EVENT #22: KHION - IC LOG

[abraxasmods]

Event 22 - Khion

OOC Event Log ⦁ The Nether

Despite the unsettling tremors from the previous month, the citizens of Abraxas are determined to enjoy their winter festivities. For you, the collective wintertide celebrations - The Dimming, The Festival of Enlightenment, and the Winter Solstice - have often been held in your home territories or Nocwich.

This year brings a change. You'll receive a personal letter from the Nether, signed by Aster, the Guardian themselves. Whether you were there to aid the Nether or not last autumn, the letter thanks you nonetheless for your assistance and informs you that much has changed in their lands...for the better. Indeed, so much so that the Draconae wish to invite you back so you can see for yourself the positive impact you've had.

Their gates will open DECEMBER 16 and close on DECEMBER 20. Because the Draconae do not possess magic as powerful as other races in Abraxas, they kindly ask that you stay for the week since they cannot maintain a persistent portal.

The major plot occurrence will occur at the end. The fallout of this incident will carry over into January.

Above and Below

Previously, only the Obsidian Heart - the volcanic city - was accessible as the area above was far too cold and desolate. Now, with the adult dragons having returned to their full strength and their hatchlings growing by the day, the Draconae have begun to reclaim their territory beyond the volcano.

You'll be able to explore areas within the Heart, but you'll find most of the festivities above-ground. The Draconae are a fun-loving people and they're quite fond of the Summoned after all the help you've given them. They also understand that tensions between the major territories have been high as of late...and would like to grant you some reprieve from a war many of you didn't ask to be a part of.

Accommodations

This time, guests will stay in stone huts built from the Nether's volcanic stone. The stones preserve an unusual amount of heat, meaning the huts are very warm. Bedding is comfortable, if simple, with room to store your belongings. The Draconae believe strongly in mutual respect, so the doors contain no locks. Your safety is assured, but if you're nervous, you can ask for a guard to watch you at night.

If you don't do well in the cold, the Draconae will offer you warming potions and thick furs. Curiously, the furs closely resemble what the werewolves in Luna wear, suggesting that the Nether and Nocwich have resumed more active trading in recent months.

◎ A larger community hut is in the center of the small village that's slowly being built. The dining area consists of open-fire grills, pots, and raw ingredients - including spices and fiery hot peppers. As great believers in self-sufficiency, the Draconae will leave you to make meals to your taste and liking.

◎ You can hunt and fish your meat, as well. There are numerous spots for ice fishing. Since the natural world is steadily being restored, game and fish found are of the common variety like deer, bison, and trout, as opposed to the stranger creatures that were found inside the Obsidian Heart's lava pools. Feel free to share your catch with your friends or offer to cook for the culinarily challenged.

◎ Hot springs can be found to the north. You'll have to hike to reach the area but it's a lovely walk. The waters themselves are crystal clear. At night, they glow with hundreds of tiny unknown creatures. These creatures are believed to be the result of the previously sickly hatchling, Anthusa, who creates bioluminescent algae. Now that Anthusa is much healthier, it can be spotted playing in the hot springs and lakes.

◎ Large fuzzy rodents the size of a small cat will occasionally invade your sleeping quarters or eating areas. They're easily chased off but they can be a huge nuisance by stealing your food and chewing holes in your blankets. You're warned only to chase them off not injure them. Unfortunately, their blood is quite corrosive and can cause a harsh burn to the skin. While the burns will heal up in a few days, it's best to avoid the situation altogether.

Sights & Activities

Opal Flats

The Opal Flats are natural wonders that have recently come into being with the dragons' increasing strength. The pearlescent icy surface glows at night which makes it the perfect place for ice skating after sunset. You can borrow a pair of ice skates and join the Draconae on the ice.

◎ When you're done with the ice, you can join one of the tents nearby that are hosting spiced cider workshops. Here, you can make your own spiced cider blend. Flavors include clove, cinnamon, and berries unique to the Nether. You can test infusing your blend into small cups of cider until you're happy with the results. Your final personalized blend will then be packaged into a jar and tied off with a ribbon. Enjoy it yourself or give it to someone special!

◎ Keep an eye out! The young dragons are troublemakers and will sneak into the workshops to steal cinnamon sticks, drink from the steaming cider pots, and knock down hanging decorations. You can help rehang decorations or remove the dragons from spaces they shouldn't be in...though they'll soon find their way back again. The Draconae seem exasperated but tolerant of the hatchlings so you shouldn't worry too much about the mild chaos. It's to be expected.

◎ Once more, Khloris is the biggest menace and it's grown larger since. While Khloris has learned to better control its powers, it's still prone to causing flowers to sprout in your hair should you come into contact with too much of its pollen. Fortunately, the effect is temporary - just a few hours.

Dusk Falls

Each day, starting at dawn, two Draconae guides will lead a hike up the mountains. Make sure you bring your hiking boots! The slopes are frosty and can be dangerous but they'll keep you safe as much as possible. Otherwise, it's a lovely trip and takes about two hours to reach the top. You'll encounter a beautiful view, fresh mountain air, and a cavern at the peak where you can go inside and look at some frozen waterfalls.

◎ Unusual ice-like spiders infest some portions of the cave. While they're quite big (about the size of a wolf spider), they're harmless and seldom bite. On the occasions that they do, the bite is easily treated with a bandage and a few days to heal. However, they do have a bad habit of dropping down from the ceiling onto the heads of passersby wandering through the caves. The experience can be startling if you're not expecting it.

◎ Once you've all finished enjoying the sights, you can return to the bottom. Luckily, you won't have to climb down. Instead, the group will get to ride one of the two adult dragons in the Nether: Hierus, the Obsidian Drake, and Kruos, the Glass Serpent. They'll bring all of you safely back to the base of the mountain.

Cinder's Core

Walking through the Ashlands no longer requires any special potion. The air is now clear. Cinder's Core lies at the southern end. Previous visitors will recall that it was full of petrified trees and fossilized bone. The detritus of a fallen ecosystem remains, but alongside it is new growth of flourishing green thanks to the young dragon Okenus. This includes the trees growing the unique kydros fruit.

◎ You can help harvest the kydros fruit to contribute to the feast above the surface. Now that they're growing freely again, the Draconae are no longer reserving them for the potions and have reintroduced the fruit into their regular dishes! Mildly sweet with a hint of citrus, it tastes somewhat like a pomelo.

◎ Be careful when harvesting or traversing the area! While the jungle is starting to recover, it's still a jungle full of tripping hazards, slippery vines, and high cliffs - some of which now have refreshing waterfalls. There might also be a hidden snake or aggressive birds. These creatures aren't dangerous to any real degree, but if they bite or peck, it'll leave a mark!

Mysterious Gifts

While the Draconae participate in traditional gift-giving, this occurs only between the closest of mates and friends. More common is an activity they call Krypto's Box. Krypto's Box is a massive jar in the middle of town with a hole carved out at the bottom to function as a sort of dispenser. Filling the jar are hundreds of vials containing a mystery potion. Each year, the batch of potions is blessed by magic from the young dragons of the Nether. In other words - these mischievous creatures have influenced the potions' effects.

You can take a potion and gift it to someone. Neither of you will know what the effects are until the recipient opens it, but you can trust it'll be something mild, temporary, and amusing. During Khion, it's not unusual to see the Draconae wandering around covered in glitter, swirls of flowers, or hovering 2 feet above the ground. Accepting a mystery potion is part of the fun. The local Draconae will gift you some alongside your Summoned friends!

If your character has received a potion - whether from a Draconum or another Summoned - comment HERE to see what effect they'll receive. If you don't like the effect, simply disregard your character having received a potion to begin with.

Making Friends (NPCs)

The occasion is less formal this time, so Anneth and Aster will each be available for you to meet regardless of your status. There's also one surprise guest that some of you might recognize from last year's Epulum event in Ikorr: Babis, the cheerful Draconum who was merely looking for a good time and found himself embroiled in a mysterious theft.

Descriptions about the three NPCs and where they can be found will be in their character comments below. Depending on who you talk to, you can learn a little more about neighboring Endsmuth, the dragons, and relations with Nocwich. The meetings might not last very long, but you'll be able to get in one or two questions!

Characters of any rank can speak with one of the three NPCs available.

To do so, TAG IN with your character under the NPC you want to meet.

Renewal

The Nether's limited magic means that they seldom feel the effects of the Dimming. However, even the Draconae begin to notice something is wrong as the final day draws near wherein the Singularity should go completely dark, falling into its usual state of hibernation. The dragons, in particular, are disturbed and have communicated as such to both Anneth and Ermis, the Keeper.

Before anyone can determine what's truly happening, a massive quake strikes all of Abraxas. As far away from the epicenter as the Nether is, even they feel the effects, a tremor that knocks over decorations and cracks foundations.

For any who are near the cliffs overlooking the ocean below, they can observe a giant tidal wave that consumes the island where some of you recall being held captive on.

Portals Awry

Naturally, you want to return home after such an unexpected event. The Draconae hurriedly open the portals to your individual territories and assure you they will assist in any way possible, though they are equally unsure of what's just happened.

Stepping through the portal, you expect to pass through and face the familiar sights and sounds where you reside. For a small handful of you, that may be exactly so. For many others, however, you'll find yourself in a completely unexpected place.

Indeed, it seems that whatever force has caused the quake has also disrupted the Singularity's no longer waning magic, corrupting the portal magic and sending you into an opposing territory. In a time of war, this could be disastrous for all involved...and it's clear from the locals who greet you on the other side that they are as baffled as you.

Players can choose to mix things up and send their characters to a new territory for the duration of January. Since this will be temporary, feel free to separate close CR or put your character somewhere they won't enjoy. It won't last long!

Characters will not be placed under any restrictions for accidentally landing in a strange place. They will, for the time being, be treated as guests while officials determine what to do next.

The Wrap-Up will detail how characters' experiences will go once they are in their new territory.

---

Comments

[ordinar]

Iris' weight settles onto his back, and Wilhelm curls his arms around his thighs to cup their underside. His palms soak in the bare skin he'd imagined spanning just moments ago. His neck prickles as warm breath caresses the shell of his ear. Like this, the world beyond the ethereal glow of this cavern ebbs to a distant point.

"Yeehaw," he answers through a laugh as he straightens up. "Damn, you weigh practically nothing."

As he wades through the magma, Wilhelm carefully plots his route to cleave to the shelf of the rock basin. He avoids the places where the rock gives way to deeper chasms. Any deeper than his knees, pushing through the thick magma would turn into a Sisyphean struggle. As it is, the going is slow. But they're not in any rush to get there.

When this thing with feathers came to perch in his chest, he can't say. It alights on him suddenly in the smallest moments. Like when Iris labors over his sketchbook, and the concentration is so complete it's like he's in his own world. Or when they've settled into their fortress of pillows and blankets by the fire at the conclusion of the day, and he realizes that it doesn't matter what they talk about, he just wants to keep listening. He wants to keep being beside him.

Impulse would have him seizing a kiss a dozen times a day, but a history of heartache has bound him to hesitation. Wilhelm has unlearned the boy who kissed Simon on the windowsill without fully understanding the enormity of his feelings. His friendship with Iris, though new, is already too dear to wreck. And if he has to choose between never fully having Iris, and not having him at all, the choice is obvious.

[inventure]

Somewhere between the fifth and tenth minute that passes, Iris realizes he could fall asleep like this. Draped across Wilhelm's shoulders, head tipped just so that his cheek fits perfectly along the slope that follows Wilhelm's neck to his shoulder. There is a lulling movement in the way Wilhelm treads slowly, a kind of comfort Iris thinks he might have been afforded once, when he was very, very young.

"Hey, Wille?" In the settled silence of the saves, it feels almost sacrilegious to break it. He keeps his tones hushed, not that he needs to speak up much at all, with their heads so close together. "Do you ever think about going back...?"

Tucked away from the rest of the world, Iris finds himself feeling sentimental. Or perhaps wistful is the better word, since sentiment would require he had something to miss in the first place. The holidays had always been rough for Iris, no matter how loudly he would proclaim otherwise to an audience of only his creation and toys. The older he grew, the harder it became to pretend. And the relief he had felt in finding friendship never quite seems to live up to the devastation that wrecked him when he inevitably had to say his good-byes.

He could count in one hand the number of people he knows well enough to miss, and somehow that is both a comforting and a depressing thought. Without realizing, he's curled himself a little tighter around the other, as if afraid to be made to let go.

[ordinar]

For a stretch, they settle into quiet, and Wilhelm likes that too. The steady thrum of Iris' heartbeat pressed against his spine, the warmth of his cheek nestled against the slope of his neck as the silence of the cavern folds around them. Only, it's not silent exactly. The magma burbles and crackles, and here and there more little frogs bubble to the surface.

"No," his response comes easily. He has had more than two years to work through that question. "I mean, only in the sense that...I worry I'll have to go back someday. I'll wake up and I won't be here anymore. And I might not even remember it."

Any of it. The life he was growing, the person he was becoming, the people who helped him get there. He would be alone, trapped in a life he hates, and robbed of the power he discovered to change that. He chews on the inside of his cheek. Up so close, Iris will feel the tensing in his jaw.

"You saw what's waiting for me back home." In that strange dream that had ensnared them, a nightmare of narrow corridors and dead-ends, dead brothers and disappointed mothers. "My life is here now. It took me a long time to figure it out, to get to where I am, but now that I have...I don't want to give it up. I get to choose, and I'm going to make the most of it."

[inventure]

Iris just barely stops the childish part of him that wants to say, At least you have something waiting for you. That isn't fair to Wilhelm, who has been nothing but kind and careful with him. Who has done nothing but indulge him at every turn, when he doesn't even know the full extent of all the bad luck Iris has left in his wake.

It's not like it's some kind of competition, a parry of "Who's life sucks more?" That's the kind of thing no one walks away from as a winner.

"Do..."

He hesitates, struggling to find his voice. Speaking comes easily to him, having grown used to filling in silences when they grew too stifling, but here in this moment he finds himself wondering if putting voice to his thoughts will only somehow jinx them.

Still, he has to ask. He has to know.

"Do you think I can do that for myself, too...? Make a life here, like you did?"

[ordinar]

Iris' question, soft and vulnerable like the underbelly of some creature, nevertheless sinks into him with claws and teeth. Wilhelm remembers all too well how lost he used to feel, how overwhelmed by the blank, open expanse of the future. How small against it all. Unable to cover Iris' hand with his own, he tries to offer reassurance another way. By tucking his elbows in, he can squeeze his friend's legs between his arms and waist in a sort of clamp.

At the same time, it's a small, hard seed of hope, that question. Iris wants it to be true. He wants to believe he deserves more than what life dealt him back home. Wilhelm doesn't know much about Iris' past before he wound up in Thorne, but what pieces he's gathered don't make a nice picture. He'd been forced to hide himself because people fear what they refuse to understand. He'd been in between places, he recalls, uprooted and fleeing into the unknown.

But here...

"Absolutely." He says it with a conviction that's grounded in his own experiences, as solid as the rock beneath his feet. "If that's what you want, then...you can make it yours. And I'm here to support you, in any way I can, while you figure it out."

[inventure]

Iris sits with that for a good, solid moment. He lets it settle, lets it process. He had been steeling himself for any sort of reaction — fear, disappointment. Maybe even grief. But what he feels instead is like a little breath unfurling in his lungs. That first deep inhale after too long being submerged.

"Okay," he says, eventually. His voice is a tiny, quiet thing, but this close, Wilhelm would be able to hear it loud and clear. "I'd like that."

That tiny seed of hope takes root, fitting snugly somewhere deep in his chest. He can feel it spreading warmth throughout the rest of him, or maybe that's just the heat of the magma finally becoming oppressive enough to draw out sweat. It would probably make better sense to draw away, let some air circulate between them. But he stays clinging, curled around the other boy's back for as long as Wilhelm will let him.

[ordinar]

I'd like that. A soft smile lights Wilhelm's lips.

He would stay like this the rest of the day if he could, with Iris curled against him, his weight sagging into the cradle of his palms. But after trekking down here, and now pushing through the syrupy magma, his legs ache in protest. Despite Iris' slight frame, his arms grow stiff from holding the same position. In the hot breath of the volcano, sweat dews his forehead and runs in rivulets down his back and chest. His shirt clings to him as much as Iris does.

Wilhelm holds onto it for a little while longer. The feeling of carrying someone else's weight instead of just his own. Then, once he's waded further in this companionable quiet, he gently squeezes Iris' thigh.

"I'm going to set you down, okay?" he murmurs, bending down to let his friend off. Here, the magma wraps around their ankles.

Once Iris slides off, Wilhelm stretches his arms, twisting at the waist. Then his fingers are at the laces fastening his shirt. He pries them loose, pulls his shirt over his head.

"Come on, I didn't bring you all the way down here just to look at it."

[inventure]

A flash of skin, and Iris' traitorous eyes drift towards it just as Wilhelm makes a comment that has the not-entirely-platonic thoughts in his mind skittering back into the corners from whence they came.

"I'm not—!" comes the half-indignant squawk, in the overly defensive way of an entirely guilty party. Fortunately, he realizes halfway through that Wilhelm was not, in fact, referring to himself (or rather, his freshly revealed upper body) when he speaks of "it," but rather of the magma pools itself which —

is great. Fine, even. Definitely something that Iris doesn't nearly have to be so defensive over, except a handful of seconds later he finds himself confronting a wholly new issue altogether: the sudden prospect of sharing a bath with Wilhelm. Which, again, what did he think happened in magma baths, anyway?

His hands inch towards the laces of his own tunic, and he is so much more aware now of the heat coming from within, rather than the pools around him. He hasn't exerted himself nearly as much as Wilhelm has, but he's accumulated enough sweat to make the material of his shirt cling to his shape anyway. His mind claws at the ground for something to talk about.

"Did you do this last time you were here...?"

[ordinar]

In that liminal moment Iris' eyes hook onto him, he wonders if he imagines it. He catches himself hoping, against the half of him that has bruised into cautiousness, that he likes what he sees. When Wilhelm first got here, he was a twig, his breadth struggling to keep pace with his weedy height. Time has broadened his shoulders, and the years of training his body to fight have corded his limbs and planes with subtle muscle.

That indignant squawk comes as he's tossing his shirt onto the rock ledge, and draws him into half-formed ideas about what Iris thought he meant, threads which feel dangerous to follow to their end.

His gaze sticks to the other boy for a quickening moment, before, shaking off his thoughts, he answers, "Yeah. But it was never this empty. I like it a lot better this way."

With him.

Working hard at nonchalance, Wilhelm turns aside to undo the fastenings of his pants. He pretends that Iris doesn't exert a sort of gravity over him, that undressing and dipping into the magma pool with him is no different than it would be with any of his other friends.

[inventure]

It feels like, since arriving at these pools, their eyes have gotten caught up in an endless game of cat-and-mouse, chasing after the other but shying away just before making any actual contact. That isn't the norm for them, who are used to holding gazes across a flickering firelight or sharing smiles over dinner while Percy and Annabeth find something new to squabble over. The novelty of it adds an air of — not apprehension, but anticipation, because there's nothing wrong that feels about it. Rather there's a feeling of a bated breath, of waiting. For what? Something to give, he supposes.

Iris half-turns away just before he catches the waistband of Wilhelm's pants drawn down over a part of the other boy that suddenly feels too brazen to glance at, despite how many other times Iris has helped himself to it before. Of course it would be now, when Wilhelm offers his body up for stares, that Iris shies away... Trust that he's an anomaly to his own self, but he busies himself with his own clothing before he can get too caught up in the why's of it all.

His limbs feel particularly heavy as he goes about the motions, making it seem as if he's taking longer than he actually is. By the time he's stripped down to just his underwear, he chances another look just past his shoulder. There's that feeling again, of holding a breath.

"I didn't bring any extra clothes," he ventures. Neither of them did, despite both of them knowing full well what the visit would entail. No extra clothes, not even another pair of underwear, and so logic would dictate they remove those too, if they wish to walk out of here feeling anything close to comfortable.

Still, it feels almost necessary to clarify.

[ordinar]

The thing is, if the pool were dotted with other bathers, and if it were anyone else beside him, he would be quicker with the business of shucking off his clothes to hide his nakedness in the magma. But it's just them, and that demands a sort of eggshell reverence. Like the vault of the cavern is a sort of cathedral, and they're shedding something other than their clothes.

Down to his drawers, Wilhelm pauses. In his peripherals, he catches the warm tan stretch of Iris' body, just as bare. He begins to think that it was a mistake bringing him down here, playing with fire, flying too close to the sun. What did he think was going to happen?

"We brought our coats," he jokes, chuckling as he imagines them climbing back to the surface wrapped in jackets and scarves but nothing else.

It diffuses some of the tension in him, so many fragile strings pulled taut in anticipation. A slow breath to steel himself, expelled through his nose. His thumbs hook into the top of his shorts, and he slides them down his legs. He adds them to the pile of things draped over the rocky promontory. Then he's only in his necklace, the white crystal pendant that has always reminded him of a full moon. It has lain against his chest for almost a full year now. For the first time since Kelson gave it to him, he unclasps it and tucks it into his pants pocket.

Finally, his eyes flick to Iris. Careful to contain them to the boy's face, he fights against the rising desire to drink in all of him. He tilts his head in invitation toward the deeper vein of the pool before wading in. The shallow shelf gently slopes downward, then drops off into waist-deep magma. Neither clear like water nor opaque like the surrounding rock, it covers without fully concealing.

[inventure]

Finally, their gazes catch, and Iris finds it does nothing to free the breath he's been holding. After a pregnant moment a corner of his lips quirk up in a reassuring sort of smile, though he can't quite say if it's meant to be for Wilhelm or for himself. His line of vision he keeps proper, but he is all too keenly aware of what lies along the fringes of it. His attention begs to drift. but he holds fast simply because he has to.

And Iris, who has never had enough sense to ever be properly worried about anything, suddenly finds himself thinking he should turn back and put those layers back on. It all feels too precarious, and Iris wonders if he's growing more greedy than he can afford.

But then Wilhelm removes his necklace, and Iris feels something quietly, decidedly shift between them. He's never seen Wilhelm without that necklace, but he has known it to be a source of — comfort? something — for the other boy in the short time they've known each other. If Wilhelm can do without that... What the hell is Iris hesitating for?

His own pile of garments is not nearly so neat, sort of just haphazardly tossed in the same general direction (something he'll regret later, once they have to dress again, he's sure) but there's no time to be spared fixing that. Now fully bare, he follows after the other in strides as quick as the magma will let him, sinking down to waist-deep with a haste that betrays his sudden self-consciousness.

It's more than just being naked, and being naked with Wilhelm. Without a shirt, without his pants, the spread of his scars are on display. Thick, swirling lines of a rust-colored red, the color of dried blood, swoop across olive-colored skin in patterns too beautiful to be anything but on purpose. Like someone has taken a horse-hair calligraphy brush and drawn ancient runes all over him, only all these patterns spell out are a past full of lies. They are neither raised or textured like true scars, or mere ink seeped into the first layer of skin — they're both, and neither, and something else entirely. Something Iris hasn't spoken of once, despite how many times that elephant lingers in the room with each new flash of skin.

The sudden vulnerability of it all is almost too overwhelming, so he tries to shift his attention outward instead of in.

The magma is — it's something. It's enough of a new and strange experience to be just the right amount of distracting, even if staring down into it for too long feels like trying to sort out one's vision when it suddenly decides to go blurry for no reason. It's a nice, warm temperature just shy of being too hot to be oppressive, and he feels neither properly wet nor properly dry once he's sunken himself into it. There are goosebumps all along his skin, but he's almost certain that's more due to his precarious proximity to Wilhelm than anything else; he shivers regardless, reaching to wrap his arms around himself.

[ordinar]

I hope it brings you good dreams, Kelson had written on the note that accompanied the necklace. When he left, it transformed into a talisman of a different sort. A memory made physical. Evidence that it happened at all.

By now, Wilhelm has missed him for longer than they were together. It has faded into a bruise, the missing — he forgets until something bumps against it and brings it into sharp focus. The love, once so bright and fierce in the only way he knows how, has burned away to leave behind, like a solemn candle, the hope that Kelson will be okay someday, and the quiet acceptance that they were never going to last forever.

Somehow, it feels important, in this moment that feels like a held breath, to leave it all behind.

As they sink into the magma, it sinks into Wilhelm that this atmosphere hanging around them, quickening like the air before rain, whatever it is, it isn't his alone. It belongs to Iris too. Maybe it's this realization tentatively taking hold. Maybe it's the proximity aching between them, or the sense that the world holds only them right now. Something loosens the caution he's been drawing like armor around himself.

He allows his eyes to skim across Iris' skin. He allows himself to admire the lithe turn of his shoulders into his limbs, the cinch of his waist and the fine ridges of his hipbones disappearing into the magma. Wilhelm has caught glimpses of the strange markings scrolling across his skin, peeking from his neckline and sleeves. He has long wondered what they are but never asked, because he wasn't sure if he was treading somewhere he wasn't welcome. Their purposeful arrangement reminds him of magic runes — a channel, maybe, by which Iris' power courses through him.

The question perches uncertainly on his tongue. In shared silence, he squats down in the flow of magma so that it covers his shoulders and casts his submerged skin in its blue glow. When he lifts his feet from the bottom of the rock basin, the magma suspends him in place.

"Do they...mean something?" Wilhelm asks, finally releasing the curiosity he's been cupping close. He reaches out to brush a finger down Iris' arm, carefully tracing the curve of one marking. He'd painted his nails a deep midnight for the Dimming, the time of year when the Singularity's power wanes, and their dark color contrasts with the red etched into Iris' skin.

cw: abuse, humiliation, allusions to organ trafficking

[inventure]

Iris follows the trail of Wilhelm's finger and find himself stifling a sigh. Where does he even begin? How does he even begin?

"It was a lesson."

It sounds simple enough, doesn't it? Iris almost wants to just leave it there, let it lie however Wilhelm would like it to, giving just enough that the other boy can take it and fill in the blanks in whatever way would make him the most comfortable. It feels almost wrong to tell him the full story, here where they'd been carefully cultivating a quiet and safe space for just themselves... but Wilhelm had been honest with Iris at every turn, and shared more of himself than he perhaps ever wanted to. What kind of friend would Iris be, if he can't even offer the same sort of courtesy back?

"My mom's the leader of a group of demiflora — that's what people who're born with powers are called — and because of her, because she makes sure none of us use our powers, and that we all fall in line and just live out our lives pretending living in a tower and never seeing the outside world is good and fine, we get to all live safely without having to fear getting hunted down for parts, or just because of who we are."

He forces himself to keep talking, and finds it gets easier and easier the more he just does it, rather than think about it.

"But I told you before, right? How bad I was at following rules."

He searches Wilhelm's eyes, wondering if he's given enough pieces now for it to all sort of fall in place together.

"I liked my powers too much. I liked how using them made me feel. And I would use them every chance I got, but the worst she'd do is send me to my room without dinner, or ground me. It didn't really seem like that big of a deal... Then one day somebody from the outside snuck into the Tower. It as the first time I ever met anybody from the outside, but he was trying to get something of his. Something... that belonged to his family. And that's when I found out my mom was working with the very people she said she was protecting us all from. So I hid him. And I lied about it. And she didn't like that."

He can still remember her ordering him to strip down. He can still remember handing her the marker that she used to draw those cuts all over his body.

How could he have known what would happen? She had told him she loved him, before.

"So she made an example out of me. In front of everybody."

He looks up to meet Wilhelm's eyes, and there's something a little like an apology in his. There's no regret here, in being open and honest with Wilhelm, but there is, perhaps, a little bit of a disappointment. That in doing so, that electric and delicate atmosphere between them shifted into something that would leave a bad taste in one's mouth. If he could do it all over again, he would have chosen a better time and a better place, or maybe he wouldn't have said anything at all just to keep any trace of worry or pity out of the lines of Wilhelm's face.

But, well, it's out now. Aired like the dirty laundry it is, hanging heavy between them. The phantom pain he would still occasionally feel seems so very miniscule in comparison to the waiting he sits through now, wondering how at all Wilhelm will react.

[ordinar]

He begins to think it was a mistake to ask. As Iris' countenance grows overcast, Wilhelm drops his hand into the magma. And as Iris explains, and it hits him with gut-plunging force that the truth is so much worse than anything he could imagine, all he can do is hold his gaze to let him know that he's listening. To let him know that he's here.

By the time Iris finishes, the fluttering thing in his chest, which moments ago felt like it might take wing, has fallen still. It's replaced by an ache pulling apart his ribs. The atmosphere gathered around them, this pocket of warmth that's as if the mountain is cupping them in its hands, doesn't fizzle and fall away. Inside of it, the borders between them erode. Iris' hurt becomes his hurt, and he hopes with a fledgling ferocity that his strength, however fragile it might be, can become Iris'.

"I'm sorry," Wilhelm says quietly. The words feel as insubstantial as the steam billowing from the magma around them. "I'm sorry you had to go through that."

Now when his gaze traces the markings, distorted through the molten rock but still visible, he can only think about how painful it must have been. How it was someone Iris trusted and loved who did that to him. His expression is like a thing smashed open, spilling everywhere. There's sympathy wobbling in his eyes, horror in the set of his mouth — and in the tightening of his jaw, anger, which now swells in his voice.

"Moms are supposed to protect their kids. What she did to you...it was only to protect herself. That was the only lesson...'don't question me', 'don't challenge the way things are.' It doesn't matter what you did. Nothing could have made you deserve that."

He reaches for Iris' hand under the magma and, if he'll let him, clasps it between both of his. He couldn't protect him then, in the past and worlds away, but he can try now.

[inventure]

He had been keeping it together fairly well, all things considering. Had gotten through that whole story without so much as a hitch of breath, able to recollect it all with enough distance as if he were simply an observer to the events, rather than the main participator. Perhaps that made him cocky.

Or perhaps it was simply a matter of time before it finally took its toll on him.

See, the thing is, Iris hasn't really sat down with any of that since the first time Lillium asked him to. Even then, he couldn't bare to linger even more than a single thought on the matter, before all the complicated feelings that welled up inside him threatened to just choke him out. He had stopped it before the talk could really get anywhere, and he hasn't let himself really consider it since.

Right now, this very moment, marks the first ever time Iris has really let himself put voice to all that had happened... so maybe it's not all that unexpected that at the first sign of Wilhelm's comfort, he would break.

It starts with a sharp gasp — like air after a deep plunge. It tapers off into a sickly, wet sound, and he chokes on it before another inhale forces its way out of him. Then another, in quick succession, and soon he's hiccuping, or hyperventilating, and his eyes blue and burn with the tears he didn't allow himself since it happened.

Mothers are supposed to protect you. Mothers are supposed to love you.

So what was it about himself, that made him so unlovable?

Beneath the magma Iris' hand clutches at Wilhelm's, and his sobs make his shoulders shake. He'd dropped down to chest-deep by now, and the magma suspends him in a strange sort of gelatin embrace. But ebbing off of every inch of his skin there are — vapors, almost. Like the steam off the rocks, but blue-green and curlings and wispy. Not unlike the smoke always present with each of Iris' manifestations, except the ends of these begin to tinge an ominous red-orange, causing the air around Iris to thicken and warp.

[ordinar]

Like a cliff face ceding to erosion and sliding into the sea, Iris crumbles into sobs. Wilhelm wishes he could pull him into a hug, but naked as they are, he hesitates to make the other boy uncomfortable with what's meant to be a comforting gesture. (Not to mention, he doesn't trust his body with all that precarious closeness.) All he can do is squeeze his hand, caress his knuckles in slow patterns as if activating some kind of ward.

He wishes he could reach inside of Iris' chest and pull out the hurt. As easily as clearing weeds, or loosening a knot. He imagines it rising out of his friend like the strange vapors pluming from his skin right now — every heavy thing he shoves down and covers with a smile.

Suddenly, the ache in Wilhelm's ribs splits open. A tide of emotions rises in him, dragging to the surface all the ways he has never felt like enough. He spent his whole life looking for his mother's love. In every step, he was compared to Erik; in every step, he fell short. His brother was the golden boy whose hands flew beautifully over the piano keys, who won trophies and won people over as naturally as breathing. He was going to be a good king someday.

What she felt for Wilhelm was more duty than love. He was an unfortunate situation she had to make the best of after Erik died. He was her son second, her heir first — not his own person but an extension of her legacy. When it came down to it, rather than standing up for him — rather than bringing to justice the person who leaked the video filmed through his bedroom window — she chose to sweep the whole thing under the rug for the sake of preserving the family's reputation. Her reputation.

He needed her to be a mom, but she only knew how to be the queen.

The prickling behind his eyes becomes a blurring of his vision as tears spill down his cheeks. Clinging to Iris, holding the knot of their hands between their chests, he leans forward to rest their foreheads together.

"You deserved better," he whispers. "You...you deserve to be loved. You're worthy of love, Iris."

Meanwhile, as this torrent of emotions pours through Wilhelm, Iris will feel the salt sting of his sadness ebbing. As it sweeps out, it leaves behind a startling calm.

[inventure]

He doesn't remember the last time he cried — really cried, with body-shaking sobs that threatened to leave him breathless in the worst ways. He must have been a child, back when life was so much simpler, and the worst thing to ever happen to him was accidentally breaking one of his new colored pencils.

It had been just as long since he'd been held this way, too. Maybe even longer, if he really wanted to be honest with himself. The tenderness with which Wilhelm held him did not escape Iris, and those words permeated through the worst of his sobs with precision and ease. He wasn't inconsolable, despite his shuddering gasps and seemingly endless tears. And the more Wilhelm held him, the more Iris felt the gaping ache in his chest begin to soothe.

He deserved love. He was worth it.

How easy it was to believe that, now, in arms that held on so tight.

It — It felt good. It felt okay... And that in and of itself, so suddenly, felt so very, very strange. Something was off. Something was wrong. And when Iris draws away in confusion, he can see quite clearly how the colored vapors warping around him drag against the air, as if being sucked in a vacuum... towards Wilhelm. As if Wilhelm himself was that vacuum.

"Wille... What's happening?"

How quickly he changes their positions, from being cradled to the one reaching out now, gripping Wilhelm by the shoulders in urgency.

"Wilhelm — what are you doing?"

[ordinar]

Until Iris grabs his shoulders, and Wilhelm's eyes flutter open to meet his again, he doesn't realize that anything out of the ordinary is happening. He didn't understand why ghosts of Iris' scars seemed to be rising from his skin, but that was displaced in his concerns by his friend's sobs. He couldn't feel the pull of his connection to the Singularity, like an invisible web of threads, underneath the suffocating swell of sadness.

"I don't...I don't know."

But then the tide pulls out, and in the numbing calm that follows, he realizes that he has been here before. Two years ago, Wilhelm had stumbled upon the strange power to push his anxiety out of himself by pouring it into somebody else instead. It happened quite by accident. One moment, he struggled to breathe as he felt the heat prickling in his palms, and he wondered who he would hurt this time. The next, he felt...nothing. Light, airy nothing.

It's the same stillness Kelson could impart by taking his hand when nightmares stalked him and splintered his sleep. Like he was smoothing his fear away as easily as smoothing his hair, thanks to the ancient power singing in his blood. He remembers thinking how unfair it was that Kelson could pare away everyone's pain but his own.

Wilhelm curls his hand over Iris' where he still holds onto his shoulder. His fingers trace his knuckles, the knob of his wrist.

"Suddenly, I was...sad," he tries to explain. "I guess I started thinking about my mom too." An embarrassing thing to admit when you're naked in a pool of magma with a painfully cute boy, but he feels safe sharing it with Iris. "Then...it all just went away."

A pause thickens as he tries to measure if any of this makes sense to Iris. He waits to share his hypothesis on what the hell just happened, even as his certainty of it hardens.

[inventure]

Dark eyes seek lighter ones in the strange glow of the magma pools. Without any real idea what to look for, Iris searches for what he thinks he might have found were he to look into his own eyes, moments ago: fear, hurt, exhaustion. He sees none of that when he looks at Wilhelm now, save for the faint lines of strain that pull taut on the boy's brows, and while that alone should have been reassuring — it only makes his confusion grow.

There should have been pain there, just like there should have been pain in him, too. He had heard it, just a few seconds ago. And now... nothing. Nothing in him, either.

"I was sad too." Obviously. The tracks of tears down his cheeks are still fresh, though growing steadily drier by the second. "And then I wasn't." More than just a plain statement of fact and confirmation, he puts voice to his own hypothesis, though he hadn't nearly any other substance to it other than a single, unwavering certainty: "You did that?"

[ordinar]

Then he knows what his gut already knew. Wilhelm nods slowly.

"I think I...absorbed your feelings. They became mine." His own shade of the same ache. "And I got rid of them."

Like some kind of conductor, catching lightning to diffuse it. A laugh cuts from his lips, not because any of this is especially funny, but because it's so strange that someone like him should hold this power. It's like putting tinder in the path of a wildfire, only somehow all that kindling manages to choke the flames.

"I didn't know I could do that."

Now an apology perches in his expression. He squeezes Iris' hand.

"Sorry." What he's apologizing for, he isn't sure how to put into words. To pull what Iris was feeling out through his ribs and let it fill his own chest borders on an invasion of privacy. It's an intimacy that stretches beyond the naked state of their bodies and the shrinking space between them. "Sorry if...it was weird. You were hurting, and it was killing me that I couldn't do anything about it. I just didn't want you to hurt like that anymore."

[inventure]

Hearing Wilhelm confirm what he had already begun to suspect is... an oddly humbling experience. It's a feeling not unlike his first few days among the settlement, finally seeing demiflora of all kinds use their powers and with ease — having living proof right in front of him that the world is so very, very vast, and he is but one drop in the ocean of it. A power like the one Wilhelm is describing seems so wholly inconceivable, and yet it describes what had just transpired down to a t. Trying to resist it would be both a giant waste of time and a disrespect to what the other boy had just done for him.

For him.

Wilhelm saw him, folding under all that pain, and his instinct had been to take it away, even to the point of taking it all onto himself and — and who does that? Who cares like that?

"Wille..."

His tongue stalls. He wants to tell him he's got nothing to apologize for. And he wants Wilhelm to know he's never experienced such gentle kindness, and how that somehow feels more intense than even the sadness that was barely letting him breathe just a few seconds ago. And he wants to make Wilhelm promise him he'll never do that again, not for him, not if it'll have him hurting too. And he wants to hear him say it again, so he can hold the memory of it that much tighter.

He wants a lot of things, suddenly, and some things maybe not so suddenly, and all of them feel like a stormy mess battling out inside him that it seems only right the one thing that gets through should be the messiest one, the one barely thought-out, for how often it's thought.

Eyes closed, breath held, he has his mouth kiss where words fail him for the moment, something sweet and tentative and so immeasurably brave.

[ordinar]

The thing is, he would do it again. Even knowing now that he'd have to endure the churn of Iris' heartache in his own chest, to retread the dark places he has plunged to, he wouldn't hesitate to do it again. Because Iris has borne enough hurt. And Wilhelm knows what it's like to bend under unbearable sadness, to crumple in the void of loneliness, to hurt so much that you don't know if you'll ever feel okay again.

Iris shouldn't have to be there alone.

In the silence that follows his name, a current of anticipation crackles through him. Without knowing what Iris will say next, he prepares to hold it close — as if he might save it for later, like a flower tucked into a jar of water. He studies his friend, luminous in the blue wash of the magma, beautiful in a way that won't let him look away. He lets himself think it — god, he's beautiful.

Except, Iris doesn't say anything. Wilhelm's heart shimmies into his throat as he catches onto what's about to happen the moment before it does. They sway into each other, and their lips meet, and he realizes that he has been waiting for this since the day they met.

That first kiss is like skimming your fingers across the water's surface. The next is like wading in, slow and steady but already slanting into eagerness. He pours his attention on the soft jut of Iris' lower lip, brushing his across, grazing it with his teeth. His hands rise from the magma to cradle Iris' face, thumbs tracing the red marks across his cheekbones.

His armor is gone, all the measures he took to try to keep himself from wanting exactly this. There's nothing between Iris and his heart but skin and muscle and bone.

[inventure]

He had thought about this before, in all the ways he could have, in all the ways he shouldn't. He'd let his mind dance past the line held them steady as roommates, and the even more delicate one that kept them as friends, and wonder what it might feel like if they were a little something more. At his core, Iris is a creature of greed, someone who had never been very good at being told "no," even when the person doing the telling is Iris himself.

The thing is — he could have kissed Wilhelm a dozen times before. There were moments for it, more than half of them even felt secure enough that he was almost certain they'd be reciprocated, but each and every time he held himself back because he thought, this time, he won't dare to ask for more. In Thorne he has begun to craft for himself a new home, but it's in Wilhelm he's found a space he can truly feel safe in, and even someone as impulsive and reckless as Iris knows better than to try his luck in an area where luck has very repeatedly proven to him he hasn't any.

He was supposed to be content with just friendship, because even just friendship felt too good to be true. And he was — is — content with it. If Wilhelm pulled back now and wanted to laugh or never talk about it again, Iris would follow along without hesitation, if all that meant he could keep the other boy just for a little while longer. He readies himself for it, prepares to do what it takes to make sure he doesn't lose the one last good thing in his life.

But Wilhelm doesn't pull back. Wilhelm kisses him like he's been thinking about it too, that first press of lips more relief than want, and Iris feels a little like he's flying, soaring instead of suspended, because now his mind finds itself running wild with all the possibilities he'd been tol afraid to chase down even when he'd let himself imagine their first kiss. That's the thing — every time he's ever imagined it, it had always just been a first kiss. Suddenly, stretching out before him, unfolds the possibility of a second, and a third, and god maybe even a fourth. And Iris has never felt so frozen by possibility before—

Until Wilhelm cradles his face like he's something delicate — no, precious, and Iris finds the only proper response to any of this is seeing where else it could possibly take him. Something that might have started soft and tentative and maybe even a little shy surges now with the intensity of all the first kisses ever imagined; Iris's arms are there, slipping around Wilhelm's neck. Iris's legs follow soon after, drawing him closer through the magma so that he can seat himself more comfortably astride Wilhelm's thighs. There is the distinct awareness of where they are, and all the clothes they're lacking, but that awareness is off to the side somewhere, unbothered, before Iris now knows exactly how Wilhelm tastes, and he is already most inconveniently addicted.

[ordinar]

To be continued here.