in a crisis.)

The hunter leapt. Imrael yipped and, shamefully, closed his eyes. 

There came a rush of air, a rustle of leaves, and the shrill screech of an animal in pain. No blade though. Unless he really hadn’t felt it, but that didn’t explain the yowling. 

Imrael opened his eyes again. Looked up to see something sleek and green and serpentine thrashing and flailing, long body coiling around the hunter, who had one arm about its neck, one hand on the gore-slick hilt of the knife buried in its eye socket. The drake’s flailing claws had scored darkly oozing gashes across his skin, and his mask had been knocked loose to reveal a face younger than Imrael’s own. 

The boy pressed in with the knife and, with a final convulsive shiver, the creature stilled, coils falling limp like a discarded ribbon. He ignored Imrael, who clambered slowly to his feet, wincing over the damage to his elbows, and then wincing more at the pins and needles pain as he set the skin reknitting. 

It probably wasn’t a good idea to draw the man’s attention, given he was wild-eyed and still holding the knife. 

“Thanks!” said Imrael anyway, because he’d never met a bad idea he didn’t like, and this one’s chest was heaving provocatively. “That…looks very worthy. Good job.”

The hunter, ignoring him, pulled out a knife and began to skin the carcass. 

#Anonymous #Raised By Wolves #Khazri Il'harren #Imrael Sovelin #priesthood looks good on him #I mean comparatively speaking #is this cute?

[thelioninmybed]

i super loved the priest stuff and i am curious how the lady of spiders can be aspects that are married to each other...?

“This,” Imrael said, lighting his pipe, “Is one of those fiddly things that happens when you have a city of thousands all worshipping the same being. That is, they’re not worshipping the same being. 

“Something like the lake we killed, that wasn’t too complicated; it was the hunger and longing of a hundred people at the most, all wrapped around the bones of drowned children. A proper god now, you’ve got all those folks that want one great overarching deity, all knowing, all powerful. But that’s distant and scary and an awful lot to think about. So you split the god up into manageable chunks, portioning off the bits that make it up. And you tell stories with them -”

He scooped a convenient stick op from the pile of kindling by their fire and held it out. “A child playing with a doll might make a princess of it one day and a wizard the next-” He gave the stick a leaf in lieu of the traditional pointy hat. “- And then his sister borrows it and suddenly it’s a knight.” He armed the twig soldier with a twig sword. “We project whatever we need onto them - a god must be a very confusing thing to be- Are you listening?”

Across the fire from him, Khazri was curled against Beryl’s flank, checking her ears for ticks with an expression of sleepy unconcern. “To you explaining my religion to me in terms of children’s toys? Oh yes.”

“Not toys!” Imrael brandished his knight with its gallantly drooping hat. “Props! Aids to learning!”

“Mmhm.” Beryl bared her teeth and, although it clearly wasn’t a threat but a chance for Khazri to pick bits of dead cultist out of them, Imrael decided to drop the subject. 

#Raised by Wolves #Khazri Il'harren #Imrael Sovelin #he probably knows what he's talking about! #a reddit atheist in a world where gods are objective fact #someone help this poor boy #Anonymous

[thelioninmybed]

brazenbells said: Please can Khazri have something nice for once 

“I know you’re angry,” Imrael said, hands raised placatingly. “You have good reason to be angry.”

“Three dead, and how many more to follow?” said the headwoman. Her knuckles were white where they gripped her axe. Behind her, torches flared and flickered, held in shaking hands. 

“You can’t fight a forest. You can’t fight a god. You have to give us time, give Khazri time, he’s good at this, he knows what he’s doing.” 

It wasn’t a lie, not quite. It served its purpose - or the glamour he’d woven into the words had - and that just left Imrael to fret, and pace, and dig his nails into his palms.

“I know you’re angry,” Khazri said, in his mother’s tongue, which legends said you could not use to lie. “You have good reason to be angry.”

The gashes in the trunk oozed sluggish sap, the bodies at the roots oozed blood. It had only been hours, but already shoots were sprouting from them, mouths and eyes bouquets of celandine and snowdrops, ivy curling from beneath their nails.

“You can’t stop them. Kill one, two, a hundred, but they breed like termites and they’ll come with fire and steel-”

The vines twining up around his limbs tightened a little, and he choked on a yelp of pain; they were strung with thorns. His clothes were thick wool and leather, but they weren’t quite thick enough. 

“There are better ways,” he gasped out, as probing tendrils reached his throat and began to squeeze. The thorns were, ironically, reassuring; the cobwebs had not hurt. “They’ll give you blood and thank you for it. You only need to sacrifice a little. Please. It will go badly if you don’t.”

That was the truth. Bad for him, for a surety. The worst thing to do would be to struggle, he knew, but the leaves brushed his lips and when he closed his eyes he saw lights flare in the darkness, like too many sets of eyes-

“Change or die," he whispered. Change was something dryads understood down in their heartwood, so he hoped. “Shed your leaves, weather the winter, rise again in spring.”

The vines stilled. The whole forest had gone silent. No birds, no creak of branches in the breeze. 

It was not acquiescence, not yet. But he wasn’t mulch, and that was something to be glad of. 

“It’s done,” said Khazri. His clothes were spotted stiff and dark, and there were dog roses twisted in his hair, livid pink against the ash grey. He was alive though, and Imrael ran to embrace him. Carefully, because Khazri was Khazri, even had he not been covered in blood.

“What’s done?” called someone in the crowd. “What did you do?”

“Where are they? Did you save them?”

Khazri looked blankly to Imrael and, when he failed to intuit whatever was going on in Khazri’s head, said, “A ram every solstice. No logging beyond the trout stream. No going further than- The words aren’t right. The big elm, only- it’s not an elm. But that’s where you kill the sheep.”

“And in return?” the headwoman prompted. “What about my people?”

“No more deaths. And your orchards will grow better. And you can have the bodies back. She didn’t want to, but- ”

“An excellent deal,” Imrael said before Khazri could get into the specifics of whatever the dryad had said; like as not it was something about fertiliser. No one in the crowd looked pleased, and that was pretty fair; three people were mulch. But it would stop at three and that was something to be glad of. 

“You know,” he muttered, as the crowd started to disperse, off into the woods to find their dead. “You’ve gotten pretty damn good at this.”

“Next time I’ll try to get stabbed less.” Khazri raised a hand to his hair, wincing as his sleeve pulled free of his scabs. “She was sorry though.”

“Hence the flowers?”

“Mn.”

“That was...nice of her.” Petals crumpled under Imrael’s fingers as he cupped the back of Khazri’s case and pulled him in to kiss. 

#Raised By Wolves #Khazri Il'harren #Imrael Sovelin #brazenbells #SORRY I KNOW I HAVE A BILLION PROMPTS #from like six months ago at this point #I've just been so busy writing about sad actors #anyway almost getting eaten by a dryad is nice right? #no? #nice is kind of relative #the last god that tried to eat him wasn't even SLIGHTLY sorry

[thelioninmybed]

Art for this.

#fuck i went too goth #Raised By Wolves #Khazri Il'harren #and his life generally #if it weren't for the flowers this could be that one time he drowned himself in Small Sacrifices #or The Spider Incident we don't talk about

[thelioninmybed]

Presumably I did lots of things while visiting a whole other country and staying with my good friend/Cool Person @dwimmerlaiks but the only one that stands out as important is making my beautiful morlock child in DA:I with her. If only [Stay silent] was an option for every dialogue choice...

#dragon age: inquisition #Raised By Wolves #Khazri Il'harren #dwimmerlaiks #'no make the ears bigger' #'BIGGER'

[thelioninmybed]

Imrael and Khazri meeting each other's parents. OR ALTERNATIVELY their parents meeting each other.

I started this, Anon, only to find out I’d ALREADY started it like, three years ago. That was clever of me (and leaves me even less excuse for this taking so damn long, sorry!) 

The Lady Keira Arroway, protector of Dawnwood, famed beauty and socialite, tossed her flame red hair, picked her nose and wiped it under the taproom table. “I don’t know what you want me to do about it,” she said.

Although it would have been polite to wash and change his clothes before meeting with nobility, and very pleasant to sleep twelve hours or more, Imrael had gone straight from Ferris’ front gates to the nameless tavern that was Keira’s second home. His own, after the library, and his clinic before he’d set off questing.  “Don’t be a dick, Keira. Talk to your father.”

She offered him an elegant shrug. “What do you think he’s going to do about it?”

“Send a weatherworker to clear the roads? I don’t know, it’s not my village. You asked me to report and that’s what I’ve done - at great personal risk no less - and the least he can do is-”

“Alright, alright, don’t shout.”

Imrael hadn’t realised that’s what he’d been doing until she said so. “It’s been a long few months,” he said at a carefully normal volume.

“Another drink?”

“Yes,” Imrael said, with feeling.

“I didn’t think anything would come of it,” Keira said, once she’d flagged down the waitress and procured two flagons of mediocre ale. “I just wanted to show the old man I was taking things seriously. He isn’t going to like this.”

“Probably not. You can tell him we killed a god on his account if that will sweeten the pot.”

“You’re a fucking liar, Rae,” she said, with a grin that crinkled up her nose and made her green eyes sparkle.

“I have not lied to you once in my entire life,” said Imrael solemnly, unaccountably relieved to feel their old, easy camaraderie returning. Two loutish students again, with no greater responsibilities than turning in their next assignments and not drinking away their stipends.

“Interesting phrasing there. Anyway, leave it in my hands. I’ll talk to Papa, sort the peasants, none of that’s important. The real question is, did it work?”

“It is important, people are dy-”

“Imrael. My friend. Don’t take this as me believing you about the god, but I can see you’ve been through something because I don’t know why else you’d be wearing that hat. I’m sure it was all very traumatic but now it’s time to get drunk and never think about any of it ever again. So. Did you, or did you not seduce that adorable goblin you’ve been pining over? All that sharing bed linens, huddling for warmth, tenderly chafing cold hands-”

“He almost died of hypothermia.”

“So you saw his cock? Why’re you being so coy? Are you- oh.” Her eyes narrowed. ”You are in love with him.”

“Keira-”

“And he doesn’t even try to deny it,” she crowed to the room at large. “Smitten! I never thought I’d see the day. Where is he? Are you finally going to introduce us properly?”

“So,” said Khazri. “What did she say?”

“Not much.” Imrael went to blow on his fingers, already numbing, and then reconsidered and intertwined them with Khazri’s gloved hand. There was a moment of awkward limpness and then he squeezed back. “She said she’d do something, just like she says she’ll pay you back when she borrows money. I’ll go annoy her tomorrow. Maybe you could come too?”

“Do you want me to threaten her?”

“No! Gods no. Keira’s heart’s in the right place, she’s just-” Imrael waved his free hand vaguely. “Rich. You should meet her because she’s my friend.” It would take some careful management and probably some more bribery to ensure she never mentioned why he and Khazri had been sent off on that ‘quest’ in the first place, but Imrael was up to it.

“I’m better at threats,” Khazri said, and Imrael could read him well enough to catch the fear that the humour overlaid and gave his hand a comforting squeeze.

“You’re wonderful at threats. Time to practice having a drink with an old friend instead. Say midday? Back here?”

“I’m not going to disappear. Again.”

“Shh. I know. Where do you usually stay when you’re in the city? I never asked.”

Khazri got that shifty look that meant he wasn’t going to answer because he knew Imrael wouldn’t like it. “Are you going back to your rooms?”

“Nah. My parents haven’t seen me in two seasons. Also their house is warmer, the sheets are cleaner and they’re obliged to feed us. Yes, I did say ‘us’ before you willfully misinterpret. You’re going to have a proper meal and sleep in a bed and not a hayloft - was it a hayloft? I knew it.”

Khazri scuffed his boot through the slushy ice in the gutter. “I don’t get on well with parents. Historically.”

“Was that a joke?” If it was, it was only in part and Imrael squeezed Khazri’s hand. “Don’t worry. You’re a significant improvement on the last partner I brought home.”

“How?”

“I’d rather not get into Eshe.”

“Oh.” And that, if nothing else, was a reason to love Khazri; he didn’t ask awkward questions.

“You can borrow some of my clothes, or my sister’s - she won’t mind and she’s closer to your height.” He hesitated. “You don’t have to do any of this.”

“But you want me to.”

“Yes.” Fumbling sex - or not so fumbling, Khazri was a very quick learner - and life-threatening drama was one thing. Friends and parents and quiet conversations, all the trappings of a life together were quite another.

“How do they feel about dogs?”

Penneth and Aruna Sovelin were good parents to a fault. As a teenager Imrael had rather wished they weren’t, and had bought home a succession of increasingly unsuitable partners, culminating in Eshe, whom they really should have taken him to task over. They hadn’t though, any more than they did when he appeared with no warning, a ragged goblin and two timber wolves upon their doorstep.

“Is there anything your friend can’t eat?” his father asked, rolling flatbread at the kitchen table, floured to the elbows.

Imrael glanced to Khazri, more from politeness than anything else. Khazi would eat bark and insects in a pinch, and the idea he’d refuse a meal of any kind was ridiculous. Unless he’d gotten it into his head that people were trying to poison him, which did happen. The conviction, not the poisoning. To the best of Imrael’s knowledge, anyway.

“I can eat,” Khazri said.

“I’m afraid we don’t have any meat for your- dogs.” To his father’s credit, he hardly stumbled.

Khazri tilted his head. Beryl’s ears flicked forwards. Jeff whined. “They don’t mind,” Khazri concluded.

“They found a dead aurochs in a snowdrift yesterday,” Imrael said reassuringly. “It was hardly rotten.”

“Oh good! I’d pet them if I weren’t baking.” Although Imrael had his mother’s height and lanky frame, there was no doubt as to where he got his temperament. ”Your mother’s finishing in the shop. Would you tell her two minutes? And please charm your clothes, dear, you’d think you’d been rolling in dead aurochs.”

“Dead aurochs is a generous assessment,” said his mother, sticking her head around the door. “What happened to you?” She cast the charms to cast off the grime herself, which was a relief; he hadn’t the will to do it himself, or do much more than flop into a chair and start shovelling lentil soup into his mouth. Half the seasoning was enchantment, his father doing what he could to compensate for ingredients too dear or foreign to get hold of here in Ferris, but so had it been throughout his childhood and the way the flavours slid, translucent, off his tongue was comforting in itself.

Like dark hair and sharp noses, curiosity ran in the family. Curiosity that, thankfully, Imrael could keep on himself as he related the story of their adventures. Not the version he’d told Keira, in which all dangers were exaggerated along with his heroism, and with more of a focus on gratefully healed peasants than ancient, murderous evils, but close enough, and that took them most of the way through supper. Khazri was quiet as ever but Imrael thought it came across as modesty and sincere appreciation for his father’s cooking; accepting a third helping was a sure way to his father’s heart, and Khazri ate like he hadn’t had a decent meal in a month (which he hadn’t; another detail Imrael glossed over).

“It’s very brave,” Imrael’s mother said when he’d stopped talking about their adventures long enough for her to say it. “Both of you. I didn’t know there even were male mercenaries.” In the same ‘I’m trying’ voice she’d used when he’d wanted to keep a jarful of snails as a pet or go to university.

“I know I’d be terrified,” Imrael’s father agreed, widening shadowed eyes. People didn’t go to elven apothecaries just for medicines and fetishes, although Imrael’s father’s were very good (and Imrael was both too old to make fetish jokes and not too old to be rapped with a wooden spoon). People came for the experience and that meant feyness and an awful lot of glitter.

“I’m not,” said Khazri. “Not really. Not a mercenary, I mean, not not terrified.”

“We’re very proud of Imrael for what he’s doing,” his mother went on doggedly. She didn’t chatter like his father did, flitting from point to point; once she’d decided she had something to say, she said it. “I hated it at first - some part of me still does - but this isn’t Faerie. We can’t make puppets of our children. Can’t seal them up in mirrors if they defy us.”

“They sent me to my room often enough, though,” Imrael interjected lest they forget their own monstrosity. And also because Khazri likely didn’t want to hear more of the old punishments listed. ‘Fed to spiders’ wasn’t even on the list of joking threats his parents had once made when he wouldn’t go to bed, but better to take no chances.

“We’re glad he’s not alone. We thought that woman of his would take responsibility but she never has,” his mother said and Imrael wanted to cringe because it was such a parent thing to say, so caring and so clueless, and so not a thing to joke about with Khazri later. There were downsides to a boyfriend who never asked questions and had a reptile’s understanding of parental interest.

“Pff, Keira can’t take responsibility for her own life,” he said carelessly. “She can’t even take responsibility for her bar tab.” ‘She’s just a friend’ wasn’t an argument worth having, Imrael had learnt.

“Or the last one,” his father put in.

“Eshe paid her tab, though I’ll concede she didn’t have her life together.”

“Or at all.” His mother sniffed. “Liches”

“She wasn’t dead when I met her,” he said hastily, lest Khazri get the wrong idea.

“We have clever children,” said his father, fond and weary. “But there’s not an ounce of sense between them.

Khazri swallowed. “Is Belain still. At Court?” He didn’t ask questions but he listened, and he’d been watching them all gossip as raptly as he’d ever watched a game trail. Imrael though he knew why but wasn’t about to embarrass him by pointing it out.

Imrael’s mother pursed her lips. “She likes it better. Everything we did to leave it and she rushes straight back. No sense at all, but then it’s easier for girls. Not a place to raise a son.” It was a conversation his parents had had often enough, to him and about him when they thought he and Belain long abed.

“Will you both be staying the night?” said his father, gathering up the plates.

“Yes, we will. Thanks, Papa.”

“Help me clear the table.” All the fuss to get away, all the insistence on being modern, but his father and Imrael were the ones who’d cooked and done the dishes for as long as he could remember. Sometimes his mother helped and but today she stayed at the head of the table and nodded to Khazri, who had risen, to do likewise.

“You’ll look after him?” she said stiffly, as Imrael ducked into the kitchen.

And, almost lost under the clatter of dishes; “Yes.”

”A lich?”

“Shh. I’m asleep.” Imrael’s bedroom was mostly storage now, and stank of drying herbs. Eyes gleamed lambent in the dark of it, and something huge and predatory panted. More worryingly, the bed wasn’t made for two, never mind two and an adult timberwolf, but they’d dealt with worse.

“I wasn’t- I don’t- My aunt’s dead. Only not.”

“That’s not at all comforting. Not even slightly. And it’s really unfair how you’ve cornered the market on weird family shit. I can’t even date a lich without you topping it.”

“I thought she wasn’t dead until after-”

“She wasn’t! Shush or I won’t invite you back.” Imrael rolled over - or attempted to. There wasn’t room and so he settled for wriggling pointedly.

There was a thoughtful pause. A flicker in the gleam of his eyes as Khazri blinked. “Your father’s a good cook,” he concluded.

In lots of ways it wasn’t a very satisfactory conclusion to come to, but in lots of ways it was.

#Anonymous #Raised By Wolves #Imrael Sovelin #Khazri Il'harren #Keira belongs to @pargile from way back when credit where it’s due.

[thelioninmybed]

Imreal/Khazri "role reversal"?

An epic saga in which a spider takes up residence in Imrael’s surgery. Imrael refuses to move it because it’s not doing any harm and it’s good pest control and I’ve named her, her name is Cordelia, live and let live, right? Okay, yes, spiders are oogie and I don’t want to touch it.

Khazri spends the next few chapters having flashbacks and hyperventilating as he manoeuvres it into a mug using a piece of cardboard, while Imrael stands on his operating table shouting directions. 

#Raised By Wolves #Khazri Il'harren #Imrael Sovelin #I have spiders on the brain #much like Khazri's cohort of sacrificed children ahahahaha #Anonymous

[thelioninmybed]

flash fic (or just long explanation maybe?) meet-cute where Khazri never had to escape/be sacrificed (sacriscaped?) Zalach’anni but he and Imrael meet anyway. how would that play out and what would they think of each other?

The goblin market was rank with the smell of frying food and unwashed bodies, golden apples turning mulchy and the hearts of mortal lovers drying in the heat. Khazri took shallow breaths beneath his veil and felt Raisa’s arm tighten about his waist. 

There were better places to go for what she sought, but Raisa did not trust the matter to any healer or apothecary of Zalach’ann. Khazri thought that wise, though he did not think putting trust in an outsider any wiser. 

“Surely they can be bought just as easily?” he had ventured. Raisa had kissed his forehead and told him not to fuss over what did not concern him. 

“My enemies are my business,” she had said. “As are my friends. Worry will only make you sicker.”

So Khazri said nothing as she led him to where the crowds thinned and the stalls were meaner, her free hand resting lightly upon the hilt of her rapier. 

The place she sought was a tent, marked for what it was by a sprig of silphium pinned to the canvas. Khazri baulked at the medicinal stink of dried herbs rising from the open canvas door, but Raisa drew him in.

The inside was what one would expect of an itinerant healer: a scarred wooden table that served as desk and operating table both and smelt, if Khazri concentrated, ever so slightly of old blood. Bezoars and snakestones and unicorn horns lined the shelves, and the ceiling was hung with bunches of dried herbs and a very small stuffed drake. If the healer had done the taxidermy herself, Khazri didn’t think much of her stitching, or knowledge of anatomy.

But it was a man that looked up from his pestle and mortar to greet them. “Hallo,” said the doctor. He was bareheaded and barefaced, as were many men in this halfway twilit town. Dark, with a carefully cultivated air of amiability - professional but not clinical. “How might I be of service, my lady?”

“I seek help for my husband,” Raisa said and squeezed him tighter. “Fifty years we have been wed and we have no daughters.” Another woman would have placed the blame for that where it belonged, but Raisa had always been kinder than he deserved.

The healer raised one hawkish brow. “I- appreciate your frankness. People tend to dance around a matter like this.”

“I’ve never seen the point. You are a doctor, boy?” She tilted her head, frowning, and Khazri shared her confusion. The man was scarcely older than he was, and very handsome for all he was too dark and wore no adornment beyond the kohl lining his eyes. 

“You know I am,” the man said complacently, “Or you would not have come.”

“Can you help us?” There was no desperation in her voice but only because it was beneath her carefully schooled dignity. 

“Fifty years and no daughters - sons though?”

“Two,” she answered. Good boys, lovely and talented and soon to be wed. Khazri already missed them desperately. 

“If you will forgive my asking, have there been stillbirths?”

“No.”

“Then it’s easily mended,” the healer said, and sounded certain this was so. “Half my payment now, and half when your daughter is born.”

They were not wealthy - Raisa of House Levanii would not have married a bastard had there not been desperate need of his dowery - and so they dickered long over a price that Khazri thought already fair. 

“I could take your firstborn if you’d rather,” he huffed as Raisa counted out the gold. “May I speak to your husband privately?”

“I’ll be just outside,” she whispered. “Call if you have need.” She kissed Khazri’s cheek and, though he clutched at her, stepped away.

“I’m Imrael, by the way,” said the healer cheerfully, turning to his shelves of bottles. “Do you have a name, Lord?”

Khazri would have preferred more secrecy, but he had seen the man’s eyes go to the crest upon his wife’s rapier and knew the game already up. “Khazri.”

“Pretty. Take off your veil? Thank you. Very pretty,” Imrael said distractedly. “Your wife is a lucky woman. Hold this,” he added, pushing a two-handled drinking cup into Khazri’s hands. “Thank you, and now, upend it on the ground- so. And now we wait.”

“For what?”

“Magic! Traditionally you’d do this in your own garden, but that’s not best practice, tends to lead to lindworms. Better to carry it out under expert supervision. Your wife seems nice. Considerate.”

“Yes,” Khazri said flatly. He had little interest in discussing his marriage with friends, even less in letting a stranger pick over it. “She’s a good woman,” his loyalty drove him to add.

“Mmm.” The healer rested his elbows upon the table and considered Khazri with bright amber eyes. He still projected an air of good humour but some disquiet lay beneath. “I get men visiting me, and boys, from Zalach’ann. It’s my profession, I suppose, but they rarely come here happy.”

“Do you speak of this to all your patients?”

“Only the pretty ones.” The healer winked and the smile that had fallen off his face blossomed again. He really was handsome, and Khazri wondered what Raisa thought of that effortless charm. She would not have needed magic married to such a man as that. “Do you ever think of leaving?”

“Leaving? Why?”

The healer shrugged, smiled, and bent to overturn the cup. Underneath it, two roses had grown from the packed earth floor, one pale, one velvet dark. “Now, a girl, yes? Then the white flower.” He plucked it and held it out, the petals very white against his fingers. “Eat it.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it! Your wife will have her daughter.”

Khazri glanced once to the doorway, where Raisa was waiting, and then did as the healer bid. The petals were sweet but sickly with the flower’s perfume. He wrinkled his nose but choked them down. “What about the other one?” he asked?

“Keep it, if you’d like,” the healer said, and plucked it too. Perhaps his fingers lingered as he pressed the stem into Khazri’s hand, but probably not. “As long as you promise not to eat it.”

Khazri did keep it, for a while, in a vase atop the nightstand. But then it withered as cut flowers do, and by the time Raisa had her daughter he had forgotten that he ever took it.

#Anonymous #Raised by wolves #Khazri Il'harren #Imrael Sovelin #we don't get much into what Imrael thinks of Khazri #but the truth is 'not a lot' #Khazri in the real timeline grew into someone clever and capable #ruthlessly pragmatic but kind #frightened but very brave #This Khazri was never forced to be that person #and became a quiet conventional man who loves his children #and is fond of his wife (even if he doesn't love her) #he's never had reason to question anything about Zalach'ann #He's happier in lots of ways #and sadder in others #and he's not the kind of person Imrael would fall in love with

[thelioninmybed]

simaethae replied to your post “flash fic (or just long explanation maybe?) meet-cute where Khazri...”

awwwww :) :/ *conflicted faces*

Pros: this Khazri isn’t horribly traumatised and is capable of basic human(elven) interaction

Cons: no Jeff

imindhowwelayinjune replied to your post “flash fic (or just long explanation maybe?) meet-cute where Khazri...”

is it weird to say i find it bittersweetly satisfying that khazri has a relatively good marriage? actually no i'm crying a little can he please run off with the pretty doctor who wears eyeliner to the clinic

It’s a pretty good marriage! Raisa has an old name but is more interested in scholarship than playing politics (nerds are a running theme for Khazri). She’s kind to her husband and they live in genteel poverty. But he’ll never kill a god or change the world (or realise he’s exclusively attracted to men, bummer)

imindhowwelayinjune replied to your post “flash fic (or just long explanation maybe?) meet-cute where Khazri...”

imrael putting the doc in dilf

Imrael is doing a brisk trade in seducing bored househusbands! He’s pretty happy in this AU!

#Raised By Wolves #Imrael Sovelin #Khazri Il'harren #imindhowwelayinjune #simaethae

[thelioninmybed]

I miss Khazri and co :( How are they doing? Has Jeff eaten any more soap? Has Imrael acquired any more ridiculous hats? Is Zalach'ann still hot and terrible?

Aww sorry Anon! I’ll admit I’ve fallen behind on Raised By Wolves (though I do have a good excuse - @imindhowwelayinjune and I are almost 60k into the novel we’re coauthoring! Keep an eye out for updates on that in the months to come!)

It wouldn’t do to forget about Khazri and Imrael though, so let’s see what they’re up to…

“-don’t feel like we’re sufficiently qualified,” Imrael muttered nervously, peering into the cave. It’s mouth yawned wide, a stony gullet ready to swallow them down.

Khazri did not look up from where the contents of his quiver were spread out in the dirt. “So why did you volunteer us?”

“Ah. Well. I’m sure, given a moment, I’ll think of something.” Imrael paced and wrung his hands and conspicuously failed to do so. When Khazri had checked every head and fletching and was shuffling them away, he added, “I’m not sure it’s a good idea to kill it - aren’t dragons endangered? And honestly, the dragon is the least of this town’s problems, someone really ought to do something about the sewers. I stepped in a dead goat on the way to the mayor’s office and you’d think, with election season coming up, she’d put a bit more effort into public infrastructure and less into culling the local wildlife-”

“Why don’t you talk to it?”

“Do you think that would work?”

“It’s what got us into this mess,” Khazri said, a little waspishly. He felt instantly guilty as Imrael’s face fell, and added, “It’s probably not a dragon dragon. Maybe a salamander? They used to nest under the floors back home and they’re not very dangerous.”

“Not very dangerous by Zalach’anni standards?” Khazri shrugged, lopsided, and Imrael shook his head. “Forgive me if I don’t feel safer. The talking is a good idea actually. What do dragons want?”

“Food.”

“It seems to be serving itself quite adequately on that front, which is rather the problem. What else?”

“Jewels.”

“I’m coming up rather short on rubies right now.”

“Uhm,” said Khazri, colouring. “Virgins?”

“We’re even shorter on those,” Imrael said and, even in the face of imminent death by dragonfire, could not keep from a self-satisfied smirk.

“Riddles?”

“Yes! Khazri, I could kiss you,” Imrael said, and did.

“Hello,” said Imrael. “We like your cave.” That wasn’t a lie - the heat baking off the dragon’s body had turned the walls to slick, volcanic glass and they served as a shimmering, black mirror to the dragon’s majesty, iron grey scales glowing cherry red with the heat of the fire within it.  

“Hullo,” said the dragon dragon, uncoiling. The process took some time and Imrael waited politely for it to rise up, in all its ceiling-brushing majesty. “It’s a brave mouse that comes seeking the cat within its hole.”

“I have a challenge for you,” Imrael said, politely not pointing out that it was mice and not cats that lived in holes. Likely the difference between them was academic to a dragon. “It is a riddle that has stumped all that have had it posed to them, the greatest of lords and philosophers. But I am sure, before your wisdom, mighty wyrm, it shall be solved within a trice.” 

The dragon blinked its burning eyes and lowered its great head, the rank gust of its breath blowing back Imrael’s hair and threatening to snatch his wretched hat from off his head. “Say on,” it rumbled. 

“Neatly done,” Khazri said, pulling his hood lower over his face. The town square was thronged with people, some waving charming paper flags and some torches and pitchforks, neither group entirely committed. 

“It was! They’re saying the streets have never been cleaner.” Imrael had a flag but he wasn’t really waving it. “I’m not sure the townsfolk are very happy with it, though. I’m not sure I am either, and I know it was my idea.”

“They elected her.” Who could overlook her platform of improved public infrastructure? Or the fact that the opposing candidate’s platform had been set on fire?

There was an enterprising girl selling sausages inna bun from a stall with a crude dragon scribbled on it and Khazri, at Jeff’s beseeching look, gave her a copper. “And she did promised not to eat anyone. Else.”

“I don’t think they like that it’s on the honour system. Or that she keeps calling taxes ‘tributes’. Also her fiscal policies are very conservative.”

Khazri picked off the onions - though Jeff had happily licked the putrefying goats off Imrael’s boots the week before, there were some things he was fussy about - and dropped the sausage onto the cobbles. “She looks good in the chain of office. And she’s allowing men to own property.”

#Raised By Wolves #Khazri Il'harren #Imrael Sovelin #dragons #original fiction #Anonymous #the 'platform on fire' joke is June's #and she deserves all props for her editorial work #I could not be HALF so garb without her support #the dragon's fiscal policy is 'put all the money in a pile so i can sleep on it' #with apologies to Terry Pratchett #tbh soap is probably better for you than one of those sausages

[thelioninmybed]

LION WHAT DOES KHAZRI'S HAIR LOOK LIKE? I MEAN, IS IT STRAIGHT? CURLY? ?? THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION

KHAZRI’S HAIR IS FINE WITH JUST ENOUGH OF A KINK TO IT THAT IT TANGLES ITSELF INTO HIDEOUS KNOTS AT THE SLIGHTEST PROVOCATION. 

(if you’ve read any Discworld, think Magrat Garlick)

#EXCELLENT QUESTION ANON #Raised By Wolves #Khazri Il'harren #someone suggest a fancast PLEASE I am begging you #Anonymous

[thelioninmybed]

Hello! I just read through Small sacrifices and the rest of Raised by wolves and I'm losing my damn mind over both your writing and your worldbuilding. What got to me the most out of the million clever (and heartwrenching) reveals was how Khamsin was this relatively sympathetic person/vaguely parental figure in comparison to the rest of Khazri's awful family right until the truth hits you like a ton of bricks. I just-wow. WOW. If you ever write a book, I'm buying ten.

Aaaah, thank you! I’m so glad you’re enjoying the series! I hope this ask was a prompt for some rambling elaboration on Khamsin and Khazri’s relationship because don’t mind if I do!

Khamsin never really wanted a child (why did she have one? There’s a story there and I’ll get round to telling it sooner or later) but she was kind to Khazri, to the point that his memories - up to the very last ones - are confusingly positive (He’s still thinking of her fondly in Little Deaths, poor bean). 

But he was never really a priority. She’d bring him gifts back from campaigns, ruffle his hair etc. but the bulk of raising him fell to a wet nurse and then, when he was old enough, to Khamsin’s brother Mathis. Who, as we’ve seen, was an…iffy father to his own children, never mind to the bastard his sister foisted on him, but he was the closest male relative, ofc it was his job. 

I’d like to say that if Khazri met Khamsin (and here’s a good time to point out the similarity in their names, it’s like a Nigel calling his daughter Nigella) as an adult, he’d be past his desperate need for her love and respect but…well, who knows? The boy’s a mess. 

One day, anon. One day this horrible sad elf pile will see print epub format, lbr. 

#Raised By Wolves #THANK YOU ANON #what a lovely message #it really did make my day #Khazri Il'harren #Khamsin Il'harren #Anonymous #apologies to any Nigella/Nigel combos this may have offended

[thelioninmybed]

vardasvapors replied to your post “maedhros sparked fingon's sexual awakening can you write it”

I wonder if the anon knew what they were getting into, or were just like 'hey this person seems pretty cool! let me send her a cute ask' :)

hey, hey, hey, I can do cute! Look, the erotic non-terrible hair cutting you asked for!

It wasn’t Imrael’s hair and so it was none of his business if it looked like a haystack displaced by a strong wind. Well maybe a little his business, given Khazri seemed to like - or at least not object - to him petting it.

Despite his resolve, he could not stifle his gasp of horror when, after pitching camp for the night, Khazri caught up a hank of cloud-grey locks and drew a hunting knife.

“It’s too long,” he said by way of explanation. “I can’t aim with it in my eyes.”

“Don’t do it yourself! No wonder it looks like- like that.”

“Who else? I’m not going to let a stranger wield blades about my head.” Khazri did not hiss the words precisely, but the expression he pulled did put Imrael in mind of a cat threatened with a bath.

“And that’s why I’m offering to do it for you,” said Imrael, trying to sound casually helpful and not desperate for an opportunity to fix that nightmare thicket.

“Do you know how?”

“Gods no. But can I really make any worse?”

Khazri conceded that it was unlikely and then conceded, after some cajoling and a little bribery, to taking his shirt off and perching upon a conveniently sized log.

“How short do you want it?”

“Just. Out of my eyes. So it doesn’t brush my neck.”

Imrael could, on occasion, keep his mouth shut and so kept speculation as to why the latter should be the case to within the privacy of his own head. The hair beneath his fingers was fine as cobweb- or silk, he amended hastily. On any other day he’d have been content with simply running his fingers through it, watching static catch and lift the strands and feeling Khazri relax, just a little, under his hands.

As it was, he restricted himself to only five minutes of petting under the pretence of sectioning and comparing lengths.

Khazri did not relax, growing, if anything, more tense as the seconds slipped by, and his breath hissed through his teeth when Imrael picked up the scissors.

“They’re are from my kit,” Imrael said soothingly. “They’re sterile.”

“Reassuring.” Khazri tipped his head back to give Imrael a look of feigned scepticism, genuine scepticism showing plainly beneath.

“I could point out that, as well as being clever and charming, I’m in my current profession because I have exceptionally steady hands,” Imrael said, with perfect honesty. “Or I could tell you that I’d never deliberately hurt you and that if I did then Beryl would eat my face. But you do know it all already.”

“Mm.”

“So you can let go of the knife.”

“I wasn’t going to stab you either,” Khazri said, slipping it back into its sheath.

“Well obviously.” Imrael gave Khazri’s shoulder a squeeze - with his hand there, the ugly scar was almost hidden. “Don’t fidget, love.”

It was almost too easy after that. Khazri did what he was told and didn’t fidget, and Imrael made up for what he lacked in experience with flair and unshakeable confidence. Snips of pale hair drifted about their feet like snow or the fluffy seeds of late dandelions, and if the finished effect was not quite professional and not quite what Imrael had been aiming for, the improvement was marked.

“Beautiful,” he said when he was satisfied. Or, at least, didn’t dare to take more off.

“It-” Khazri ran a hand through it, shook his head and then tugged at it again. “It does feel better. Thank you.”

It would have been easy to play the braggart but Imrael could keep his mouth shut on occasion. “Not what I was talking about,” he said, kneeling between Khazri’s legs, heedless of the hair that clung to his trousers. “But if you want to express your gratitude-”

“Shh,” said Khazri, and did.

#vardasvapors #Imrael Sovelin #Khazri Il'harren #Raised By Wolves #I honestly find hairdressing INTENSELY unerotic #mostly cause my mum's done courses and usually does mine for me

[thelioninmybed]

You have the darndest knack for coming up with character I want to draw. gawdammit. gotta draw ur weird wolf child now.

aaaaand you have the darndest knack for bringing my garbage creatures to life, I would be delighted if you did a Khazri! …I realise I’ve not really described my weird wolf child though, quick, have a description masterpost!

Khazri on Khazri:

It had always seemed unfair; whatever else they said about his father, everyone agreed he had been beautiful, but Khazri had inherited an unbecoming mix of both his parents. His mother’s lipless slash of a mouth, her angular jaw - austerely handsome on a woman, incongruous set beneath what must be his father’s wide spaced eyes and delicately snubbed nose. There was no one to blame for his overlarge ears and lustreless tangle of hair but himself. 

Imrael on Khazri:

daaaaaaaaaaaaaamn

Well that wasn’t very helpful. Here’s something more objective:

Khazri is about 5′6″ and slim (though you wouldn’t know either by looking at him - he hunches to look smaller and wears layers of baggy clothes, mostly ‘procured’ from people larger and heavier than he is). He has a heart shaped face and features that are more or less per his own uncharitable description. As you would expect of a weird morlock elf thing, he’s pale with a greyish cast to his skin and eyes that are overlarge and just the slightest bit spooky. They can be mistaken for brown in poor light (…they’re not though). He cuts his own hair short, with a hunting knife, and it looks exactly as crappy as you’d expect. 

Implausibly, given he’s an awful cryptid boy being followed around by timber wolves, there’s something about him that just…does not draw the eye? You won’t even notice him unless he speaks to you, and probably not even then. 

#witchking-jr #Raised By Wolves #Khazri Il'harren #this says unflattering things about Imrael's libido