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raayllum · 22 days

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For Day Four of Snake Boi Callum Week: I would do anything for you / However dangerous, however vile Summary: Callum follows in Viren's footsteps in order to save Ezran. (Viren Heart theory) Word Count: 1.1k

When they were little, Ezran had gotten sick, and Callum had panicked.

It had, in retrospect, been nothing more than a toddler’s first cold, crying and coughing into the night. Harrow had patted his son on the back and rocked him, been at his bedside for as much of it as he could until Viren lurked in the doorway to bring him back to his duties, and leaving the nanny to fill his stead. Callum had been more fitful still, rarely willing to leave little Ez’s side, Harrow trying and failing to console and coral him, until—

“I don’t want him to be sick!” Callum’d wailed. “I don’t want to lose him!”

Harrow had paused, drawing back. “Is that what you’re afraid of?”

Shoulders not yet draped with a scarf, Callum had settled for wiping uselessly at his face with his fingers. “S-Soren got sick and then his mom left, and my mom left, and—”

“Callum.” Steadier hands had pulled him in for a tight hug, Harrow giving him a little squeeze. Callum had clung to him like a lifeline. “It’s just a cold. Ezran is fine. We’re all fine. He’s not going to get sick like Soren, and he’s not going to... Ezran is going to be okay. Alright?”

“Alright,” he’d relented, even if he’d stayed by Ezran’s crib that night and prayed the way Opeli had shown him to on Saturdays.

Please, please, let Ezran be alright. I’ll be good, he swore. I’ll do anything.

#tdp broyals #snake boi callum #snake boi callum week #broyals #fic #my fic #fic: i slithered here from eden #in the name of love #i would do anything for you #it was just red #tdp #tdp fic #the dragon prince

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raayllum · 2 years

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claudia & terry’s first meeting. also on ao3

At some point, Claudia bites the bullet and accepts she has to go to the nearby town. She doesn’t want to — the dark magic spell she’s cast only keeps her dad’s body preserved, not protected. What if some animal like a banther lumbers into the cave they’re in and finds his body and—

Claudia shuts her eyes, the hunger pangs making her dizzy. But foraging hasn’t been enough for a few days now, for anything other than the spell required to keep the body from decomposing, and if she dies from hunger, no one will be here to look after Viren. Or her. His creepy little bug pal is certainly no helping, eating smaller insects from the walls.

“I’ll be back,” she says, and kisses Viren’s cool forehead before she leaves, anxiously wringing her hands. She uses them to braid her hair instead, so she’ll look at little less like a girl hiding her father’s corpse, muttering her calming mantra under her breath. There’s no synonym for cinnamon...

She peels off the bracelets under the frayed edges of her black sleeves that are almost never visible, anyway, and uses them to purchase a hot meal at the first decently shady looking tavern she sees. She’s ravenous, taste buds bursting with relief, she doesn’t care how deranged she looks. Only when she tastes salt and realizes she’s crying, a little, into her food.

It’s been a little over a month and he’s still... and she’s still no closer to finding any of the ingredients his creepy bug pal says she’ll need to bring him back. What is she going to do?

“Excuse me, uh, miss?” Elven accent, belonging to a lean Earthblood elf with swoopy, vaguely spikey green hair. Bespectacled and vaguely cute, her brain registers. He takes a tentative seat on the bar stool next to her. “Are you uh, alright?”

And maybe she should have her guard up, as a girl alone in a strange land, but he’s so earnest and awkward — and honestly, maybe, reminds her a little of Callum before he got all judgy and secretive — that Claudia’s shoulders slump. She wipes at her eyes and gives a mirthless smile.

“No!” she admits, perhaps more louder that necessary, but the elf boy just smiles a bit, like he likes that she’s loud and honest.

He flags the bartender down and gets a cup of something watery and green she doesn’t recognize. “I’ll buy you another drink, then,” he says. “Copper for your thoughts?”

“Thoughts,” she reiterates, wagging her cup at him. “Only.” She can still handle herself after all.

He chuckles and holds up his hands. “O’ course.” He thanks the bartender when he gets his drink and forks over a copper coin to get her another water. Then he takes a sip and settles in, one long, four-fingered hand resting on his cheek as he raises his eyebrows. “Sounds like you got a lot of ‘em.”

Claudia smiles thinly, but genuinely. “Well...”

She hides the details, pretending that her father is sick instead of dead, that her brother is absent instead of a traitor, that she’s a particularly gifted herbalist instead of a dark mage. He doesn’t interrupt, doesn’t ask her what she’s doing in Xadia as a human and alone. Just chimes into the silence when her second water arrives that his name is Terry, and he doesn’t ask for hers.

They walk out out of the bar together once almost everyone has left. The sun rises earlier here, the sky already turning from black to indigo.

“So,” Terry says, hands in his pockets. He glances side long at her. “Where’s the body?”

Claudia looks at him, startled. Her snake bracelet itches on her wrist. “What?”

He just smiles like it’s a perfectly fucking normal thing to ask someone. “Oh come on, you think I don’t know the signs of a necromancer? Not many around these parts, but Earthbloods can always tell. And with that big battle just a few weeks ago?” He raises his eyebrows at her. “And, no offense, but you are a human in Xadia. So?”

“So what?” Claudia says.

“Well, I know a guy—”

“I’m not trying to get rid of a body,” she blurts.

“Well,” he considers, “that’s a bit of a relief.”

“I’m—” Her throat is too tight. It’s a struggle to get the words out. “I’m trying...”

Terry hums and nods. “Lost someone in that big battle?” he guesses, face open.

She nods, her bottom lip trembling. She kind of wants to cry again.

“Meet me back here tomorrow,” he says. “I have a herb I use in gardens. It might help with the rotting.”

Claudia sniffles. “Why are you being so nice to me?” she says.

“Because you’re alone,” he replies. Then, a bit more bashfully, “And cute.”

Then she does the most absurd thing in the world: she smiles. Claudia quickly reels it back in, steepling her fingers together and stretching them out. Playing it cool. “And... how do I know I can trust you?”

He smiles at her again, lopsided and easy. Then he takes out a coin and tosses it to her, a glinting copper piece. “For your thoughts,” he says. “You can give it back to me tomorrow.”

Claudia cradles it to her chest, smiling again as he walks away backwards, so he can still look at her. “Okay.” Then, once he’s finally turned around, she calls, “Oh, and Terry?”

He turns back, eyebrows raised. She waves at him, spying him through the dark street, his form illuminated by one of the few street lamps. It feels like a sign.

“My name is Claudia!”

#tdp claudia #claudia x terry #tdp spoilers #the dragon prince #tdp #my fic #ficlet #headcanons #fic #idk if i love that as an ending line but we'll leave it as is for now ok

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