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ddarker-dreams · 1 year

Text

Idée Fixe.

Yan Chrollo x F Reader.

Warnings: Some not SFW elements, yandere themes, unhealthy relationships, emotional manipulation, depictions of general & social anxiety disorder, depictions of a panic attack, mentions of anxiety medication, Chrollo administers medications to Reader without her consent, and mentions of religion. Also Chrollo just really, really sucks. Word count: 12.3k.

You met a strange man at the arboretum today.

Perhaps you aren’t in a position to describe others as ‘strange’, considering your latest proclivity for expressing earnest thanks to any honey bees you happen across for their service. After much contemplation, however, it’s ultimately the word you arrive at. ‘Strange’ not in a disconcerting sense that inspires fear, but just being out of the ordinary enough to exude an undeniable allure. A raised panel on the floor you stumble over yet suffer no serious injury from.

Well-kept gardens might be the closest imitation to heaven on earth. That’s what brought you to this little oasis hidden in the desert that is urban life. It’s the type of day romanticists wax poetic about: baby blue skies, puffy clouds, and moderate temperatures with a light, forgiving breeze.

You situated yourself strategically, so you’d be beneath the shade of a magnolia tree whose pink petals kept fluttering down as if in greeting, and near a patch of daffodils that matched the shade of your gingham dress. Blades of grass tickle your legs, but not unpleasantly so, they scratch an itch found only in nature’s loving reprieve. There’s no thought of upcoming assignments, what to eat for dinner, or if buying that purse you thought was a steal at 30% off was a good idea or not.

It’s just you and your book.

Until it isn’t.

Every woman is connected in the experience that is trepidation whenever a man randomly approaches. There’s no telling his intentions, if he has any. You’re left to smile awkwardly and temporarily realign yourself with religion by praying to a higher deity for his hasty departure. You map out potential escape routes and recall the pepper spray situated in your impulse-bought purse. He gently calls out “Miss”, confirming that he hopes to speak with you.

At least he has the propriety to stop a few paces from where you sit, electing not to intrude on your personal space. This causes your shoulders to relax. In the few seconds you’ve been made aware of his existence, you recognize his appealing features. He has loose, dark hair, along with wide and seemingly unassuming eyes. His outfit of a dark gray turtleneck accompanied by a black jacket and pants somewhat strikes you as odd, considering spring is in full bloom. Two other details steal your attention away from this; those being the beige wrapping around his forehead and his spherical, turquoise-colored earrings. It’s like he was caught undecided between wanting and not wanting to attract attention.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” he begins. You try not to think about how pleasant his voice sounds. “I’ve been trying to make sense of the directory, but I’ve never been the best with directions. Do you by any chance know how to get to the Starling House?”

You nod. It’s a quaint, centuries-old mansion, maintained by the non-profit that oversees the flora here. Getting over the initial apprehension from his approach, you try verbalizing the most efficient path to get there. This proves more difficult than you expected since the arboretum is vast and has few waypoints that can be used for reference. Still, throughout your explanation whose unhelpfulness you grow painfully aware of, he patiently nods and makes no attempts to rush you through.

This willingness to put up with your scattered description wins over your sympathy, pushing you past your sheepishness.

“I guess I’m not good at giving directions. I could just show you the way, if you’d like.”

“I’d hate to disturb your reading, but… if it isn’t a bother, I’d certainly appreciate it.”

You’re already setting your bookmark into place. “It’s no bother. This is my second time reading it, anyway. So don’t worry. I’m not being left off on a cliffhanger or anything.”

He smiles at that. When you’re preparing to stand, he extends his hand, a gesture that gives you a momentary pause. Well, you are wearing a dress. You suppose it’s the polite thing for him to do. You accept his unspoken offer and he hoists you up without the least bit of exertion on his part. His hand is warm and bigger than yours, slightly coarse too, surprisingly. His immaculate presentation gave you the impression of a trust fund kid or something in that vein. He’s tasteful in ensuring his touch doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Your heart pounds in your chest.

You catch a hint of his cologne. Sandalwood, amber, and leather blend together to form a delightfully woody fragrance. As amazing as he smells, you create a little distance, walking ahead motioning for him to follow. His longer legs have no trouble catching up, yet he never creeps too close.

The short journey that you expect to only be accompanied by the sounds of cardinals chirping and house finches singing is interrupted by the man speaking up again. Oddly enough, you don’t mind.

“Do you find your thoughts on Prince Myshkin’s initially endearing simple heartedness changed, knowing how the book ends?”

You pause, taking a moment to realize he must be familiar with the work. This revelation fills you with a tentative giddiness. It isn’t often you have a chance to delve into your literary thoughts to a willing audience. There’s plenty more you could say on the subject, but you try to exercise restraint nonetheless.

“I thought I might, but I found myself more critical of the other characters instead.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

He appears genuinely interested, otherwise, you would’ve kept it at that.

“Ah, well, maybe it’s that they serve as proof that innocence is never meant to last. Or if it does, it’ll inevitably be punished. There are moments where I feel frustrated with the Prince’s naivety… but then I stop and wonder why it’s so bad to want to see the best in people. Does that speak to a flaw in his character, or to a flaw in the character of others? Maybe it’s both. I can’t help but feel the Prince’s case is more sympathetic.”

His eyes never leave yours while you give your answer. Heat rises to your cheeks and you internally groan over the prospect of making a stranger listen to your ramblings. He was probably just looking to make casual conversation, not everyone wants an existential crisis on a Saturday afternoon.

“You must be someone who wants to see the best in people as well,” he surmises. There’s no hint of mockery in his tone — he’s oddly sincere. He says it with a hint of bittersweet nostalgia.

Before you can hazard a response, you come across a sign displaying information for an event at the Starling House. The building itself lies in waiting atop a hill less than a quarter of a mile ahead. He stops to read it, as do you, operating under the assumption he came here for the event. It seems that they’re displaying historic artifacts from around the area. You suppose this will be where you part ways. You’re about to wish him well when he sighs, the miffed noise stopping you.

“I got the time wrong,” he frowns, staring at his wristwatch.

The sign says the event begins at 6:00 p.m. and a quick tap of your phone reveals it’s 4:00.

“If you’re looking for a way to burn time, there’s a nice garden behind the House that’s always open to the public,” you explain. This piques his curiosity. “If the sage is in bloom, you might get lucky and see some hummingbirds.”

“That does sound lovely,” he says. Then, his lips quirk up, promising the start of a smile. “Would you care to join me, Miss…?”

You give him your name and he nods, as if deciding it fits you.

“[First]. I understand if my tour guide wants to get back to her reading, though.”

Bashfulness creeps up your back and threatens to sink its fangs into your neck. Your heart’s rhythm takes an erratic cadence. He’s posing the proposition in such a lighthearted way, offering an easy out if you want to take it. You internally weigh your options on a scale that’s worn from overuse. He’s being friendly, you tell yourself. That’s all it is.

“Well, I guess I’d be a shabby tour guide if I didn’t show you where the gardens are.”

On the brief walk to the gardens, the man introduces himself as Chrollo. You both situate yourselves on the same stone bench. You sit on the right, he sits on the left. Once again, he leaves you plenty of space, never testing boundaries. The scent of nascent sage wafts in the air. While you scan your surroundings for hummingbirds, he tells you that his work often necessitates travel, hence his unfamiliarity with the area.

“Does it ever get lonely?” You ask, not thinking much of it. He gives you a look you can’t quite place, so you elaborate. “Traveling all the time, I mean.”

He tilts his head, more inquisitive than offended. “What makes you think it’d be lonely?”

“I just think I’d get homesick after a while, always being in an unfamiliar place. I’d miss my family and friends.”

When he continues staring at you in silence with those unreadable eyes, you swear you want to slam your head repeatedly against a wall. Not everyone has a good relationship with their family or people to call their friends. The weight of your potential insensitivity comes crashing down on you like a tsunami.

You move your hands around wildly, rushing to correct your discourtesy. “Uh, I mean, that isn’t to say you need those things!”

“You don’t think I have any friends?”

Your face must be radiating more heat than a furnace. Still, the embarrassment doesn’t reach a point where you’re unable to notice his omission of the word family. “I didn’t—”

Contrary to the reaction you were expecting, Chrollo laughs. Not a little chuckle, but a genuine laugh, hearty in a way that stands in stark contrast to his otherwise reserved demeanor. The smile it imprints on his face somehow feels different than what he’s displayed before. Those were always so well timed, lasting as long as necessary and never a second more. It hits you then just how handsome this man is. Alabaster skin, soft and glossy hair, lips as rosy as the blush on his cheeks from his outburst of laughter.

It doesn’t last long, he’s quick to school himself. The speed he does so is almost unnatural. “I apologize, I’m only teasing. You’re very expressive, [First].”

You let out something between a huff and a sigh. “God, I felt so awful…”

“I can tell,” he puts his hands up in mock surrender when you send him a non-threatening glare. “To answer your question… I’ve never thought about it much. I suppose it is lonely at times.”

This revelation pours a bucket of ice-cold water over the embers of your indignation. Your face softens and a stinging pain shoots throughout your body. You can’t bring yourself to remain miffed when you’re the one who dredged this topic up. People use humor as a means to cope, that may be what Chrollo does.

“Enough about me, though. I’m far more interested in you.”

You shift in your seat. Did it always feel so warm out?

“Here, let me guess. You’re certainly a student. Hm… of the humanities, perhaps?”

“You got the student part right,” you agree. “I’m majoring in criminal psychology.”

There’s something like a twinkle in his eyes. “Oh? Is that so? You want to catch criminals, then?”

“Er… not exactly. It’s more that I want to help them.”

He blinks. “Help them?”

“Not, like, as an accomplice,” you earnestly reassure, to which he smiles, “How do I explain it… take the city around us, right? It’s considered one of the most dangerous in the United States of Saherta.”

As if on cue, a cacophony of police sirens begins blaring in the distance.

“In the 80s and 90s, there was a surge of incarceration, yet crime as a whole set higher records each year. The policy at the time was ‘build more prisons, give longer sentences’. Obviously, that didn’t work out very well for anyone… except for private prisons maybe… that’s a whole different beast. Anyway, you reap what you sow. Crime rate is going down, but communities were gutted by these policies. There’s still a lot of work to be done. I want to understand ‘deviant’ behavior so I can see what safety nets would benefit them the most.”

Chrollo is such an excellent listener that unlike before, you no longer feel the pressure to remain succinct and have little qualms completely delving into your passion. His body language suggests total engagement.

“Ah, so you view crime as a result of societal shortcomings.”

“It’s more nuanced than that,” you shake your head. “Hell, even when there were only four people on earth according to the Bible, Cain went ahead and committed murder anyway. That’s like… killing 25% of the population… how messed up. Wait. If there were only four people on earth, who did Cain go on to marry? How does that work…? Asexual reproduction…?”

“The Quran says Cain and Abel both had twin sisters,” Chrollo offers.

“Alright, that makes more sense than asexual reproduction. Okay! Enough about theology! Back to crime. There’s no totally eradicating it, but there is circumventing it. That’s what I want to help do.”

You’ve been so preoccupied with verbalizing your thoughts, you failed to notice he’s scooted slightly closer to you. There’s enough room for decorum yet you can’t help feeling slightly flustered. Why this cute guy is still hanging around despite the fact you casually mentioned asexual reproduction not once, but twice, is a phenomenon that transcends human reason.

This is so going to be one of those interactions that haunts you periodically at three in the morning for the rest of your life.

“It’s a noble pursuit,” Chrollo comments. Then, he places a hand to his chin. “Forgive me if this comes off as pessimistic, but… what if you put in all that work, only for nothing significant to change?”

You shrug. “I’ve considered that plenty, trust me. It’s fine if I don’t kickstart a utopia. So long as I can say I helped one person, that’s good enough for me.”

“One person, huh?”

It seems more like a rhetorical musing on his part, so you allow yourself to be momentarily distracted. In your peripherals, there’s a flash of colors, shades of green and red bleeding together. A low buzz accompanies the sporadic sight. The blur moves erratically, high to low, then low to high.

You cover your mouth to stifle a gasp, then whisper to your companion, “Chrollo! Look! A hummingbird!”

The thrum of nature is a wonder you’ll never tire of. It inspires awe that reflects in your eyes like a mirror, enchants without needing to cast a spell. You wrongly assume that Chrollo must be partaking in the same miracle that has stolen your attention. He’s fixated, yes, but not on the right subject matter. He’s still staring at you. This disruption of your expectations can only be explained away by the possibility he hasn’t spotted the creature yet. To remedy this, you slowly point in the hummingbird’s direction. Finally, he breaks his gaze from your form, acknowledging what it is you find so fascinating.

By then, it’s too late. Your newly made acquaintance departs as swiftly as it arrived.

“Aw, that’s a shame,” you lament. The disappointment you’d feel if you were in his shoes would be immeasurable. “You didn’t get to see it for very long.”

You have no concrete proof, but you swear every smile he wears is different than the one before it.

“It’s alright. I saw something far better.”

Curious, you glance to your right, searching for whatever it is. You must’ve misinterpreted whatever he was looking at before. “Something better than a hummingbird?”

“You could say that.”

The remainder of the time you spend together is relatively uneventful. Chrollo asks you a great deal about yourself, ranging from your hobbies to book recommendations. You try to return the favor — as is only polite, in your opinion — yet the conversation never lingers on him long before circling back to you. It isn’t until you say you feel vain talking about yourself so much that he offers some morsels of knowledge. Aside from traveling for his occupation, he’s something of an antiquarian, hence his interest in the Starling House’s event. He also reveals he has colleagues coming into town soon, the aforementioned ‘friends’ you questioned the existence of. The way he teases is so devoid of malice, you can’t bring yourself to be upset.

The hour flies by. Good looks aside, he’s a remarkable conversationalist. There’s never an awkward silence or social misstep. One could even call him perfection incarnate. His steady cadence, command of language, meticulously formed ideas… they’re reminiscent of cogs in an automaton turning together in complete harmony. Paradoxically, this immaculate image speaks to some underlying defect in his character he mustn’t want anyone to see. There is such a thing as being too perfect.

For whatever reason, this draws you in closer rather than repelling you.

Chrollo’s disappointment is palpable when he glances at his watch. It’s then you’re reminded that all good things must come to an end.

“I—”

“It—”

You both start and stop talking at the same time. When it’s made obvious you intend to stay silent until he speaks his piece, he motions to you with his hands, insisting you go first.

“It was very nice meeting you, Chrollo,” you say, your voice softening. It’s amazing how you can feel your previously discarded sheepishness returning in real-time. Amazing and annoying. “I, uh, hope you enjoy the event.”

“Please, I should be the one thanking you,” he insists. Then, for such a well-spoken man, he goes uncharacteristically quiet. Deliberating on some issue you’ll never be privy to. “You’ve already helped me a lot, but could I possibly ask for one more thing?”

You give a nod.

“May I have your phone number?”

You stare at him.

He stares at you.

You continue staring at him.

He continues staring at you.

His request echoes through your head like it was spoken in a vast cavern. Phone number… phone number... you have one of those. He is asking for it. He wants to remain in touch. Indeed, that is what the statement normally means. Ah, it must be in a platonic sense! It’s nice to have someone to talk to, especially since you both share many interests. Not many of your friends are chomping at the bit to discuss if obtaining the philosopher’s stone was a literal practice or meant to be interpreted metaphorically.

Whoops, you left the poor guy waiting for a response.

“S-Sure!”

He hands you his phone without delay. You put in your contact info, then hold it up for him to take. His fingers brush over yours when he picks it back up and you shiver.

Well, that was certainly nice. You’re forming a blossoming friendship. You love making new friends. The word repeats in your head as if it were a broken record. Friends, friends, friends. Don’t look too into this. Put your magnifying glass down, brain. The stupid three pounds of gray matter delight in tormenting you with outrageous ideas and conclusions. There’s nothing flirtatious happening here.

“Also, I hope you don’t mind my saying so…” he trails off, weaving a web you willingly allow yourself to get trapped in, “But you are very beautiful, [First].”

…

Ohhhh, he’s been flirting with you this entire time, hasn’t he?

Going on a date is a harrowing experience.

For some unknown reason, your traitorous amygdala regards going to a café at noon with the same severity it would if a lion were actively chasing you down. Your flight or fight response raises the banners of war. The army it amasses digs its trenches, readies the cannons, its matches lit to fire off the artillery on standby. Who is the dreaded opponent, one may ask? No one. Absolutely no one. Incredibly enough, you can actively recognize this fact, and still, your physiological response claims it knows better.

Social anxiety is so stupid. You thought you and your body were supposed to be on the same team. Whatever inspired this mutiny, whether it be serotonin deficiency or some other science-y term you can’t pronounce, you most certainly don’t appreciate it.

To be fair, your parent’s reaction didn’t inspire much confidence. Your dad was asking for information on Chrollo you’re 90% sure could be used to conduct a background check, whereas your mom posited the idea he’s a human trafficker. You felt like a lawyer trying to plead your case for why it’s okay that an adult such as yourself may go on a date (sacrilegious, you know, premeditated murder would be more excusable). With some solid arguments and a few instances of stretching the truth (this sounds far nicer than the word lying), the tempest was dissipated. If Chrollo ever were to meet your parents, you’ll have to tell him he’s actually a sensitive, poetic soul that donates to orphanages and saves kittens from burning down buildings. He’s also celibate. More important than any of those things, though, he’s a political centrist.

Suddenly everything in your closet either felt prudish enough to befit a woman entering the convent, or raunchy enough you’d need to wear a trench coat to leave the house unobstructed. In the end, you find a skirt that’d pass your middle school fingertip test and a cute blouse that shouldn’t land you in purgatory.

Your hands are shaking when you go to do the winged eyeliner on your left eye. Then you sneeze while applying mascara, granting a raccoon appearance you could’ve done without. You feel wound up so tight there a mere poke could shatter you into millions of pieces. This is great. Millions of years of evolution led up to this. That selfish, inconsiderate fish should’ve never grown legs and stepped on land. Everything’s gone wrong since then. Fuck that fish.

Ultimately, you succumb and take one of your ‘stage fright’ medications. If it’s doing anything to help, you can’t tell yet.

You have to beg your dad to stop staring out the window with a pair of binoculars.

Eventually, a sleek black car pulls in front of your house.

Following the theme of the day, you almost trip over yourself walking out the front door. Your phone buzzes — no doubt it’s Chrollo telling you he’s here — but you decide to just go to the car rather than text him back. He must’ve spotted you, for he exits and gives you a wave. You’re grateful he did that while a considerable distance away. There was a time a guy waved at you and you thought he wanted a high five. Needless to say, that was a traumatic incident no amount of therapy could help alleviate.

“You look absolutely lovely,” he compliments. Your Broca’s area temporarily malfunctions at this bold declaration. Fortunately, you gather yourself fast enough to stop yourself from saying “you too”.

“Thank you,” the phrase comes out as smooth as butter. You silently congratulate yourself for your immaculate delivery of two words. “Wow… you have such a nice car. And here I thought you were a fellow member of the middle class. Am I allowed to touch this?”

Chrollo chuckles, having gotten used to the peculiar way you word things after all your electronic communication. No matter how you expressed yourself, he still texted you back, so you figured he must be okay with whatever it is you’re doing. He would’ve blocked you by now otherwise.

His reply comes as he holds the passenger side door open. “Ah, don’t worry. There was a bit of a mixup at the car rental place. I wasn’t expecting something of this quality either.”

You tuck this piece of knowledge away for later, should any sugar daddy-esque allegations be thrown your way. One can never be too prepared.

Sinking into the leather seat is a luxurious experience, although it's cold against the exposed area of your thighs. Chrollo slides into the driver’s seat not long after and sets the car into drive. You silently wonder if your neighbors think you’ve gotten into an Uber.

The short trip to the café soothes your electrically fried nerves. You’re once again reminded of how good he is at making you forget your anxiety, he could put SSRIs out of business. Or maybe the propranolol is finally working. Whichever it may be, by the time you both order your drinks, you feel more giddy than nervous. Is it a good idea to drink a caffeinated beverage when anxiety threatens to drag you into limbo at any second? Probably not. Does that mean you’re going to wisely choose a different beverage? Nope.

The sunlight is harsher in the afternoon, but you find this is offset by an occasional breeze. No one else is present in the outdoor dining area except for you and Chrollo. You choose the seat facing a row of bushes so you can observe the house finches and house sparrows fluttering about. One little fella is helping itself to a dirt bath in the freshly spread-out mulch. You coo at the adorable display, pointing it out to Chrollo who admits it is a precious sight. You’ve made it your raison d'être to convince him that every bird is equally fascinating, whether it be a rainbow lorikeet or a common pigeon.

He takes the first sip of the drink you recommended.

“Well? What do you think?”

“It’s good,” he decides with a smile. “I can see why you get it so often.”

“Right? I’ve thought about conducting an Ocean’s Eleven type heist to get the ingredients they use to make it.”

“Oh? Do you grant a moral exception to thievery?”

Despite how lightheartedly he phrases this, his eyes have a certain intensity to them. You mull over the question for this reason.

“Hm… it depends, I guess? Some people need to steal to survive. I probably wouldn’t care if a rich person or mega-corporation got stolen from either,” you say. He quirks an eyebrow at your last statement and you hastily add, “A-As long as no one gets hurt, of course.”

He doesn’t bother trying to hide his amusement. “Your reasoning is very cute.”

You groan and shrink back into the garden chair. “I know, I know, that probably came off as terribly naive and self-contradictory… the issue is complex. Giving a one-size-fits-all type of consensus feels impossible. How about you? What do you think?”

“Coveting is mankind’s original sin,” Chrollo begins. He’s using a tone that tells you to prepare for an in-depth explanation. “It’s a theme that’s recurrent throughout history. David and Bathsheba, Hades and Persephone, Heathcliff and Catherine… we always want what we cannot have. This dilemma never leaves us entirely. We either ignore it, despair in it, or succumb to it. The desire to steal is as involuntary as the diaphragm contracting for us to breathe or the electric signals that cause our heart to beat.”

A house finch begins its soulful serenade in the background.

“Wouldn’t you say that calling it involuntary implies we can’t control it, though?” You query.

“The only way to exercise total control over it is to kill it.”

“Some parts of us are better off dead,” you decide. “Getting what you want doesn’t guarantee satisfaction. The examples you listed… maybe they were happy for a time, but ultimately, their transgressions caught up to them.”

“Is a moment of bliss not worth a lifetime of anguish?”

“Maybe, if I was a sensualist.”

He rests his chin on his fist, the skin beneath his eyes crinkling with mirth. “Is that what you’re saying I am, darling?”

Your eyes widen and you almost choke on your drink at the unexpected pet name. Warmth floods your cheeks and you take a long second to recompose yourself. Your blatant display of embarrassment further fuels his amusement, he actually chuckles. You consider kicking him under the table, but decide that isn’t very ladylike. Then you remember it's the twenty-first century, and to honor your feminist ancestors, you scrunch up a napkin into a ball and fling it at him. Although the aerodynamics of your makeshift projectile are questionable, it almost hits him. Until he catches it with admittedly impressive reflexes.

“You have a good throwing arm.”

“And you should consider retiring from your white-collar job to join a baseball team,” you take a sip of your delicious drink. This is definitely the most memorable date you’ve been on. “But no, I don’t think you’re a sensualist. I honestly don’t know how I’d classify you. You’re jaded… almost misanthropic. You acknowledge the world for what it is, but it’s like you once thought it could be better. You don’t care to be proven right or wrong about it anymore, you want something else.”

“Ah… when put that way, I must seem pathetic,” he muses, his casual air hardly matching the severity of the words spoken.

“Not at all!” Your passionate outcry appears to momentarily take him aback. “If you’re still looking for something, that means deep down, you have hope you might eventually find it. To me, that’s admirable.”

He regards you for a few moments, before closing his eyes, his countenance strangely content. “You’re a very interesting woman, [First].”

“Pfft, not really.”

“I’m afraid this a point I’ll have to insist on,” or so he says, but you both know he secretly relishes his contrarian ways. “I have to wonder, though. How is it you came to gather any of this about me?”

“Your opinion on books.”

He blinks. “Pardon?”

“We interpret media through a lens that’s formed by our experiences, so… I dunno. You can just infer a lot from what a person gets caught up with in a story.”

In Chrollo’s case, what he doesn’t pay attention to is equally telling, although it took you a while to notice his unique display of apathy. He’d brush on certain themes while giving a rather surface-level commentary. Playing it safe, almost. He still had such an excellent way of weaving his words, that telling it came from another person's loom was difficult. It wasn’t until you hit on a subject he truly cared for that you could tell the difference. He’d give insights so particular to him that they must contain the true essence of his character.

Even if it is a mere glimmer.

He speaks your name.

“Hm?”

“About what I’m searching for…” he unwraps the napkin you unceremoniously threw his way earlier, smooths out the wrinkles, then returns it. “I think I may have found it.”

Everything has a way of escalating faster than you anticipated.

You’re about thirty minutes into the movie Perfect Blue. For some time now, you’ve been praising its merits to Chrollo, who recently said you should watch it together. This begged the question of where. In the months since you’ve begun dating, while your parents have taken a liking to him, you didn’t think the subject matter of the movie should be proudly displayed in your living room.

To remedy this, Chrollo suggested watching it in his hotel room.

You couldn’t fully explain your initial apprehension if you tried. You felt comfortable around him and have been alone together plenty. Yet for some reason, being alone with a man in a hotel room produced this mental image you weren’t sure you were ready for. He never pushed you or asked why you seemed hesitant to take things further than kissing and some light petting. His lack of questioning had the unintended side effect of birthing different doubts.

Does he not want anything else? Is he only acting like it doesn’t bother him? Will a day come when he tires of your squeamishness and simply moves on?

It’s this taunting mantra that haunted you in the lobby, the elevator, then the long, impersonal hallway to his room.

Your chest feels heavy enough that you wonder if lead has filled your lungs.

When he sat next to you on the couch, you barely registered his presence, much less his question if the temperature in the room felt agreeable. At some point, his arm wrapped around your shoulders. Then his hand began to meander, although his attention never left the screen. He played with your hair. Gently stroked your forearm. His hand wandered down, down, down, to the hem of your skirt. He straightens the lightly bunched fabric out. Your heart pounds.

Chrollo’s fingers stay there, seemingly placated.

During the scene where Mima sees her reflection as her idol persona, his hand creeps onto the exposed skin of your thighs. He gives it a gentle, tentative squeeze. A soft gasp leaves you and your attention turns to him. Immediately, your eyes meet his in the dark. The side of his face is lightly illuminated by an array of cool tones. He uses his free hand to cup your chin, the pad of his thumb rubbing your lower lip.

“Can I kiss you?”

He speaks the question with such rapture, low and quiet.

Your heart violently hits your ribcage like it’s trying to burst free.

Silently, you nod. He tilts his head to the side and slots his lips against yours. There’s a pleasant buzz that tries so hard to overpower the frantic adrenaline pumping through your veins. Your body is at war with itself; indulgence or indignance. It’s a conflict that’ll never have a winner. You want to enjoy it — and you are, you think — so why does your biological makeup hold you as a prisoner without ransom? He tastes nice, feels nice. He did everything right. You don’t want to tremble at what’s a normal aspect of a relationship as if it were death itself hanging over your head.

It’s this mounting frustration at your condition that spurs you into action.

While maintaining the languid kiss, you situate yourself on his lap, a gesture that causes him to inhale sharply. He may be as surprised at your boldness as you are. You snake your arms around his neck and intensify the kiss. Humming, he reciprocates your ardor. His tongue runs along the seam of your lips and you grant him entry. He tastes of dark chocolate and mint, a combination you wish you could get drunk on, if only to put your tense body at ease.

One hand squeezes and massages your thigh, the other cups your feverish face. In this position, you’re afforded no modesty. You can feel your skirt hiking up, exposing more of you. His fingers explore the new territory. They venture dangerously close to your panties, though he doesn’t go beyond there, as if respecting an invisible barrier. The cocktail of emotions this invokes is impossible to properly sort through.

Can he feel the heat emanating from your body? Your pulse which finds new highs every minute? You want to lose yourself, but you can’t, your anxiety always drags you back kicking and screaming. It is an unforgiving warden that thinks you’d be better off in a cell.

Chrollo admires you when you pull back, in desperate need of air. You’re starting to feel dizzy and you don’t know if it’s the right kind. There’s something hard forming beneath where you sit. His lust for you is apparent, and you want to please, want to be normal. It should be fun. Your friends regale you with stories of taking strangers home and never feeling more than butterflies in their stomach. That’s what you want. Not this contortion of the aforementioned organ that makes you think your insides are slowly liquifying.

You still haven’t fully caught your breath, each one growing more shallow, more panicked. He finds other ways to entertain himself, namely, by lavishing your clammy skin with kisses. Your jawline, neck, then collarbone. He’s so calm you think you might be envious. Finally, he works his way back up, teasing your earlobe with his teeth, his breath warm as it fans against you.

Thump, thump, thump.

“[First],” his voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater. Garbled, distant. “Should we take this to the bedroom?”

You break into too many shards to fix.

You get up. Straighten your skirt. You think you mutter something about needing a moment. Your legs don’t feel right. They move anyway. The bathroom’s door knob is like ice. You grab a hand towel. Turn on the faucet. Soak the towel until it drips water down the sink basin. Sit on the floor. The tiles are almost as cold enough to help. You place the towel around your neck. Your ears are ringing and you wish they’d stop. You hug your legs to your chest. What is it you’re supposed to do? Breathe?

It’ll pass, it’ll pass, it’ll pass.

It always does.

Just hold on a bit longer.

Feeling comes back in your hands first. It spreads throughout your body, though the antidote is far too late. Exhaustion is the next thing you register. The kind that seeps into your cells, makes your limbs feel like dead weight. Cognition returns as well. You remember where you are, who you’re with, what you’ve done.

It’s been a while since you’ve experienced one of these. Somehow, it’s worse than you remember. Infinitely worse.

A shiver runs down your spine. Has it always been so cold? You wonder what temperature your body was running at for you not to have noticed sooner.

How nice it is that your homeostasis decided to return. Is your sympathetic nervous system giving itself a pat on the back? Celebrating and popping champagne bottles at yet another job well done? We’ve done it successfully again, folks, you imagine it cheering. We’ve stopped her from doing something completely normal and harmless!

You’d laugh, but this time, you can’t bring yourself to.

As tempting as it is to stay here and pray for the tile floor to swallow you whole, you sincerely doubt that’ll happen, so you’re left with the far less appealing option of being an adult and facing the predicament you’re in. Getting back up, you’re treated to a glimpse of your reflection.

The change in your complexion would make any onlooker think you’ve seen a ghost.

Abruptly, you’re fourteen again, trying to get your mom’s attention so you can beg her to take you home because the social gathering of ten or so people is just too much. Next, you’re fifteen, talked into some weekend youth getaway because saying ‘no’ makes you feel guilty and the car ride has another two hours remaining. You feel sick, terribly sick, but you don’t want to get sick, because then your peers would think you’re strange, so you sit there and endure. Then you’re sixteen, locked in the stall of your high school bathroom, trying not to pass out because you think it’d be an inconvenience to anyone that happened upon you.

You thought you were over this. You’ve done the therapy, read the self-help books, and taken your medication every day like clockwork.

What’s left for you to do?

Why does it always come back?

Chrollo asks if everything’s alright when you walk back over to the couch. You say yes. He then asks if he can get you anything. A glass of water, please, is your reply.

You can tell he’s examining you when he hands the glass over. Your face warms — not in a fun way. The television screen is dark and yet you’re fixated on it like it’s the most intriguing thing in the world. Going from feeling as if you’re a stranger in your own body to being hyper-aware of everything never fails to give you whiplash. You can hear the low thrum of the air conditioning, footsteps coming from the hallway, the steady drip of the sink he filled your glass from. You think to rub your eyes then stop yourself; that’d smudge your mascara. It’d be nice if he could at least think you’re pretty as you struggle to hold yourself together.

“Was it something I did?” Chrollo questions. He almost sounds… curious, a concept you furiously scrub from your head. You’re exhausted and your brain is waving the white flag. Attributing false interpretations to his words is not going to help.

“N-No, not at all, I, um,” you have the words, you just don’t want to say them, so you opt for taking another drink instead. The glass runs out of water, your safe haven disappearing with it. “Just… a panic attack. It happens… sometimes.”

“Entirely unprompted?”

You gnaw on your lower lip. “Kind of…? It— nothing about it is exactly logical. I can know I’m fine, believe it too, and still, that doesn’t matter. It’ll happen anyway. I guess I have some reservations about that level of physical intimacy, but what my body decides to do is completely overkill.”

“You always minimize the role your anxiety plays in your life,” Chrollo points out. You’re grasping the glass tight enough that your knuckles hurt. “You can’t mention it to me without making light of it in some way. Is there a reason for that?”

Well, he’s got you there.

You’re about to joke and ask if he’s the one studying the behavioral sciences, when you realize that’d just be proving his point.

So uncharacteristic acrimony bubbles to the surface instead.

“A reason? I can give you more than one. It’s stupid, it’s annoying. The most simple things become like a fucking life or death experience for me and I can’t stand it,” you feel tears gather at your lower lashline but you’re too far gone to care. It’s a good thing your mascara is waterproof. “And then I… I think sex sounds nice, but when it actually gets to the moment, I feel so guilty and anxious and wrong that I leave my partner frustrated or thinking they’re some sort of monster.”

Usually, Chrollo's countenance is difficult to read, but there’s this raw emotion that makes itself known. Understanding? Relief? You don’t know for certain. It disappears without a trace, leaving you no way to confirm or deny your intuition. It’s probably too fried to be reliable, anyway.

“Hm… you must think all this would put me off, then. Make me want to move on to someone else.”

A knife stabbing you in the gut and twisting its blade until your viscera turned to mush would hurt less.

“Sweetheart, I was already aware that it was worse than what you let on,” his voice sounds so kind and near, you marvel at it, the gravitational pull drawing you in. You barely realize he’s brought you into an embrace. Your cheek is against his chest, right above his heart. His has a calm, steady rhythm, whereas yours is picking back up once more. “Your avoidance of talking on the phone, how soft your voice gets when interacting with strangers, the way you act like you’re an inconvenience by asking for the slightest assistance.”

The tears you tried holding in break free, soaking into the fabric of his shirt.

“I find these qualities of yours very endearing. You can go from passionately speaking about your interests over dinner to going shy the second the waiter walks over. You care so much, feel so much… it’s a wonder to me. You experience this life in the exact opposite manner I do.”

With the hand he isn’t using to keep you secure against him, he rubs your back up and down.

“Ah, my poor, sweet girl. What a tender heart you have,” he whispers. His grip on you tightens. That’s when you hear it — the undeniable sound of his heart beating a bit faster than it did before. “I wouldn’t give it up for anything. Not after all the effort I put into stealing it for myself. No, I’m almost hurt you entertained the thought. Have I ever treated you with anything less than the utmost care? Hm?”

Chrollo starts to pull you away from him, yet you refuse, clinging adamantly to his torso in an attempt to hide your face. He ignores the way you shake your head and by exerting the slightest force, achieves his original goal. His fingers find purchase on your chin, which he tilts upward, allowing himself an unobscured view of your puffy eyes and runny makeup. He smiles, wiping away your tears with such gentleness, he must think you’re made of porcelain.

Sniffling, you remember he asked you a question, and attempt cobbling together a coherent response. Such is the polite thing to do. “I guess not.”

“And why do you think that is?”

“... The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to conduct an in-depth case study for your future dissertation on GAD and SAD?”

His visage lands somewhere between mild bemusement and exacerbation. “I know you’re smarter than that. Try again.”

“My winning personality, once you wade through all the mental illness?”

“That certainly plays a role.”

“I know I’m cute, too. I suppose that helps. Otherwise, I’d be completely and utterly fucked.”

“Yes, yes — you are terribly cute.”

Sensing your hesitancy to land on a definitive answer, he decides to spell it out himself. “I’m fond of you, to a degree I previously thought myself incapable of. I have a… callous disposition, for lack of a better word. Yet for whatever reason, this doesn’t seem to bother you. I’ve never cared for subjective terms like ‘good’ or ‘evil’, but… if there is goodness in this world, it’d be found in you.”

Chrollo’s knuckles brush against your cheekbone as he speaks, seemingly bewitched by the glittering stream your tears left behind. Tangible proof of your emotions that tumult like a tempest, whereas his often remains an unmoving body of water.

You take his cheeks in your hands and glare at him. This time, when your lower lip trembles, it’s with righteous anger, not sorrow. “Why do you always talk about yourself like you’re the world’s biggest villain?”

His eyes slightly widen — you’ve never used a tone like this with him before, or anyone else, for that matter — though his composure doesn’t wane for long.

“So what if you don’t think everything is sunshine and rainbows? You aren’t heartless; you just know the dangers of putting your heart on display for everyone else to see. I can’t blame you for that, from what you’ve told me.”

He’s never been particularly forthcoming about sharing details from his past. What you do know is that he grew up in extreme poverty, without parents or a guardian, scraping by with some other children in a similar situation. You never pushed to learn more. There was this quiet melancholy that possessed him in the rare moments he shared glimpses of his childhood. The specters that haunted him could almost be felt lingering in the atmosphere, turning the air heavy and thick.

“You lost a precious friend in such a cruel way. That loss of innocence, it’s unforgivable, it’s completely unfair…!”

This time, your tears aren’t for you, they’re for a little boy you’ll never know and a girl that you couldn’t if you tried. “I don’t get why you’re so harsh on yourself. You act like you’ve done something unforgivable.”

He parts and closes his lips. Whatever he intended to say, he must’ve decided against it. Instead, he pulls you back against him, almost greedily. He presses kisses atop your head then murmurs a few words you can’t quite catch. Your body is deprived of energy, having flickered through almost every major emotion a human being can experience. If your parents wouldn’t have fussed over the act, you could’ve fallen asleep on him for the night.

The person who inadvertently caused your blistering anxiety is also the best balm for it.

It’s unexplainable, teetering on the edge of delusion, this sentiment that he could shield you from all harm. He’s always so sure of himself when you remain plagued by indecisiveness. He can talk you out of any irrational thought, anchor you when a stressful situation is beginning to be too much, and understand you almost eerily well. He’s able to piece together your chaotic thought processes with next to no context. He listens to you, remembers everything you say (and you mean everything), and genuinely values your input, even if he disagrees with your opinions.

This level of an intimate connection is unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.

“No one’s ever cried for my sake before,” he thinks aloud. He’s stroking your back again, almost mindlessly. You swear there’s something magical about his touch.

“Do you think I’m weird?”

“There are a lot of words I’d use to describe you,” he decides. As always, he’s clever at avoiding questions he doesn’t wish to answer. “Currently, the one that stands out to me the most would be…”

You feel his lips curl into a smile against you.

“Warm.”

The arboretum is far different in autumn. Green leaves have transitioned into rich auburn and golden shades, hesitant buds nowhere to be seen. The grass beneath your feet is crunchier, the foliage dry and scattered, almost as if it were trying to form a protective sheath for the earth. No longer can you hear the melody of grasshoppers and buzzing from busy bees. The wind whistles when it blows, the underlying frostiness biting at your cheeks and ears.

“Ah, would you look at that, it’s a junco,” Chrollo points out. You cover your mouth to muffle a gasp. Thanks in part to your guidance, he’s gotten better at identifying different types of birds. While you’d like to think it’s because he appreciates them too, you’re convinced he finds your excited reaction far more interesting.

The little blob of black and white hops to and fro, using its feet to rummage for anything edible. You silently lament your lack of birdseed. You’ll have to settle for cheering the tiny friend on from afar.

Hand in hand, you both traverse the area of your original meeting. Sweet nostalgia swirls in your chest. You’ve always found it befuddling how a single chance encounter can permanently change the trajectory of your life. In the moment, you have no idea how your actions will go on to form ripples that influence the future. Whether this is chaos theory or some other fancy metaphysical-sounding concept, you haven’t the slightest clue.

What you do know is that meeting Chrollo was a catalyst for something greater.

A wave of chills cascades over you.

“Are you cold?” He inquires, his tone having this ‘I told you so’ quality to it that you don’t appreciate. You’re wearing a light beige, plaid fitted blazer, that while chic, doesn’t have much insulation. You waved off his initial concern by saying you’ll warm up once you both get to walking around. So much for that.

“Cold is a mindset,” the chattering of your teeth doesn’t do much to help your cause. He raises an eyebrow. “Mind over matter… mind over matter…”

Chrollo shrugs his coat off and drapes it over you. “I wouldn’t want you to get sick, dear.”

“You sound like my grandma.”

“The one who tried taking my head wrappings off, or the one who kicked me?”

“A combination of the two that coalesces their tendency to fuss over me.”

“You’re very easy to fuss over,” Chrollo chuckles at the face you make at him. “You’re absolutely precious. It’s a mystery to me how you make the smallest acts endearing.”

At this, you strike a dumb pose, winking at him all the while. “Aha, it’s no mystery. You have my irresistible charm to thank for that.”

He sighs wistfully. “Indeed I do.”

Although the sage gardens behind the Starling House are no longer in bloom, you decide to swing by anyway. The plans for the remainder of your day follow a similarly simple yet pleasant precedent. You’re going to go window shopping in a quaint commercial district, grab something to eat at a pub, then end the night off with a movie. Chrollo’s trying to convince you to watch some indie flick that’s in black and white and uses a 1.19:1 ratio. You want to watch Alien, a classic he’s never seen like the weirdo he is.

The walk isn’t long or monotonous. It’s so idyllic that you could believe you’re the only two people in the world.

However, that isn’t the case. Upon entering the garden, you’re quick to note the presence of another.

A young woman is kneeling down, murmuring under her breath. She’s acting as if she’s lost something and can’t find it. Frowning, you detach yourself from Chrollo, approaching her with the intent to offer your assistance. She doesn’t lift her head upon hearing the obvious sounds of your footfall. She just continues blindly grasping at the ground.

“Miss?” You ask, to which her entire body freezes. “Did you drop something? I could help you look for it.”

She mutters another incomprehensible jumble of words.

“Hm? What was that?”

You lean over in an attempt to hear her better.

Then, much to your confusion, she enunciates your full-given name. Even while doing this, she doesn’t spare you a single glance.

“Have to… have to…” she’s back to being difficult to make sense of, “I have to…”

A strange sensation possesses you.

Have you met this woman somewhere before? You do a quick mental scan of her disheveled appearance and come up with nothing definitive. Her hair is matted, her complexion sallow and her cheeks sunken in. Her disoriented state stirs concern within you. It’s a good sign that she’s still conscious and exhibiting motor functions, but the longer you examine her, the more you can tell she isn’t in a proper state of mind. You don’t want to leave her out here alone in such a vulnerable state. You try to push aside the uncanny feeling that came from her apparently recognizing you when you’re certain you’ve never met.

Chrollo speaks your name. Turning around, you face him just in time to catch a surreal expression forming on his countenance. His eyes widen slightly, his lips part, then he’s reaching out for you.

The passage of time grinds temporarily to a halt.

And then there is a visceral burst of energy.

It’s as if a blizzard manifests from the direction the woman is hunched over in. There’s this thick, harrowing tension that causes your legs to buckle at the knees. Swirls of negative emotions wrap around you in shadowy tendrils. Grief. Hysteria. Rage. Bitterness. Most notable, however, is the sickening yearning to inflict harm. How can a human being produce and project such raw feelings? It’s like hatred itself has been given a palpable form, submerging you in a swamp of mire.

You don’t understand what’s happening to you, but you do have this primal foreboding that the longer you’re exposed to it, the more endangered you’ll be.

In the millisecond it takes for you to blink, Chrollo is no longer in your line of sight.

It’s strange, you think. There are no knives, guns, explosives; or anything that could hurt you in the traditional sense. In a way you could understand and reliably assess the threat level of.

And still, despite this uncertainty, you have this unshakable premonition that death isn’t far away.

You wake up in a bed that is not your own.

Your body is drenched in sweat, your muscles sore, and your head feels as if it’s being clamped in a vice-like grip. Trying to get up proves to be a poor decision. Nausea and dizziness force you to lie back down. You take shallow, frantic breaths, wincing at yet another wave of throbbing coming from your temples. Your senses aren’t reliable either. The first few times you open your eyes, dark spots dot your vision. Then there’s your hearing, or lack of. There’s this distant ringing that while slowly fading, isn’t replaced by anything better. Your hearing grows so muffled you almost think earplugs have been jammed in your ear canal.

Groaning, you manage to lift yourself off the mattress with trembling arms. The dark spots fade away enough for you to make out your surroundings.

You’re in Chrollo’s hotel room, lying on his bed.

It’s nighttime. The digital clock sitting on the bedside table reads 3:40 a.m.

The next thing you do is feel around for your phone. It should be in the back pocket of your jeans, but it isn’t there.

The brisk air takes your breath away when you tug the comforter off. Your body groans with protest at all the movement, yet you ignore its request to lay back down, the situation at hand far too perplexing. Your outfit is the same as the one you put on this morning, aside from your boots, which sit together near the wall. You then assess your body for any physical injuries, finding nothing visible to explain your current malaise. Are you hungover? Frowning, you dismiss the idea. You know your tolerance well and never try pushing it.

Taking small steps and using the wall as leverage, you make your way over to the adjoined bathroom. You fill a dental cup with water and down it instantly. After satiating your thirst, you call out for Chrollo, your voice gravelly with sleep.

No response.

Sighing, you slink over to the closed bedroom door. Your equilibrium steadies itself enough that you only need to grab onto something every few steps. The handle doesn’t budge. You try again, exerting more force — still nothing. The subsequent attempts end in the same manner. There’s no denying it, it’s been locked. That begs the question of why. Safety, maybe? It’s possible Chrollo stepped out for whatever reason and wanted to ensure no one could get to you. Then again, that’s what the deadbolt on the door leading to the hotel hallway is for.

You don’t want to start rattling the door and making a scene when you’re certain there’s a solid explanation for this. He has to come back eventually, his stuff is still here. Although, you can’t help noticing how sparse his personal belongings are. The book he was reading no longer sits on the bedside table, the framed picture of the two of you gifted by your parents isn’t on the wardrobe either. Next, you check the closet, finding it in a similarly desolate state. You once pillaged a shirt of his when you grew tired of wearing a dress, so you know its usual presentation. The hangers remain on the rack yet everything else is gone.

Chrollo told you his job had placed him in this city indefinitely. Is he planning to move to another hotel?

Not knowing what else to do, you sit on the edge of the bed. The former pounding in your head has soothed into a far less egregious dull ache. You must’ve been asleep for a decent chunk of time, this initial grogginess is what you experience upon first waking up in the morning. You hope you weren’t unconscious for too long. It's an unsettling thought, being in that vulnerable state, totally shut off from the world.

A few minutes of absentmindedly admiring the twinkling lights that make up the city skyline’s pass.

Then you hear the door handle jingle.

Chrollo silently examines you. It’s almost as if he’s gauging your entire being, anticipating what is to come. His mouth is set in a straight line and he’s standing unnervingly still. There’s this intensity to him that has you breaking off eye contact. Your mouth goes dry and you temporarily forget how to form words. You had so many burning questions in his absence, why is it that they've been wiped clean from your head now that he’s here?

When you find the courage to look up at him again, there’s not a vestige of his former expression. The grave lines have smoothened out and you no longer believe you’re face to face with a stranger.

“How are you feeling?” He’s quick to close the distance. The mattress dips, adjusting to his presence by your side.

“Oh, uh, not the best, but… I don’t think it’s anything serious,” you say. Silvery moonlight shines into the room, illuminating him in an otherworldly veil. Goosebumps line your skin when he takes the side of your face into his hand. He’s cold. “I’m mostly just confused. Is— is everything okay? Why am I here?”

“How much do you remember?”

Remember, remember… that’s right, you hadn’t given that much thought. You pick through your hazy memories aloud. “Well, we were at the arboretum, just walking around. I remember heading to the gardens behind the Starling House. Then… um…”

You squint and furrow your eyebrows together. It’s as if your recollection was a film reel that had been trimmed after that point. You try piecing together a mental image of the garden. Hummingbirds? Sage? No, that isn’t right, you’re thinking of its spring appearance. The colors would be more muted, there’d be less shrubbery. The image grows sharper.

Then there’s a shadow.

Vaguely human-shaped, situated right in the middle of the mosaic you’re trying to form. Their outline isn’t solid, it’s splotchy, like water paint left to run on a canvas.

Finally, something clicks.

“That woman!” You exclaim. The corner of his lips twitch downward. “That’s right! Is she okay? She seemed so out of it.”

“I’m not sure.”

“How is that possible? You were—”

“Let’s focus on you for now,” he cuts you off. There’s a finality in his voice you can’t bring yourself to challenge. “Can you tell me what symptoms you’re experiencing?”

“Um, some disorientation and a headache.”

“I see. I’ll get you some painkillers, then.”

You grab his wrist to stop him when he starts getting up. “I’d really prefer you told me what happened first.”

When he doesn’t immediately acquiesce to your request, you quietly add, “Please.”

His eyes soften at your gentle, uncertain timbre. He intertwines his fingers with yours and gives your hand an encouraging squeeze.

“Earlier, when we arrived at the garden, you grew lightheaded and fainted.”

You take a moment to process the information. It seems plausible enough, yet the more you mull over it, the more little details start to catch your attention.

“Okay…” you trail off, pursing your lips. A vengeful throb from your head causes you to wince. He notices — frowns — then places a featherlight kiss against your forehead. The thoughtful gesture doesn’t invoke any pleasant warm fuzzy sensations. “So I fell unconscious for over ten hours and you didn’t… call an ambulance…?”

“That is correct.”

You shuffle in your seat, momentarily taken aback at how easygoing he’s acting about the entire ordeal. “Why?”

“I’ve been monitoring your vitals,” he reassures. Sensing your growing apprehension, he adds, “I can promise that you were never in serious danger. I would’ve acted accordingly if you were.”

The phrase ‘acted accordingly’ doesn’t tell you much either. What does he mean by that? Is there some threshold you needed to enter for him to have taken you to the hospital? Your various volunteer experiences with the city’s vulnerable communities taught you that if a person is unresponsive for over a minute, an ambulance should be called, just to be on the safe side. Besides, isn’t that just common sense? Chrollo is an intelligent man. You can’t fathom any line of reasoning that’d justify not erring on the side of caution.

You glance at the clock again. 4:03 a.m. glows in the dim light of the room. It’s late. You wonder what your parents—

Holy shit.

“Do my mom and dad know?” You glance around as if expecting to find them. There’s no way they wouldn’t have insisted on calling emergency services if you were unconscious for that long.

“I didn’t inform them, no.”

“What?” You make no attempts to tone down your incredulity. “Then— they must be out of their minds with worry! My phone, where’s my phone? I need to tell them I’m okay!”

You shoot up off the bed too fast and your body doesn’t take kindly to the rushed movement. Debilitating lightheadedness causes you to lose your balance. Chrollo steadies your swaying form and helps sit you back down. You scoot away from him as far as you can, your thoughts an absolute mess. Nothing here is making sense. It’s not even a puzzle that’s missing a few pieces, there’s almost nothing to work with at all.

He’s staring at you in that strange, anticipatory manner again. It makes your stomach churn.

“My phone, Chrollo,” you hold your hand out. “There’s no way you don’t have it.”

“I’m afraid I can’t give it to you,” he sounds apologetic too, which makes your subsequent temper flare up even worse.

“What is wrong with you?” You hiss, exasperation winning out. You were trying to be reasonable, but that is over and done with. “You’re acting like— like there’s nothing weird happening! Can you please take this seriously? You’re really starting to freak me out.”

“There’s nothing wrong with me. I knew this wouldn’t be easy for you, so I wanted to remain calm for your sake.”

Your tongue couldn’t properly form words if your life depended on it. Sure, remaining calm in a crisis is helpful, but he isn’t acting like this is a crisis. He’s treating it as if he was burdened with sitting you down to relay bad news that no one else had the heart to share.

You’re starting to think you don’t know the person you’re talking to.

“For my sake,” you repeat in a wry deadpan. “If that’s true, then tell me what’s actually going on, Chrollo. Because I know you’re bullshitting me.”

Not calling the ambulance or informing your parents, withholding your phone… then there’s the matter of how he got you here in the first place. Did he carry you through the lobby? No good samaritans thought it was unusual to see a man carrying an unconscious woman up to his room? Hotel staff these days are trained to have a vigilant eye for these situations too. Not one person thought it might be a good idea to ring up law enforcement over such a blatantly suspicious act?

Nothing is adding up.

“I’m being more forthcoming than you think,” Chrollo says, as if he’s doing you a favor. He tries reaching out for your hand again, only this time, you don’t allow him. “Everything I’ve said and intend to say is the truth, even if you don’t particularly like it.”

That’s a hell of a creative way of putting it!

“Who was that woman earlier? What did she do to me?”

“I have someone ironing out the details, but from what I’ve gathered, she was sent with the intention of killing you. I don’t believe she was aware of the fact herself until you entered her vicinity, triggering the necessary condition for the true culprit’s ability to activate. Otherwise, I certainly wouldn’t have allowed you to get so close.”

Someone was sent to kill you? You? A run-of-the-mill college student who has no enemies to speak of? It’s not like you’re a part of the fucking mob. That can’t be right, not to mention the bizarre jargon he’s using. There’d be no plausible motive. If he says she was sent, and you choose to believe he isn’t making this all up, that implies it was premeditated. Not a spur-of-the-moment decision. That’d almost make more sense.

That is, unless…

You stare at him, eyebrows knitting together.

“If you’re telling the truth — and right now, that’s a big fucking if — does this have something to do with you?”

“That’s my clever girl,” he praises, entirely devoid of condescension. The pure fondness in his voice makes you sick. It’s almost as if he’s delighting in watching you piece this nightmare together. “Yes, you haven’t deliberately done anything to earn the wrath of the wrong people. They simply know getting to me is near impossible, hence their decision to go for the next best thing instead. That’d be you, dear.”

“Oh my god,” you bury your head in your hands. “Why… why am I not freaking out more? I should be hysterical, or, or— I don’t know…”

“Beta blockers,” he reveals. You look at him like he’s speaking another language. “In anticipation of how… touchy this conversation was going to be, I thought it might be best for you to be in a good headspace while receiving this information for the first time.”

“You drugged me?”

“If that’s how you want to look at it.”

“Because that’s how it is!”

A lump forms in your throat and lodges itself there. Are you stuck in a hellacious dream? Or hallucinating, perhaps? Visual hallucinations aren’t supposed to be this cohesive or clear. There has to be another explanation. Something you’re missing that’d make this all go away. The beta blocker admission certainly holds weight. Your heart rate, while slightly elevated, isn’t anywhere near as chaotic as it should be. It’d explain the general malaise, fatigue, and lightheadedness too. That, and you doubt you’d be able to think this clearly if there wasn’t something heavy pumping through your system.

Your eyes hesitantly settle on Chrollo, who sits there perfectly still and almost relaxed. He’s observing you like a hawk.

“Listen,” you try using a mellower voice. He raises an eyebrow at your drastically different approach. “You had ample opportunity to hurt me and you didn’t. That must mean you have my best intentions at heart, right? Why don’t we try to work something out, because this isn’t sustainable. My absence isn’t going to go unnoticed.”

Chrollo sighs, heavy if not unsurprised. “Sweetheart, I’m not suffering a break from reality, although I’m sure you’d prefer to rationalize it that way. I assure you I’m lucid and everything I’ve done is intentional. You’ll come to accept it eventually.”

It isn’t going to help, yet you feel your remaining grains of patience slip through your fingers.

“What’s this talk about a ‘condition’ and ‘ability’, then?” You challenge.

“Ah, I was wondering when you’d mention that,” he doesn’t sound like you landed on a reason that’d prove him wrong. “How to explain it… you once told me you think there are phenomena in this world that can’t be explained by empirical evidence. Consider this an example of that. I’m sure you must’ve felt it before you fainted. An intense, concentrated sensation that awoke your primordial fear. Bloodlust.”

You want to argue until you run out of breath, but this description does strike a chord. Reality itself feels as if it’s drifting further and further away. In an awfully cruel twist, Chrollo and his collected disposition is the most grounding factor you have to latch onto.

“I’m sure it’s a lot to take in,” he finally replaces that matter-of-fact tone with something resembling compassion, “But know this: you’re not in any danger. Neither are those you care about, so long as you act sensible.”

Shivering, you hug your arms around your chest. “How can you say that to me so easily? I thought… I thought you…”

He’s enveloping you from behind. You didn’t even see him move. Weakly, you struggle against his hold, but you’re not in any condition to put up a fight. In the event you were, it’s doubtful it’d make much of a difference. He’s strong. It goes beyond physical strength, into some esoteric realm you’ve become forcibly acquainted with. He’s exerting this slight pressure that makes your heart skip a beat, despite the medication. It isn’t comparable to what you experienced in the garden — there’s no malice — it feels more like a warning.

“You’re surprisingly sensitive to Nen,” he murmurs, humming contentedly when you go limp against him. His chin rests atop your head and his arms ensnare your midriff. “How interesting. No matter. Whatever your fascinating brain concocted is still true. You may think me merciless, but if you knew me, you’d find this to be my greatest act of mercy yet.”

“I thought I did know you,” is your weak reply. You don’t recognize the sound of your voice.

“The parts of me I wanted to show you, yes,” he moves your hair aside so he can press a kiss to the nape of your neck. “And a few glimpses you gleaned in your own way. Really, you are such a sweet girl. Willing to overlook discrepancies to see the ‘good’ in me.”

Heat rises and ignites on your cheeks. “I-I could scream, you know.”

“You could.”

That’s not the reaction you were expecting.

“You’re… not going to try and stop me?”

“No,” he responds. “I’ve always found experience to be the best teacher.”

“You really,” you heave a humorless laugh, uncertain of what else to do, “You really don’t see anything wrong with this?”

He nuzzles his nose into the crook of your neck, marveling at how your pulse remains steady, thanks to his intervention.

“‘So long as I can say I helped one person, that’s good enough for me.’”

“What?”

“It’s what you said the first day I met you,” Chrollo explains, nostalgia evident. “I’ve thought about those words often. Your effulgence, your desire to do right by others. It made me wonder if there could ever be anyone more perfect for me than you. You, whose pretty neck I could snap before you’d ever realize what happened, stirred up a sentimentality in me I thought myself incapable of.”

Sandalwood, amber, and leather. His scent is the same as that day.

Are his intentions?

Is this a prophecy he himself ordained and always intended to see fulfilled?

“You stole my heart, and as recompense, I will steal you. Think whatever you want about me, dear. Just don’t think I’m selfless enough to ever change my mind.”

#chrollo x reader #chrollo lucilfer x reader #yandere chrollo x reader #hxh x reader #hunter x hunter x reader #yandere #yandere x reader #chrollo lucilfer #yandere hxh x reader #not sfw #my stuff

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Isles of the Emberdark (or Emberdark) Preview Chapters

Prologue

Fifty-Seven Years Ago

Starling held open the drapes to her quarters and hopped from one foot to the other, staring at the dark horizon.

She didn’t dare blink. She didn’t dare miss it.

First light. When would first light appear?

She’d barely slept, despite trying. At least, she’d tried for a good . . . fifteen minutes or so. The rest of the night she’d been too excited. She’d declared slumber a lost cause, and had spent the time reading, waiting, distracted.

In the distance, across the rolling forests of Yolen, the darkness weakened. Was that first light? Did it count? It wasn’t light. It was just . . . less dark.

She went running anyway, unable to contain herself. Wearing her nightgown still, she pushed into the hallway of her rooms in her uncle’s mansion, then scrambled past attendants who smiled as she passed. Starling genuinely liked most of them. She pretended to like the rest. That was what her uncle taught her: always look for the best in both people and situations.

Today, that wasn’t difficult. Today was the day.

First light.

The day she transformed.

She burst onto the balcony above the grand entryway in a tizzy of white hair and fluttering nightgown, startling her uncle’s priests in their formal robes and wide hats. They were up early, of course, because her uncle got up early to take the prayers of those who worshipped him.

Starling flitted around the corner, heading for the next hallway over, which led to his reflectory. Priests belatedly bowed to her from the sides. She might look like she was an eight-year-old girl, but dragons grew slowly, and she was older than some of the priests.

She didn’t feel it. She still felt like a child, which her uncle explained was the way of things. Her mental age was like that of a human child her size. She just got to experience that age far longer than they did, which she figured would have been wonderful, except for one thing. It had forced her to wait long decades for her transformation.

She burst into the reflectory, where her uncle sat upon his fain-wood throne. He wore his human form, which had pale skin and a sharp silver beard just on his chin. He took the appearance of an older man, maybe in his sixties, though that could be deceptive with her kind.

Starling scurried up but didn’t touch him. With his eyes closed, wearing his brilliant white and silver robes, he was taking a prayer from some distant follower. She couldn’t interrupt that. Not even for first light. So she waited, balancing on one foot, then the other, back and forth, trying to keep from erupting from excitement.

Finally, he opened his eyes. “Oh?” he said. “Starling. It’s early for a young dragonet like you. Why are you up?”

“It’s today, Uncle!” she exclaimed. “It’s today!”

“Is today special?”

“Uncle!”

“Oh, your birthday,” he said. “Thirty years old, you are. Unless . . . Could I have mistaken the day? A lot was happening during your birth, child. Maybe we will need to wait until tomorrow.”

“UNCLE!” she shouted.

Frost smiled, then held out his hands for her to embrace him. “I was just speaking with Vambrakastram—and she will take my prayers for the day. I am free, all day, for you.”

“Just for me?” she whispered.

“Just for you. Are you ready?”

“I’ve been so, so ready,” she said. “For so, so long.” She pulled back. “Will my scales really be white when I am a dragon?”

“You are always a dragon,” he said, raising his finger. “Whether or not you have the shape of one. As for the coloring of your scales, there’s no way to know until the transformation.” He smiled, then tapped her arm—which was a powder white. Accompanied by her pink eyes and pure white hair. “Dragons come in all colors, and each is beautiful and unique. But I will say, every dragon I’ve known who was albino as a human—granted, there’s only ever been two others—had white scales to match. A metallic, shimmering white, with a sheen of mother-of-pearl. It’s breathtaking, and they are the only times I’ve seen that shade in one of our kind.”

“Only ever two,” she whispered.

“Only ever two,” he said, then placed his hand on her shoulder. “Plus one, Starling.”

“Letsgoletsgoletsgo!” she shouted, running back out into the hallway. He followed, and—with her urging him on—they continued down the corridor passed more smiling priests. All human, of mixed genders. Starling had been to other dragon palaces, and the priests there were stiff and stuffy. Not so here. Frost saw the best in people, and people became their best because of it. That’s what he’d always said.

“Now,” he said from behind, walking too slowly for her taste, “I’m supposed to speak to you of the ritual importance of the first transformation.”

“I know the importance!” She spun to walk backward. “I will be able to fly.”

“We live dual lives,” he said. “There is a reason we live thirty years as a human before reaching the age of transformation. This is Adonalsium’s wisdom.”

“Yes, yes.” She faced forward again as they reached the end of the hallway—and the grand balcony doors. “We live half our lives as humans so we know what it is like to be small. We live the lives of mortals before we gain the life of a dragon. That way, we’ll understand.”

“Do you?” he asked. He rested his hand on her shoulder as she stood before the closed grand balcony doors, which were made of yellow stained glass. She thought . . . she could see light on the other side, from the horizon.

She was so eager, but he’d taught her to be honest, always.

“No,” she admitted. “I try, but I don’t understand the mortals completely. They live such hurried lives, and they are so fragile, but they don’t seem to care. I try, but I don’t understand.”

“Ah, you are wise to see this,” he said. “With our powers, even as dragonets, empathy is difficult.”

“Will that ruin me?” she asked softly. “Because I don’t understand? Will it stop me from flying?”

“No, you can never be ruined, child.” There was a smile in his voice. “Never, ever. You can learn better, and you will, as you grow. Knowing that is how it happens! And this will not hold back the transformation.” He leaned back. “Sometimes, contrast is important to help us to learn.”

He shoved the doors open, and they swung outward, revealing a horizon that had begun to blaze with predawn. The grand balcony was large enough to hold them in their larger, draconic forms. It was one of the launchpads to the upper palace, which was built on a different scale—not for people the size of humans, but for ones the size of buildings.

She stepped out onto it, suddenly worried. What if it didn’t happen? What if she were broken? She knew some, unlike her uncle, saw her albinism as a flaw. A sign of misfortune, proven by what happened to her parents . . .

“You are,” Frost said, “so wonderful, Starling. I am honored to be here, with you, on this most important of days.”

He left unsaid that he wished her parents had been the ones. That was not to be. She took a deep breath, and held out her hands to the sides.

First dawn struck her, and she absorbed the light. It became part of her. And as it did, the self that had been hidden within Starling these thirty years emerged, glorious and radiant. With wings, and Dragonsteel of pure silver, and scales a glittering white—faintly iridescent.

With that, Starling at last—finally—felt that she belonged.

Chapter Three

Dusk arrived late to the meeting with the Ones Above. He climbed out of the car in front of the government offices, and was met by Second of the Soil, one of Vathi’s more trusted advisors, and a fairly high member in the government himself. He was an important man, even if he did let his Aviar ride on his head.

“You again,” he said. “We’re having important talks with the Ones Above . . . and she sends me out to fetch you?”

Dusk approached him, glanced at his bird, then continued on.

Soil caught up on lanky legs. “Tell me really. Why does she invite you to meetings like this? I thought after that last incident, it was through. Yet here you are again?”

“She hopes,” he said, “I will offer a different perspective.”

“What kind of perspective would you possibly have?”

“The kind,” Dusk said, “of one who looks in from yesterday. Where are they?”

“The talks are mostly finished,” Soil said, pointing Dusk the right direction. “The observation room, which looks out on their ship, is over here. We should be able to catch them leaving.” He paused. “They’ve said they’ll remove their helmets and greet Vathi face-to-face for the first time before they go.”

Well. That should be interesting. Dusk imagined them as strange and terrible creatures with faces full of fangs. Artist renditions from the broadsheets tended to err on the side of mystery, showing beings with dark pits where faces should be—as if representing the darkness of space itself confined to their helmets.

Dusk hastened his step, and Soil reluctantly gave him something Vathi had sent. Some transcriptions of the talks that day, as typed by the stenographer. He really was forgiven.

Her handwritten note at the bottom said, I’m sorry.

He read quickly as they reached the observation room. Inside, a waiting group of generals, kingmakers, and senators uniformly cast him nasty glares.

He didn’t care. He read the notes and realized what was happening. Vathi and the others were close to giving in. The Ones Above were finally winning.

He read that with a sinking sense of loss. However, he didn’t have time to consider further as the doors to another portion of the government offices opened and people walked out, including Vathi and two alien figures in strange clothing and helmets that covered their entire faces. They crossed the courtyard toward a small silvery ship, which was in the shape of a triangle with its point toward the clouds.

Not the main ship, which was high in the sky, but one that ferried people between that and the ground. Like . . . a very fancy canoe.

Dusk pressed against the glass, and heard grumbles as he obscured the view. This chamber was supposed to be secret, with reflective glass on the outside, but he didn’t trust that. The Ones Above had machines that could sense life. He suspected they could see him—or at least his Aviar—regardless the barrier.

He considered demanding that he be allowed to stand on the landing platform with Vathi and the diplomats, but he supposed he should avoid making trouble so soon after being invited back. So he waited, watching as the aliens pushed buttons and their helmets retracted, revealing their faces.

The gathered officials in the room with him gasped. The Ones Above were human.

One male, one female, with pale skin that looked like it had never seen the sun. Perhaps it hadn’t, considering that they lived in the emptiness between planets. From the look of the delicate metal—ribbed, like rippling waves—the remaining portions of the helmets were less like armor, more like ornament.

Sak squawked softly. Dusk glanced at the jet-black bird, then around the room, seeking signs of his corpse. She squawked again, and it took him a moment to spot the death—out on the launchpad. One of the Ones Above now stood with her foot on Dusk’s skull, the face smoldering as if burned by some terrible alien weapon.

What did it mean?

Sak chirped, and he felt something. This . . . was a different kind of vision, was it? Not an immediate danger—but something more abstract. The Ones Above were unlikely to kill him today, no matter what he did. That did not mean they were safe or trustworthy.

He nodded, in thanks, to her warning.

“Toward a new era of prosperity,” one of the Ones Above said on the launchpad, extending a hand to Vathi, who stood at the head of the diplomats. “We show you ourselves now, because it is time for the masks to be down. We look forward to many fruitful exchanges between our peoples and yours, President.”

She took the hand, though personally Dusk would rather have handled a deadly asp. It seemed worse to him, somehow, to know that the Ones Above were human. An alien monster, with features like something that had emerged from the deepest part of the ocean, was more understandable than these smiling humans.

Familiar features should not cover such alien motives and ideas. It was as wrong as an Aviar that could not fly.

“To Prosperity,” Vathi said. Her voice was as audible to him as if she were standing beside them. It emerged from the speakers on the walls--devices developed using alien technology.

“It is good,” the second alien said, speaking the language of the Eelakin as easily as if she had been born to it, “you are finally listening to reason. Our masters do not have infinite patience.”

“We are accustomed to impatient masters.” Vathi’s voice was smooth and confident. “We have survived their tests for millennia.”

The male laughed. “Your masters, the gods who are islands?”

“Just be ready to accept our installation when we return, yes?” the female said. “No masks. No deception.” She tapped the side of her head, and her helmet extended again, obscuring her features. The male did the same, and together they left, climbing aboard their sleek flying machine.

It soon took off, streaking through the air without a sound. Its ability to fly baffled explanation; the only thing Dusk’s people knew about the process was that the Ones Above had requested the launchpad be made entirely out of steel.

That smaller ship would ferry them to the larger one—bigger than even the greatest of the steam-powered behemoths that Dusk’s people used. Dusk had only just been getting used to those creations, but now he had to accustom himself to something new. The even, calm light of electric lights. The hum of a fan powered by alien energy. The Ones Above had technology so advanced, so incredible, that the Eelakin might as well have been traveling by canoe like their ancestors. They were far closer to those days than they were to sailing the stars like these aliens.

As soon as the alien ship disappeared into the sky, the generals, senators, and First Company officials began chatting in animated ways. It was their favorite thing, talking. Like Aviar come home to roost by light of the evening sun, eager to tell others about the worms they had eaten.

Sak pulled in close to his head and pecked at the band that kept his now-graying hair in a tail. She wanted to hide—though she was no chick, capable of snuggling in his hair as she once had. Sak was as big as his head, though he was accustomed to her weight, and he wore a shoulder pad her claws could grip without hurting him.

He lifted his hand and crooked his index finger, inviting her to stretch out her neck for a scratching. She did so, but he made a wrong move and she squawked at him, then nipped his finger in annoyance.

She got like this when she saw Vathi. Not because Sak disliked the woman, but because Kokerlii had liked her so much, and seeing her reminded them of him.

“I can’t bring him back,” Dusk whispered. “I’m sorry.”

It had been two years the disease that had claimed so many Aviar. He worried that without that colorful buffoon around to chatter and stick his beak into trouble, the two of them had grown old and surly.

Sak had nearly died to the same disease. And then alien medicine from the Ones Above had arrived. The terrible Aviar plague—same as those that had occasionally ravaged the population in the past—had been smothered in weeks. Gone, wiped out. Easy as tying a double hitch.

Dusk ignored the human prattle, eventually coaxing Sak into a head scratch as they waited. He very carefully did not punch anyone, though he did watch them. Father . . . Everything about his new life—in the modern city, full of machines and people with clothing as vibrant as any plumage—was so . . . sanitized.

Not clean. Steam machines weren’t clean. Even the new gas machines felt dirty. So no, not clean, but fabricated, deliberate, confined. This room, with its smooth woods and steel beams, was an example. Here, nature was restricted to an armrest, where even the grain of the wood was oriented to be aesthetically pleasing.

She agreed. It’s over. No more negotiating.

That was it, then. With the full arrival of Ones Above and their ways, he doubted there would be any wilderness left on the planet. Parks, perhaps. Preserves like the one he’d suggested. But in helping with it, he’d learned a sorry truth. You couldn’t put wilderness in a box, no more than you could capture the wind. You could enclose the air, but it just wasn’t the same thing.

The door opened, and Vathi herself entered, her Aviar on her shoulder. President of the First Company—the most powerful politician in the city. She wore a striped skirt of an old Eelakin pattern, and a businesslike blouse and jacket. As always, she tried to embrace a meeting of old ways and new. He wasn’t sure you could capture tradition by putting its trappings on a skirt, no more than you could box the wind, but he . . . appreciated the effort. She was one of the few in the First Company who did try.

“Well?” Vathi said to the group of officials. “We’ve got three months.”

Three months? Dusk quickly reread what she’d given him, and there found a nugget. She’d agreed provisionally to trade them Aviar. Nothing was signed yet. The Ones Above would return in three months to collect the chicks.

There was time yet to do something. Maybe that was why she’d invited him.

“They’re not going to stand any further delays,” she said. “Thoughts?”

“We should prepare,” said one general, “for the inevitable. We’ve insisted they give us weapons as part of the deal. It is the best we can do.”

Others nodded, though they shied from Dusk as they did so. He had punched the senator who’d insisted it was time to give in to the Ones Above. In his absence, others had begun to agree.

“Let’s say we wanted to stall further,” Vathi said. “Any ideas?”

There were a few. One suggested they feign ignorance of the deadline, or plausibly pretend that something had gone wrong with the Aviar delivery. Silly little plans. The Ones Above would not be delayed this time, and they would not simply trade for birds. The aliens intended to put a production plant on one of the outer isles, and begin raising and shipping their own Aviar. It was right here in the negotiations—and agreeing to the first step began the others.

“Maybe we could resist somehow,” said Tuli, Company Strategist who had an Aviar of Kokerlii’s same breed. “We could fake a coup and overthrow the government. Force the Ones Above to deal with a new organization. Reset the talks?”

A bold idea. Far more radical than others.

“And if they decide simply to take us over?” General Second of Saplings rapped his knuckles on a stack of papers he held in his other hand. “You should see these projections. We can’t fight them. If the mathematicians are right, the orbital ships could reduce our grandest cities to rubble with a casual shot or two. Or shoot into the ocean so the waves would wash away our infrastructure. If the Ones Above are feeling bored, they could wipe us out in a dozen interesting ways.”

“They won’t attack,” Vathi said. “Eight years, and they’ve suffered our delays with nothing more than threats. There are rules out there, in space, that prevent them from conquering us.”

“They’ve already conquered us,” Dusk said softly.

Strange, how quickly the others quieted when he spoke. They complained about his presence in these meetings. They thought him a wildman, lacking social graces. They claimed to hate how he’d watch them, refusing to engage in conversation.

But when he spoke, they listened. Words had their own economics, as sure as gold did. The ones in short supply were the ones that everyone secretly wanted.

“Dusk?” Vathi said. “What did you say?”

“We are conquered,” he said, turning from the window to regard her. He cared not for the others, but she didn’t just grow quiet when he spoke. She listened. “The plague that took Kokerlii. How long did they sit in their ship up there, watching as our Aviar died?”

“They didn’t have the medicine on hand,” said Third of Waves, the Company Medical Vice President—a squat man with a bright red Aviar that let him see colors invisible to everyone else. “They had to wait to fetch it.”

Dusk remained quiet.

“You imply,” Vathi said, “that they deliberately delayed giving us the medicine until Aviar had died. What proof do you have?”

“The dark-out last month,” Dusk said.

The Ones Above were quick to share their more common technologies. Lights that burned cold and true, fans to circulate air in the muggy homeisle summers, ships that could move at several times the speed of steam-powered ones. But all of these ran on power sources supplied from above—and those power sources deactivated if opened.

“Their fish farms are a boon to our oceans,” said the Company Vice President of Supply. “But without the nutrients sold by those above, we can’t keep the farms running.”

“The medicine is invaluable,” said Third of Waves. “Infant mortality has plummeted. Literally thousands of our people live because of what the Ones Above have traded us.”

“When they were late with the power shipment last month,” Dusk said, “the city slowed to a crawl. And we know that was intentional from the accidentally leaked comments. They wanted to reinforce to us their control. They will do it again.”

Everyone fell silent, thinking, as he wished they’d do more often. Sak squawked again, and Dusk glanced at the launchpad. His corpse was still out there, lying where the Ones Above had left. Burned and withered.

“Show in the other alien,” Vathi said to the guards.

Other alien.

What?

The two men at the door, with security Aviar on their shoulders and wearing feathers on their military caps, stepped out of the room. They returned shortly with an incredibly strange figure. The Ones Above had worn uniforms and helmets—unfamiliar clothing, but still recognizable.

This creature stood seven feet tall, and was encased entirely in steel. Armor of a futuristic cast, smooth and bright, with soft violet-blue light at the joints. The helmet glowed at the front from a slit-like visor and from an arcane symbol—reminding Dusk vaguely of a bird in flight—etched the front of the breastplate.

The ground shook beneath this being’s steps as it entered the room. That armor . . . was surreal, like interlocking plates that somehow produced no visible seam. Just layered pieces of metal, covering everything from fingers to neck. Obviously airtight, with a rounded cast, the outfit had stiff iron hoses connecting helmet and armor.

The other aliens might have looked human, but Dusk was certain this alien was something frightful. It was too tall, too imposing, to be human. Perhaps he was not facing a man at all—but instead a machine that spoke as one.

“You did not tell those you call Ones Above that you have met me?” the alien said, projecting a male voice from speakers at the front of the helmet. The deep voice had an unnatural timbre to it. Not an accent, like someone from a backwater isle, but still an . . . uncanny air.

“No,” Vathi said. “But you were right. They ignored each of my proposals, and acted as if the deal were already done. They intend to set up their own facility here.”

“They intend far more than you know,” the stranger said. “Tell me. Is there a place on your planet where people vanish unexpectedly? A place, perhaps, where an odd pool collects something that is not quite water?”

Dusk felt a chill. He did his best not to show how much those words disturbed him.

“You have only one gem with which to bargain, people of the isles,” the alien said, “and that is your loyalty. You cannot withhold it; you can merely determine to whom you offer it. If you do not accept my protection, you will become a vassal of these Ones Above. Your planet will become a farming station, like many others, intended to feed their expansion efforts. Your birds will be stripped from you the moment it becomes possible to do so.”

“And you offer something better?” Vathi asked.

“My people will give you back one out of a hundred birds born,” the armored alien said, “and will allow you to fight alongside us, if you wish, to gain status and elevation.”

“One in a hundred?” Second of Saplings said, the outburst unsettling his grey and brown Aviar. “Robbery!”

“Choose,” the alien said. “Cooperation, slavery, or death.”

“And if I choose not to be bullied?” Saplings snapped, reaching to his side for the repeating pistol he carried in a holster.

The alien thrust out his armored hand, and smoke—or mist—coalesced there out of nowhere. It formed into a gun, longer than a pistol, shorter than a rifle. Wicked in shape, with flowing metal along the sides like wings, it was to Saplings’s pistol what a shadowy beast of the deep might be to a minnow. The alien raised his other hand, snapping a small box—perhaps a power supply—to the side of the rifle, causing it to glow ominously.

“Tell me, President,” the alien said to Vathi. “What are your local laws regarding challenges to my life? Do I have legal justification to shoot this man?”

“No,” Vathi said, firm—though her voice was audibly shaken. “You do not.”

“I do not play games,” the alien said. “I will not dance with words, like those Scadrians. You will accept my offer or you will not. If you do not, you join them, and I will have legal right to consider you enemies.”

The room remained still, Saplings carefully edging his hand away from his sidearm.

“I do not envy your decision,” the armored alien said. “You have been thrust into a conflict you do not understand. But like a child who has found himself in the middle of a war zone, you will have to decide which direction to run. I will return in one month, local time.”

The colored portions of the creature’s armor glowed more brightly, a blue far too inviting to come from this strange being. He lifted into the air a few inches, then pulled the power pack from his gun. The weapon vanished in a puff of mist.

He left without further word, gliding past the guards—who stepped away and didn’t impede him.

“What was that?” Dusk demanded.

“He arrived early this morning,” Vathi said, “with a simple offer. No negotiating.” She hesitated. “He arrived without ship, and doesn’t appear to need one to travel the stars. He . . . flew down out of the sky under his own power.”

“Or that of his armor,” one of the kingmakers said—he didn’t know her name. “Perhaps that armor . . .”

The guards took up their positions at the door again, sheepishly holding their rifles. They knew, as everyone in the room knew, that no guard would stop a creature like that one if he decided to kill.

Vathi pulled a chair over to the room’s small table, then sat down in a slumping posture, her Aviar, Mirris, crawling anxiously across her back from one shoulder to the other. “This is it,” she whispered. “This is our fate. Caught between the ocean wave and the breaking stone.”

This job had weathered her. Dusk missed the woman who had been so full of life and optimism for the advances of the future. Unfortunately she was right, so there was no sense in offering meaningless aphorisms.

Besides, she had not asked a question. So he did not respond.

Sak chirped, and a body appeared on the table in front of Vathi. Dusk frowned. Then that frown deepened.

Because the corpse was not his.

Never in all his time bonded to Sak had she shown him anything other than his own corpse. Even during that dangerous time, years ago, when her abilities had grown erratic—even then, she’d shown Dusk only his own body.

He stepped across the room, and Vathi looked up at him, relieved—as if she expected him to comfort her. She furrowed her brows when he ignored her to study the body on the table. It was female, very old, with long hair having gone white. The corpse wore an unfamiliar uniform after the cut of the Ones Above. Commendations on the breast pocket, but in another language.

It’s her, he thought, recognizing the aged face. Vathi, some forty years in the future. Dead, dressed for a funeral.

“Dusk?” the living Vathi said. “What do you see?”

“Corpse,” Dusk said, causing some others in the room to murmur. They were uncomfortable with Sak’s power, which was unique among Aviar. He knew some disbelieved it existed.

“That’s wonderfully descriptive, Dusk,” Vathi said. “One might think that after five years you might learn to answer with more than one word when someone talks to you.”

He grunted, walking around the vision of the corpse. The dead woman held something in her hands. What was it?

“Corpse,” he said, then met the living Vathi’s eyes. “Yours.”

Chapter Eleven

Starling crawled down the ladder in a metal tube, far from her homeworld—and even farther, at least emotionally, from that glorious day when she’d first transformed.

Over fifty years had passed. She was basically an adult. But she had replaced grand palaces with dimly lit corridors on a half-functional starship. She reached the bottom and turned toward engineering, wearing her human shape.

A shape she’d not been allowed to leave for twelve years now.

She forced a spring to her step and told herself to keep positive. There was at least one blessing about being exiled: it turned out there were a whole lot of places that weren’t home—and many of them were vibrant, magnificent, amazing. She’d never have visited them if she hadn’t been forced out into the cosmere against her will.

For that, she had decided to be grateful for what had been done to her. Her master said she worked too hard to find sunlight in dark places, but what else was she to do? Darkness was too easy to find, and she preferred a challenge. Besides, the cosmere really was a wondrous place.

Not that her current location was anything spectacular. A metallic corridor with flickering florescent lights. Pipes for decor and barely enough space to walk upright. It took a lot of energy to keep a ship like the Dynamic flying, and designers learned to be economical.

She paused by one of the portholes, gazing out at the bleak darkness of Shadesmar—an endless black plane with no curvature or true horizon. Darkness. Really, wasn’t it the darkness that reminded one how wonderful the light was? Traveling through Shadesmar was dreary at times, but at least she could to it in a ship, rather than walking in a caravan like people had done in the olden days.

She tried to imagine them out there on the obsidian ground below, walking across the lonely expanse. Or, worse, straying out into regions where the ground went incorporeal and turned into the misty nothing they called the unsea. Or . . . the emberdark, they sometimes called that vast emptiness: the unexplored parts of Shadesmar.

Here, on the more frequented pathways, the ground solidified—and had been that way for millennia. You often encountered other travelers on these patrolled lanes between planets. For Shadesmar, such places were conventional, understood, and safe.

But her ship had strayed close to the edges of one such corridor. And out there . . . Well, anything could be out there in the emberdark. Starling found that both exciting and terrifying, all at once.

A figure stepped out of the wall behind her. Transparent, with a faint glow to him, Nazh had pale skin and wore a black formal suit—the kind with a fancy cravat that normal people wore to only the most exclusive of gatherings. He didn’t have much choice as to do so all the time, though, seeing as that was what he’d died in.

“Star?” he asked her. “Is everything all right?”

“It’s strikingly beautiful,” she said, studying along the hallway, running her fingers along the metal. “This corridor.”

Moving let the sleeve of her jacket slip back, exposing one of her manacles. Silver against her powder-white skin, the thick pieces of metal—more like bracers, really—were the symbols of her exile, binding her into human form, locking away her abilities. Until she “learned.”

She still didn’t know, years later, how much the exile was to punish her and how much to teach her. Her people’s leaders could be . . . obscure about such matters.

“Strikingly beautiful?” Nazh asked. “The . . . corridor? Star, are you having one of your moments?”

“No,” she said. “Maybe. Look, I was thinking that this ship is almost starting to feel like home to me.”

“The dragon,” he said with a smile, “who flies a starship.”

“I don’t do much of the flying. That’s Leonore’s job. I just get flown around.”

Twelve years now, trapped in her human form by these manacles. Twelve years since she’d stretched her wings and taken to the sky under her own power.

Shards. She would not let that break her.

She would not let them win.

She continued on her way, Nazh joining her. He didn’t walk, and he didn’t really float. He glided, feet on the ground, as if standing still—but moving when she walked. Hands clasped behind his back.

“I shouldn’t complain,” she said. “I mean, there are advantages to letting someone else do the flying. Easier on the muscles this way. Plus, I can sleep while we travel! Try doing that when flying with your own wings.”

“Star, dear, if I still had a stomach, I believe I’d find your optimism nauseating.”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “You have to admit. Things could be worse. I could be dead—”

“One gets over such trivialities.”

“—wearing a formal suit for eternity—”

“I’ll never be underdressed.”

“—and have a face that is . . . well, you know.”

Nazh stopped in place. “I know what?”

“Never mind,” she said, reaching the ladder to the bottom deck. She climbed down it, while he floated alongside her.

“Never mind what?” he said.

“It wouldn’t be polite to say.”

“You were trained by one of the most obtuse, crass men in all of the cosmere, Star. You don’t know the meaning of the word ‘polite.’”

“Sure I do,” she said, hopping off the ladder. “It’s just that I’m a kindly young woman—”

“You’re eighty-seven. And you’re not a woman.”

“I’m a kindly young—for the relative age of her species—person with a humanoid female appearance. And being kindly means that you don’t tell your friend about the unfortunate nature of his sideburns. You merely imply they are ugly so you can maintain plausible deniability.”

He followed, eyes forward as she reached the door to engineering. “They were quite fashionable when I died.”

“Among whom? Warthogs?”

He almost broke composure—that stern look of near-disapproval cracked, and a smile itched the corners of his mouth. It always felt like a gift when she managed to make Nazh smile. Also, the sideburns weren’t actually that bad—they had a stately, classic air. It was just that he was overly fond of them.

“Hey,” a commanding female voice said in Star’s earpiece. “Are you wasting time again?”

“No, Captain.”

“Then why isn’t my engine working yet?”

“Had to stop at my rooms to fetch something, Captain,” Starling said. “I’m almost to engineering.”

“Did Nazrilof find you?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“I explicitly told him not to.”

“Tell her,” Nazh said, “she can order me a hundred lashings. I’m fond of them. They tickle.”

“Sorry, Captain,” Starling said instead. “I’m entering engineering now.”

“Warn that engineer,” the captain said, “that if there is another problem, I will come down and deal with her personally. I am not known for my patience with crew who slack off.” She cut the line.

“Do you suppose,” Nazh said, “we could pitch her overboard and claim she jumped? I’d swear under oath she was driven mad.”

“By what?”

“My ravishingly attractive sideburns.” He hesitated. “I mean, there has to be some warthog in the captain’s heritage. Have you seen the woman?”

Starling grinned, then pushed in through the door. The engine room of the Dynamic was even more cramped than the hallway—though it had a higher ceiling, the round chamber was clogged with machinery. Starling had to squeeze between engine protrusions and the wall at several points, making her way to the back where a hammock hung from a rivet on the wall and a stack of large barrels, marked with symbols of various aethers.

A young woman sat up from within the hammock and hurriedly hid some items in the pocket of her blue jumpsuit. Aditil had brown skin and wore her dark hair in a braid. As she moved, Starling caught the distinctive pale blue, glass-like portion of her left hand. The center of the palm replaced—bones and all—with a transparent aether the color of the sky.

The glass was cracked, an indication that the symbiote she’d bonded was dead. Starling had never asked for the story behind that.

“LT!” the girl exclaimed. “Oh hells. Captain sent you? Did I let the pressure lapse again?” She scrambled, grabbing her earpiece from the pouch in her hammock, fumbling to put it in. “Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry!”

Aditil fumbled further as she slid out of the hammock, almost falling over. She hopped over a large pipe and began to monitor the engines—as she was supposed to have been doing. The old machinery needed constant attention; the Dynamic—as fond as Starling was of it—wasn’t exactly the most cutting edge of ships. Indeed, it was something of a mongrel. Rosharan antigrav technology, Dhatrian aethers for providing thrust and engine power, a Scadrian composite metal hull. Never mind that all three technological strains had produced their own viable starships without the others.

The Dynamic, like her crew, had picked up a little here and a little there. Really, all it was missing was an Awakened metalmind, but those were expensive—and Starling had never trusted them anyway.

Aditil fiddled with machinery, checking gauges and aether levels until she got the engine up to full power. Starling leaned against the wall, noting that Nazh had chosen to remain outside. Aditil was new, and he had learned—from painful experience—to ration his time with new crewmembers. Not everyone was comfortable with shades. Indeed, there were some who’d say that bringing one on board your ship was tantamount to suicide.

“So,” Starling said, “this is the . . . third time this week that Captain hasn’t been able to get ahold of you?”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Aditil kept her head low as she worked.

“Want to talk about it?”

“I’ll do better! I need this job, LT. Please. I . . . need to be able to save up enough . . .”

Starling folded her arms, leaning against the metal wall, the cuffs of her manacles peeking out from beneath her jacket.

Aditil worked for a moment longer, but then slumped as she knelt on the floor beside her equipment. She leaned forward, forehead against the engine. A low humming sound came from within the machinery as it used zephyr aether to generate gas, which created pressure and was the basis for powering the ship. The fact that they could also use the zephyr as propellant and for breathable air meant that the Dynamic was spaceworthy. They rarely needed that, as Xisis—the ship’s owner—usually had them do merchant runs through Shadesmar.

“They’re pictures of your family, aren’t they?” Starling said. “The things you hide whenever I walk past?”

Aditil glanced at her, surprised.

“Can I see them?” Starling asked.

Sheepishly, the young woman fished them out of her pocket and handed them over. Only four photos, depicting a crowded family with . . . seven children? Aditil appeared to be the oldest. Her parents were smiling in every one, wearing the colorful clothing common to people of her planet.

“They didn’t want me to go,” Aditil said. “Said I was too young, even if I’d done the apprenticing. But after . . .” She looked at her hand, pressed flat on the ground, and the cracked aether bud in the left palm. “I couldn’t stay. I took the deal to work for passage offworld, but do you have any idea how much it costs to get back to Dhatri? I didn’t. Stupidly, I left my family. And with them, the one place where anyone has ever wanted me . . .”

“Hey,” Starling said, kneeling. “You’re wanted here.”

“I shouldn’t be,” Aditil said. “I’ve screwed up every duty I’ve ever been given. You deserve a real engineer, with real experience, and a functional aether.”

“Aditil, you think we can afford a full aetherbound? On this old piece of junk?”

“She’s not a piece of junk.” Aditil put a hand on the engine. “She’s a good ship, LT.”

Now, that was good to see. You always wanted an engineer who cared about the ship.

“Either way,” Starling said, “you’re a blessing to us here. A fully trained aetherbound?”

“Without a functioning aether.”

“Either way. We get your knowledge, your skill. You always get the aether working again, when you try.”

“I talk to it,” she said softly. “You can only afford older spores, the kind that tend to be drowsy. I wake it up, that’s all.” She turned away. “I’m broken, LT. Ruined.”

“You can never be ruined,” Starling said, taking her by the hand. “Hey, look at me. Never, ever, Aditil. It’s impossible.” Then she shrugged. “But here, we’re all a little off, eh? We’re family regardless.” Starling had let her jacket sleeves retreat, and Aditil saw the manacles, thought a moment, then nodded.

“Thanks for the pep talk, LT,” Aditil said, pulling away to work at her post. “I’ll stay on it. Won’t let you own.”

“Well, good,” Starling said. “That’s what Captain wants.” She handed back the pictures, then slipped something out of her own inner jacket pocket: an envelope fetched from her room earlier.

Aditil took it with a frown, looked to Starling, then opened it. It took a moment for her to register what was inside. When she did, her eyes widened, and her hand went to her lips, covering a quiet gasp.

One ticket to Dhatri, Aditil’s homeworld.

“But how?” Aditil asked. “Why would you . . .”

“Nobody,” Starling said softly, “on my ship is trapped here. Everybody on my ship has the right to go home. You’re a great engineer, Aditil, and I love having you on this crew. But if there’s another place you feel you need to be, well . . .” She nodded toward the ticket.

“But what does Captain think?”

“Captain doesn’t need to know,” Starling said. “You’re not our slave, Aditil. You’re our friend and colleague.”

She stared at the ticket, tearing up. “How . . . How long have you known how homesick I was?”

“I made a good guess. I did buy a refundable ticket, in case I was wrong.” She gave Aditil a squeeze on the shoulder. “When we get to Silverlight, I’ll sign your release papers. You can return home, until you’re ready to leave again—if ever.”

“I . . .” Aditil closed her eyes, tears leaking down her cheeks.

Starling smiled. “For now, though, please just keep the ship moving. Captain keeps threatening to come down here herself, and I think she might actually do it next time.”

“Thank you, LT,” she whispered. “Starling . . . thank you.”

Starling left Aditil working with renewed vigor, then stepped out of engineering, to where Nazh was waiting, one eyebrow cocked.

“What?” she asked him.

“How did you afford that?”

It was expensive to travel to Dhatri. The law of commerce was this: if you could get to a location through Shadesmar, it was cheap. If not, then you had to pay. A lot.

Most cities were in the Physical Realm, not in Shadesmar, but you could transfer between the two dimensions with ease—if you had a special kind of portal. They were called perpendicularities, and most major planets had them. So traveling was simple. Pop into Shadesmar at one planet, travel easily through to your destination, pop back out.

Unfortunately Dhatri didn’t have a perpendicularity anymore. Which meant you couldn’t travel there using conventional ships like the Dynamic—or, well, you could travel through Shadesmar to the location of the planet, but you couldn’t hop out to visit it. To get to Dhatri you needed an expensive, faster-than-light-capable ship that could travel through space in the physical dimension.

Those were expensive. And mostly controlled by one military or another. Hence why Aditil could catch a ride on one leaving: a ship had needed a post filled, and had recruited her. But to get back, your only reliable way was to buy an overpriced ticket, as every ship traveling there knew how valuable their seats were.

“Well?” Nazh asked as they started walking. And floating. “How did you afford it?”

“I had a little bit of savings,” she said.

“You realize,” he said, “this is only going to convince them further you have a hoard of gold somewhere.”

Shards. She hadn’t thought of that. Their crew was small—only eight people—but the myth about Starling’s kind and their caverns of gold had persisted among them no matter how she tried to stamp it out. At least they’d believed her when she’d insisted that dragons didn’t eat people.

She climbed the ladder to the middle deck. Truth was, she felt good, having guessed accurately what Aditil needed. She was finally starting to feel like she understood this crew, and how to be a leader, like Master Hoid had been trying to teach her. Before he’d vanished, of course. It was his way.

He’d be back. Until then, she had to do her best to guide the crew and protect them from the interim captain. She reached middle deck, and walked through the hallway toward the stern, where she could climb up to the bridge. As she did, though, she spotted someone standing outside of the medical bay, peering in.

ZeetZi was a Lawnark, a kind of being that was basically a human—except instead of hair, he had feathers. A mostly bald head, with dark brown skin, and a crest of yellow and white feathers on the very top. Tiny feathers along his arms, almost invisible against his dark skin. Arcanists said the Lawnark hadn’t evolved from birds or anything like that—more, they were humans who had been isolated, and whose hair had evolved to something akin to feathers.

ZeetZi was supposed to be checking on the life support systems. While Aditil handled the aethers and the engine itself, ZeetZi was their technician for the rest of the ship. He was a genius at this sort of thing . . . when he wasn’t getting distracted by the ship’s doctor.

He spotted Starling and Nazh as they approached, and his crest perked up in alarm. Then he stepped forward to meet her.

“Yes,” he said before she could ask. “Yes, I was checking on the doctor again. Yes. I know you said I shouldn’t be so worried. I can’t help it, LT. We shouldn’t have one of those on our ship.”

“Zee,” she said, taking his arm. “Have you listened to yourself when you talk like that?”

“I know, I know,” he said, crest smoothing back down. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . LT, you know what they did. To my people. To my world.”

She nodded, and she did. She’d never been to his homeworld—amazing though it sounded—but she knew what the hordes had done to other planets. It was a familiar story.

“Master Hoid,” Starling said, “trusts Chrysalis. He invited her on board.”

ZeetZi shivered at the name, and even Nazh looked away. It said something that there was a dragon and a shade on board this ship, but the one the crew were frightened of was the ship’s doctor.

“I found one of her spies,” ZeetZi whispered, “in my room again.”

Well, that was a problem. Chrysalis did have difficulties with privacy. “I’ll speak to her,” Starling said. She’d made a breakthrough, finally, with Aditil earlier. Could she manage another?

“Star,” Nazh said softly, “you need to stop worrying about that one. The horde will be gone from this ship as soon as Xisis finds us a proper ship’s doctor.”

“Master Hoid told me to watch over the crew.”

“That’s not a member of the crew,” ZeetZi said. “It’s . . . LT, just trust me. It isn’t here to help us. It doesn’t care about us. Except how it can use us to further some mysterious goal.”

“We’ll see,” Starling said. “You two head up to the bridge. I’ll meet you in a bit.”

Both reluctantly withdrew. Starling stepped up to the medical bay, peering in at a figure who wore a tight, formal uniform from a military Starling hadn’t ever been able to identify. The individual worked at a cabinet, cataloging their medicines, as Captain had asked.

As the figure heard Starling enter, it turned. Revealing a face with the skin pulled back, and a network of insects beneath.

#sixth of the dusk sequel #emberdark #cosmere #cfsbf #Brandon Sanderson #root #wob #long post

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