Anail, Mo Rognaithe

Content warnings: flashbacks, extensive contemplation and description of scars, referenced and remembered past lab whump, referenced and remembered past gore, guilt, self-loathing, (self) victim blaming

Taglist: @bloodandbandages, @endless-whump (if you would like to be added or removed, please let me know!)

Iesin doesn’t hide his scars. He doesn’t treasure long sleeves and close necklines like Talvos does. He tears up his shirts to make them fit his wings, and often they end up as little more than a square of fabric tied behind his neck and again at the base of his spine, leaving his back and arms free to feel the brush of the air he treasures. 

He is free, and he is open, and because he is Talvos can see daily the silvery scars he has left on his beloved. He can see the lines tracing the edges of where Iesin’s wings sprout from his back, and he remembers the way the muscles beneath look, flayed back and spread open for Essylt’s examination of how they twist together. He remembers the way she lifted up Iesin’s wing as he shook and his screams died in the grip of the muzzle, and he remembers they way she directed Talvos to pay attention to the way shifting the wing this way led to those muscles moving just so, and her hypotheses on how the movement affected Iesin’s flight. 

He knows, now, which of her conjectures were right and which were wrong. He has seen Iesin fly, and he has traced his hands in deeper, more loving exploration across his beloved’s skin. He has seen Iesin unfurl his wings and leap into the air, and he has seen him alight, bare feet skipping across the ground as his wings catch in the breeze, or throw up clouds of dust as he drops suddenly from an unimaginable height to crouch, knees bent and a hand digging into the earth for balance, hair whipping about his face from the speed of his descent. 

Talvos can see the scars on Iesin’s arms, the wide, irregular divots in his wrists where iron burned deep into his flesh. He can see the straight, narrow lines of Essylt’s scalpel, and he can remember the way pearly blood drained out of them, the way his beloved’s bones sounded when they cracked and shattered. 

He knows more lurk across Iesin’s chest, up and down his legs, across the backs of his hands and the tops of his feet. Marks of impalement, of scalpels, of injections and burns all litter his beloved’s body, and Talvos remembers which he watched happen and which he inflicted himself. He knows that if he runs his hands just under the upper joints of Iesin’s wings he will find two circular patches of scar tissue that will never sprout feathers again. He knows that there are other scars up and down the breadth of Iesin’s wings, hidden now by feathers but present nonetheless. 

He should see them. He does not deserve to live unreminded of what he has done. And if it wears at him, if the sight of Iesin’s face pinching as his wing twinges or the way his gait falters sometimes as if he expects his stride to be cut short by a chain connecting his ankles breaks Talvos open a little – if it does, it is the least of what he deserves. 

He deserves it, but sometimes the weight of it is so heavy.

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@badthingshappenbingo ’s Trope: Power Fatigue | Fandom: OC | Requested by: anon

“Again.”

The gang leader puts her ear plugs back in and leans back, crooking a leg over the highbacked chair that looks like it belongs in a lord’s estate, not the pitted, abandoned chandlery that this group of ruffians have taken over as their base.

Iesin straightens his sagging posture. The knife at Talvos’ neck isn’t letting him relax. He looks at the captive kneeling in front of him, some other shaking victim of their predacious lifestyle. He doesn’t know the human, doesn’t have anything in particular against him - but he will continue to destroy him, for the alternative is Talvos - Talvos in pain, Talvos bleeding out onto the dirty flagstones, Talvos still and silently grey, Talvos anything but alive and brightly breathing.

He takes a breath, opening his soul to the mysteries. Starsong scrapes against the sensitive channels of his will, protesting the tension he must drag from the frayed threads of his connection in order to fulfill their captor’s demands. The human cowers down towards his bound hands in a futile effort to cover his ears.

Iesin’s croon starts low, a quiet trill of fear that dances in glassine unease across the human’s spine. It builds, in sliding, maddeningly liquid half-pitches, through anxiety and towards full-fledged fear. Dissonance weaving in twists fear towards terror, and the human looses a keen of his own. Tears spill shamelessly from wide, too-focused eyes. He is afraid, strangled in terror that Iesin weaves in barbed strands around his throat and sinks in icy pinpricks into his veins.

The mysteries strain against him, wearing at the edges of his connection like a string scraping across rough bark. The human’s fear has been closer to the surface each time, easier to draw forth, but Iesin’s ability to channel the mysteries stretches thinner with every moment of sustained use. He is so, so diminished. Once, this would have been as thoughtless as breathing; once, he could have destroyed this man’s sanity in half the time he has taken to slowly, excruciatingly wind up his current level of fear. Once, he was fae, full and fair, a starchild in every right. Now, his soul strains and quakes within him, and his body sings in screeling, fine tremors of exhaustion and edging, creeping pain.

Iesin cuts off his stream of sound, and the human curls forwards, bowing under the weight of the mindless, inescapable terror inflicted upon him. He shakes, collapsed at Iesin’s feet, gibbering quietly.

The gang leader removes an ear plugs and tilts an eyebrow at the misery drifting upwards from Iesin’s victim.

“Did what you demand,” Iesin says, tipping his chin up. “Is afraid, this human. We go now.” He presses the tips of his fingers against his thighs to still the trembling in his hands.

She leans forward. “I don’t think so. He’s not afraid enough yet, fae. Make him scream.”

To the side, Talvos stiffens. He can’t hear clearly, since Iesin had absolutely refused to begin until they allowed him earplugs too, but he can tell that Iesin is tiring, and that the gang leader is pressing him for something. The woman holding him tightens her grip, and a single drop of blood slides down the edge of her knife. Iesin’s head snaps towards the smell, pupils narrowing to furious slits.

“Don’t touch,” he snaps. Habit, rebuilt after months of avoidance, reaches for starsong to enforce his demand, and emotion grabs, clawed and jagged, where open request should have been made. The mysteries resist his desperation, drag sharp, acidic censure across the channels of his soul as they come, and Iesin shudders and sways. His body feels unstrung, disjointed like a puppet dashed to the ground and trampled into pieces. The floor smacks across his shoulder and one wing, and then his head bounces off of the stone as well. Blackness flashes across his vision, and it is void and utterly bereft. He keens, breathlessly repentant. Please, please, he needs the mysteries!

Sound filters in, yelling and heavy human boots. They stomp closer. A hand fists in his hair. Iesin squints hazily up at the gang leader, watching her mouth move in the flat, earthy consonants that are just one more way to distance him from the stars. His soul strains, reaching instinctively for song that flees from his grasp.

“…et up,” she’s shouting.

Iesin’s body lifts up off the ground as she yanks at him. Behind her, Talvos is jerking against the gang members holding him back. His face twists with rage and fear. Discarded in a corner, the human that Iesin enspelled for their amusement cowers, drowning in the aftermath of what Iesin created in him. Emptiness scrapes him out, leaving a hollow shell of regret and aching need, and the world greys out once more.

Hell yeah I could, anon!

Iesin is sick.

Talvos eyes the innkeeper, waiting for him to indicate that the room he haggled and scraped the bottom of their lean stock of cash for is ready, but the man ignores him studiously in favor of other customers, ones who can afford both a bed and a meal.

He twists restlessly against Talvos, seeking comfort on the narrow bench against the wall of the inn’s dining room. Talvos can feel the heat radiating off of him even through the barriers of their clothes, but Iesin clutches his cloak around him as if they’re enduring a snowstorm rather than the fusty warmth of the too-large fire and too closely-packed bodies of the dinner rush.

Iesin’s head droops, slipping off of Talvos’ shoulder, and Talvos catches him, guiding him down to lay his head in his lap. Iesin mumbles incoherently and pulls his feet up onto the bench, curling up tight in an aching, trembling ball of illness and misery. Talvos runs his hand soothingly up and down Iesin’s arm, passing the other hand across the hood keeping his fae hair and ears concealed. He looks across the crowded room at the innkeeper again, and the man finally gives a grudging nod, probably only because the sight of the two of them is unpleasant to other diners, who wish to be fed and entertained by the juggler and bard in the corner without having to dwell on any less fortunate than themselves. A busboy starts elbowing his way over at his gesture, and Talvos leans over Iesin, squeezing his shoulder gently.

“Time to get up, Iesin, the room is ready, they have a bed for us,” he says softly.

Iesin hums miserably and pushes himself up, still leaning on Talvos. He swings his feet down off of the bench, and the patron at the next table stares in suspicion and concern at the bare, taloned toes. Talvos glares and helps Iesin up, wrapping an arm around him to keep him upright, and follows the busboy around the edges of the room to the narrow hall leading back into the rooms for let. Iesin clings onto him, tripping over the rough wooden floor occasionally. Finally, they make their way into the bowels of the inn, and the noise of the common room fades to a more manageable murmur. The busboy shoulders open a warped door and ducks away, and Talvos leads Iesin inside.

The room is tiny, little more than a closet, but there’s a pallet in the corner and a small window high in the wall above which lets in the light of a few distant stars. Talvos gets Iesin across the short distance to the pallet, and lays him down carefully. He unclasps the cloak, but leaves it draped across Iesin as an extra layer in addition the threadbare blanket that the inn provides. He brushes Iesin’s sweaty hair off of his face and dips a cup into the bucket of water he bullied the busboy into bringing. 

“Drink, you need it,” he whispers, holding the cup for Iesin.

Iesin sips a little, then pulls away with a pained face. “Tastes like wood.”

Talvos huffs out a laugh. “Sorry, beloved. Try to take a little more, if you can bear it.”

Iesin scrunches up his face again, but manages half of the water in the cup before he pulls away and shakes his head. He shifts onto his side and curls his knees up, clutching the blankets around himself as he shivers. Talvos looks at him sorrowfully. Blue-veined eyelids, closed tightly under furrowed brows, seem thinner than they did yesterday, reduced to translucent shells rimmed in ice-pale lashes. Iesin’s wings are wrapped almost entirely around himself, under the cloak and the blanket; his feet are tucked up under his wings, and he looks so, so small on this tiny pallet in this tiny room. One hand crawls out from under the blankets in search of Talvos’.

“‘mcold,” he whispers through clenched teeth and trembling lips.

Talvos takes the questing hand and chafes it gently in his own. He shifts onto the pallet behind Iesin, and rests his beloved’s head on his lap. Iesin shivers and leans into him, seeking the warmth that his body expels instead of using. His wings tremble, lightly and constantly, and his hand twitches around Talvos’, relaxing and then seizing up again in short, sporadic bursts. Talvos runs his free hand up and down Iesin’s back, warming the blanket atop him with slow, steady friction. 

Iesin shivers, and burns, and shivers, and the night stretches on. Talvos braids his hair to keep it out of his face, and tries to persuade him to drink, when he’s aware enough. Eventually, Iesin’s uneasy dozing seems to deepen towards true sleep, and Talvos hopes it’s a good sign, even as Iesin’s temperature continues to rise.

A star has come and gone across their tiny window when Iesin shifts against him, twisting  out of the tightly clenched, shivering ball he’s been curled into for the past few hours. Talvos looks down, stilling the hand at Iesin’s temple, where he was idly tucking away a stray whisp of hair. 

Iesin’s lips move, clumsy with exhaustion from being pressed firmly shut against teeth-chattering shivers for too long. Talvos leans closer, listening to the breathy, fragmented syllables. It’s fae, he determines after a moment; foreign, liquid vowels and needle-tipped consonants that even in delirium fall easier from Iesin’s tongue than Talvos’ human words.

Talvos waits till he tapers off, then brushes the backs of his fingers across Iesin’s temple. “I’m here, beloved,” he whispers.

Iesin leans into the touch, a worn, quiet trill emanating from the back of his throat. He shifts closer against Talvos, pushing unconsciously for more contact. Talvos lifts his hands away, surprised, but then smiles and runs a hand up and down Iesin’s back. “I’m here,” he repeats. “Not going anywhere.”

Iesin settles for a few moments, breath whistling faintly through his nose, and Talvos thinks he might have fallen asleep, until he shifts again, this time opening his eyes a little. He squints, as if the dim starlight is too much for him, and twists his head till his gaze lands on Talvos.

“T'l…vos?” the whisper is air-thin, faintly questioning.

“I’m here. It’s me, beloved.”

Iesin blinks, slow and pained. He shifts closer on the pallet, pressing his drawn-up knees against the side of Talvos’ leg. “‘mc'ld,” he exhales. He shifts again, and then drags himself up to crawl into Talvos’ lap. “’mcold,” he insists, tangling icy fingers in Talvos’ shirt.

Talvos releases a held breath, then carefully wraps his arms around Iesin. The fae shivers and settles closer. Talvos drags the blanket up over him and then resumes the hug. Iesin tucks his forehead against Talvos’ neck and sighs, a little of his tension releasing. His breathing evens out slowly, and soon he’s asleep again.

Talvos supports the fragile weight of his beloved, feeling intermittent shivers ruffle his wings under the blanket. It feels dangerous, and perhaps selfish, to think that as long as he stays exactly like this, that nothing will happen; and yet, he doesn’t move, merely holds his beloved close, feeling the faint puff of Iesin’s breath on his neck, the too-quick patter of his heartbeat against his chest.

He’s still there, watching the sky turn grey and green in anticipation of dawn, when the door slams open and town guards stomp in, wielding long-handled pikes. Talvos jumps, squeezing Iesin tighter, and decides in the next moment that fighting isn’t an option. There’s nowhere to go, and no way to protect Iesin except by continuing to hold him close. He tips his head up as they swarm them, drawing his knees up in a final modicum of protection for the body in his lap, and curls his fingers around his beloved’s. He won’t let them be separated.

Continuation from this, where Essylt sent Talvos away to fix him.

He’s been awake for nearly two days by the time the carriage arrives at Essylt’s second estate. They drove through the nights, two drivers trading off shifts and only stopping to change horses. They have not opened the carriage doors, nor even glanced inside, and Talvos has been left on the bottom of the carriage floor, paralyzed and limp and awake. Now, though, the carriage clatters across the paving stones of the stable yard, and when it halts the doors are opened and Talvos is dragged out. He’s amassed a collection of bruises, from rolling to and fro across the floor with no way to brace himself, and the everbane in his system is sapping at his body’s energy reserves, leaving him drained and wrung out even as it keeps him relentlessly awake.

The guards lift him between them by the arms, letting his feet drag behind them, and make their way into a smallish side building set away from the main manor. Inside, he sees only the floor of a short hallway before he’s dragged into a stone-floored room. The guards drop him to his knees on the floor, then pull his arms behind him to shackle them to an iron loop set in the wall. The position leaves him bent over, with his arms raised painfully far behind him, but in his paralyyzed state he’s unable to adjust his weight to relieve any of the pressure being placed on his back and shoulders. The guards leave without without a word, closing the door with a bang behind them, and silence descends once more. No one has spoken to him since Essylt’s parting words, nor has he eaten or drunk in that time. Thirst is starting to be a problem, but hunger has thus far been subsumed to the poison which curdles and churns in his system, stirring up nausea that roils in his stomach and squeezes his chest into something tight and uncomfortable. But shouldn’t he be uncomfortable? He disappointed Essylt - how, he can’t quite remember - and he’s here to be made better.

Right?

His mind is muddled, foggy with poison and with pain. What did he do? How did he disappoint his lady? Time, like the joints of his shoulders and elbows, stretches out with painful slowness as he endures the course of the everbane through his body and struggles to think under the haze it’s cast over his mind.

There are no windows in the room they’ve left him in. A lamp burns high on the wall in one corner. The flame is low but constant, and its occasional flickers, along with the steadily increasing burn in his shoulders and creeping down his back, are the only markers he has to measure the passage of time.

It’s later - it feels much later but he can’t really be sure - when the click of the lock breaks the heavy, stifling silence of his cell. In his strained, bent-over position, Talvos can only see the tops of polished, expensive black shoes as they cross the stone floor in a distinctive, predatory gait, but the sight and the sound fill him with an old, visceral dread. He watches, in forced stillness and lurking, mounting terror, as those shoes come to a stop in front of him, and then a lean, brown hand reaches down to lift up his chin and destroy Talvos’ last shred of cowering hope.

“Hello, Talvos,” Mentiro says. He’s the same, exactly the same as Talvos remembers, from his immaculately tailored slacks and shirt to his wide, friendly smile and the tiny smile lines framing pitiless dark eyes.

Talvos can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t look away. He’s caught, utterly pinned by the presence of the man before him. Thought, as difficult as it was before, has fled entirely, leaving him in a blank, grey state, waiting for Mentiro’s next move.

Mentiro lifts a narrow vial, waggling it between his fingers. “As fun as it is seeing you like this, I’d rather start our time together with you more functional. Drink up, darling. It’s time to remember everything I taught you.”

Grey takes on an icy, frozen tinge as Mentiro squeezes Talvos’ jaw, forcing his mouth open, and tilts the liquid inside the vial down Talvos’ throat. He drops Talvos’ head once the liquid is gone, and squats down to look up at him from below. His smile is familiar and deadly.

“We’re going to have so much fun, darling.”

Happy Birthday to my dear friend @wildfaeworld!!! There is no better first art for 2020 than with your boys!

It’s his first task as Lady Essylt’s new facilitator, and Talvos is determined to exceed her highest expectations. She has acquired a new creature, she told him, and she wishes it cleaned and made ready for her inspection. 

He unlocks the door to her research wing and crosses the wide laboratory swiftly, paying little mind to the many implements and tables and the few simmering beakers of various elixirs and serums. Lady Essylt is renowned for her medicinal advances, and pride and gratitude fill him whenever he remembers her charity in taking him in and offering to train him in the healer’s arts. He is nothing, no one, without her, and he will give his all to ensure that she never has cause to doubt or regret her decision. 

The creatures are kept along a corridor behind the laboratory. Talvos enters, closing the door to the lab carefully behind him, and sets off down its length, heading for the end where the largest cages are. He passes several occupied cages on his way. One holds a neighboring noble’s sick dog that Lady Essylt is treating; Talvos pauses to inspect the poultice bandaging its infected ear, and leaves with a soft pat on the animal’s head when he finds it still cool and damp, with no sign that the infection is overmastering the poultice’s healing properties. 

Near the end, the cages are large enough that Talvos could crawl inside comfortably, if he wanted. His Lady’s research and services occasionally stretch to creatures as large as wolves and once, she told him, even a bear. It’s one of these cages that is Talvos’ destination, an alcove set into the end of the corridor with stone walling the rear and the right side, and iron bars wrapping around and up overhead to complete the holding pen. 

Lady Essylt’s new acquisition huddles in the corner, a shapeless lump pressed against the stone walls. Talvos slows to lift a lamp off of its hook on the wall, shifting the rags in his hand to drape over his other arm that carries the bucket of warm, soapy water. He approaches softly, not wanting to startle it, and sets the bucket and lamp down just outside the bars. 

The shift in the light casts the creature in sharper relief, and Talvos stops, shock freezing his hand on the lock. That’s not- it can’t be a human?

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L O O K IT’S MY B A B I E S

@negativesd09 created this incredible commission and I’ve been hollering for hours

Talvos & Iesin, everyone!!

Talvos, fevered

Talvos is sick. He’s hot under Iesin’s worried touch, but he clings to the blankets with a desperate, pleading noise when Iesin folds them back, as if he’ll freeze without them, so Iesin tucks them back around him. He hasn’t woken up, not really; he’s caught in a sort of restless, half-sleep, one that doesn’t break for the cool cloths Iesin wipes his face and wrists with, or for the gentle stirring of the air when Iesin fans his wings back and forth. He won’t drink, he won’t eat, and his eyes flicker open sometimes but never with any awareness.

Talvos is sick. He’s not supposed to let himself get sick, he’s supposed to do better, be better. He’ll be punished for this, he knows it. He needs to get up, prove that he’s still useful, but he’s frozen, there’s ice in his veins and ice coating his limbs, and not even the coursing, relentless shivers that judder and shake his body can break him free.

The first time Talvos looks up at him, it’s hazy and distant, his gaze sliding back and forth across Iesin’s face like he’s not quite sure of what he’s seeing.

“Hey,” Iesin says softly. He tucks a sweaty lock away from Talvos’ forehead, lingering to rub a thumb across the spot at corner of Talvos’ temple where he knows headaches tend to linger. “How are you feeling?”

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The whumpee is found in an unusual place.

Places Talvos has found Iesin:

chills wracking a whumpee’s body, making them shake and shiver, wrapped up in the arms of the caregiver and soothed with whispers about how safe they are now and how they’ll be kept warm

This is set a few months after Talvos & Iesin’s escape.

Talvos looks up when the first drops patter against the window, and when within two breaths the day is dark and drowning under the abrupt onslaught of the storm he is on his feet and out the door. Iesin was out flying. It had been sunny and bright when he left. They’ve been safe for months, they’ve finally relaxed, but Talvos knows, somewhere between his bones and his heart, that Iesin needs him.

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