The Fey's Favour

by oneiricdame

Summary:

Cover Art Credit: juunipupu.bsky.social

 

Galvahin, a valiant knight weary from chasing storybook ambitions, is hunted by a monstrous beast into the Feywild: a world where logic shatters like a broken mirror, mortals are spun like playthings, and promises bear both petals and thorns. Within its twilight woods, he encounters Oriel, an enigmatic, fatally captivating archfey prince who offers sanctuary in exchange for a queer and cryptic accord.

The Plane of Faerie may be beautiful, but its wonders demand a price.

As a dryad’s teasing touch tugs at his resolve and the prince’s silken shadow haunts every thought, Galvahin drifts toward a precipice where ruin and rapture intertwine. Is his chivalry shield or shackle? Or is he simply trading fetters?

Chapter 1: The Hero

Summary:

A nobleman holds a funeral for his son, wearing an expression that says, “I’m very sad, but also, I told you so!” One month earlier, his very much not dead yet son haggles a bird for candy and performs an aggressive literary critique via projectile. The moral of the story? Life is not a fairytale… and if it was, someone really should have edited it first.

Notes:

I hadn’t filled out a notes section in any of these chapters before, but now seems like as good a time as any.

After posting and updating this fic for a while, I kept revisiting the opening chapter and feeling increasingly dissatisfied with it. So, with some feedback from a beta reader, I decided to rewrite it entirely. If you’re new to this story, welcome—so glad to have you here! If you’re a returning reader, feel free to revisit and share your thoughts. I wanted to mention this so that any discrepancies between older and newer comments make sense.

The original version of this chapter was short and relied heavily on ‘telling’ rather than ‘showing.’ This new version conveys my ideas much more effectively.

Chapter 2 also received a minor edit—nothing major, just some tweaks to the prose to better align with the style I’ve developed in later chapters and to connect more seamlessly with the rewritten version of Chapter 1.

With that in mind, enjoy the story! If you liked it, feel free to leave a kudos or comment, I love reading them. 🫶

Edit: Chapters 15 & 16 have content advisories for those individual chapters.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Socrates

 

It was less a funeral than an obligation. With no body for this wake and fewer than a dozen mourners in attendance, it felt more like a silent formality than a proper farewell. Most who came barely knew the man being honoured—old tutors and a few loyal servants. But one man stood apart, the only one who might have claimed to have truly known Galvahin Alderwyn. 

Or at least, had pretended to. 

Maeren Alderwyn, his father. 

A wealthy patriar, noble, and astute businessman, Maeren’s memories of his only son were fragmented—brief flashes of a life that, to him, had been wasted. Galvahin had always been a disappointment, chasing storybook heroics when the life of a noble called for restraint, order, and control. To Maeren, such dreams of knighthood and valour were not only foolish and unbecoming, but dangerous. He had seen enough of the world, enough of mankind’s true nature, to know that heroism was, at best, the naive fantasy of a child—and at worst, it was a lie wielded by the cunning to manipulate the innocent, a shining facade concealing ambition’s rot. 

But now, staring at the portrait surrounded by blue lilies, Maeren’s grief was poisoned by something deeper. It should have been a vindication, the proof that his son’s choices led exactly where he’d predicted: to ruin. Instead of satisfaction, however, Maeren felt only an ache, cold and hollow. His only child. Gone, like a whisper subsumed into the void. 

He remembered the moment he received the letter. His first instinct had been to scoff. A backwater farming village? The place was so obscure it didn’t even appear on most maps. That, at least, explained the silence—why Galvahin’s correspondence had trickled to nothing over the past year. He must have finally settled down there. Before then, the letters had come infrequently, each one a small window into his son’s increasingly aimless life. 

Maeren could always tell when Galvahin had failed. His letters spoke of unimpressive deeds—a wolf slain here, a mugger frightened off there. Half were padded with apologies and excuses, rambling explanations of how adventuring life didn’t pay the bills, always accompanied by requests for more money. Modest sums, never enough to seem greedy, as though the humility of the ask might soften the shame of needing it. Maeren always obliged, sending stipends without comment, never bothering to write back. It was disappointing, yes, but not surprising. 

Still, he supposed he should be grateful Galvahin hadn’t fallen into outright criminality. The image of his son—large and imposing as he was—shaking down shopkeepers or attempting to swindle someone was outright laughable. Maeren smirked at the memory of a much younger Galvahin, eyes red-brimmed and tearful, clutching one of his silly fairytale books. 

“She pretended to care for them—to feed them,” he’d said, voice trembling with restrained misery. “But really she just wanted to eat them! They were only kids… How could someone be so mean?” 

How naive he had been, how utterly unprepared for the world. Even then, Maeren had seen it—his son’s tender heart would be his undoing. 

Lost in the woods, the letter had said. A hunting trip Galvahin hadn’t returned from. The words were as sparse as they were final. Of course, they had searched—the villagers, rangers, even hired trackers—but the forest was vast, sprawling like a labyrinth with no promise of an exit. Days of walking would barely scratch the surface, and the deeper one ventured, the less familiar the terrain became. 

As the tendays stretched into a month, the truth became inescapable: Galvahin was gone. Even the most capable knight could vanish into the wilderness, swallowed by trees that watched like wordless adjudicators. Maeren could picture it all too clearly—his son, trudging through the underbrush, chasing a boar or stag that would never be found, a far cry from the heroics he preached. The great knight, reduced to a lost hunter, searching for glory in some forgotten hinterland village. A fool’s errand, just like all the others. 

The image of Galvahin alone in that endless forest clung to him like a shadow, dark and persistent. He wondered if, in those final moments—just as when he had clutched that foolish storybook, eyes wide and brimming with tears—his son had been afraid. Did he, alone and helpless under the canopy’s suffocating dark, weep when he realised his fate was sealed? The thought pressed against Maeren’s chest, sharp and unrelenting. A single tear escaped his otherwise stoic visage, tracing a cold line down his cheek. 

Did he think of me? 

Maeren stared at the portrait, the cleric’s muffled droning of “dearly beloved” and “we are gathered here today” fading into an indistinct hum. The painting captured a man with broad shoulders, dark, short, wavy hair and fair, sun-kissed skin. His jaw was strong and square, his brows straight and firm, framing eyes of stormy grey—the same shade his long departed mother had passed down to him. A scruffy beard softened the sharpness of his features, lending him a rugged, approachable charm. 

What stuck with Maeren the most, however, was the smile—small, subtle, but unmistakably warm. Unlike the stiff, imperious portraits of other nobles, this one was alive with its quiet sincerity. It was the kind of smile that spoke of a gentle heart, one that said: I’m here for you. 

He fidgeted his signet ring, the cold metal stinging against his pinkie in the crisp autumn air. The ring—a simple tool for stamping officiality into missives—bore the Alderwyn family crest: a leaping hare encircled by a wreath of wheat. The wheat, a symbol of prosperity, felt fitting enough for the Alderwyns, with their vast web of trade routes and carefully brokered alliances among houses and merchant guilds. The hare, however, struck as bitterly ironic. A widower with no siblings, now attending the funeral of his only heir, Maeren’s line was as far from a picture of fertility as a family could be. 

For a moment, Maeren considered whether Galvahin had found success in at least that one regard. There had never been a mention of a sweetheart in his letters, no inkling of someone who might’ve cared for him beyond polite obligation. It was not something Maeren had ever considered before—his son’s love life. Until then it seemed irrelevant. Hells, he hadn’t even given Galvahin the perfunctory “birds and bees” talk, leaving such awkward responsibilities to the hired hands of tutors and nannies. But now, standing at the precipice of Galvahin’s story, the sum of his son’s thirty-one years of life laid bare before him, the absence of someone special to weep over his loss struck Maeren as an unexpected sadness—another bitter irony in a tale already filled with them. 

It made him wonder, with an ache he couldn’t quite suppress, how many other ways he had failed to guide his son. How much of Galvahin’s upbringing had been quietly shifted onto the shoulders of others? Tutors, servants, bodyguards—faces Maeren could barely recall had done the work he was meant to do. And what had Galvahin received in return? The Alderwyn name, a trickle of gold, but little else. Blood, Maeren realised, was not the same as legacy. Without his own teaching, his own presence, could Galvahin truly be called his son? 

The thought settled in Maeren’s chest, heavy and unwelcome. It was a question he dared not answer—because the answer, he knew, would be far too unkind. 

The cleric’s obsequies droned on, blending with sounds of the wind whispering through the castle’s courtyard. Overhead, clouds had begun to gather in heavy layers, their shadows dimming the small assembly. 

Maeren’s gaze remained fixed on the portrait propped up against the empty casket, the blue lilies framing it already beginning to wilt. Galvahin’s faint, warm smile stared back at him, incongruous beneath the looming sky. 

A low growl of thunder rumbled across the horizon. No one moved, save for a few restless glances upward as the wind tugged at coats and scarves. 

Crack. A sharp boom broke the stillness. Louder this time, closer. 

Then, the first drop fell—soft and unassuming, it landed on Galvahin’s painted shoulder. It spread slowly, the blue smearing into a murky stain. A second drop followed, trailing down the painted cheek like a tear, streaking the storm-grey eyes until they blurred into nothingness. 

Maeren watched in silence as the rain quickly fell harder, streaking the soft smile into an unrecognizable haze. Around him, the mourners began to scatter, but he remained rooted in place, unmoving as the storm overtook them. 

Rain at a funeral, he thought. Just like one of your stupid storybooks. 

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

One month earlier. 

“I’m sorry Galvahin, truly, but I just can’t pay any more than that,” she said, shaking her head. “This grouse is so scrawny you can see its bones, my dear boy. Five copper is the best I can offer—and even that’s me being generous.” 

Galvahin sighed and leaned against the counter, his broad shoulders slumping slightly. For a moment, he appeared puzzled, his grey eyes flicking between the bagged fowl and the small pile of copper pieces she’d laid out. 

“Perhaps we could strike a trade?” he ventured, his deep baritone daubed with a hint of hope. “Did you get any more comfits this tenday?” 

Across from him the dwarven woman chuckled, her short silver hair glinting in the late evening sun. She had the warm, well-worn look of someone who had seen centuries of life, her wrinkled face and round cheeks lending her the air of a patient grandmother. Clad in a simple frock and apron, she seemed a humble fixture in the town market, her small stall modest but welcoming. 

“Comfits?” she said, raising a wiry brow. “A mighty big ask from someone bringing me a bird that looks like it died of embarrassment.” 

Her playful tone took the sting out of the words, but Galvahin winced nonetheless, running a calloused hand over the back of his neck with a nervous smile. 

The shopkeeper chuckled and hopped down from her stool, her movements surprisingly nimble for her age. From beneath the counter, she retrieved a small linen bag, its edges frayed from years of use. Turning back to him, she extended her hand expectantly. Galvahin handed over a small satchel of his own, his movement slow yet precise. She opened the linen bag, inspecting its contents briefly, before carefully pouring a modest handful of tiny, colourful confectioneries into his satchel. 

“There you go, lad,” she said, cinching the satchel with flair before handing it over. “Sweet enough to brighten your mood, I hope.” Her tone was light, but her shrewd eyes lingered on him, reading something deeper beneath his quiet stoicism. 

“Thank you,” Galvahin replied softly, tucking the little satchel away with care. He dipped into a polite bow, the worn steel of his pauldrons creaking slightly under the motion. The matte surface, dulled and scratched from years of use, bore the marks of numerous close calls. Rust traced the iron rivets, and his chest piece carried a dent near the left side—a silent testimony to a near-fatal blow. 

The glaive strapped across his back moved with him, its wooden haft smoothed by endless grips, the blade dulled but still carrying an edge of quiet menace. As Galvahin rose, the faint glint of steel caught the muted light, a subtle reminder of the armament’s lethality, contrasting sharply with the calm kindness of the man wielding it. The armour resettled with a soft clank as he straightened to full height, his frame large yet composed, exuding a quiet humility and an enduring strength. 

“It’s been a bad month, hasn’t it?” she said, her tone quieter now, free of the earlier banter. “The game in those woods, I mean. From what I’ve seen it’s been thin as fence posts. I’m surprised you’ve managed to bring in anything at all.” 

“I’ve noticed,” Galvahin admitted, his voice low. “The deer have been sparse, and the smaller game…” He paused, glancing at the grouse on the counter. “It’s not much.” 

“It’s not your fault,” she said quickly. “That forest’s been stingier than a miser lately. Something about the air feels… wrong. Folks are saying it’s a bad omen.” 

Galvahin’s jaw tightened at that, his gaze drifting to the forest’s edge visible beyond the market stalls. The dark line of trees loomed in the distance, pitch black against the late evening sky. He thought of the hours he’d spent beneath those branches, the unsettling quiet that seemed to grow heavier the longer he lingered there. 

“Don’t be silly,” he said eventually, though his tone lacked conviction. His grey eyes remained fixed on the distant treetops. “A bear probably just moved in—scared all the deer away deeper into the woods.” His gaze returned back to the shopkeeper, a polite smile softening his stoicism. “In any case, I’ll manage. I’ve managed before.” 

“Aye, I suppose you have,” she said softly, though worry remained in her tone. 

They exchanged a few more pleasantries, their words polite, before Galvahin offered his thanks once more and took his leave. As he walked through the quiet village, he allowed himself one of the comfits, the sugary shell cracking between his teeth and dissolving into a burst of honey. The sun was beginning to fall below the horizon, painting the humble collection of timber and thatch homes in hues of gold and amber. Villagers bustled with the last chores of the day—hauling firewood, mending fences, and calling their children in from play. Some offered the knight brief nods or murmured greetings, their respect evident but touched with a quiet distance he had grown accustomed to. 

It wasn’t long before he reached the small shack he called home. The structure was modest, its wooden walls weathered but sturdy, the roof patched in places with uneven shingles. A small, neatly tended garden stretched out front, populated by a handful of vegetables and a few clusters of teal and violet wildflowers that had crept in over time. He paused at the gate, his solemn gaze lingering on the garden for a moment, a bitter pang tightening in his chest. 

It was a sign of permanence, of roots quietly taking hold despite himself. Galvahin had never intended to stay long, not in this village or any other, but the vegetable garden spoke otherwise. It communicated time spent, effort invested, and life settling into place before he could realise it. A far cry from the wandering knight he’d once pictured himself as. 

He pushed open the gate with a faint creak and stepped inside. The air around the garden was earthy and cool, carrying the faint scent of damp soil and thyme. His boots crunched softly against the gravel path as he approached the door, his crossbow shifting lightly against its holster. 

Inside, the shack looked as unassuming as its exterior: a small hearth for cooking, a narrow bed tucked into one corner, and a wooden table laden with tools about a half-mended piece of armour. A single window let in fading light, casting long shadows across the room. Galvahin set his satchel down carefully, the bag of comfits rattling faintly as he set it down. 

Galvahin unstrapped his armour, the pieces clinking as he stacked them neatly on a wooden bench by the door. His glaive found its place in the nearby rack, the sharpened steel reflecting the light of the hearth. He hung his damp gambeson on a hook, blissfully sighing as the cool evening air mingled with his hirsute skin. 

Crossing to the water basin, he poured water from a nearby pitcher, the sound of the splash breaking the quiet. He scrubbed his face, neck, and arms, the coolness bracing but soothing as it rinsed away the sweat and grime clinging to him. The brief ritual left him feeling lighter, if only physically. 

Once clean, he turned his attention to the pot of stew simmering over the hearth, a meal he’d prepared the night before. He ladled a generous portion into a wooden bowl, adding a few pieces of salted jerky to the side for good measure. 

In the corner of his abode sat his modest bookshelf. Most of the backstop’s bore titles of fairytales—stories of gallant knights, enchanted woods, and impossible quests. Once, they had been a source of boundless inspiration; now, they felt like memories of a life he’d never truly claimed. Galvahin selected a familiar one, its cracked spine and dog-eared pages a testament to its decades as a quiet comfort. 

Settling onto the edge of the bed, he balanced the bowl on his lap and opened the book. The warmth of the hearth flickered across the room, and as he spooned the first bite of stew into his mouth, the familiar words of the tale began to carry him away. 

"Once upon a time, there lived a gallant knight known as Dame Ravelle. She was chivalrous, mighty, and above all else—beautiful. With armour that gleaned like a mirror, a sword that could cleave any foe, and hair long and illustrious, there wasn’t any threat the Lady of the Golden Carnation couldn’t face." 

Galvahin smirked, shaking his head. Beautiful? he thought, running a hand through his own greasy hair. His fingers snagged on a particularly stubborn tangle, and he sighed, his lips quirking in faint frustration. Washing it properly was a luxury he rarely had, and the thought made him scoff softly. “No way her hair was that bloody perfect,” he muttered, turning back to the story, chewing a bite of jerky as he let its familiar rhythm distract him from the realities of his own rougher edges. 

"That is, until one day, the wicked sorcerer Malvorius appeared before her, gleefully boasting of his latest vile deed: the kidnapping of Prince Gwyndan. To save the prince, she would first have to endure the perilous trials he had prepared." 

Galvahin’s lips curved into a subtle smile. The story was cliché, sure, but there was a charm in its simplicity. He’d always had a fondness for the more romantic fairytales, the ones where courage and love intertwined. And there was nothing more compelling to him than a rescue—a noble cause, a test of valour, and the promise of redemption wrapped into a single act. 

"Through the portal you go," he read aloud, his voice deepening into a dramatic, cackling imitation of Malvorious. "That is, if you have any hope of seeing your precious prince again!"

Galvahin chuckled at his own theatrics before falling silent, his gaze drifting back to the page as he continued reading to himself. 

"The First Trial: Honour 

Dame Ravelle stepped into a dark and stifling cave, the air thick with the damp stone and decay. Shadows danced on the jagged walls, cast by an unseen, flickering flame. At the centre of the chamber stood an ancient, gnarled pillar, its surface etched with cryptic runes. Bound to the pillar were four prisoners: a warrior, a healer, a merchant, and a beggar, their faces pale with fear. 

'Free only one, Dame Ravelle,' mocked Malvorious, his voice slithering through the shadows of the cavern unseen. 'Choose wisely, for the fate of the prince and your honour rests upon it!' 

The prisoners’ pleas reverberated through the chamber. The warrior’s voice rang with conviction as he proclaimed his duty to protect the weak. The healer spoke of countless lives she could save. The merchant argued she could create, while the beggar whimpered for redemption, his voice trembling in despair. 

Ravelle’s gauntleted hand brushed the hilt of her sword as she deliberated. The cavern seemed to close in around her with every breath. Finally, her gaze fell upon the warrior. 

'Evil must be fought, and the weak must be defended. His valour will serve the greater good.'" 

Galvahin cocked an eyebrow. 

"In that instant, the chains around the warrior shattered, and he rose, gratitude in his eyes. The other prisoners cried out in despair, their voices drowned out by Malvorious’s dark laughter. 

'A fine choice, Dame Ravelle,' he snickered. 'Do not let their faces haunt you. They were never meant to leave.” 

The healer, the merchant, and the beggar dissolved into shadows, their forms fading like mist. Ravelle’s grip tightened on her sword, but she remained silent. 

'Go,' Malvorious purred as a doorway of light split the darkness. 'Your next trial awaits. Prove your honour is more than illusion.'" 

Galvahin’s fingers tightened around the edges of the book, his eyes squinting as he reread the last passage. A fine choice, Malvorious had said. But was it? Valour was useful, yes, but only valour? The healer could have mended wounds, saved lives. The merchant might’ve brought resources. Even the beggar could’ve held untapped potential, but still further—none of them deserved their fate. Wasn’t honour about finding value where others didn’t? About making choices that served more than just the immediate need? 

He frowned, leaning back against the wall to take in a spoonful of stew. No one was meant to leave, the sorcerer had mocked as if the choice was a game. And perhaps it was. Ravelle hadn’t questioned it—she’d chosen the easiest answer. Would I have done the same? He wasn’t sure, but the thought left an uncomfortable knot in his chest as he turned to the next trial. 

"The Second Trial: Strength 

When Ravelle stepped through the portal, she found herself in a dense, foreboding forest. Shadows stretched long between the gnarled trees, and the air carried a low, hungry growl. A pack of wolves emerged, their glowing eyes fixed on the knight. The pack-leader stepped forward, its massive frame rippling with power, teeth bared in the slightest challenge. 

'Strength,' Malvorious’s voice taunted through the trees. 'Show it, or be devoured.' 

Ravelle raised her sword, steel gleaming in the faint light. The wolves lunged as one. She met them with sharp, calculated strikes, each blow felling a beast. The pack’s snarls and yelps filled the air, their fury relentless. Ravelle’s muscles burned as the fight dragged on, her armour staining with blood—both hers and the wolves’. 

Finally, the last wolf fell, its lifeless form crumbling at her feet. Ravelle leaned on her sword, breathing heavily, limbs trembling. 

'Well done,' Malvorious mocked. 'Strength can carry you far—but how long will it last?' 

A doorway of light shimmered into view, and Ravelle trudged toward it, exhaustion etched in every step."  

Galvahin exhaled sharply, closing his eyes as the image of the slain wolves lingered in his mind. This part of the story had always unsettled him, but now it chewed at him in a way he couldn’t escape. Was it truly strength to meet violence with more violence, leaving nothing but carnage and exhaustion? 

He turned the page but hesitated, his thumb resting against the edge of the paper. He wasn’t foolish; he had more than his fair share of encounters where spilling blood was the only solution. But still, surely there could’ve been another way—a chance to outwit the wolves, to escape without such brutality. Ravelle had her sword, yes, but she also had her mind. Was strength not also the ability to find solutions beyond brute force? To spare instead of destroy? 

His face deadpanned as he spooned the last of the stew into his mouth, the warmth doing little to soothe the sourness in his chest. Ravelle’s victory felt hollow, a triumph that left her battered and diminished. Strength can carry you far—but how long will it last? Malvorious had mocked. Galvahin shook his head. Was it really strength if it left you weaker in the end? 

He sighed and returned to the text, but the knot of discontent in his chest only tightened. His lip twitched into a fleeting smile when he recalled what the third trial would be; as a boy it had always been his favourite. 

"The Third Trial: Beauty 

Dame Ravelle stepped through the portal, arriving in a garden where every bloom was a golden carnation. Their petals gleamed like sunlight, their scent heady and sweet. Rows upon rows of them stretched endlessly, shimmering with an ethereal glow. 

'Choose the most beautiful bloom,' Malvorious’ voice echoed maniacally. 

Ravelle walked among the carnations, her armoured boots reflecting the image of the flowers. Each flower seemed identical to the last—perfect, radiant, untouchable. Yet the uniformity seemed uncanny, their beauty forced and unnatural. 

Then, in the shadow of a larger bush, she spotted a smaller carnation. Its petals were imperfect, its gold hue dulled, and its stem bent under its own weight. Yet it bloomed defiantly. 

'This one,' Ravelle declared, plucking it carefully. 'This carnation is the most beautiful of them all. Its beauty lies not in perfection, but in its struggle to grow.' 

'A flawed flower, in a garden of perfection?' Malvorious’s laughter was sharp and cutting. 'How fitting.' 

Just like the earlier trials, a doorway of light appeared ahead. Ravelle stepped toward it, the imperfect bloom cradled in her gauntleted hand, as the garden faded to shadow behind her." 

Wait, what? Galvahin scowled, his grip on the book tightening further. He had forgotten how this part of the story had gone, remembering only how it made him feel. The lesson of beauty in imperfection—he’d once thought it poignant, even comforting. But now? Now it grated him. It rang hollow, trite, and unbearably smug. 

His eyes lingered on the description of the carnation, its bent stem and faded petals heralded as some grand token of worth. Beauty in adversity, the story preached. It was the sort of neat, sanitised wisdom that felt good on paper but wilted under the weight of reality. A carnation, perfect or flawed, wouldn’t prove anything to a manipulator like Malvorius. A flower couldn’t protect a prince or bring justice to the dead. It was useless. 

Galvahin exhaled sharply through his nose, irritation pricking the edges of his thoughts. What bothered him most was the dishonesty in it all. Sure, it was nice to say the imperfect carnation was the most beautiful, but he knew the truth: most people wouldn’t see it that way. They’d scoff at its flaws, turning instead to the perfect blooms without a second thought. The story’s moral felt meaningless, an empty reassurance that didn’t hold up against the realities of the world. 

Another inconsistency burned within him. Why would Malvorius even care about some moral platitude on beauty? The garden, the golden carnations, the trial—it was all an empty performance, designed to stroke Ravelle’s ego rather than test her. It didn’t matter what carnation she chose; the story was already rigged to make her right. 

He set the book in his lap, his shoulders slumping as frustration grew in his chest. The story had once been a refuge—a source of quiet hope on dark, uncertain nights. But the more he read it now, the more contrived and vacuous it felt. He’d believed in it once, wanted to see himself in its grand ideals. Now, all he could see was a parade of shallow choices and answers that didn’t matter. 

Even so, he opened the book up and kept reading. His lips pressed into a thin line, his dissatisfaction settling in him like a sickness. For a story that once made him feel like a hero, it now left him wondering why he'd ever thought it was heroic at all. 

"The Final Trial: Sacrifice 

Dame Ravelle emerged from the final portal into a grand, crumbling hall of black obsidian. A faint, sourceless light illuminated the scene: Prince Gwyndan lay in the centre, encased in a crystalline prison, his slumbering face pale but serene. Surrounding him stood five statues, each depicting a knight in full armour, their hands clasped over the pommels of their stone swords. 

Malvorious appeared in a swirl of shadow and flame, his grin as sharp as a blade. 

'You’ve done well to come this far, Dame Ravelle,' he purred. 'But the final trial awaits. A true knight must sacrifice, for only through sacrifice can the unworthy find redemption. One of your virtues must be given away, freely and without hesitation.' 

'Speak plainly, sorcerer.' Ravelle drew her sword, her stance unwavering. 'What must I do to free the prince?' 

'Each of these knights gave away a part of themselves to pass this trial.' Malvorious gestured toward the statues. 'Wisdom, courage, honour, strength, beauty. To succeed, you must relinquish one of these, and it will be lost to you forever. Decide.'

The knight turned to the statues, studying their impassive faces. Each bore cracks in its stone—a missing gauntlet here, a broken sword there—tangible reminders of what had been taken. Her eyes settled on the statue with a broken face, the stones crumbling around its visage. 

'I will sacrifice beauty,' Ravelle declared, her voice unwavering. 'For it serves no purpose in battle, nor does it make me a better knight.' 

'Such a predictable choice,' Malvorious sneered. His laughter echoed across the chamber. 'But do not think it will cost you nothing.' 

As the sorcerer raised his hand, Ravelle’s polished armour tarnished before her eyes, its golden finish fading into rusty, pitted steel. Her sword's pristine edge dulled, and her radiant hair fell in uneven clumps on the floor. Her reflection, once striking, now appeared worn and weathered in the jagged shards of crystal around the prince. 

'Take him, then.' Malvorious gestured toward the prince. 'If you can bear to be seen.' 

Ravelle raised her sword and strode forward, her steps firm as ever. She shattered the crystal prison in a single strike, freeing the prince. Gwyndan opened his eyes, his face filling with gratitude. 

'You’ve won,' Malvorious said, his voice dripping with mockery. 'But remember this, Dame Ravelle: the world is cruel. You will forever be treated differently for what you’ve lost. Beauty may seem shallow, but without it, even the noblest deeds are often overlooked.' 

Malvorious vanished in a burst of smoke and fire, leaving Ravelle and the prince alone in the ruinous hall. She glanced at her reflection once more in the shards of jagged crystal, her marred appearance staring back at her, and her lips tightened. She turned away, ready to lead the prince home in silence. 

But Gwyndan stopped her, taking her gauntleted hand in his. 

'You are still beautiful,' he said, his voice soft but resolute. 'Not for how you look, but for what you’ve done—for the courage and sacrifice that saved my life.' 

Ravelle blinked, momentarily stunned, as the prince smiled at her. 

'If you’ll have me,' he continued, 'I would be honoured to marry the knight who gave everything to protect me.' 

For the first time in her entire journey, Ravelle faltered. She nodded after a moment, a soft smile gracing her features. Without another word, she led him through the portal home, his words lingering behind her like the echo of a song. 

And the two lived happily ever after." 

Galvahin stared at the page, his breathing shallow, his fists hot. The words blurred from his eyes, not from tears, but from the boiling frustration coursing through him. Before he could stop himself, his hand shot out, hurling the book across the room with tremendous force. It struck the workbench with a harsh crack, its spine splintering on impact. Pages exploded outward, scattering in a flurry of parchment that fluttered to the floor like fallen leaves. 

For a moment, silence. Then, the faint rustle of loose paper settling. 

Galvahin pressed his palms to his face, his breaths harsh and uneven. His chest ached—not from exertion, but from the tremendous weight that built there, its force unbearable by the time he reached the story’s conclusion. 

“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath. “Damn this story. What utter gobshite.” 

The simplicity of it clawed into him. The trials, so neatly contrived, with their obvious answers and shallow reservations. Ravelle’s choice to sacrifice her beauty for the prince—was that really a sacrifice? She was still adored, still rewarded with marriage. Was that all it took to find purpose? To find love? A fairytale trial and a happy ending? It felt like an insult, a cheap mockery of everything he’d once dreamed. 

His thoughts turned inward, spiralling deeper into the hollow corners of his mind. He had no prince or partner waiting for him. No friends to laugh with, no companions to share his burdens. The adventuring life, once a noble pursuit in his eyes, had only ever pushed people away. Who could stomach a man like him—gruff, tired, worn thin from survival? His only connections were fleeting: a polite shopkeeper, a few travelers, a barmaid or two who gave him drinks for playing unofficial guard. And those, too, always faded. 

Galvahin’s gaze drifted to the scattered pages on the floor, a tangled mess of words and ink, their order disrupted. He thought of how he’d once clung to this story as a child, believing its lessons, cherishing its hope. How foolish he had been to think the world worked like that—to think courage and sacrifice could lead to something as simple as a happy ending. 

His jaw tightened, and he leaned back against the wall, the firelight flickering over his weathered features. What had his life even become? A cycle of wandering, of barely scraping by? Of chasing some ill-defined sense of purpose? If this story was childish, then what did that make him? A man still playing at heroism, chasing something he didn’t even know how to name. 

The room was quiet save for the crackle of the hearth. His frustration ebbed slowly, giving way to something colder—an aching loneliness that settled in his chest like a ball of ice no flame could melt. 

After a while, Galvahin’s grey eyes fell to the mess on the floor again. He shifted, standing slowly, his joints stiff and uncooperative. Kneeling down, he began to arrange the pages, his calloused hands moving with delicate care. He aligned each piece meticulously, smoothing creases where he could as his brows furrowed in concentration. The binding was ruined, but the story hadn’t been lost—not yet. 

When the pages were in order again, he sat back on his heels, holding the broken book in his hands. His fingertip brushed the damaged cover, tracing the familiar grooves of the illustration: a beautiful dame clad in golden armour, encircled by golden carnations. He clutched it tightly against his chest, his shoulders sagging under the weight of it. 

Without another thought, he climbed from the floor back into bed, the book still tight in his grasp. The fire had dimmed, casting long, even fainter shadows across the darkened room. Galvahin curled onto his side, facing the wall, his arms cradling the fragile pages as he pulled the linens to cover his shoulder. With the book pressed into his chest and knees drawn in close, his eyes closed, the only sounds that could be heard in the room were the faint crackles of the hearth, and the soft muffle of weeping as he drifted into an uneasy slumber. 

Notes:

Creep (Instrumental) | Alison Sparrow

I don't care if it hurts, I wanna have control
I want a perfect body, I want a perfect soul

Chapter 2: The Beast

Summary:

Galvahin’s hunting trip is ruined when he ends up on the menu of a very large, very leggy feline. His survival instincts kick in: run, panic, fall down a hole. I heard black cats were bad luck, but this is just overkill. The good news? He’s no longer fresh knight tartare. The bad news? Wherever he landed, it definitely wasn’t in Kansas—not that he’d know where that is either.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

Rumi

 

Empty again. It shouldn’t have been surprising, not after the last five barren snares. Galvahin crouched low, inspecting the trap’s vacant grip. He remembered when the forest had been generous, when he could walk back to the village with enough minks to drape across his hip like a balteus of fur. The meat was lean and gamy, but their pelts always fetched a good price. 

He sighed, undoing the trap and collecting its pieces for yet another futile reuse. He licked his finger and held it aloft to gauge the wind, a habitual gesture that no longer felt hopeful. The woods had been different these past tendays—silent and desolate. 

It probably was a bear, he told himself again. The deer and boar had vanished, no tracks, no droppings—nothing. Whatever had driven them off had left the woods eerily barren. The one deer he’d spotted days ago had bolted at the slightest sound, jittery and wild, its movements like a taut band suddenly snapping under strain. Even Galvahin’s modest skill, crossbow at the ready and faintly clinking armour muffled by the brush, wasn’t enough to catch them unawares anymore. 

This was the last snare of the day, and the sun was already melting beyond the horizon. He knew better than to push his luck. The forest felt foreboding in a way that no game would compensate for. 

He turned his back toward the trail, tired and distracted, his mind wandering as the woods grew darker. The light dimmed steadily, the shadows of the trees stretching until they were one with the creeping dusk. In his absentmindedness, Galvahin had strayed from the familiar path, the markers he once usually recognised slipping past unnoticed. 

When the sun finally sank, night fell hard and fast, swallowing the woods in inky blackness, the stars above obscured by the hooked claws of shadowy wooden branches. Galvahin cursed under his breath, his hand brushing the hilt of his glaive as he squinted into the dark. He could barely make out the glint of his metal schynbalds against the forest floor. Still, he pressed forward, hoping to find the trail again. 

But the air had changed. It was heavier now, thicker, like a fog without mist. The quiet of this place was no longer peaceful but oppressive, sharp enough to put him on edge. 

He wasn’t alone. 

The realisation hit him like gelid snow against exposed skin. Something was watching him. No—not watching. 

Hunting. 

His heart pounded as his steps quickened, his grey eyes darting through the shadows. Then, in the dim moonlight, he saw it—something massive and silent stalking through the trees. Its fur was as black as a starless night, darker than any shadow the forest could conjure. Two glowing green eyes pierced the gloom with their viridescence, fixed on him with a predator’s intensity. A flash of fangs, sharp and gleaming, promised violence. 

The creature, perched into a pouncing position on a bough, was enormous—twice the size of any bear he had seen before and a hundredfold more menacing. Its body was feline—sleek, muscular, raptorial like a cougar—but wrong in ways that made Galvahin’s blood run cold. It stood on six legs, each tipped with vicious claws, and two writhing appendages coiled from the back of its shoulders, resembling a squid's tentacles. 

Galvahin froze, his breath caught in his throat. He had faced jackals, goblins, even a giant spider once, but this… this was beyond anything he had ever experienced. 

When their gazes locked, viridescence trapping the gunmetal, he knew his fate was sealed. 

Survival instincts surged. Without thinking, Galvahin raised his crossbow and fired. He didn’t wait to see if the bolt met its mark. The beast’s pantheric roar of pain thundered behind him as he spun his heel and sprinted, crashing through the underbrush in a desperate, blind flight into the darkness. 

Branches whipped against his bearded face and neck, leaving shallow cuts in their wake. The ground was uneven, threatening to trip him with every step, but all he could hear was the thumping of six pouncing limbs closing in behind him. The beast was gaining. 

A sharp crack rang out, and Galvahin dropped instinctively, barely dodging the lashing tentacle that sliced through the air above his head. Another whip-like strike snapped past him, close enough to ruffle his hair as he rolled frantically to the side. 

He tried to scramble to his feet, but the ground beneath betrayed him, sending him tumbling down a hidden slope. Rocks and roots battered his body as he fell, until he landed hard on the cold, damp forest floor below. Pain seared through him, every muscle screaming in protest, but for a fleeting moment, he dared to hope he had escaped. 

Then he saw them again—those viridescent eyes, burning through the dark like emerald embers in the abyss. The beast had found him, its movement fluid and silent, its massive body dissolving in and out of the darkness as it crept forward, a living shadow of death. 

“GET AWAY! AWAY!” Galvahin shouted, his voice hoarse as he swung his glaive in wild, desperate arcs. Mortal terror smouldered throughout him, making his strikes erratic and clumsy. He stumbled backward in a panic—a mistake the creature had been waiting for. 

A deafening crack echoed through the night, and this time, Galvahin felt it. Agony exploded across his back as a tentacle struck him like a mallet wrapped in metal spikes, tearing through his armour as if it were nothing more than cloth. Blood poured from the wound, soaking his tunic and dripping to the cold forest floor. 

Galvahin’s anguished howl tore through the silent trees as he collapsed to his knees. The searing pain coursing through his body was unlike anything he had ever endured, each heartbeat a fresh wave of agony. The beast loomed nearer, its viridescent eyes gleaming with predatory malice. 

Desperation flooded his mind. Where was this attack coming from? Could there be more than one of these monsters? His thoughts raced as fast as the blood escaping his body. If he still had any chance for survival, he needed to find cover—and fast. 

Through the haze of pain, Galvahin saw it—a hollowed-out tree stump encircled by tiny mushrooms just a few feet away, faintly visible in the dim moonlight. It was his only hope. Without hesitation, Galvahin threw himself toward it, pouring every last ounce of strength into his trembling limbs. The beast snarled and lunged, and for a harrowing moment, Galvahin feared he had made a fatal error. 

I’m not gonna make it. He closed his eyes, bracing for another strike. Please. I don’t want to die. 

But the killing blow never came. When he opened his eyes, the creature was gone. The forest had again gone eerily quiet, as if holding its breath. Stunned, Galvahin scampered into the hollow stump, his movements jerky and desperate as adrenaline fuelled his every action. A sudden lash grazed his wounded back, an excruciating parting gift from the beast. He bit back another scream, his body writhing with fresh agony as he squeezed into the cramp, decaying abode. 

The constricted space was damp and rotting, the reek of his own pooling blood and the decayed wood mixing in the air. Galvahin pressed his lacerated back against the wall, hot tears welling from the agony of it. Panting heavily, every breath sent sharp jolts of pain throughout his chest. He coughed into his palm—more blood. Outside, the creature snarled, its frustration palpable as its claws raked against the stump, wood splintering under the force. 

Through the narrow opening, he saw the writhing tendrils again—jet-black, furred, and tipped with razor-like hooks. They lashed wildly, tearing at the rotting wood in a frenzied effort to reach him. Galvahin’s grip tightened on his glaive, though he knew it would be useless in such a confined space—even if he had the strength to raise it. His hand instinctively moved to his sidearm, the crossbow. Gone. Panic clawed at him as he realised it must have slipped from his grasp during the frantic chase. More blood poured from his wounds, and the damp earth below seeped in crimson. Dizzy, his vision blurred, the edges of his awareness closing in. He couldn’t hold out much longer. 

Just as despair began to set in, something changed. The mushrooms and blood at the base of the stump began to glow faintly, casting the hollow in an ethereal light. A soft hum vibrated through the air, an unfamiliar and alien chime-like sound that warbled louder with each passing second. The ground beneath the knight softened and shifted, as though the very fabric of the world was unravelling. The bark around him shimmered with iridescence, and before he could process what was happening, the world folded in on itself. 

Galvahin fell. 

Weightless and disoriented, he plunged through an unseen veil, landing hard onto a soft surface. He groaned, his vision swimming as he tried to regain focus. 

When the world came into view, it was like waking into a dream. The darkened forest was gone, replaced by a golden light. Towering trees stretched impossibly high, their leaves glowing faintly, casting prismatic patterns on the ground below. The air smelled of wildflowers and honey, rich and intoxicating. 

Relief washed over him, but it was short-lived. A familiar feline snarl shattered the tranquility. 

The beast had followed him. 

It burst from the same tear in reality, its viridescent eyes blazing with fury. Galvahin scrambled back, his injuries flaring, but before the creature could pounce, a pack of strange animals emerged from the glowing underbrush. They vaguely resembled canines, but their sleek, ethereal forms flickered in and out of existence, almost as if they were made of both mist and flesh. They circled the beast, their movements precise and coordinated. 

Then, figures appeared—tall, graceful beings with radiant skin and hair that seemed to burn like fire. They moved with impossible elegance, wielding blades that shimmered as if forged from light. The canines and the figures worked in tandem, their strikes calculated and devastating. 

Galvahin watched in awe and confusion as the battle unfolded. In the chaos, he discerned the strange monster's trick; its appendages raised, casting faint illusions of itself to confuse and disorient its attackers. In the shadowed depths of the forest, it made for a lethal strategy, but here, beneath the bright rainbow light of the silver trees, the illusions were all but useless. 

The fight ended as quickly as it began. The beast let out a final, guttural roar before collapsing, its massive form crumbling into the ground. Its tendrils twitched once, then went still. 

Galvahin sagged against the stump, blood sputtering from his lips with each ragged breath, his vision beginning to tunnel as exhaustion overtook him. One of the radiant figures approached, their features sharp yet strikingly beautiful. 

“Hold still,” they said, their voice low and commanding. “You’ve lost far too much blood.” 

Galvahin tried to speak, but no words came. A warm, soothing sensation spread through his chest as the figure placed a hand over his wounds. The pain dulled, but it didn’t vanish completely. 

His vision blurred further, and he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness. He caught faint glimpses of the figures speaking in a lilting, unfamiliar tongue, their voices weaving through his fading awareness like a soft melody. 

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

When Galvahin awoke, he was lying on a soft bed of foliage, wrapped in silken cloth that felt almost alive. His body still ached, but the bleeding had stopped, and the deep gashes from the creature’s tendrils were no longer as grievous. He blinked, trying to sit up, but a gentle palm on his shoulder pushed him back down tenderly. 

“You need to rest,” said one of the glowing figures—an ethereal, elf-like woman with hair like flames. Her eyes shimmered with the same golden light as the trees, and her voice was calm, reassuring. “The creature did not kill you, but it came close. We have healed you as best we can. You are lucky to be alive.” 

Galvahin struggled to respond, his throat dry. 

“What… what is this place?” he rasped. “Who are you?” 

The woman smiled, though her expression was tinged with amusement. “You have stumbled into a realm that is not meant for mortals. But you are here now, and our lord will want to meet you.” 

Before Galvahin could ask more, the other figures—their faces difficult to make out through the haze of his recovery—murmured softly among themselves, their words unintelligible but strangely enchanting. The fleecy warmth that had soothed his pain still lingered, but the strange beauty of this place unnerved him. He had no idea where he was, or how he had gotten here. 

Notes:

Why Me | SKOLD & KMFDM

Black shadows, bleeding hearts 
Two together, worlds apart 
Why me? 
Why not 

Chapter 3: The Prince

Summary:

Galvahin finds himself in the Feywild, where the trees glow, the people are concerningly pretty, and the bathrooms are way too fancy. Now a guest (or captive? He’s still figuring that out) of the Seelie court, he stands at the mercy of a distressingly charismatic prince, and somehow, that’s more terrifying than the six-legged tentacle murder cat. Green eyes, blue thighs, and a red flower later, the knight receives a standing ovation for his master-stroke when he learns that the locals have a very different opinion as to what counts as a public performance.

"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens."

Carl Jung

 

The statuesque, glowing beings guided Galvahin through the surreal woods. The air here was magical—he could feel it in every breath, as if the forest itself was alive and watching him. Massive trees towered above them, their bark a shimmering silver, their leaves shifting prismatic colours as the light passed through them like rainbow jewels flattened into sheets. Every step they took seemed to echo with the whispers of unseen voices, as though the very earth carried secrets in its soil.

They led him to an open glade, at the heart of which stood a magnificent palace, woven from the very trees of the forest. It was unlike anything Galvahin had ever seen; its walls were living wood, the branches and vines twisting into elegant spirals, dotted with glowing flowers and shimmering stones. It was a place of beauty and wonder, the most breathtaking sight the knight had ever seen, but also a place that felt dangerous. As if it existed just beyond the rules of the world Galvahin knew.

As they walked, Galvahin began to take notice of the strange people guiding him through the glade. They were each undeniably beautiful, with radiant features that seemed to be sculpted by gods. Their eyes glowed like stars, and their hair looked like waves of sunlight. Shimmering markings covered their skin—birthmarks or tattoos that twisted into bizarre and intricate patterns—and their pointed elven ears were long and straight like those of rabbits. When they spoke, it sounded like music. They fascinated the knight, but also unnerved him, their features hard to read, and their intentions difficult to understand.

The beings escorted Galvahin through the court, leading him to a throne room. A svelte figure in prismatic golden robes awaited them, lounging on a throne of twisting vines and vibrant flowers. The man’s skin was pale like moonlight, and long, silver hair cascaded down his shoulders like mist over a mountainside. His features were sharp and delicate, with violet eyes that gleamed a mischievous glint. The figure’s long, pointy ears, reminiscent of Galvahin’s saviours, rose higher than those of any elf the knight had encountered before. A resplendent floral wreath crowned the enigmatic figure’s head, fragrant lavender and peonies blooming across its branches. Altogether, he exuded an authoritative, yet indecipherable air as he scrutinised Galvahin, an indecorous smirk emerging across his face.

Galvahin knelt instinctively before him—nearly collapsing in reverence—though he wasn’t sure why. It was as if an undertow had dragged him downward, a tidal wave of emotions: fear, respect, awe, admiration, confusion. This being felt like divinity—no, something even greater. In that moment, he felt absolved of every sin, every mistake he had ever made in his entire life. He never had an experience like this before, something akin to faith. It was fearsomely upsetting. Yet contradictorily blissful.

The figure chortled, his voice smooth and lilting.

“You find yourself in a curious situation, mortal. You’ve wandered into my realm, and few of your kind do so without… consequence.”

Galvahin swallowed, his throat dry, still shaken and unsettled from the beast's attack. He felt unpresentable to be meeting anyone in his current state, lest especially someone of this being’s éclat.

“I didn’t mean to trespass. The creature—I was trying to escape—”

“Ah, yes. The beast,” the figure interrupted, his smile widening. “It’s been dealt with. But now, you’re here, an interloper in the Feywild. No one comes to my court without owing something in return.”

Galvahin’s mind raced, but there was no way out. The Feywild. Of course, this was where he had ended up. And this bizarre and magnificent being? Surely an archfey. The surreal events and staggering beauty that had preceded the current moment suddenly began to make sense to the knight.

“What would you ask of me, Milord?” Galvahin inquired, his voice ripe with anxiety tying knots in his gut.

“A simple favour.” The figure leaned forward, resting his chin on his hand, his violet eyes flickering with levity. “Nothing more. You will stay in my court for a tenday. Everything you are gifted, everything you earn, everything you hunt—you will give to me. In return, I will gift you what I receive as well. At the end of the tenday, I will return you to your world.”

Galvahin hesitated. He had heard enough tales of faerie bargains to know how dangerous they could be, but what choice did he have? He nodded slowly.

“I agree.”

“Good,” the figure said as he waved a robed arm in a welcoming gesture, the intricately decorated pongee reflecting shifting hues of teal and magenta. “Then let us enjoy the hospitality of the Summer Court. I am Oriel, Prince of the Seelie, son of Titania and Oberon. Welcome to my realm. May I have your name?”

Galvahin’s pulse quickened. Memories of childhood fairytales flashed through his mind—the perils of exact language, the power held within a name. His nervous grey eyes met with the archfey’s; his name was a part of him, and he wasn’t about to let it slip away.

“Milord, if it pleases you,” Galvahin said, his baritone voice shot with worry. “You may learn of my name.”

Oriel, much like a cat toying with a mouse, seemed to take immense pleasure in watching the knight squirm under his gaze. He tilted his head, his violet eyes sweeping over Galvahin with amused delight. The prince relished the knight’s discomfort, finally letting out a low, amused chuckle just when Galvahin feared he made a grave faux pas.

“Clever thing, aren’t you?” he mused. “No need to worry, my little jackalope, you’ll know when I demand something truly personal of you. Your request is granted… Now, allow me to learn of your name.”

“I am Galvahin Alderwyn, Milord.” His muscles relaxed, tension undone like loose knots of thread. It seemed the first of Oriel’s tests was passed with flying colours, but even with the crisis averted, the prince profoundly uneased him.

“Galvahin Alderwyn?”

“Y–yes.”

Oriel beamed at the knight, his smile as bright as the moon.

“You have my gratitude, Galvahin. It is a most beautiful name.” He had a perniciously charismatic talent for making people feel like they were the only ones in the room.

Galvahin was flustered at the flattery.

“Thank you, Sire, I… I think your name is also beautiful.” He was earnest, hoping his compliment might ease the tension.

Oriel’s eyes sparkled with amusement.

“A beautiful name, and well-mannered? Oh, you are certainly a treasure. I look forward to learning more of you.”

At Oriel’s decree, the court began to fill with all manner of fey. Pixies and sprites darted in from the windows, giggling in high-pitched whistles, their tiny wings buzzing and flitting above Galvahin. More of the strange warrior elves that had saved the knight appeared, each casting a soft glow around their presence. Centaurs and satyrs trotted in from the hallways, their forms strapping and beastly. From behind him, a band of giggling nymphs and dryads seemingly apparated, their curious eyes appraising him in flirtatious glee.

“Oh, he’s handsome!” Remarked one of the nymphs, bashfully twirling her fingers into strands of fuchsia hair.

“He looks strong!” shouted a male sprite zipping above Galvahin, inquisitively inspecting the knight’s glaive.

“I wonder what our lord could possibly want with him; he smells awful,” said a particularly impolite… Is that a cat? Did that cat seriously just speak? Galvahin's grey eyes were saucers.

Within only moments, the previously empty throne room was filled with a sea of colourful and strange creatures, all eyeing Galvahin with wide ranges of faces, some of curiosity, some of blatant disinterest. Some of them looked humanoid, while others were increasingly alien, with moth-like features and bodies that looked more like plants than flesh. Despite his mundane appearance, the experience made the knight feel like a circus animal. With claret cheeks beneath his scruffy beard, Galvahin nervously shifted under their gazes, his resolve beginning to crack under the crowd's comments and scrutiny.

From the masses, Galvahin caught the glance of one particular dryad. She bore hair resembling autumn leaves, her locks nearly caressing the emerald green skin of her shoulders. Large doe eyes complemented her soft, round face, and she wore a short, sleeveless dress made of woven foliage. She smiled back at him and gave a coy wink, the knight freezing in response to her gaze. With quick footing, she emerged from the crowd, taking Galvahin by the hand before speaking to the rest of them, her mezzo-soprano voice light and breathy:

“Oh, hush. All of you! This is no way to treat a guest of the Seelie Court!” Her emerald eyes cast intense judgment on her fellow fey, silencing their impolite persiflage before turning to the knight. “I apologise for their rudeness, it’s terribly unbecoming behaviour.”

Some in the crowd winced at her words, while others simply rolled their eyes.

“Of course, Thelanna would take after him,” a satyr remarked abrasively. “Her affection is a wayward song, sung to the night and shared with all who will listen.” Indiscreet laughter burst from his side of the room as he said this, like an eruption of birds scattering a quiet field; the euphemism was clearly not lost on the fey, though it was for Galvahin.

Thelanna ignored them, her face fixed on Galvahin’s grey eyes, her smile warm and welcoming. Galvahin was stunned, still trying to make sense of the chaos and confusion.

“Th–Thank you!” he responded tensely, unsure how to interpret her geniality.

“Your gratitude is charming,” Thelanna chuckled, her disposition unwavering. “You’re probably exhausted; after all, you did almost die. Let me show you to your quarters.”

Galvahin paused. Her demeanor was beneficent, and he had no reason yet to distrust her; so why did she make him so uneasy? He banished the thought, instead pondering what Fey accommodations might look like—perhaps a bed cradled by tree roots, or a bathtub fed by hot springs. Gods, did he need a bath. He could still feel the sticky, dried blood clinging to the skin of his back, a remnant from the beast that had attacked only hours earlier—not to mention the thick, muddy grime covering his legs. In the presence of so many spotless fey, he felt particularly feculent.

“That would be most kind of you,” Galvahin replied, bowing his head slightly and clasping his hands in a gesture that reflected his aristocratic upbringing.

Thelanna flashed a cryptic smile and spun on her heel to part the crowd behind her like a swan cutting through the water. She walked through, not waiting for Galvahin to follow. The knight stammered before cantering up to catch her, his metal armour clanking clamorously through the court as they made their way to a hallway entrance.

All the while, Oriel watched from the dais. His face bore an unreadable mask of whimsical caprice. He observed the proceedings, seemingly amused by his court's revelry in response to the new guest. Without breaking his dulcet gaze from the two walking across the court, he leaned into one of his attendants—a tall elf-like warrior—and covered his mouth to deliver her a whispered command. The attendant nodded, a twinkle of understanding in her sunlight-golden eyes, before swiftly disappearing behind a curtain of vines.

With massive arches above them, Thelanna walked briskly through the hallways of the palace, Galvahin in tow as he glanced and stared at the surrounding scenery. Through the intricate windows on one side, he could see a magnificent garden, decadent in its beauty. There he saw even more Fey beings: a lone centaur woman reading under a weeping willow, the elf-like warriors with glowing skin testing their combat skills, and pixies darting between enormous flowers, some resting on their petals. A group of naiads bathed in a brilliant cerulean pond. Galvahin blushed and quickly averted his gaze when a radiantly handsome naiad caught him gawking and waved. It was evident that the rules of this place were entirely foreign to the naive knight.

“I saw that,” Thelanna teased melodically, not even glancing back at him as they walked.

Galvahin sputtered at her perceptiveness.

“That’s not at all—! I was looking at… He—”

Thelanna cut him off with a gregarious laugh, still guiding him.

“Oh, Galvahin, you have nothing to hide here. Fey don’t care about your silly pride or embarrassed ego. You can relax.”

The knight, his defences undone by the remark, could only stare at the floor wide-eyed as they kept moving, a bead of sweat appearing on his forehead like a drop of summer rain. He was entirely correct about this place being both dangerous and beautiful, and his mind churned with the Feywild’s otherworldly glamour, its peculiar customs, and the subtle dangers lurking beneath every smile.

It wasn’t that long before they arrived at their destination, winding their way through the halls of the court. In the wall of living wood was an intricately carved door, and Thelanna opened it for Galvahin, gesturing him inside. The room was like a small garden, the scent of flowers mesmerising. It was circular, with furniture made of twisting vines and living wood. There was a bed of moss entwined with thick wooden tree roots—exactly as Galvahin had imagined—soft furs and silken sheets, complete with down pillows woven from leaves. Opposite the bed was another door, presumably leading to a bathroom. A bath. Galvahin felt a wash of relief come over him. He wanted nothing more. With almost too much eagerness, he made a motion to thank Thelanna, hoping to swiftly be rid of her presence.

She obliged, a finger touching her lips as she admired the knight's polite bow, giggling at his show of chivalry and gratitude.

“One last thing, Galvahin,” she said in her breathy mezzo-soprano. “I have a gift for you. You’re far too polite to refuse such a gesture, no?”

Galvahin hesitated, remembering Oriel’s deal. Whatever she had for him, he certainly would owe to Oriel, as that was their agreement.

“What is it?” he asked nervously.

With a gentle touch, the dryad took Galvahin’s hand in her own, and a soft, green glow illuminated from underneath her palm into his. When she pulled away, she left behind a single cherry-red chrysanthemum. The knight stammered in response to her munificence and druidic magic. He had never been given a flower before. Something about its delicate petals stirred an unfamiliar warmth in his chest.

“It’s… Beautiful. Thank you, Thelanna.” Galvahin’s brassy voice was tender in appreciation for her gesture.

“It’s no trouble.” The dryad smiled, her eyes shimmering pools of absinthe. 

And with that, she pivoted to leave, her footsteps light as feathers in a breeze. As she closed the door, she peered her head back into the room.

“They’re Oriel’s favourite,” she lackadaisically remarked just before closing the wooden door, leaving a stunned Galvahin alone with the floret and his feelings.

Galvahin looked down at the flower, eroded by dubiety. Oriel’s favourite? A strange occurrence, surely. He wondered if the dryad hoped he would curry favour with the prince. Perhaps she was looking out for him? The questions puzzled him before the knight blinked out of the heady trance, noticing once again his dirt-ridden legs. The bath! He carefully laid the chrysanthemum on the living wood nightstand and practically bolted to inspect the bathroom.

Upon opening the door, the knight was greeted with a spectacle. To his left, a bathtub fit for a king, crafted entirely from thin sheets of gold inlaid with jewels. To the right, a washing station made of polished wood, smoothed to a stone-like sheen, hosting a gentle stream of water trickling from a spout made of living wood. Even the throne for relief was elegantly crafted, its design sumptuous despite its modest purpose. In the centre of the room, a small window adorned with tiny flowers and baby-blue silk curtains held a planter filled with pink blossoms and trailing ivy, through which soft beams of setting sunlight filtered, casting delicate patterns on the floor.

Good gods were the fey obscene in their taste. This latrine was more marvelous than those of the richest lords in the material plane—and this was merely the accommodations for guests in the Feywild? In his shock, Galvahin wondered what the archfey’s own lavatory must look like if this was considered standard.

An assortment of soaps, lotions, and potions lined the edges of the golden tub and the washing station—some of them glowing and sparkling with gentle agitation. Galvahin picked up one of the bottles—a shimmering gold vessel—and inspected it closely, popping the cork to take in its rich fragrance of honey and jasmine. He couldn’t help from sighing wistfully. A small part of the knight secretly enjoyed the decadence of it, despite his outwardly stoic attitude.

Wasting no time at all, Galvahin fastidiously undressed in the bedroom, resting his muddy, tattered armour on the floor and propping his glaive against a dresser, making a mental note to request a proper stand. In his natural state, he returned to inspect the bathtub—only to be met with a new problem. There was no plumbing, aside from a modest drain at the bottom.

Puzzled, Galvahin bent over to inspect it closer, his gaze searching for a lever or perhaps a hidden spout above it. All he initially noticed were the toiletries and a few linen towels. Just as impatience began to creep in, his eye caught something peculiar.

At the base of the tub sat a small dresser with a silver tray, upon which rested two wands—one in mahogany and the other in blue maho—each with a small note written in elegant cursive. Each bore two words, one in common and the other in a language he figured must be Sylvan, the language of fey:

"Uísce - Water"

"Teas - Heat"

A third note came into focus, simply reading:

"Speak the command word."

Galvahin furrowed his brow. He’d learned a simple spell or two during his paladin training—mostly minor healing prayers to ease cuts and scrapes—but summoning water from thin air or heating it with a word seemed extravagant, even frivolous, to the knight. He wondered how many wizards or sorcerers would dream of such clever indulgences—the fey certainly had a knack for luxury.

Galvahin picked up the blue maho wand and cautiously pointed it into the tub, careful not to spill any of the water on the mossy floor.

“…Water?” he ventured, a bit sheepishly. Nothing occurred. He frowned, his error now obvious in hindsight.

“Uísce,” he repeated, this time with more confidence. Instantly, a torrent of cool water surged from the wand’s tip, filling the tub in seconds. Curiously, despite the volume and force of the water, there was no kickback.

Galvahin repeated the process with the mahogany wand, eager to enjoy the comforting warmth awaiting him.

“Teas.” The water in the tub instantly began to give off a cloud of steam, and Galvahin dipped a trepidatious finger to test the temperature. It was perfect, the heat brought to the exact incalescence one would want to loosen their muscles yet avoid scalding their skin. He figured he shouldn’t be surprised; despite the Feywild filling him with bewildering unease, everything up until that moment had been, at the very least, materially perfect.

With little effort, Galvahin settled into the bathtub, letting out a sigh as the balmy dampness soaked into the dried blood clinging to his flocculent shoulder blades. He reached behind himself to touch where the beast had lashed him, only to be startled when he discovered that the wounds had completely healed by now, leaving only a few faint and tender scars in their wake. A gentle sigh of relief came from the man as he came to terms with the first of this realm's souvenirs.

As he sank deeper into the water, his thoughts turned to how unlucky he was to be targeted by the creature–and yet how fortunate it was that the fey had intervened. Yet a disquiet lingered. He couldn’t shake a troubling question: was the fate the Feywild had planned for him destined to be more harrowing than any injury or death the beast could have inflicted?

The thought made him shudder.

Seeking distraction, he turned his attention once more to the toiletries, hoping to quiet the sinking doubts about his fey hosts; yet among the dozens of bottles and vials, none bore labels. Mystified, he selected a midnight plum potion, breathing in its aroma—a mellow blend of milk and lavender. Satisfied, he poured the sparkling liquid into the bath. Marvelously, the water shifted to a matching violet hue, and a wash of bubbles and foam rose gently to the surface.

In this quiet abode, Galvahin was delighted. He had always enjoyed baths, and in his home of the quiet farming village, they were a rare treat—and never this extravagant.

Eagerly, Galvahin picked up the golden bottle he had inspected earlier—the one that smelled of jasmine and honey—and poured a small drop on his finger to inspect it more closely. Unlike the thick purple soap, this liquid was light and slippery, almost like oil. He wondered if this was some sort of moisturiser, puzzled by its strange consistency. 

Just as he was about to return the golden flask to the shelf, he felt something peculiar—a tingling sensation from his fingertips. The feeling was odd, and to his dismay, it began to pulse through the rest of his hand, like a faint second heartbeat. His worry subsided as the sensation faded, but his unease returned immediately when his gaze drifted to his loins.

Oh. 

That’s what the oil was for—some sort of aphrodisiac. Flustered, even while completely alone, the knight placed the bottle back on the lip of the bathtub and sank deeper into the foam, hoping to forget the experience. Matters of sensuality had never been his strong suit, and in the Feywild, he felt even more out of his depth. His mind drifted back to the naiads, recalling with heated embarrassment how Thelanna had caught him staring. He tensed at the thought of her assuming he was some debauchee, ruled by desire. Nothing could be further from the truth. In all his life, he’d only shared a bed with fewer people than he could count on one hand, and he loathed nothing more than the idea of being seen as debased or lustful.

And yet… The naiads certainly were beautiful. Galvahin gently closed his grey eyes and let the memory of them occupy his mind. He pictured their toned yet plush bodies, the soft, damp blue of their skin, and the flowing seafoam green hair that resembled aquatic foliage. His thoughts lingered on the image of the male naiad who waved at him, and gods, was he arresting.

Galvahin had never been with another man, and though he felt interest, he was cautious, even intimidated by the prospect. With women, there was a certain familiarity, a set of unspoken guidelines he felt he understood. But with men, he felt uncertain, lost, as if he had to invent the words and gestures as he went. Rejection from a woman he could handle, but from a man—someone who might share in his unspoken experiences—that rejection felt even more daunting.

But at the same time, denying how gorgeous the naiad was felt like a sin in its own right. Galvahin shamefully wondered what it would be like to kiss such a charming creature, to hold a fey in his arms… To caress their forms… Become enveloped in them…

Made undone by the fantasy, he began to touch himself under the bubbles, imagining the handsome naiad pressed against his lips, cupping the back of his neck. He pictured the being whispering in his ear, nipping the skin as he gave him soft praise. Galvahin, though in turmoil over his desires, wanted nothing more than to be treated in such a way.

Desired. Valued. Needed. 

…Loved.

It wasn’t so much a fantasy as it was a dream, and his gentle heart ached whenever he dwelled on his loneliness.

Galvahin reached his other hand to cup his hirsute pouch, applying a light tension as he stroked with the other. With his lip pinched between his teeth, he moaned under his breath. After the day he had, he felt he at least deserved a moment of relief and solace for himself, even if it was a bit ignoble to do so while he was a guest.

Arching his back, Galvahin lifted his hips above the water—exposing his body atop the bubbles—and he peeked to view his hand wrapped around himself. With the foam pooling in his forest of body hair, his arousal was evident, an engorged testament to his imagination. In his fantasy, he and the handsome naiad were frotting, and his body shuddered as he pictured the being's blue loins against his own. He even wondered what it might taste like—surely not salt or iron like the private regions of a human, perhaps something exotic like citrus or rosemary.

The fantasy flitted about, each partner changing as he imagined the sensations of being with different fey he spotted in the court. Each wafted aromas as intoxicating as their home—bergamot, lime, rose, musk, peaches—scents that had blended in his memory but remained distinct. The warrior elves carried the sweet richness of maple, the nymphs, the dreamy floral of poppies, and Thelanna, among the other dryads, the warm, earthy essence of oaks. He even considered what fragrance Oriel may carry.

Out of all of the fey, the prince was undeniably the most magnetic. Even aside from the formidable charm he oozed, the man was picturesque. His extravagant robes, the soft silver hair that framed his androgynous face, his supple skin that seemed spun from starlight, his delicate body… Galvahin increased his pace as he imagined the archfey with him, rubbing his burly chest in rapture when the prince would kiss him in the fantasy. Shameful. If anyone could read his mind right now, he would surely and most literally die from the shock, lest he throw himself from the top of the palace to finish the job himself.

Galvahin further increased his speed, his grip tightening. Each stroke was deliberate, calculated to drive him further to the edge. The friction was decadent—a slow warmth began to radiate from the knight's insides. He was close. His hips bucked, thrusting into his hand with force that bordered on desperate. His other hand grabbed the edge of the bath, knuckles white as gentle waves splashed over the rim, marking each urgent movement.

“Hnf—” he groaned, his voice strained.

All the while, his mind stayed fixed on the archfey. His fantasy, while erotic, was relatively tame—vignettes of intimate kisses and gentle caresses, sometimes a whispered word or gentle praise. It was all the chaste knight really needed, and he buckled under the weight of his desire. 

So close.

His climax was imminent, a marching army that loomed over the horizon. His breath hitched, his voice ragged, and it quietly echoed off the walls of the lush bathroom. The pressure was almost unbearable as Galvahin pushed himself over the edge, crying out in ecstasy.

With his hips above the foamy water, Galvahin’s seed burst from his loins in a thick, milky strand that arched across his chest, a sizable rope marking his beard. He shuddered as his orgasm continued, his body quaking in the aftermath. Waves of post-climatic heat flowed through his body, practically melting him into the water as if it and his skin were one and the same.

The feeling, while enjoyable, was fleeting; shame returned like a dark cloud, draining the colour from his soul. In moments like these, Galvahin hated himself most. And now, wrestling with his latest, most unspeakable fantasy—bedding a prince—he wondered if he deserved the gallows. 

Shameful. Idolatrous. Perverse.

Disgusting.

His emotions felt like a cold stone wedged where his heart should be, and his eyes misted as he sank back into the water, hoping to be rid of the evidence of his indecency. If Galvahin could undo the offence, he would; anything to remove the anchor of misery that weighed on his chest.

At least he was alone, he reminded himself. Or so he thought.

A familiar flitting sound near the window made Galvahin’s head jolt, and dread twisted his features as he realised he had amassed a small audience. There, nestled amongst the flowers in the planter, were three curious pixies—each glowing with delight at the knight’s most shameful of displays.

“Don’t mind us,” remarked one of the pixies, her voice soaked in admiration.

“Quite the performance, wasn’t it?” chimed another, a faint blush colouring his tiny cheeks.

The third pixie simply stared, wide-eyed, seemingly captivated by Galvahin’s rugged, bearish form.

What in the absolute hells. Would he truly be denied privacy even in the bath? Were the fey completely without boundaries? Fury and humiliation roiled within him, waves of heat searing his mind, his usual stoicism shattered by mortification. Stammering as he tried to shield himself with bubbles, Galvahin managed to choke out:

“C–could you… Please, go elsewhere!”

The tiny fey only stared, their thumbtack-sized faces etched in confusion. To them, Galvahin’s request for seclusion must have seemed as strange as if he’d suddenly sprouted a second head—though, truthfully, that would likely baffle them less.

The male pixie tilted his head, worry casting across his minuscule eyes. “Why?”

The knight, face still pale as snow, was baffled. Did they really see no issue with their voyeurism? Almost furious, Galvahin barked, “B–because I asked you to!”

“Why would you ask that?” the first pixie chimed, her voice filled with genuine concern.

“It’s indecent! Spying on someone in the privacy of a bathroom! Have you no shame?” the knight shouted, his frustration completely superseding any leftover patience.

At this, the third pixie—silent until now—frowned. “Do you truly want us gone?” She seemed a bit hurt at Galvahin’s outburst.

“Yes! Please, just go!” The knight had had enough. If he had to shoo away the minuscule oglers by hand, he would.

The last pixie's eyes softened with genuine sadness as she replied, almost sheepishly, “We’ll go. We meant no offence; it’s just that… you’re so beautiful. We wanted to admire you.” The other fey nodded in agreement, their faces disappointed.

With that, the pixies darted out the window, not looking back. The knight was, once again, stunned. The tiny being’s words echoed within him.

…Beautiful? In all his years, did not one creature ever remark to him about his appearance in such a manner—and certainly not while in the throes of his most private of rituals. He couldn’t quite explain it, but something about the encounter lingered with him long after they were gone.

Galvahin lay in the tub until the heat of the water dissipated, his mind lost in puzzled confusion. He didn’t want to dwell on the encounter’s meaning, and—pushing it from his thoughts—he drained the tub and stepped out to dry off with the linens. In that moment, he caught a glimpse of himself in the polished silver mirror and, almost instinctively, paused to inspect his reflection.

Grey eyes stared back at him as he searched the surface for what had captivated the pixies. He saw a rugged man, his body covered in soft, downy hair that collected in thick tufts around his chest, armpits, and loins. His eyes drifted lower, absentmindedly lifting his member—still sensitive from his earlier act—and he studied it with a critical eye. A bit of a shower, he mused, though he still didn’t register what caused the pixies’ fascination. Turning, he viewed his broad, hirsute backside, his eyes tracing over his softly muscular form with increasing befuddlement. Why beautiful?

Frustrated, the knight abandoned the exercise, lazily concluding that the fey knew nothing of true beauty—a lie as plain as day. Wrapping the towel around his hips, he returned to his room, only to make a discovery upon the living wood table next to the mossen bed.

A tray of food awaited him: succulent smoked poultry, colourful fruits, something rice-like, and even a sweet roll as dessert. On the bed, a folded set of cobalt attire. Beside it all lay a missive, penned in violet ink—its cursive script almost too elegant to decipher:

 

"Galvahin,

It is my deepest hope that your time in the Feywild is met with wonder and delight. You bring an air to my court I can only describe as nothing short of mesmerising. From the moment our paths crossed, I knew there was something truly special about you, and I found myself utterly captivated by your civility. In honour of this, I offer the first of my gifts: a warm meal and new clothes. May their comfort bring you ease in this unfamiliar world.

Also! I await the chrysanthemum with great anticipation; it is a thing of rare beauty, much like your name.

Yours ever,

Oriel"

 

Galvahin was, again, mortified—a feeling he was becoming increasingly attuned to. He glanced at the flower, its presence like that of a snarling beast to him in its terror, ready to devour him with its petalled fangs and crimson claws. To think that Oriel was in his room, mere feet away, while he partook in actions degrading to both the archfey’s magnanimity and magnificence. His gut nearly fell out his backside, and a heavy sinking sensation—as if the earthen floor had become thick tar—began to drag on his psyche.

Fuck. 

Notes:

The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke | Queen

(He's a fairy feller)
The fairy folk have gathered round the new-moon shine
To see the feller crack a nut at nights noon-time 
To swing his axe he swears, as it climbs he dares 
To deliver 
(The master stroke) 

Chapter 4: The Gifts

Summary:

Step 1: Wake up. Immediately regret being awake.
Step 2: Have a nice, normal breakfast. Instead, get fat-shamed by an archfey only to realise this is just how he shows affection. Or how he plots your slow psychological destruction. Possibly both.
Step 3: Explore the garden. Eat a fruit that plays hyperpop in your brain. Talk politics with foliage.
Step 4: Befriend a dryad. Immediately regret this when she says she’d like to climb you like an ancient oak.
Step 5: Panic. Attempt to remain stoic. Fail miserably as your enchanted magic drip broadcasts your every impure thought in flashing lights.
Step 6: Curl up and die. (Optional)

"You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."

Khalil Gibran

 

Galvahin awoke with a start—not from anything alarming, but because the knight kept his guard up even in slumber. Soft beams of sunlight cascaded over his face, accompanied by the sound of birdsong. Unlike the repetitive chirps of birds in the Material Plane, Fey birds sang in harmonious choirs, their melodies enchanting and fantastical, with measured verses and even lyrics in the language of fey. The beauty of this place, while undeniable, still unnerved him with its ambrosial excess.

Rolling over, Galvahin pressed a pillow of woven foliage against his ear, trying to muffle both the music and the turmoil in his mind. Memories of the previous night flooded back: pacing the circular abode, piecing together the unfolded events. The dryad, the bath, the pixie voyeurs, his shame, the archfey’s letter—those memories were clear, but pulling apart the events that followed felt like trying to collect yolk from bread. He only concluded that his nerves had frayed enough to provoke an anxiety attack.

The meal Oriel provided lay mostly untouched—a few half-hearted bites scattered across the silver tray. It was not for lack of flavour; the food was decadent. But Galvahin’s inner turmoil had soured his appetite, leaving the untouched feast as a reminder of his perceived weakness and lack of gratitude. Reaching over, he picked up a fruit—a Fey apple, or so he assumed; it was round, had a stem, and felt rigid to the touch. Its purple leathery skin resembled that of a plum, but the flavour was more akin to citrus. A crisp bite pulled another memory into focus.

In his recollection, the sun had begun to dip below the horizon, casting the stratosphere in soft orange hues that melted into shades of magenta and deep purple. Days in the Feywild perpetually oscillated, dancing in and out of twilight, never experiencing the inky depths of midnight or the fiery warmth of midday. Time here seemed to be in a constant state of flux, and the scenery reflected its uncanny rhythms. Galvahin recalled being at the windowsill, sweat beading at his temples as worriment coursed through him.

Reminiscing, Galvahin had stared out above himself, letting the vast nebulae drown out his fears. The Feywild’s ethereal night sky held two moons: one impossibly enormous, sparkling lilac star, its edges shimmering and shifting as if alive. The smaller moon, sterling glaucous in shade, orbited the larger in a slow, mesmerising dance. Together they moved in perfect tandem like lovers entwined in an eternal waltz—queen and liege bound by elegance and loyalty. For hours, the knight admired their celestial frolic, their radiant presence eroding his fear. Subconsciously, he wished he could admire the Feywild’s otherworldly glamour without the gnawing dread that it might one day consume him entirely.

Snapping out of his dwam, Galvahin flipped over once more in the mossen bed, tangling further into the furs and silks as he forced the thoughts to the back of his mind. He needed to control his emotions, his countenance, his demeanor, if he was to survive the tenday in Oriel’s court—today being the first. Compartmentalising, he turned his attention to his new attire.

The silken garments, despite a night’s wear, were pristine—repelling sweat, dirt, and even wrinkles. The cobalt collection included a doublet with rounded, triangular shoulder pads, a single trailing cape on one side that ended at his hip, a baldrick designed to hold his glaive, petticoat breeches, underling tights, and—much to his embarrassment—silken braies. The undergarments, crafted with unsettling precision, managed to be reassuringly comfortable yet subtly provocative, the smooth silk gliding over his skin like a lover’s caress.

Altogether, the attire was exquisite enough to make even the flashiest of bards green with envy. Yet its most curious feature was its colour; or rather, its shifting hues. Predominantly cobalt, the fabric seemed enchanted to reflect the mood of the wearer. Galvahin had noticed this during last night’s tumultuous episode: the garments darkened to an abyssal black while shades of crimson and a sickly russet flickered wildly across his chest and arms. He suspected these colours represented anxiety, anger, and caution—though he wasn’t entirely sure. Black, however, he could confidently identify as dread: the emotion that had consumed him most in those moments.

One colour, though, remained a mystery. Amid the chaos, a flicker of magenta had appeared near his solar plexus, fleeting and faint, a pinhole of light cutting through the storm. The thought of it lingered like an inquisition, though its meaning eluded him entirely.

For now, the garment was resting in its neutral state of cobalt, only occasionally deepening in response to Galvahin’s wandering mind as it fixed itself on his insecurities. He wanted to request for clothes less flashy—or at the very least, less internally revealing; however, doing so would be something he would never allow. The knight was far too proud to ever besmirch his name or the fey’s generosity, no matter how uncomfortable it made him. Managing his emotions was just something he would have to master, a new test put before him by the archfey.

The attire’s charm was a burden, though one he could tolerate. Still, Galvahin longed to understand what meaning each of the colours communicated. It was one thing to have his feelings involuntarily exhibited, but the mystery in what exactly he was revealing burned his psyche like an unkept wildfire. He thought of the pixie voyeurs and their baffling disregard for privacy. Surely there were other fey with similarly invasive sensibilities. The knight shuddered. His mind scrambled through the countless ways he could misstep—ignorant to his own emotions, ergo ignorant to any offence they might inadvertently cause. 

Was that Oriel’s plan? It felt as if Galvahin was soaked in blood and thrown to sharks. Histrionic chum—a Fey delicacy. He thrust the thought away, its implication too nightmarish to entertain.

Galvahin sat up in bed, lazily rubbing sleep from one eye with his fist. After shuffling to the bathroom, he surveyed the dozens of bottles and vials cluttering the shelves. Without labels to offer him any guidance, he muttered curses under his breath at the Feywild’s chaotic lack of order, until his grey eyes finally settled on a pale green bottle beside a miswak stick.

Uncorking it released a sharp burst of mint and the sting of distilled spirits, a seemingly promising combination. Satisfied, he began to brush his teeth. Halfway through the ritual, however, a sudden knock at the door startled him, and he nearly swallowed the astringent concoction.

Galvahin spat before shouting, “Coming!” 

He wiped his whiskered face on a linen and scurried to the door to open it. As he swung it open, the sight before him left him momentarily frozen—a seemingly lone elf-like warrior woman standing to his left. His grey eyes shifted downward, and immediately he fell to one knee.

Oriel. 

The archfey’s dulcet dreamy gaze met his own, and for a brief moment, Galvahin felt his breath catch his aroma: florals—specifically gardenia and tuberose—overwhelming and intoxicating like an extravagant perfume. It was only now that the prince’s stature struck him. When not perched atop his throne, Oriel was a head shorter than the knight.

“Ah. Jackalope.” Oriel extended a delicate wrist with an expectant air, his intricate sleeve cast in shimmers of teal and magenta.

The knight hesitated, uncertain of how to respond. Cautiously, he raised a hand to support the prince’s, their palms barely brushing, and he pressed a tentative, brief kiss to the ornate ring adorning Oriel’s finger—a gesture of respect ingrained from his homeland.

Oriel chortled, the sound lilting and soft. 

“Astounding,” Oriel mused, his expression unflinching and calm, “I didn’t think you would actually do that, Galvahin. You’re full of newfound discoveries. Do they really kiss the rings of princes like this where you come from?”

Galvahin froze, his body stiffening as slithering flashes of black and russet crept up the sleeve from the hand that met Oriel’s. Keeping his gaze fixed on the archfey’s tailored shoes, he hesitated before answering:

“I—um,” he stammered. “Yes, that is usually what is customary, Milord.” 

For a fleeting moment, Galvahin pondered if Oriel’s claim to power stemmed purely from his bloodline or if the prince had to usurp the title of archfey for himself. The thought was unsettling.

“Fascinating,” said Oriel, with what felt like genuine curiosity. He extended a dainty index finger to a bushy chin, lifting it gently so his gaze could meet Galvahin’s. Oriel’s violet eyes twinkled with something mysterious, yet hospitable. “You may stand, my knight.”

At first, Galvahin feared that meeting Oriel’s eyes would only heighten his anxiety, but there was something in the prince’s expression—a quiet reassurance, like the warmth of a hearth or the gentle patience of a mentor—that chased away that unease. The twisting abyss of black and russet stripes on his sleeve dissolved as he rose, like clouds dissipating in the wind. 

“My gratitude, Sire…”

“All mine. May we come inside? I wish to discuss with you today’s itinerary.” Oriel inclined his head, his lips curling into a mischievous smile. “Nothing too daunting, I assure you—just a meal with yours truly and a stroll through the grounds.”

“Of course,” Galvahin bowed deeply, a display of reverence, before stepping back to gesture the prince inside. 

His grey eyes glanced to Oriel’s companion—the singular, elf-like warrior, clearly intended as a bodyguard. The knight thought it curious. Archfey were the stuff of legends, beings said to wield powers capable of felling armies with a whispered word or reshaping reality on a whim. What need had Oriel for a guard? Galvahin wondered if the escort was more ceremonial than practical.

Oriel stepped inside, his gait smooth and unhurried like a gentle breeze, the guard following behind with rigid precision. Hands tucked behind his back, the prince’s violet eyes roved over Galvahin’s newly gifted attire.

“I see you’ve taken to the wardrobe.” His voice was calm and unchanging, his tone steady as the rhythm of ocean waves. Violet eyes flicked briefly to the silver tray of unfinished food, an indecipherable glimmer passing through his expression before returning to Galvahin. He tilted his head slightly. “Does it suit you?”

“It does, Sire. Thank you.” Galvahin’s posture was rigid as oak, his response brief and formal.

“Good.” Oriel took a further step into the room, eyes trailing over the lush and ornate furnishings. “Is there anything not to your liking? You need only ask.”

“No—well…” Galvahin hesitated, glancing toward his glaive resting against the living wood dresser. “I hate to trouble you, but if I cou—”

“A polearm rack,” Oriel interjected, following the knight’s gaze. “Noted.” 

His smile widened, violet eyes amused and warm. He glanced next at the battered and mud-streaked armour piled on the floor. With a fluid motion, he crouched to inspect it, delicate hands reaching out. “I imagine you’ll want this restored as well? Not a worry.”

“That would also be most kind—wait!” Galvahin stepped forward, his hand outstretched, but it was too late. Oriel’s palm grazed a rivet on the armour, and with an audible hiss, smoke curled from where his skin met the cold metal. The archfey’s hand jerked back instinctively, as if touching a hot coal. Yet, to Galvahin’s shock, Oriel’s serene expression did not waver. Not a wince, not a frown, only the same steady smile.

The knight’s horror mounted as he saw the red-hot burn marring the prince’s flawless hand. The rivet had left a mark, its heat sizzling against Oriel’s otherwise perfect skin.

“Hm... Iron.” Oriel’s tone remained pleasant and amused. “Oh, really, Penthesia, there’s no need for that.”

Before Galvahin could process the words, his mind staggered to catch up with what had just happened. He felt the cold gleam of a parchment-thin blade at his neck, the edge so fine it drew a single bead of blood with the slightest pressure. Penthesia, the guard, held the weapon with lethal precision, her golden eyes blazing as she stared down the knight, mere inches from his face. Mortal dismay contorted his features, and his attire shimmered and shifted to a dark sable hue in response to her aggression. At Oriel’s gentle command, she hesitantly lowered the sword, though her eyes never left Galvahin, their intensity undiminished.

“You’ll have to forgive my eladrin guard,” Oriel jested lightheartedly. “They’re a bit overzealous when it comes to my well-being. But honestly, it’s no bother,” he flashed his palm, the burn already healed. “See? No harm done.”

Galvahin stood frozen, a leaden shroud of guilt weighing on him. He knew enough of the fey to understand the danger of iron. Cold and unyielding, it represented progress, order, and everything the fey were not. In the right circumstances, it could do more than harm them—it could kill them. He briefly wondered if Oriel would punish him, perhaps turn him into a moth or steal his tongue for the offence.

But Oriel only smiled, his violet eyes placid and slow-blinking. That gaze had a way of erasing the knight’s fears, silently reassuring him that no true offence had been taken.

“I’m—I truly apologise, Sire—”

“Hush,” Oriel interrupted gently. “Not another word. All is forgiven. I’ll have someone dispose of these and see to a new set of armour for you.”

Galvahin nodded stiffly, unable to summon any protest. Oriel’s clemency might have astonished him under other circumstances, but this archfey was nothing like the acrimonious, vengeful beings from childhood tales. Those fey were cruel and merciless. Oriel was something else entirely—something Galvahin couldn’t yet fathom.

Penthesia, now sheathing her blade, glowered with an intensity impossible to ignore. Until this moment, Oriel’s charisma made her seem little more than a shadow, but that illusion had vanished. She was tall, nearly Galvahin’s size, and radiated a silent lethality. Her prowess was evident, and Galvahin instinctively knew he wouldn’t stand a chance against her. She wasn’t emasculating—no, she was menacingly efficacious. Her presence was like that of a mantis over a cricket, and Galvahin couldn’t shake the feeling of being prey.

“I assumed it would be completely made of steel,” Oriel continued coolly. “That would’ve been no trouble at all. But I suppose we all have to cut corners somewhere.”

The comment lingered in Galvahin’s mind. He knew he was referring to iron’s unique properties, but—wait. Did Oriel just call him cheap? Galvahin blinked, unsure if he had misheard. Desperate to recover, he hesitantly blurted out:

“Do all of your guards look like they stepped out of a storybook?” Galvahin’s attempt at levity was uncharacteristic but born of utter unease. He didn’t dare address Penthesia directly; instead, he directed the question to Oriel. “Or is it just to frighten me specifically?” 

Oriel burst into laughter, the sound unexpectedly boisterous and unfettered, echoing far longer than what Galvahin thought polite. Even Penthesia’s lip twitched into a fleeting smile at the knight’s awkward boldness.

“Yes!” Oriel managed between chuckles. “They were each crafted to terrify you, Galvahin, and it looks like they’re succeeding wonderfully.”

A pressure in his chest unburdened itself, and for the first time since his arrival, he felt a semblance of ease. 

Thank the gods, he thought. Maybe he thinks I’m funny? His doublet twinkled subtle flashes of aureate hues.

He could work with that. At first, he’d hoped to avoid the archfey’s notice entirely, but it was clear that Oriel intended to keep a close eye on him. If humour could keep him entertained, Galvahin saw it as a promising sign.

“Do they do anything else?” Galvahin ventured, emboldened by Oriel’s reaction. “Or is intimidation their only tactic?”

Oriel shielded his lips behind a pongee sleeve, badly concealing another giggle. “Why yes! Among their many talents, they’re quite skilled at riddles. Pethesia, darling, care to impress?”

Penthesia, silent until now, cleared her throat. With eyes closed in serenity, she dictated the following in a gentle contralto:

“I am a fire yet I do not consume,
I brighten a day and darken a room,
I can fill a life or flee in its breath,
A joy profound, I defy even death.”

Opening her golden eyes, fixed on Galvahin, she tilted her head slightly. “What am I?”

Galvahin stood, one hand on his hip and the other scratching his beard as he mulled over her riddle. Fire that does not destroy, something paradoxically bright and dark, fleeting yet profound. His brow furrowed as he pieced it together before confidently raising a finger.

“Are you… love?”

Penthesia’s expression remained neutral, but her lips betrayed the faintest of smiles. “Yes,” she replied, a trace of amusement in her steady voice.

“Very astute, Jackalope,” Oriel remarked approvingly, his lithe hands clapping together in a show of what seemed like genuine appreciation.

Galvahin’s garment shifted to pleased plum in response to the praise, with faint flashes of shimmering gold flickering in his torso as he reflected on his answer. A bit trite, he thought, but at least it’s romantic. The consideration left him puzzled over the fey’s seemingly enigmatic view of love, full of disparity much like the Feywild itself. The thought sparked another memory—the chrysanthemum he owed to Oriel, gifted to him by Thelanna.

“I should probably give this to you before I forget, Milord.” Moving with cautious grace, Galvahin reached behind himself to retrieve the cherry-red flower. He offered it with both hands, voice both formal and sincere. “I hope it’s satisfactory.”

Oriel’s face lit with delight as he accepted the bloom, cradling it gently in his fingers. “My gratitude, it is resplendent,” he said, voice mellifluous as velvet, bringing the flower to his nose and inhaling deeply. With a fluid wave of his wrist, teal magic sparkled and extended the roots of the chrysanthemum, which he then affixed to his silver hair in an elegant flourish. “I will treasure it. Should we make our way then?”

Galvahin nodded firmly, a small, genuine smile tugging at his lips. It seemed that Thelanna’s gift had pleased Oriel, and the knight offered her his gratitude in thought like a prayer. He didn’t linger on what further meaning the gesture might carry; in his mind, it was simply another peculiar Fey custom.

Before they departed, Galvahin moved to retrieve his glaive, giving Penthesia a wide berth as a silent acknowledgment of her commanding presence. With a practised motion, he spun the polearm in hand and secured it into the baldrick with precision. The action was instinctive, unremarkable to him, but Oriel’s eyes sparkled with intrigue as he observed the knight’s modest display of skill.

The three of them made their way through the palace halls, Oriel walking at Galvahin’s side as Penthesia followed watchfully behind. Their path wound through lush corridors that seemed to pulse with energy, the walls dotted with flowers that glowed and bloomed as the small entourage passed them. Oriel broke the silence with light conversation, inquiring about Galvahin’s impressions of the Feywild. The knight’s answers were polite and measured, rarely straying from formality, though he did offer occasional elaborations on topics like his admiration for the night sky or the luxury of the bath—tactfully avoiding mention of the pixie voyeurs.

At last, they arrived at their destination: a set of grand double doors hewn from living wood. The surface of the doors writhed with a fantastic if rather grim relief of a terrified stag accosted by wolves. With quick motion, Penthesia stepped forward and opened the doors to reveal an opulent dining hall.

The room was like a lush jungle, filled with vibrant foliage that climbed the walls and hung overhead, forming chandeliers whose glowing leaves cast prismatic light across the space. At the centre of the room stood a long table crowded with dozens of Fey beings in the midst of a decadent feast. Their laughter and chatter blended into a harmonious din, some their movements graceful like birds, while others were boisterous as squirrels. 

At the head of the table stood a throne-like, ornate chair—clearly Oriel’s. Flanking it on either side were two unoccupied seats, presumably meant for Galvahin and Penthesia. The knight faltered for a moment, taken aback by the sudden throng of unfamiliar faces and overwhelming vibrancy. His garment only briefly shifted flashes of russet against cobalt in response to the sight, but the knight quickly steeled himself, falling into his bastille of stoicism. Without missing a beat, he moved to his seat, concealing his flustered state with quiet grace.

An eladrin servant approached and placed a meal before Galvahin with practised elegance. He took a moment to inspect the flawless meal: a flaky meat pie slow-cooked to golden perfection, crystalline root vegetables that reflected like glass, and a pudding sparkling with colours reminiscent of a geode. It looked both inviting and surreal, but something gave Galvahin pause.

“I suppose it’s too late to be asking this, Milord,” Galvahin addressed Oriel with a slight unease, “but I assume it’s safe to say I won’t be trapped here forever if I eat this, correct?”

Oriel’s eyes widened slightly, before he erupted into laughter—loud, impolite, and utterly unrestrained, as Galvahin was quickly learning to expect from the prince.

“Heavens no,” Oriel chortled, voice richly amused, “I would never.”

Galvahin exhaled subtly, almost imperceptibly. The prince’s candid and easygoing reaction was a relief—that is, until Oriel continued to elaborate.

“I mean, honestly,” he said, dainty wrist casually slicing a vegetable with a silvered knife, “that would be so tasteless. Some fey have no panache. What an insipid way to torture a mortal. Oh no, the poor mortal can’t eat or they’ll be trapped here forever! What are they supposed to do—starve to death? That’s hardly clever. Might as well watch a painting dry.”

Galvahin cocked his head, furrowing his brow in quiet unease.

“No, no,” Oriel went on, tapping his finger to his lip, pondering aloud. “If I wanted to harm a mortal—or trick one, for that matter, I’d be much more inventive about it. Even the name thing—ugh, so unoriginal.” He rolled his violet eyes. “Pointless, even, most of the time. Personally, I’d claim something they truly value, something precious and utterly unrecoverable. Their happiest memory, perhaps, or even their most prized talent.”

Galvahin’s face turned alabaster, blood fleeing from the veins in his cheeks as if it too feared for its safety. His gut began to twist into a horrible knot, and the calm cobalt darkened to black. Oriel’s frankness, paired with his casual indifference to principles Galvahin held sacred, left the knight in silent shock.

“Take you, for instance!” Oriel added brightly, gesturing towards Galvahin with a fork, his playful features offset by the sharp intensity of his violet gaze. “I think I’d take away that silly chivalry of yours. Now that would be fun!” He smiled as if delivering a lighthearted joke, but his tone carried a weight of unsettling sincerity.

Galvahin swallowed hard. How could Oriel think this way? A small, fiery part of him wanted to shout, to scold the prince for so openly admitting to such wicked thoughts. But his sense of self-preservation kept him silent. His jaw clenched, and a brickish red crept up his sleeves, the only outward sign of the tempest raging within.

Even with the reassurance that the repast was safe to eat, Galvahin’s appetite quickly soured. He stared blankly at the dish before him, mind absent of thought—until a delicate hand rested atop his own, the skin luminous and impossibly soft, as if spun from the shimmer of a lustrous pearl.

“Ah, struck a nerve, have I?” Oriel murmured, tone honeyed and genial. Even without his emotions plainly ostentatious across the knight’s attire, it was clear it took no effort for the archfey to pick up on Galvahin’s discomfort. “You have nothing to worry about. I rather enjoy you as you are.” As he spoke, the prince brushed his thumb over the soft hairs on the back of Galvahin’s wrist, a faint gesture of assurance.

Galvahin’s first instinct was to flinch, the sudden contact jarring against his fraught nerves. Yet, inexplicably, the touch began to soothe him. The inky black and burgundy streaks that plagued his sleeve melted into a calm cerulean as Oriel painted away the knight’s silent dispathy. The archfey’s charisma was intoxicating—not just in the way it disarmed him, but in how it made Galvahin question if his fears had ever been real at all.

“It’s—” Galvahin stammered, blinking away the rest of his discomfort, “I’m fine, Sire.” A lie, a poor one at that, but there was an honesty in its subtext.

Oriel pitched his head ever so vaguely, his masque radiating mischievous amusement. He understood the missive with ease. Releasing Galvahin’s hand, he returned to his meal, corners of his mouth upturned into a satisfied mien.

With the polished manners usual of his noble upbringing, Galvahin began to eat. The meal was decadent, almost obnoxiously so in its overwhelming richness, demanding appreciation for its sumptuous flavours. Everything was so perfect that it blurred together into an indistinct deluge of culinary euphoria. It may have been the most satisfying repast Galvahin had ever consumed, made all the more indulgent by the knight’s intense hunger he hadn’t noticed until that moment. The pudding, in particular, delighted his sweet tooth; its kaleidoscopic sparkle was as pleasing to the eye as its taste was to the tongue. Despite its bright, colourful appearance, the pudding tasted earthy and mellow, almost like butterscotch or maple.

As he finished, Galvahin’s gunmetal eyes wandered absently across the table, curious to his fellow diners. Among them were eladrin, satyrs, nymphs, pixies, and even a few tree-like creatures whose presence dumbfounded him. Though they lacked mouths, their plates were spotless, and their bearing exuded palpable satisfaction—despite their lack of countenances to communicate so.

Then his gaze landed on a familiar face: Thelanna. Her glamour radiated amongst the crowd, and her animated gestures seemed to captivate the fey she fraternised with, their own eyes—at least the ones that possessed them—attentive to her expressiveness. Galvahin, unsure of how to gain her attention, raised a weak hand in greeting as he shyly smiled in the dryad’s direction, hoping to catch her eye: her guidance.

She noticed him between her conversation and waved back with enthusiasm, her face bright as a smile pinched her eyes shut. But then, her expression playful, she turned to whisper something to the nymph beside her—a figure Galvahin did not recognise. Whatever Thelanna said, the nymph stifled a laugh, glancing at Galvahin before nodding in enthusiastic agreement.

Galvahin’s gunmetal eyes widened, his face flushing hot as his doublet flashed hues of peachy orange. He suddenly felt uncomfortably visible, as if being scrutinised beneath a magnifying glass with crude assessment. Bowing his head, he glanced down to his empty plate, resigning himself to endure the remainder of the gathering outwardly accompanied yet inwardly alone.

Before long, the revelry began to wane. One by one, the fey bid their goodbyes, their graceful departures marked by the soft creek of the living wood doors, until only Galvahin, Penthesia, and Oriel remained. The prince lingered at the table, taking small, deliberate bites of his meal. He savoured each one slowly, his violet gaze sweeping across the room, his expressions as varied as they were unreadable. At times, his eyes lingered on the empty spaces where the other fey had sat, his gaze dithering briefly before returning to his plate.

Occasionally, Galvahin would glance at him, lingering a moment to observe with careful attention, each notice pricking the borders of his mind with apprehension. The quietness about Oriel carried a peculiar weight, a stillness that felt slightly out of place amidst the bountiful vibrancy of the Feywild. Though he couldn’t name the feeling, the sight of the archfey’s distant expression left him wonderingly unsettled, as if witnessing a galleon disappear beyond the horizon, its mysterious destination entirely unknown.

At last, Oriel dabbed his lips with a linen serviette, folding it neatly before turning his attention to Galvahin. His voice was soft and luxuriant, and it broke the silence, a melodious exordium.

“Was it to your liking?”

Galvahin’s head shot up, caught off guard by the sudden inquiry. For a moment, he wasn’t certain what the prince was referring to, his expression clouded with genial confusion.

“I’m sorry, Sire?” He asked hesitantly, his voice cautious yet polite.

“The refection,” Oriel clarified, his words lilting, a faint smile gracing his features. “You seemed to enjoy it.”

Every word the archfey spoke carried a tinge of caprice, a playful mischief that beguiled and unnerved the knight, leaving him feeling contradictorily hapless yet strangely enchanted.

“I did, Sire,” Galvahin admitted truthfully, his tone measured as he bowed his head respectfully. “It was delicious. Thank you, most kindly.”

“Good, good.” Oriel’s smile deepened, his gaze shifting to his eladrin guard. “Penthesia, did you enjoy the meal?”

“Hm…?” Penthesia blinked, her usual composure displaced by what seemed like boredom or distraction. After a pause, her expression hardened into its familiar fortitude. “It was satisfactory,” she replied flatly, her tone so dry it barely qualified as polite.

Galvahin risked a gander at Oriel, searching for any sign of the prince’s reaction to what he considered a flippantly brusque response. Oriel’s expression remained unchanged—his lids heavy, his delicate smile unwavering—but then Galvahin noticed it. An almost imperceptible glint in the archfey’s violet eye stole his attention, subtle yet sharp, like a shadow slipping under a door.

Even in its inconspicuousness, it left Galvahin with a vague discomfort, as though he had glimpsed something not meant for his understanding—something silent and obscured. It continued lingering within him, so much so his doublet began to reveal a new shade, a mottling of teal dancing faintly amongst the cobalt. Penthesia, however, seemed oblivious. She didn’t so much as look in Oriel’s direction, her attention elsewhere, placid indifference staining her aura.

Oriel turned back to Galvahin, the glint in his eye disappearing into its twilight. A new glint appeared, this one jocular.

“Maybe I should starve you.” Oriel mused, his countenance filled with friendly mischief, “I mean…” His violet eyes darted up and down Galvahin’s robust form, tracing across every detail on the tight-fitting attire. “It looks like you’d survive a while.” Oriel chortled lightly with a playful smirk.

Galvahin’s cape morphed to a soft tangerine shade, almost pinkish. It took him a moment to process the comment, its meani—Did he just call me fat? He opened his mouth to respond, but only a stammer escaped, his state flustered and confused.

In the chair to Oriel’s right, Penthesia remained silent, the faintest twitch of an eyebrow suggesting either disapproval or reluctant agreement with the prince’s jest. From her position, her golden eyes flicked towards the change in garment. She didn’t say a word, but her slight shift suggested she noticed everything.

Oriel’s shade wasn’t entirely inaccurate, but it certainly wasn’t polite. The knight was broad and solid, his muscular build softened by a healthy layer of padding, though far from anything that could be called paunchy.

The prince’s smirk lingered, his head tilting slightly, violet eyes glowing with playful warmth. Despite the audacity of the remark, it was clear this wasn’t meant to harm but to humour the knight. At first, Galvahin assumed this was another example of the cruelty inherent to the archfey—a calculated jab to unsettle him or test his insecurities. But as he replayed the words in his mind, their intention became obvious.

A small smile of his own began to tug at Galvahin’s lips. He realised Oriel wasn’t mocking him maliciously—he was trying to make him laugh, to lower his defence and bridge that unspoken distance between them. And, against the odds, it was working.

The realisation unlocked something in Galvahin. He laughed—truly laughed—for the first time since his arrival. The sound boomed rich and brassy, reverberating through the mostly empty dining room like a release valve for all the tension he had coiled within him. In some ways, the jest itself was like another gift, unexpected but strangely liberating.

Oriel joined in, his melodic chortles blending with Galvahin’s boisterous laugh, both voices filling the air with shared levity. Above them, the floral chandeliers seemed to respond, their blossoms unfurling and growing more radiant. Wiping away a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye with a silken sleeve, Oriel’s tone remained jovial as he spoke.

“We should get on with our day,” he remarked with a mischievous grin. “The grounds await—and who knows? A brisk stroll might help refine that… steadfast charm of yours.”

Galvahin found himself laughing again, the sound freer, this time easier. The prince’s second comment, sharp yet undeniably charming, struck a chord. There was something about Oriel’s brand of sarcastic poeticism—part needle, part nectar—that he couldn’t help but admire. He found himself craving more of it, curious to see what other biting witticism the prince might offer.

“Yes. I would enjoy that,” Galvahin replied, his tone lighter, his smile genuine. “Though I do think it’ll be a few strolls before I’m as refined as you, Milord.” His jest carried a touch of wry self-awareness, but the humour was well-placed, eliciting another ripple of gaiety from the prince. The hues of his garment shifted again, soft lavender blossoming across the fabric like reflections of his eased spirit.

As the prince’s melodic laughter faded, Galvahin’s own chuckles subsided, leaving a quiet warmth in the space between them. Penthesia, ever-watchful, rose from her chair with practised grace, her golden armour catching the prismatic light. The sharpness of her gaze flicked between the two, stoic expression offering no insight. Yet, like a silent sentinel, her presence was difficult to ignore.

With smiles aplenty, the remaining two banqueters rose themselves, joining Penthesia to begin their voyage to the garden. As they walked, Galvahin turned inwardly, taking this moment for some quiet reflection.

Galvahin was puzzled. Aside from Oriel’s lackadaisical remarks that scorched the edges of the knight’s morality and Penthesia’s quiet yet unnerving veneer, the brunch had been surprisingly uneventful. He had expected something more—a sudden revelation, a sinister twist, or an impossible challenge looming out of view. A rug pulled out from under him. The other shoe to drop. But no. Just a simple meal peppered with awkward moments, laughter, and a mildly bruised ego.

He also noted how none of the fey seemed to react much to his garment’s shifting colour. Were they unaware of its significance? Had it simply escaped their notice? Or, more likely, did they not care? They seemed entirely uninterested in its implications, choosing instead to revel amongst themselves rather than press him for explanations. Their indifference made Galvahin wonder if he was adhering too tightly to assumptions that had no real meaning in this realm.

He was beginning to feel that most of what he’d learnt from childhood tales was useless, not only in his home of the Material Plane, but here, even more so. The Feywild was not a realm of simple caprice and danger; it was a realm of contradictions, where even simple truths were riddles to solve. Aside from a few facts—the existence of dryads and archfey, the fondness of accords, or the sheer extravagance of the place—Galvahin was gradually concluding that his preconceived notions only hindered him.

If he were to thrive here, he would have to disregard them, like an old, unkempt guidepost whose wooden directions were meaningless in this living dreamscape, a place where he had to rely not on the guidance of what should be, but on the strange logic of what is.

Above it all, there was Oriel, offering his assistance as if descending from the heavens upon a sparkly pink bubble, silvered shoes in hand for the knight. His message was as clear as church bells, the song splendid to the ear: Let me guide you! Galvahin could hear it in almost everything the prince did, as loud as an orchestra.

But he wasn’t foolish—there was a danger here too. The envulnerating garment, the lethality displayed by the eladrin guards, Oriel’s casual disregard for mortal values—all of it stung the knight’s palate, distasteful as the rind of a sweet fruit. Yet even that bitterness wasn’t entirely awful; it might even be desirable, like the sharpness that makes sweetness more profound.

Thelanna’s comment from the day before echoed in his mind, softening its once brambled edges. Fey don’t care about your silly pride or embarrassed ego. You can relax. At the time, they’d completely failed to disarm the knight, the advice startling yet unconvincing to him. Now, they were becoming a silent mantra, words to ease his nerves.

Fey don’t care.
You can relax.

“Something inspiring your mind, Jackalope?” Oriel’s voice cut in, sharp and sudden as a bird diving for prey. His tone, as always, was dipped in dreamy succor, an effective allurement. “I’m a touch hurt. I was hoping for more conversation to enliven our freshly minted companionship. Don’t tell me I’ve bored you already, my knight—my heart couldn’t possibly take such a revelation.” The prince was still jovial, clearly jesting again. At least, Galvahin thought so? There was something in the last comment that felt almost a bit too… honest to the knight. He figured he must be imagining it, projecting his own insecurity onto the prince.

“Oh—” Said Galvahin, emerging from his contemplation, only slightly caught off guard this time. “Apologies, Sire… I’ve just been… considering a few things.”

Ahead, Penthesia’s armour glinted as she moved in silence, her sharp, golden gaze flickering back at Oriel’s comments before returning to the path ahead, as if making a mental note unknown. Turning a corner, soft light spilled through like a beckoning invitation. The prince followed without hesitation, and the knight’s steps quickened as if drawn forth by an invisible tether. When they emerged, the garden unfolded to them—the same lush expanse Galvahin had glimpsed the day before, now fully unveiled in all its wonder.

The garden was massive, inestimable acres encircled by towering walls of the living wood palace. In the centre, a monumental oak tree loomed, twisting branches as thick as tower ramparts, contorting across every section of Oriel’s teeming alcazar. Upon prismatic rolling hills of tulips, various fey picnicked, some of them playing music—faces bright and excited. Revelers danced among bushes bearing assortments of fruits and flowers, a few even growing what appeared to be gemstones. In the far background, Galvahin could view waterfalls spilling into azure pools where fey swam, some indolently relaxing at the water's edge. The view was blinding in its extravagance, details and scenes continuing to flood his vision, too many to account for, each a depiction of splendour as if sprung from paintings. Unlike a typical garden, this place didn’t take the wild out of the Feywild; it sought to curate its chaos instead of taming it.

Expression dumbfounded, Galvahin was without words. His glimpses of the garden from the day earlier were just a small taste of its mind-numbing extravagance. He’d heard many a song, much poetic prose, even glimpsed paintings—and none did a bit of justice to the Feywild’s ravishment. He got the distinct impression that much like his glimpse of the garden from the day before, this view was only a minuscule preview of what this realm had in its entirety.

“Are you listening?” Oriel interjected, snatching the knight’s attention once more. “I seem to have lost you again. Can’t say I blame you, though, Jackalope.”

Galvahin snapped out of his reverie, the prince’s nickname for him stirring a small pang of embarrassment. Oriel had been speaking, and he’d ignored him entirely—a lapse in decorum that chewed at the knight’s rigid sense of courtesy. Turning quickly to Oriel, he lowered his gaze and bowed deeply, a deliberate display of remorse.

“Terribly sorry, Milord,” he announced with a voice low and contrite, eyes locked on Oriel’s shoes. “Your garden is… majestic. I am honoured to be allowed to witness it. I humbly ask for your forgiv—hmf—!”

“Stop.” Oriel’s interjection came gentle but firm. A delicate finger pressed under Galvahin’s barbate chin, tilting the knight’s head until gunmetal saw violet once more. The prince’s teal-polished thumb lounged across the pillows of the knight’s lips, silencing any further atonement. “There’s no need for that,” Oriel murmured, words soft and cumulus like clouds. “Your deference is admirable, but really, my knight, you’ll know if I’ve taken genuine offence.”

The world seemed to vanish as Oriel held his gaze, his violet eyes searching those grey windows. Like earlier with Thelanna, Galvahin felt exposed, as though every layer of armour he’d carefully built around himself—his stoicism, his pride—had been shattered, crashing down like the walls of a once impenetrable castle under siege. And yet, this was not the cold, dissecting scrutiny of judgment. It was something warmer, something that made him feel… seen.

Then, unbidden, an inappropriate thought wormed its way into the soil of Galvahin’s mind, and heat flushed behind his beard. His gaze darted away, flustered and ashamed, his pulse racing as though he’d been caught in some unspeakable act.

“You’re adorable,” Oriel chortled, his laughter like beams of sunlight parting storm clouds. “You may rise and speak, my knight,” he added, his tone playful but expectant. “I was inquiring about your thoughts. They must have been captivating—given how rudely you ignored me!” 

Galvahin straightened, grey eyes still too craven to look at Oriel directly, his composure fragile.

“I—” he began, then hesitated, faltering beneath the weight of Oriel’s attention. While all this occurred, his doublet flared bright, blushing peach, almost radiant in its glow.

“I’d be delighted to know,” Oriel prompted with a tone both coaxing yet laced with a faint warning. “And be honest with me. I would hate to compel it in you.”

At that, Galvahin stiffened, soft shadows of black marring the peach, like spots of rot. That may have been another jest, but one that carried a thread of truth. Oriel could compel him—easily, with a charm or geas—and the thought of being stripped of his will, his autonomy, made the knight shudder. He quickly pivoted, eager to divert the conversation from such a possibility.

“I was just consideri—”

“Hush,” Oriel interjected again, this time with only a word, not so much even raising a hand. “Penthesia, my most stunning of orchids,” he said lightly, though his tone lacked the same warmth reserved for Galvahin. “Would you be so kind as to relieve yourself of your duty? Galvahin and I will take this stroll alone. Go entertain yourself—you’ve earned your respite.”

“Yes, Milord,” Penthesia replied curtly, without emotion. Before she departed, her own itinerary now a mystery, she glanced at Galvahin with an intensity that filled him with hesitation, the unspoken message clear: Harm him, and I will kill you.

Galvahin met her gaze, swallowing hard. The unspoken threat should have unnerved him, and it did—but it also sparked something else. Responsibility. Purpose. He wanted that, desperately—to prove himself worthy of this challenge. To assist. To protect. Even if it was laughable, given Oriel’s immeasurable power compared to his own, the thought gave him a flicker of confidence.

“You may continue, my knight,” Oriel said, now turning towards the garden. His words were an invitation—and a command.

Galvahin followed, and as they walked, he spoke cautiously, sharing his thoughts on the Feywild. He spoke of fairytales and rumours, how they shaped his expectations, and how he was beginning to see the need to unlearn them. His tone was prudent, deferential, as he sought to communicate his apprehension without causing offence.

Oriel listened intently, nodding along at every word. A faint smile began to metamorphose on his lips.

“Oh no, Galvahin,” he said with a gentle laugh. “You should never trust a fey. We may be generous, kind at times,” he spun around as he spoke, mimsy as the borogroves of the garden, “but that doesn’t mean we actually care—at least not in the way you mortals do.” 

The words struck Galvahin like lightning, the casual frankness of them leaving his muscles fried and hairs on end. Oriel, who had been nothing but kind, understanding even, was now plainly admitting that his kindness was not to be trusted. That it might mean nothing at all. The honesty was both disarming and deeply unsettling.

“W–what do you suggest I do then?” he inquired, voice rippling and darkening cloth betraying his concern.

“Have fun. Do as the fey do.”

Galvahin blinked. Cryptic, he thought, though he could tell there was a very real insight to be offered in the answer’s riddle.

“Thank you, Sire,” Galvahin said, his voice still uneasy, but steadily gaining a confidence as his adaptation to this strange environ was beginning to take hold.

The two sojourned deeper into the garden, Oriel guiding Galvahin with an easy grace, eager to reveal its hidden marvels. At one point, the prince approached a silvered tree, its branches heavy with rainbow fruit. He plucked one and held it out to the knight, eyes closed in a bright smile.

“Go on,” Oriel urged, words levitus and inviting. “You will not die.”

Galvahin took the prismatic fruit cautiously. It was warm to the touch, almost unnervingly so, and even more disturbingly, it seemed to pulse, like a heart in his palm. With a furrowed brow, he raised it to his mouth and took a hesitant bite. Its juice was plentiful, a mess dripping into the knight's beard, but oddly, it had no taste—neither sour nor sweet, bitter nor savoury. Confused, he wondered if this was some sort of Fey trick.

Then, a sound emerged in his mind, and his breath caught. Music—though not like any he had ever heard before. A deep, resonant rhythm thumped in his ears, each beat reverberating his bones. Layered over it were other sounds, alien and sharp: a rapid repetition like a hammer struck at inhuman speed, a strange keening that stretched and pulled the notes, and a faint bubbling that reminded him of rain against cobblestones. At times, the sounds clashed, almost discordant, but then they would weave into something harmonious again, hypnotic.

He closed his eyes, trying to place the strange symphony, but it defied everything he knew of music. The drums were like no drums he had ever heard, the strings were warped beyond recognition, and the rest—squeaks, hums, and echoes—seemed conjured from pure imagination. Yet despite the strangeness, it stirred something primal in him, an instinctive pleasure that quickened his pulse. He could tell, at the very least, this music was made for dancing, a rhythm that defied order while embracing harmony.

“This… this is remarkable, Milord,” he murmured, taking another bite. The sound shifted, as if choosing a new melody, this one different yet equally alien and enchanting.

Eager to experience the entire symphony, Galvahin devoured the rest of the fruit. As he swallowed the last bite, the music swelled to a crescendo, filling him with a strange euphoria that left him breathless. He stood there a moment, absentmindedly shifting his hips and tapping his toe to the beat, the echoes of the melody still reverberating through him like an aftershock, his doublet a bright cerulean.

Oriel watched with a knowing smile.

“I thought you might enjoy that,” he giggled softly, admiring the knight’s appreciation with satisfaction.

As they strolled, Oriel led Galvahin to more marvels of the Feywild’s extravagance. Lily pads, broad and luminous, shifting colour with every step. Nearby, carnivorous plants prowled for their prey, their glamourous petals snapping shut around the garden’s burrowing moles. And then there was the talking tree, Klimvarh, a gnarly, regal figure whose voice resonated with a woody timbre.

The knight found himself engrossed with the tree's conversation, which touched on the nature of power and the responsibilities inherent to sustaining a just society. Klimvarh’s thoughts were complex, yet delivered with a straightforwardness the knight found refreshing. Still, something about the encounter perplexed him.

“Sire, why don’t the other trees talk like Klimvarh?” he asked.

“All trees can speak,” Oriel replied casually. “Most are simply bashful. They worry that if they spoke, someone might take offence and cut them down.”

Galvahin deadpanned, unsure if the prince was being truthful or teasing him. But then again, in this realm of contradictions, was there a difference? If what Oriel said was true, the thought left a weight within him. The idea of a tree, silent out of fear for its life, struck a chord of unexpected melancholy within him.

Quietly, he made a vow to himself. From then on, he would treat trees with kindness, not just as silent settlers. They were potential companions with stories to share, waiting for the courage to one day speak, just as Klimvarh had.

Another hour or so passed as they meandered, or so Galvahin assumed. Time spent in the garden was only marked by the languid arc of the Feywild’s radiant sun slowly bouncing across the horizon, its brilliance occasionally touching the tops of the palace’s living wood walls before leaping back into the sky, as if reluctant to leave.

Oriel’s stride slowed, and he turned to face Galvahin. His expression remained pleasant, but a shadow of something—possibly melancholy—danced at the edges of his aura.

“I regret to say, my knight,” he began, tone soft, almost wistful, “this is where our journey must end today. I have other matters that require my attendance. I trust you can manage on your own?”

The news stung Galvahin with a faint pang of disappointment, though he kept it hidden behind a composed facade—aside from his doublet dulling to a dingy grey-blue. Of course, he understood. In hindsight, it was unusual that Oriel—a royal, and an archfey no less—had spent this much time with him at all. The nobles of Galvahin’s homeland, his father among them, were seldom so generous with their hours, burdened as they were by an endless litany of tasks, from the mundane to the monumental.

“I understand, Your Grace,” Galvahin replied, inclining his head in a measured bow, hands folded neatly at his lap. “Your hospitality has been most generous. I’ll manage well enough on my own, though I remain grateful for your time.”

“I bid you adieu, Jackalope,” said Oriel with a playful smile before turning to depart. With a light wave of the wrist, his form dissolved into a swirling mist of silvery teal as he walked, his soft tenor echoing from all directions as it faded into the rustling of leaves in the breeze. “I hope you have fun.”

Galvahin instinctively raised a hand in parting, but he blenched slightly, startled by the sudden ethereal departure and disembodied echo of Oriel’s words. Despite the unnerving delivery, the advice gave him a faint reassurance—a sliver of confidence that he clung to as he resumed his exploration of the garden, now alone.

At first, he kept his distance, observing the other fey from afar. He hesitated to approach, wary of committing some unknown offence. In this realm, after all, mistakes could range from innocently inconsequential to devastatingly deadly, or perhaps even stranger fates worse than either. Yet, steeling himself against his trepidation, he pressed on, gradually daring to engage in some way.

Occasionally, he offered shy waves to the fey he passed, his movement tentative and his bearded expression softened by uncertainty, ripples of insecurity apparent as those formed by stones flung into a pond. His hesitance was made even more apparent by the peachy blush that burned brightly through his attire, matching the warmth in his cheeks, bright as a warning. He was a poisonous amphibian, his bashful venin announced to all: Please don’t eat me.

Most of the fey responded in kind, returning his greetings with light waves or fleeting smiles before returning to their revelries or relaxation. Though none approached him directly, their gentle acknowledgments reassured the knight that, for now, he had not misstepped.

As time passed, lethargy began to take hold over him, and he chuckled softly to himself, fondly recalling Oriel’s teasing remarks about his physique. The memory lightened his mood and gave him an excuse to slow his pace. His grey eyes wandered, seeking a quiet place to rest, when he spotted it—the willow tree he had glimpsed the day before. Its long, cascading branches swayed gently, and beneath them sat the same centaur woman he had noticed then, still engrossed in a book.

She was, like all of the fey he’d encountered, striking in her own unique way. Her features were long and angular, her sharp cheekbones softened by the subtle dancing of light filtering between the willow’s branches. Short curly hair in a messy bun and delicate-looking silver spectacles complemented her toned features and deeply onyx skin. She glanced up at Galvahin briefly, offering a quick, approving smile before returning her attention to her book. The occasional flick of her tail, as if swatting away buzzing insects unseen, was the only movement to disrupt her serene demeanor.

Galvahin approached with caution, careful not to disturb her solitude. He bowed low in silent acknowledgement, settling his glaive gently on the feathery grass beneath the tree—but not before offering the tree itself a bow, fondly remembering his dialogue with Klimvarh. Choosing a spot a respectful distance away, he lowered himself to the ground, mindful not to disturb the quiet atmosphere enjoyed by the centaur woman.

Even from where he sat, he caught the faint trace of her scent—a blend of sagittarian musk and something lighter and fresher, like the leaves of the willow they presided beneath. It was distinctly her, unassuming yet grounded. Galvahin found a certain comfort in it, a subtle reminder of the closeness people shared simply by being near one another. The silent presence of another being softened the edges of his loneliness. For now, it was enough.

Galvahin reclined into the soft grass, letting its cool blades cradle him as his gaze drifted upwards towards the clouds. At first, he idly began the pastime of imagining shapes—castles, flowers, dragons—but something about these clouds felt different. As he focused, the cirrus whisps above seemed to respond, their edges sharpening into whatever shape he envisioned.

He blinked, calling his senses into question. Another Feywild trick, surely? He tested the phenomenon, conjuring a knight in armour, a great winged monster, even vales and hills of fluttering daffodils. The clouds weren’t just mirroring his thoughts; they seemed eager, almost playful, in their willingness to indulge the knight's imagination.

The knight smiled as his thoughts wandered to something more whimsical—a jackalope, its grandly antlered head perched proudly atop its fervent hare-like body. As he focused, the form took shape above him, its fluffy tail twitching while in mid-hop. Of all the shapes, this one pleased him the most.

Oscitancy began to creep over the knight, the tranquility in this moment relaxing enough to lull even a hummingbird into torpidity. Turning away from the bookish centaur, he nestled into the feathery grass. Before long, he drifted into a light slumber, dreamless, but rejuvenating in its nullifying embrace, a rare respite that left him in profound peace.

When the briar rose awoke, the centaur woman was gone. But when he stirred, he noticed something left behind at his side—a book. The same one she had been reading. His breath caught in quiet astonishment. The gesture felt deeply personal, as though she had entrusted him with a piece of her private world. The knight thought the gesture was heartfelt, though he did almost balk at the centaur woman’s atrocious handwriting, questioning if she wrote it with hoof instead of hand as he read the following:

"Dear Knight,
Thank you for your company.
It was nice."

The note was brief, bashful in its curtness but tender in its honesty. Galvahin felt a small nerve of guilt arise when he considered the possibility that she, like him, was shy, quietly seeking connection in the silence they shared. He regretted not reaching out further, not even going so far as to learn her name.

Galvahin flipped a few pages, skimming its contents to find, to his disappointment, it was written entirely in Sylvan—indecipherable to him. His spirits lifted as fortune seemed to turn when he noticed the centaur woman’s annotations messily scrawled in the margins, summarising the story’s broad events.

It recounted a tale of a selkie painter who lived in a frigid, abyssal sea cave deep beneath the waves. In that gelid, atramentous abode, the aquatic fey hosted gatherings to display his beloved masterpieces, attracting admirers from all across the seafloor.

Eventually, the pinnipedian prodigy gathered the courage to venture out of the cave and share his art with the surface world. There, he achieved modest acclaim, riches, and a niche following of devoted fans—while reportedly drowning critics who disparaged his work as tasteless or arrogant.

The story left Galvahin puzzled in more ways than one. How, for instance, was the selkie able to paint underwater? And how could anyone possibly view his art in the cavernous black of the sea? The ending did leave him a bit inspired, but slightly unsettled. The selkie’s fate felt triumphant, if not concerningly vindictive.

As time passed, Galvahin reasoned that—assuming the tale was fictional—he could allow himself a small, unsavoury satisfaction in the selkie’s response to bad-faith critics. Still, his brow furrowed as he turned the morality of the story over in his mind, what lesson it was meant to impart to him, if any.

“Aww!” A familiar, mezzo-soprano voice rang out behind the knight, jolting him with a fright. “That is so cute!”

Galvahin turned sharply, hand instinctively brushing the haft of his glaive, only to relax when he saw the willow tree behind him. Relief washed over him when his grey eyes landed on Thelanna, her form seamlessly blended into the tree’s bark. Her features seemed painted into the wood, an impeccable portrait brought to life by the willow’s natural canvas.

She smiled warmly and, with the grace befitting of her kind, stepped out of the trunk. Her movement was fluid, balletic, her bare toes landing softly on the feathery grass. Her laughter, charming as the garden itself, she offered a playful curtsy.

Galvahin’s tension melted, and his heart swelled with gratitude at the sight of a familiar face. In this strange world, Thelanna—as teasing as she was—provided a rare sense of grounding. Her graceful emergence from the tree might have startled another mortal, but Galvahin, familiar with tales of dryads, accepted it with ease; however, he did wonder how long she had been watching him as he straightened to return the bow.

“It’s lovely to see you, Thelanna,” he said, his tone friendly yet tinged with pointed interrogation. “How long have you been spying on me?”

The familiarity of the inquiry surprised even him. Perhaps it was Oriel’s advice about doing as the fey do, or possibly the lesson he learnt from his silent centaur companion: the value of reaching out. Either way, Thelanna seemed like a good acquaintance to practise that with.

“Hmm…!” She tapped a finger on her lips, glancing upwards as if at invisible clouds of thought swirling above her head. “All day,” she admitted with a mischievous smile, her tone carrying both honesty and levity. “It was fun watching you have your little adventure with Oriel.”

“Oh?” Galvahin blushed, cheeks and doublet matching shades of peach, though he couldn’t pinpoint why. “What makes you say that?”

“You know,” she replied, smiling while inclining her head, a touch of wonder in her voice, “I’m not exactly sure. I could just tell you were having fun.”

There was that word again: fun. Galvahin’s heart skipped a beat. Was this a universal creed among the fey, akin to his own knightly chivalry? A code of honour that placed experience above duty? He realised, with a quiet sense of pride, that maybe he was taking Oriel’s advice in stride.

“I wanted to thank you,” he said, tone honest while he delivered another quick bow. “For what you said yesterday—about letting go of my nerves. It didn’t help so much at the time, but after today, I’m grateful for your kindness.”

Thelanna laughed, her voice charming as the magic that coursed through her being.

“Oh, stop it,” she teased, brushing a strand of marmalade hair behind her ear. “You’re too much. I was just being friendly. Besides, I think you fit in well among our little menagerie.”

Galvahin blinked.

“Well,” he replied nervously, “I wouldn’t say that. But I do hope I can contribute in some way, however small.” The knight looked away, his hand shyly scratching the back of his head.

“You already have.” Her gaze softened, though her voice retained its playful edge. “I don’t think I’ve seen the prince this excited to entertain guests in…. well, I’m not sure about that either, but it’s been a very long time.”

“What happened to the last mortal who wandered here?” Galvahin asked, curiosity tempered with apprehension. He wasn’t fully sure if he wanted to know the answer.

“Oh, I have trouble remembering,” she said, hand on her emerald chin. “Hmm… She was a bard, if I recall correctly. Oh yes! I think she was eaten by one of the flowers in the garden.”

Galvahin’s eyes widened in shock, doublet morphing into tumultuous storms of black ink.

“That was a joke.”

Still frozen, the knight blinked.

“I’m serious! It’s a joke!” she laughed.

Not a very funny one, thought Galvahin.

“ Fine.” Thelanna rolled her eyes dramatically. “If you must know, the tale is far sweeter,” she beamed, “Oriel had her write a short collection of poems inspired by the garden. I remember liking the one about finding a bucket entangled in morning glories.”

“Do you remember the poem?” Galvahin tilted his head, the reserved part of him that loved art peeking through the blinds of his outward stoicism.

“Not the words, sadly,” she said with a faint shrug, voice apologetic but still bright. “But I remember how it made me feel. Afterwards, Oriel sent her home. I don’t know what became of her, but I think she had a pleasant stay."

“Why do you think her stay was pleasant?” Galvahin pressed politely. What he really wanted to ask was for more guidance on how to navigate this strange world, perhaps even come to appreciate it in its entirety. But, he hazarded this question—one less revealing to his insecurity—would grant him the same answer he was seeking.

Thelanna smiled.

“She did as the fey do,” she said with a mischievous wink. It was evident that her jest about watching Galvahin and Oriel all day was more than earnest.

Galvahin furrowed his brow, though it didn’t take long for the humour of the moment to fracture his countenance, a playful smile of his own peeking out. Another question crossed his mind.

“Does that…” He gestured toward the willow tree, Klimvarh still lingering in his thoughts, “Thing you do—passing through their bark—does it hurt the trees?”

Thelanna laughed with the heartiness of the oak itself.

“Oh, not at all!” she exclaimed eagerly, her tone flirtatious as she went on to elaborate. “In fact, I think they enjoy it. I always enjoy others passing in and out of me, so I’m sure the trees do, too.”

Her words, a bird higher than the clouds above, soared over Galvahin’s chaste head with the grace of the fey who uttered them. He interpreted them as another whimsical turn of phrase about connection.

“Well,” Galvahin said, looking puzzled as he seriously considered her comment. “I suppose if the trees like it, it should be fine?”

Thelanna snorted, her composure barely holding against a fresh torrent of giggles.

“You’re really something else,” she managed through laughter, “I’m sure they love it.”

“What else do the trees like?” he inquired, tone earnest as ever.

“This one likes you,” Thelanna replied, still recovering from her fit of joy. “She says she thinks you’re handsome.”

Galvahin blushed. Handsome? Even coming secondhand—from a tree, no less—the compliment flattered him. Learning that the willow tree was female ignited his chivalric instincts; he felt honoured that the boughsome maiden thought so highly of him. He never considered himself handsome. If anything, he thought of himself as below average—nothing like the knights immortalised in paintings, who looked more like gods than men. Those men were sculpted in stone; he felt more like lumpy clay.

“We aren’t the only ones who think so,” Thelanna continued, “Astor thought so too.”

Galvahin pursed his lips. He didn’t like where this conversation was going.

“Who is Astor?”

“Oh! Sorry, that was the nymph I was talking to at the table this morning,” she replied warmly. “They said you were ‘tantalising’.”

At that, Galvahin’s peachy countenance and attire deepened. He did not enjoy the confirmation that the two of them were gossiping about him, nor did he want to consider what exactly Astor meant by ‘tantalising’.

“D–do you know the centaur woman that was here?” he stammered, eager to pivot the conversation away from himself.

“Oh, the one you were sleeping with?”

Galvahin frowned.

Thelanna laughed.

“That’s Meliora. Her and I aren’t super close, but I’m friends with her wife. You’ve met her already.”

“I—I have?”

“Penthesia. She didn’t mention her to you? That woman never seems to shut up about her,” Thelanna giggled.

Huh?

This news caught the knight off guard. He was glad to learn more of the centaur woman, but the revelation that she was married to Penthesia came as a shock. The two couldn’t seem further apart in likeness. While both reserved, Penthesia’s quietude felt sharp and intimidating, carrying a lethal weight that outright terrified him. Meliora, on the other hand, had an inviting and peaceful quality to her silence.

What puzzled the knight even further was the idea of Penthesia being gregarious about anything, much less another person. During their entire morning together, aside from her riddle, she spoke only a handful of words—none of which were very outgoing. He eventually concluded that love just does that to people, revealing facets to their personage not shown to the rest of the world.

The two continued in conversation, Thelanna teasing the knight, Galvahin blushing at the dryad's remarks and observations. Over what felt like a span of a few hours, they fell into the easy rhythm of friendly discussion, each opening up glimpses of their inner selves to the other.

Galvahin spoke of his upbringing, his training, and the quiet farming village he resided in. Some aspects of himself were still hidden, the shameful parts he kept locked in his heart—his relationship with his father, his deep insecurities, his profound loneliness that pierced him throughout. Yet, the parts he did reveal, he spoke of honestly, without embellishment or dramatization. His stories, simple as they were, painted a picture of a life rooted in duty and a quiet longing for a greater purpose.

To his pleasant surprise, Thelanna was just as forthcoming, discussing her interests, social life, and even her childhood. Dryads, as Galvahin knew, didn’t have family in the traditional sense. Each was born from an oak and forever tied to the life of its timber. The trees of dryads were famously well protected by their Fey counterparts, lethally, if necessary. Stunningly, however, Thelanna seemed eager to point out her tree—a majestic one atop a hillside towards the centre of the garden, its branches swaying as though in response to her attention.

The knight couldn’t tell what to make of this revelation. A part of him found it profoundly foolish that Thelanna, who had only just met him yesterday, would be so willing to reveal the most vulnerable part of herself, the part that tethered her to life itself. The possibility that she may be lying also occurred to him, but Thelanna had no tells. If she was bluffing, her gambler’s face was frighteningly effective. Either way, the knight made a note of the tree's location, vowing to himself that if the chance ever arose, he would protect it with his life.

Galvahin wanted to offer something more to Thelanna—something vulnerable like she had for him. But he hesitated. It felt foolish, giving someone he didn’t yet fully trust a weakness to exploit—especially here, a place where everything appeared poised to exploit that perceived frailty.

A low, rumbling sound emerged from his gut, interrupting his thoughts and stealing his attention with a pang of hunger.

Thelanna smirked at the knight, clearly catching the evidence of his famishment, pointed ears pricking at the sound.

“When’s the last time you ate?” she asked, friendly concern in her breathy voice. 

Galvahin admitted that, aside from the musical rainbow fruit, he hadn’t eaten a bite since their shared meal that morning, a fact that made the dryad guffaw—though her expression did darken a bit in sympathy.

“Well, I could manifest some fruits and vegetables,” she said quietly, for the first time bashful since they began their conversation. “But obviously you wouldn’t be allowed to eat them.”

“Why is that?” he hesitantly inquired, not sure of her meaning.

“Because it would be a gift.”

Ah. Of course. Oriel. Our accord.

“Oh… Yes, of course.” Galvahin bowed, disappointment palpable at the prospect of almost being fed, only for that possibility to be snuffed out.

His eyes glanced towards the selkie book, a twinge of dissatisfaction bubbling in him when he realised he would have to give that to the prince as well—though a small flicker of eager curiosity danced into his mind when he remembered that Oriel would have gifts of his own to trade with the knight. He hoped those gifts would be less challenging than the enchanted garments he wore.

“It is getting late, though,” Thelanna added, this time her voice daubed with a brighter lilt.

“How can you tell?” His voice was bewildered. He couldn’t fathom how she—or anyone—could possibly track the passage of time in this place, at least intuitively. The entire day appeared as though it was early dawn stretched ad infinitum, the sun constantly dancing at the edge of the horizon.

“How can you not?” she teased him, light and mocking, clearly enjoying his inexperience. As if on cue, the sun finally began its brilliant descent beyond the walls of the palace.

“Right…” Galvahin muttered. Much like the dryad and the archfey, this entire place seemed determined to poke fun at him, especially his intuitions that relied on logic—like how to tell the damned time around here!

“I’m willing to bet a certain prince left you a meal,” she announced slyly, as if her words were again littered with entendre. “You could eat that!”

I certainly hope so, Galvahin thought, recalling with a mix of fondness and unease Oriel’s jest about starving him.

“Do you know how to get back to your room?” Thellana queried, still playful, but obvious in her concern for his well-being.

“I—” The knight felt another pang of embarrassment, reflected outwardly only in his doublet. “I do not,” Galvahin admitted truthfully, shame grasping him in its ugly talons. The admission of requiring further help felt like a stone in his gut, this one more painful than the subtle discomfort of hunger.

Without hesitation, Thelanna took his hand into both of her own. Her cheer was enough to endear even a lich; absinthe eyes brightly shining into his, she leaned forward to proclaim the following:

“I’ll guide you again! You’re so fun! I enjoy spending time with you.”

At that, a brumal deadpan etched itself into his face, and the knight's entire attire faded in hue until it was a muted, cloudy grey.

“Oh no—” Thelanna faltered, her emerald face again awash with concern. “Did I say something wrong?”

A slow, twisting sensation welled up from the man’s gut, burning while freezing his insides all at once. That sensation continued its torturous pillage through his chest, chewing every sinew along its path, before eventually it caught in his throat like a sickly lump. Was she teasing him again?

The knight swallowed hard, pushing the feeling back down with every ounce of his strength. Of course, she wasn’t mocking him—Thelanna enjoyed making him laugh, not weep. He cleared his throat, straightening his posture as if to armour himself from his emotions.

“That would be…” He hesitated, every fibre in his being locked into focus, desperate to keep his voice from cracking. Another quick clearing of the throat, and he retreated from her touch into a polite, low bow, hands folded into his lap.

“That would be most kind of you, Thelanna.” The words were even, direct, and void of emotion—but brimming with deference.

Thelanna squealed in giddy excitement, snatching the knight's hand to pull him out of the bow. Galvahin’s hand seized, she yanked him forward. She turned briskly, pulling him along as he stumbled to match her eager pace.

“Yay!” she proclaimed with equal excitement. “It’s just this way! Honestly, I bet you could’ve found it yourself. But still…” She turned back to glance at him, emerald eyes catching his. “It’s nice of you to let me help.”

Galvahin’s doublet gradually began to breathe colour again, the stormy greys fading away into a calm, sterling cobalt and, by the time they reached his room, a brilliant cerulean.

“May I come in with you?” Thelanna asked, tone still cheerful but carrying a subtle undercurrent of hope.

“Of course,” he replied, his words polite and steady. He failed to consider any deeper implication in Thelanna’s request, his usual chivalric decorum giving way to the simple enjoyment of her presence. Galvahin’s thoughts lingered only on how much he enjoyed Thelanna’s companionship—not on any potential for it to veer into impropriety.

After being gestured inside, Thelanna stotted in, her eyes darting around its interior. She spotted a silver tray of food and pointed as if uncovering a hidden treasure.

“Look!” she exclaimed triumphantly, her mezzo-soprano ringing melodically off the bedroom’s wooden walls. “He did leave you some food, how thoughtful!”

Galvahin did appreciate Oriel’s gesture, but he didn’t think it was particularly thoughtful for him to remember the simple fact that he needed to eat more than one meal a day. Still, it did leave him both relieved and grateful, his chest heavy as he thought of Oriel’s kindness.

“That he did,” he said, smiling softly as he approached to inspect the supper. It was a bowl of noodles, slightly gelatinous in appearance, transparent ultramarine in hue. Aside from it, an array of the gemstone vegetables from breakfast—this time grilled instead of steamed—as well as a bottle of purple wine. Galvahin felt something stir when his grey eyes fell on the dessert: the same geode pudding he immensely enjoyed that morning. He wondered if the archfey had made note of his fondness for it.

He glanced around the room, taking notice of anything else new. As per his request with Oriel, a polearm rack was placed near the door, splendid in its design. Galvahin questioned if the prince had it specially commissioned for him, as its detailing was immaculate, and it looked so pristine it felt like it was made that very day. As he placed his glaive into it, his gaze shifted down towards where his old armour was left.

It was still there, unfortunately; however, a thick, woolly fur was placed over it, hiding its presence and potential lethality against fey from the world. It occurred to Galvahin that transporting it for disposal may be an issue for the court, remembering how quickly it was able to disarm even Oriel, who, by all accounts, was clearly the mightiest of them all. He made a mental note to offer his services in that regard.

“Do you see that?” he inquired to Thelanna while pointing at the pile of furs on the floor, his brassy tone serious as death. “Do not touch that. Beneath those furs is iron. I would hate for you to be harmed.”

Thelanna’s smile faltered, her posture stiffening slightly. Her demeanor, still cheerful, reflected that of a scolded child, eager to please but now suddenly fearful—as if the knight had sought to scare her.

“Thanks for the warning,” she said coolly, but it was evident that the gnosis of the iron’s presence deeply unnerved her.

Galvahin, though relieved to protect her from the hidden danger, felt a well of guilt arise. It was apparent that he had frightened her, the dryad’s usual cheerful demeanor subtly undone as it was. Desperate to ease her discomfort, he offered impulsively:

“Would you like some of my dinner?”

His gesture was almost sacrificial in nature. The knight had many qualities, but a healthy appetite was chief among them.

“That’s sweet of you,” she replied, warmth returning to her voice in response to his kindness, “but, honestly, I’m not at all hungry. I don’t need to eat that much, at least compared to you.” Thelanna winked playfully. “I’ll have some of that wine, though! Yum!”

Galvahin squinted, unamused. Not this again. It was funny the first time, hilarious the second, but now? It was starting to instill a new insecurity he hadn’t had before.

Or at least it would have, if not for Thelanna’s cheerful demeanor. He wondered if that actually was another jest this time, or if his time with Oriel was rubbing off on him to search for those sly jabs. It took only a moment for him to smile back at her. He made a motion towards the mossen bed, eager to enjoy his meal, while gesturing to Thelanna to join him.

Legs crossed, she sat next to the knight. Together, between the knight’s bites of wavy blue noodles, they continued to converse. It wasn’t long before the air of the room began to lift along with their spirits, nor was it long before Galvahin finished his meal.

He sat up and bowed again to Thelanna, informing her of his need to use the lavatory. There, Galvahin relieved himself. To the sound of a soft torrent of water washing away the wine, he moved to brush his teeth in front of the mirror.

Grey eyes looked back at him as he inspected himself. It may have been the wine talking, even if it was only a single glass, but now, looking in the mirror, he was beginning to appreciate what he saw in it. In that realm of argentum, he could see someone worthy of admiration, worthy of connection—even, fleetingly, a rather dashing someone. The thought brought a faint smile to his lips.

He rinsed his mouth from the stream of ever-flowing water coming from the living-wood spout and returned to the door. Opening it, his eyes darted downward, absentmindedly checking to make sure he didn’t leave any evidence of the mouthwash on the new doublet. Embarrassing, he thought as he pondered that possibility.

If a witch had bestowed our knight with a crystal ball, he still would’ve failed to prognosticate the event that would occur next.

“Please!” Thelanna announced, her voice dripping in adoration. She had been waiting at the door for the knight, and when Galvahin had opened it, she flung her arms around him into a tight embrace. As she looked up at him, emerald eyes shining like two candied confectionaries, Galvahin could see the colour of his doublet shift to peach in that view. “I want you to take me, Sir Galvahin.”

Sir? 

Take you?!

Thelanna was, in this moment, no mere dryad—she was like a gorgon, her gaze entrapping the knight in stone. She had pressed her breasts up against the knight’s torso, granting him full view as the cleavage spilled out from the top of her dress. Worse still, he was becoming intimately familiar with just how thin the silk of his new attire was. It felt as if there was no barrier at all—practically skin on skin.

Inhaling sharply in stupor, he—!! … Oh gods, she smells heavenly. Why me?

Flustering, the knight averted his frozen gaze from her, face locked into embarrassed shock, only marked further by the crimson fire burning beneath his scruff. Even more tragically, Galvahin could feel that his cheeks weren’t the only place blood was rushing to. He had to pivot, and fast, or this moment would devolve into a point of no return, a chasm of indecorum he was loath to fall into.

“I—I,” he stammered, before returning to her gaze. Arms at his side, careful not to offend the dryad, he fought for composure. “I–I’m very flattered,” he said, unsure if this was a lie or not—not that it mattered—for flattery was the furthest thing from his mind.

At this, Thelanna pouted. Galvahin wondered if the wine had gotten to her, but she, like him, had only partaken in a single glass. Surely this wasn’t the only cause of her request, though it may have contributed to her bravery to announce it so suddenly. However, when the dryad blinked, her eyes dewier, he felt a pang of heartache when he saw it. It was clear that she wanted this of her own accord, and it would be moronic to try and dissuade her from believing so. She was, proudly and evidently, her own woman.

There was also the aspect of her nature. After all, Thelanna was a fey. Her kind were infamous for their scorn in the face of rejection; very few tales of their broken hearts ended well for the mortal who refused their advances. She could turn him into wood—in more ways than one. Choosing the words for what to say next wisely was of the utmost importance.

“I think you’re lovely, Thelanna,” he muttered softly, “I’m just—I,” he stammered again, careful not to let his voice break.

Now was the time for honesty, brave Galvahin.

“I’m just… not ready for that sort of thing. Sincerest apologies.” Galvahin felt craven, for he couldn’t even look at the dryad as he relayed his refusal.

“…”

Oh no.

“…”

Please say something.

“… That’s okay,” she hushly replied, her disappointment evident, but her tone revealed she wasn’t offended. “Perhaps another time?”

Galvahin still couldn’t look at her, afraid the sight of her soft body against his rugged own would break him, force him to reconsider and take her up on the offer. For the briefest of moments, he shamefully considered the idea, his eyes glancing towards the mossen bed with the image of the two of them copulating, arms entangled, a creature with two backs—Please, no! I can’t.

“Th–That’s certainly a possibility,” he said, in a voice that could be described in any myriad of ways—none of them cool or confident.

“Could I at least offer you a kiss?” the dryad pressed, her attraction to Galvahin swelling the request with an honesty that he couldn’t help but find endearing.

“I–I suppose that would be okay,” he replied curtly, the brassiness in his voice beginning to creak. He, still, was not able to look in her direction. Her beauty was blinding; to look at her would’ve been like staring into the sun.

A chartreuse hand cupped Galvahin’s cheek, and with gentility, it adjusted his visage to align with the dryad’s. Thelanna, on her tiptoes, leaned in and up to meet him. Her head inclined, and her eyes closed, she pressed her green lips into his.

He still hesitated, but the knight returned the kiss, his own lips pursing into hers as his grey eyes fluttered shut. Her scent was rich, oaky, like a verdant greenhouse filled with trailing vines and fresh saplings. Puzzlingly though, her lips tasted almost human, a subtle flavour of salt touched with petrichor. The kiss itself was intimate, but brief, their lips parting against each other for only a second, but it was still enough to trawl a single note of embarrassed, muffled sonority from the back of his throat. As it drew to its conclusion, Galvahin’s muscles relaxed again, though he made no motion to return the embrace, to hug her as she had him. He was still too fearful of what might occur if he gave in any further.

When Thelanna pulled away, Galvahin’s eyes were still closed. His expression was stupefied, but dreamy, the knight’s mouth slightly agape, a subtle quiver dancing across the pink of his lips.

“You’re a wonderful kisser, Sir Galvahin,” Thelanna purred. Her voice had regained its confident, teasing tone, only now it was steeped in seductive tannins. “I bet you’d make an even more fabulous lover.”

“Mhm!” Galvahin pursed his lips, eyes snapping open at the compliment. Please get off me now, he thought. He wanted anything but to be seen that way, another expectation he felt he could only disappoint in. There was also the matter of his own evident biology, and he needed to end this moment now before it would betray him.

Another giggle escaped her as if he had made a joke. She pulled away from the embrace, her lips parting to make another comment—only for it to be halted in its place as her emerald eyes widened in response to the display of colour on the knight’s garment.

In every place her embrace met him, as if she had painted it on with the brush of her body, there was a swirling display of prismatic chroma. Every colour of the rainbow waltzed, swirled, and stormed across it. Flickering, flashing, and bright. Cobalt, tyrian purple, puce, gamboge, amaranth, ruby, celadon, coral, atrovirens, wenge, ebony, sarcoline, xanadu, zaffre, and ivory—all of them burned, morphed, and contorted across his torso like fire. Only one colour stayed consistent.

Across the knight’s thighs and loins, bright magenta pulsated, a stain of pigment across his petticoat breeches.

The knight looked down, and his visage contorted in horror, like a grimacing cherry. He had forgotten about the enchanted garment, too focused only on his potential turgidity giving him away. He stammered as his bearish arms flew to cover himself and hide the display. It was as if the dryad had walked in on him in the nude.

“Oh—I,” Thelanna stammered, and this time she looked away, bashful in her own way. She placed her hand behind her head, awkwardly avoiding looking in his direction. “I’m sorry Galvahin. I didn’t mean to, um… Embarrass you.”

“S’no problem!” The knight squeaked, turning away to shield the storm of revealing variegation.

Thelanna giggled again, this time even more gently, as if to say it was okay. She wasn’t offended.

“I should get going,” she replied. With that, she made her way to the door. “Thank you, I enjoyed it.”

“I–I did—,” he stammered, “a–as well!” It was true, but the statement was driven more by courtesy than honesty.

As she closed the door, she made one more comment, this time touched with her usual mischief.

“I’m happy to hear you enjoyed my gift,” she slyly muttered, punctuated by the soft sound of the closing living wood door.

Galvahin sighed a breath of relief. Finally, she had left. Any longer and he wouldn’t have been able to hold out.

Phew. Crisis averted. Thank the gods—wait… 

What?

Gift?!

Oh no. 

Notes:

Come Along | Cosmo Sheldrake

Come along, catch a Heffalump 
Sit with me on a muddy clump 
We'll sing a song of days gone by 
Run along now, don't be glum 
Get you gone, now, have some fun 
Don't be long, for the end is nigh 

Chapter 5: The Kiss

Summary:

In a desperate bid to cleanse his soul (and mouth), Galvahin scrubs himself raw before facing his next great trial: a kiss with a prince who absolutely doesn’t need the ego boost. Meanwhile, Penthesia reveals she has exactly one (1) emotion, we meet Oriel’s Ken doll-sized D.I.L.F personal assistant, and somewhere Thelanna is likely sipping wine and gleefully drafting fanfiction of this exact scenario.

             “To the one breaking it—
  the fragrance 
  of the plum.”

Fukuda Chiyo-ni

 

Galvahin flung open the door of the lavatory, frantically brushing his teeth for the third time. It was the following morning, his second day in the Feywild, and he’d already bathed twice, combed his hair innumerable times, and polished his glaive several. The knight was calling upon every lesson he’d learned of noble neatness. If his enchanted garments hadn’t retained their spell of permanent pristine, he’d have attempted to wash those as well. 

Armed with the knowledge of fey’s fondness for exact language, he held no illusions of the nature of his accord to Oriel. Everything gifted, earned, or shared was to be claimed by the prince—even something as fleeting and abstract as a kiss.

A spat of green astringent, a rinse of the mouth, and a few more anxious assessments in front of the polished mirror. Galvahin would see to it that this particular gift he was forced to inflict on the prince be as inoffensive as possible. Sighing, he returned to his room to pace as he considered his options—or rather, lack thereof.

Galvahin wondered what the punishment might be if he refused to offer the kiss, if there might even be one. Would Oriel even be aware of that? Of course he would. To him, the prince was practically omniscient—maybe even literally. His mind deluged under the weight of more questions, spiralling.

Would the prince rescind his offer to return him home if Galvahin withheld? Was he testing his honour? Was Thelanna testing him? Do the fey even regard kisses as significant? Would he find it amusing? What if they did care? Would Oriel be offended? Would he hurt Galvahin? Is this what the prince had in mind? What if he didn’t care? Is this—do they—what if?

What if Oriel refused?

Galvahin frowned.

He was terrified, a sickly animal caught in a trap, and it seemed as if death lurked in the shadows. Aside from his encounter with the beast that chased him into this realm, Galvahin had never known such dismay—to which his doublet reflected in black, russet, and shameful magenta hues.

It was no silver lining to discover the magenta’s meaning after the night before. The memory of it burned into Galvahin’s pride with the bliss of a branding die. His teeth clenched when he dwelled on it. It felt like a curse, one he desperately wanted to be rid of. Prurience was a debasement, a stark betrayal of the man he wanted to be seen as. If he could rip open himself, excise that part inside of his heart—that metastatic lump—he would. He desired to be esteemed, respected and respectful, thought of as intermerate, a man of austerity and abstention—not a wayward strumpet, a slave to desire. A deviant. A freak.

He grimaced. He frowned again. Who could love someone like that? No one. Heroes should inspire people, protect them—not instil fear that they want to take advantage. The sickly russet broiled into fiery crimson as he recalled accounts of so-called adventurers who extorted and debased others—abusing people’s misfortune with their wretchedness. He almost gagged.

Disgusting.

Galvahin’s fingers twitched when he imagined running those foul bastards through, perhaps slicing them clean with a flourish of his glaive. For a fleeting moment, he almost smiled. Then, with a shake of his head, he buried the thought. Compartmentalisation? No. Funeration. The back of the knight’s mind was a graveyard, cenotaphs and tombstones marking each pestiferous emotion slain.

But of course, there it was: magenta. The colour bored holes into his soul with the vigor of dwarves hot on the trail of ancient troves in stone. It was a mocking reminder of the part of himself he hated most, not just for how it made him weak, but for how it had the potential to offend and frighten others.

But he couldn’t deny it, no matter how fervently he tried. Deep in the recesses of his heart, Galvahin wanted to kiss Oriel. Desperately. And that was the worst part of it all.

‘Beautiful’ was a woefully inept word for encompassing Oriel; one might as well say the ocean had water, or the sky was up—true, but painfully simplistic to the point of imbecility. Oriel was more than merely beautiful; the man bore an indelicate magnetism so immense it was painful to behold. His skin was almost luminous, obscenely flawless, unblemished by any scar, mole, or imperfection. His eyes sparkled brighter than any jewel, and gazing into them was like peering into a twilight arcadia. When he spoke, every word caressed the ear, an enchanting reverie of dulcet tenor tones that soothed and excited in equal measure. Galvahin shivered as he recalled the moments Oriel had addressed him. Galvahin. My knight. Jackalope.

He bit his lip.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

The sudden rapping made Galvahin jump. Someone was at the door. He blinked hard. Looking down he examined his attire, grimacing when he noticed the magenta not only persisted, but had deepened in hue. With a steady breath, he stared at the colour, focusing on clearing his mind of all thought. It was a stubborn process, but with a few deliberate exhales, he was able to wash away the shameful display, the magenta eventually fading away into calm cobalt once more.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Galvahin cleared his throat and approached the door, pulling the living wood open to reveal a familiar, solitary face.

Penthesia.

She wore her golden chestplate from the day before, its sleek, pointed design reminiscent of elven craftsmanship but far grander. Floral vines twisted and curled around carefully embossed butterflies, their details so intricate they seemed to flutter in the light. Her long blonde hair was tied into a high ponytail, accentuating the elegant length of her pointed ears, each adorned with rows of chic golden earrings.

Like all of the eladrin in Oriel’s court, she was stunningly beautiful. High cheekbones and almondine eyes graced her countenance, and her sharp features radiated vivacity. Galvahin hadn’t noticed these details about her before, but perhaps after hearing Thelanna’s insights, he found himself curious—curious to see Penthesia as more than just a guarding shadow of the archfey. She, like everyone, was also a person. Someone with an inner world. And though she immensely intimidated the knight, it was not lost on him that seeking her connection—or at least her approval—might serve everyone’s best interests.

“Good morning, Penthesia,” Galvahin said, voice warm, but his smile faint. He gave her a quick, polite bow. “It is good to see you. Are you doing well?”

Penthesia tilted her head, expression puzzling and unreadable.

“I am well,” she replied. If her tone was any more curt, any drier, it might have come off as insulting. 

Galvahin swallowed. The discourteousness in the response wasn’t unexpected, but even then it still managed to disarm the knight. His grey eyes flicked to her left and right, noting Oriel’s absence. A small pang of unease settled as he wondered why she had come alone. 

“That’s good to hear,” he replied flatly, nerves inhibiting any charm. “I see you’re alone—” 

Penthesia lifted an eyebrow, expression faintly questioning but still bereft of any emotion. 

Smooth, Galvahin. Now she thinks you’re flirting. Ugh. 

“Wh–what I mean to say is,” he stammered, fumbling for clarity, “Oriel accompanied us yesterday—” 

She inclined her head brusquely, eyes narrowing as if to say: Obviously.

Galvahin stammered again. Talking to Penthesia felt like trying to disarm a tripwire while blindfolded. Her words were few, and her countenance betrayed nothing, yet he couldn’t shake the sense that she was communicating volumes he failed to decipher.

“Are you here at his request?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yes.” Her response was, as expected, succinct. But then she added, “I will accompany you to his quarters. Our lord is occupied with other matters, and he sent me in his stead.” More words this time—still dry and impersonal, but at least it was progress.

“I see,” Galvahin replied with a nod, though his mind immediately latched onto a more pressing concern. “No feast this time?” His stomach faintly grumbled at the thought of missing a meal.

“Our lord isn’t able to attend,” she explained, tone unchanging. “He’s offered you to join him for a meal in his quarters, though.”

“Will you be attending?” Galvahin inquired, almost hopeful.

“No.”

Oh... 

Oh no.

The idea of eating alone with Oriel sent a wave of discomfort crashing into Galvahin. The intimacy of such a setting was not something he felt prepared for—especially given the nature of the gift he owed the prince. If he could have his way, their next encounter would be as brief and formal as possible.

“I suppose we should make our way then,” he said, unease palpable in his voice. He hadn’t noticed until now, but over the course of the conversation the cobalt in his attire had faded into stormy greys, thick with the tension of impending rain.

Penthesia nodded, her composed demeanor unchanged as she watched Galvahin collect his glaive with aureate eyes intense; however, those same windows widened suddenly when she saw the knight retrieve the centaur woman’s book.

“Why do you have that?” she asked, her steady voice betraying subtle shock and just a hint of dismay. Though she made no motion, something in her stature shifted, as if the ground beneath her had suddenly jolted.

Galvahin glanced back to her, only momentarily caught off guard by her sudden reaction, though understanding quickly dawned on him.

“Oh—um,” he replied, his tone nervous as he softly clutched the book in both hands. “Meliora gave it to me.” He shifted awkwardly, unsure of how much explanation to give. “We, uh, ran into each other in the garden yesterday.”

“What did you talk about?” she asked, her words eagerly spilling out the second the knight had finished speaking.

“W–well,” Galvahin stammered, taken aback by the stark departure in her previous demeanor. “We didn’t really get a chance to talk much. We sort of just… sat next to each other.”

“Sat next to each other?” She blinked, her voice carefully neutral, though her surprise was evident.

“Yes,” Galvahin said, fidgeting slightly under her gaze. “We sat next to each other—under the willow tree she frequents? At least, I think she frequents it. I saw her there the day before, and—”

“The day before?” Penthesia cut in, voice sharp yet restrained.

“Y–yes.” Galvahin felt acutely aware of how his nerves were causing him to ramble. “I saw her there the day before, and yesterday I approached her to um—well, to—”

Penthesia’s eyes narrowed.

“To befriend her,” he clarified, voice strained but earnest. “Oriel encouraged me to… try to reach out to people. And, well, I recognised her from the day before, so I figured—”

“Figured what?” she interjected, tone still largely flat, though an undercurrent of something sharper lingered.

“We could talk,” Galvahin said weakly. “But I didn’t say much of anything to her. She seemed engrossed in her book.” His eyes darted away as a soft glow of peach emerged like a sunrise in his doublet. “I um—I didn’t want to bother her. So we just… sat. I fell asleep, and when I awoke, she left me the book.”

Penthesia crossed her arms, expression unreadable, but something in her aura seemed to soften ever so slightly.

“She left me a note,” Galvahin added quickly, fishing the slip of paper from the book and extending it to her. “Here.”

Penthesia swiftly retrieved it, unfurling it with effortless elegance. As her eyes scanned the note, a subtle smile touched her lips—so faint it might’ve gone unnoticed, yet the sight of it stirred something in Galvahin, warming the knot of anxiety in his chest.

But before the knight could say anything else, Penthesia spun on her heel and strode towards the corridor. Galvahin blinked, startled, before scrambling to follow her, quickly shutting the living wood door behind the two of them as they exited into the hallway.

“W–wait,” he said, his tone edged with nervousness as he hurried to catch up. “I think I need to give that to the prince.”

Penthesia stopped abruptly and turned, her sharp eyes narrowing in his direction.

“He can claim it from me himself,” she said flatly, expression unreadable.

Galvahin hesitated, momentarily unsure of how to respond. After a quick mental calculation, he came to conclude that between Oriel and Penthesia, it was obvious which of the two fey intimidated him more.

“I–I’m going to have to insist,” he pressed, his voice trembling but resolute. “Please, let me have that back.”

For a moment, Penthesia held his gaze, her aureate eyes studying him with pointed intensity. Then, without a word, she extended the note toward him in a swift, almost dismissive fashion. Galvahin quickly retrieved it, bowing low in gratitude.

“Thank you,” he said, tone awash in relief. “Most kindly.” He held his bow waiting for a response, but none came. When he cautiously glanced upward, he realised why—Penthesia had turned and was walking away, now already a good stone’s throw from him.

He stammered, straightening before jogging to catch up with her once again. As they walked, Galvahin just behind her, he realised this was an opportunity he shouldn’t let pass. Seeing her reaction to the note brought to mind the answer to Penthesia’s riddle; surely someone who spoke of such things would have more to share on the subject.

“Thelanna told me that you and Meliora are together,” he said, his voice shy yet earnest. “That must be…” he trailed off, unsure of how to phrase something that might elicit a more open response. “W–well, I’m happy for you.”

Penthesia tensed briefly, then glanced back at him, aureate eyes unnerving yet still devoid of emotion. The piercing intensity of her gaze was intimidating, but Galvahin persisted, recalling Thelanna’s description of the eladrin’s clear adoration for her wife.

“What do you like about her—about Meliora?” he inquired, hesitation thick as the scent of maple that wafted off the eladrin guard.

At this, Penthesia froze mid-step, motionless for a breath before something wholly abstruse unfolded. Turning to face him fully, her aureate eyes softened, glowing like warm rays of sunshine. Her lips curled into an oneiric, almost otherworldly grin.

“Everything,” she replied, her voice eager and brimming with warmth. “I love her. She is, to me, the most magnificent creature to grace existence.” Her tone was utterly transformed as she continued, her stoic veneer replaced by an exuberant joy so uncharacteristic that if Galvahin hadn’t just witnessed it, he would assume she had been replaced by a doppelganger. “I love her, heart and soul, mind and body. She’s brilliant—cleverer and wiser than any archmage, more beautiful than any courtesan. To hear her speak is ecstasy itself.”

Galvahin blushed, unsure of how to process Penthesia’s sudden, effusive declarations. As they walked, he dared not interrupt her, though this was rather effortless as the eladrin scarcely gave him the chance, her words flowing in an unstoppable stream of adoration.

“One time, the Briar King—an Unseelie archfey of considerable renown—graced Oriel’s court with his presence,” Penthesia began, her tone measured but dipped in quiet pride. “He brought with him a puzzle, a challenge, and declared that none among us could solve it. It threw the court into disarray—an embarrassment to us all, this insurmountable riddle. Even I, for all my training, nor Oriel, with all his years of wisdom, could find a solution. But Meliora…” Her voice softened, turning almost reverent. “Meliora did.”

She paused, her gaze falling to the ground.

“When she presented the answer to the court, the only thing louder than Oriel’s laughter was the look on the Briar King’s face,” she added, her tone briefly lightening, as though savouring the memory of the Unseelie’s disgruntlement. “Still, it wasn’t just that she solved it,” Penthesia continued, her voice taking on a wistful, almost fragile quality. “It was the way she did it—graceful, unassuming, never boastful or seeking credit. She simply wanted to preserve the peace.”

“I knew then, without a shadow of a doubt, that I would never find another soul like her.” Slowly, Penthesia turned her head up towards the ceiling, as if she could see the sky beyond it.

“She is the only commitment I hold higher than to that of the court,” she continued, words almost blending together as eros overcame her. “She would never ask this of me, but I would die for her—commit any sin, betray any cause. Meliora is so enrapturing that all other creatures are made ugly by her presence. And I mean that. This realm—the Feywild—it is a world of beauty… But if she was not in it, I would see only its pestilence. In every sense, words fail to capture her splendour. If I wrote a thousand poems every day for a thousand years it still wouldn’t be enough to communicate my love for her.”

Penthesia, in this moment, became a torrent of affection; her voice was light and clearly smitten, filling the air with an outpouring of pure love. Galvahin found himself taken aback by the deluge of admiration, the words painting Meliora as nothing less than a goddess among mortals. The only sounds accompanying them were Penthesia’s hurried, love-drunk remarks and the soft cadence of their footsteps.

The amorous monologue continued unabated for the remainder of their journey. As he listened, smiling and nodding along to every word, Galvahin’s doublet began to shift into a bright, cheerful cerulean. But as Penthesia went on, a new, before entirely unseen colour began to emerge: an almost neon virid green. The vert and vivid hue mottled the cerulean, the fabric subtly resembling a topography of tropical islands scattered across a shimmering sea. Galvahin made a mental note of the change, not entirely sure of its exact meaning, but the faint pinch of discomfort in seeing another’s joy offered a hint he wasn’t quite ready to confront.

Just as Galvahin began to consider encouraging her to go on—intrigued by this deeply poetic and unexpectedly personal side to the eladrin—they reached their destination, and Penthesia’s words trailed into silence.

It was immediately clear to whom this opulent entrance belonged. The living wood door featured a sprawling depiction of the Feywild, its sparkling night sky adorned with a nebula of prismatic jewels and two crescent moons hanging over verdant hills and valleys. Upon those hills, tiny florals appeared to bloom from the wood itself, their intricate designs lifelike in appearance. In the far distance the faint outline of mountains rose majestically, with a small castle nestled within a forest at the base—its walls growing organically from the surrounding trees. Encircling this breathtaking scene was a wreath-like frame of poppies and lavenders, interwoven with silver and inlays of gemstones—teal aquamarines and violet amethysts, naturally.

Had the door been any more elaborate, it might’ve veered into ostentation, its only modesty being its size. Yet one detail caught Galvahin’s grey eye—a figure lounging on the larger of the two crescent moons. The details were almost too fine to discern, but something about it captured him, drawing his gaze as he tried to decipher its similitude. His musings were interrupted as Penthesia silently opened the door, gesturing him to enter.

Galvahin offered her a polite bow before stepping inside. To his pleasant surprise, as he passed her, Penthesia gave him a fleeting smile—so brief it felt like a trick of the light. Galvahin returned the gesture, but by the time he straightened, her stoic expression had already returned.

The living wood door shut softly behind him, leaving Galvahin facing a gently curving hallway. Muffled voices echoed faintly from further down, the sound seeping through walls adorned with paintings as enchanting as the relief on the door. As he stepped forward, anxiety tightening in his chest, the voices began to grow clear.

“Absolutely not,” came Oriel’s voice, his usual dulcetness replaced by an edge of annoyance.

“But, Sire, she has insisted upon it,” said a much smaller voice—deeply masculine yet studious and unassuming.

“Mab can waltz into my court herself if she truly has such demands,” Oriel sharply retorted, his irritation verging into temper. “Honestly, Toby, it’s always take-take-take with them. ‘Oh, little Oriel, you’re so gracious! Surely you’ll allow me to siphon you of everything you’re worth!’” he said mockingly. “When’s the last time I’ve heard from her anyway—from anyone? Ignore me for eons, then treat my court as a repository. I’ll have none of it.”

“S–so I take that as a ‘no,’ Milord?” stammered the tiny bassy voice, assumingly Toby.

“Of course it’s a ‘no.’” Galvahin could practically hear the prince rolling his eyes. “What else on the agenda—oh gods, did Mother send any news of that vættir debacle?”

As Galvahin rounded the corner, his steps slowed as he took in the interior of Oriel’s quarters. Like the room assigned to him, this space teemed with colourful plant life, filling the air with the lush scent of florals and greenery. Yet the archfey’s room was far grander, with expansive hallway entrances, intricately designed living wood doors, and floor-length windows that bathed the space in rose gold light. The shelves were adorned with an eclectic array of decor: brightly glowing crystal orbs, wooden carvings of Fey monsters, and silk arasses depicting moths and pixies that shifted and fluttered with magical animation. The walls, just like in the corridor, were hung with paintings that depicted scenes too vivid and varied to fully absorb.

The sheer beauty of it all momentarily displaced Galvahin’s mounting apprehension, filling him with wonder. He stood silently, marvelling at the artistry and splendour of it all—until his gaze fell upon the prince.

Oriel lounged behind a desk of living wood, his long legs draped casually over the edge as though the work held no real urgency. Upon the desk were papers stacked haphazardly alongside quills dipped in violet ink. Documents floated midair, held aloft by sparkling teal magic as Oriel thumbed through them with an air of elegant preoccupation. He multitasked effortlessly, conversing with Toby—a sprite flitting to his left—while a pair of silver half-rim spectacles rested precariously on his delicate nose. Wait. What? The knight blinked, momentarily taken aback. Was this some sort of joke? Surely the archfey wasn’t actually farsighted?

Galvahin’s grey eyes shifted to Toby, whose diminutive stature made him difficult to assess from across the room, save for the blur of his hesperidium-hued, dragonfly-like wings. Stocky and late-middle-aged, the sprite had a mop of messy salt-and-pepper hair and a scruffy beard to match—much greyer than the knight’s own. His tailored waistcoat and stiff collared formal shirt suggested a role as Oriel’s advisor or secretary, but the gleam of a miniscule rapier at his side hinted that Toby was more than just a bureaucrat.

It was only a moment before Galvahin dropped to one knee, head bowed as he waited patiently for Oriel to conclude his formal affairs. He remained still, unwilling to interrupt the prince.

“No, Sire,” said Toby, his tone carrying both respect for Oriel and a hint of sympathy for the prince’s weariness with the burdens of nobility. “But per her last missive, it would se—”

“Hush,” interjected Oriel gently, his soft, dreamy cadence returning with facile grace. “You are dismissed, Toby. We will continue soon enough.”

“But, Sire—” Toby began, his voice daubed with concern, only to fall silent as though the breath had been poached from his lungs. Galvahin could only guess that the prince had quietened him with a gesture—perhaps a wave of the hand, or a piercing glance. Whatever it was, it was clear that the archfey’s authority needed no words. “Understood, Your Grace.” Galvahin heard the faint flutter of wings as Toby departed, presumably through one of the ornate windows.

A bead of sweat formed on Galvahin’s forehead as he heard the soft shuffle of steps approaching him, his heart sinking at the sight of Oriel’s shadow stretching across fur rugs strewn upon the wooden floor. From where the shadow began to meet Galvahin’s form, a slow wash of matching black trailed up his attire, mirroring the fear that gripped him at the prospect of seeing the prince today. And then, a soft, low chortle—accompanied by a fair hand, outstretched and expectant.

Much like the day before, Galvahin gently raised his calloused palm to support the prince’s, though this time he hesitated. His mind buckled under the effort to keep from trembling caused by the archfey’s overwhelming presence and the ardent dread over the debt he owed him. Slowly, he lowered his lips to one of the rings of the prince’s decadent hand, his grey eyes closing and his chest tightening.

“I’ll never tire of that,” Oriel said warmly, with a tone so light it bordered on jovial. “You wouldn’t imagine how relieved I am to see you, Jackalope. This morning has been such a bore.” The prince’s delicate cadence carried honesty, but beneath the surface lay something more—sentimentality. “You truly are my shining knight, come to rescue me from the most abhorrent of foes: paperwork.” His laughter rang out unabashed and genuine, punctuating his playfulness.

As the prince spoke, Galvahin’s trepidation began to dissolve under the gentle stream of Oriel’s jocund praise. In that moment, the knight’s fear of the archfey’s ire was eclipsed by an even deeper longing: desire for the prince’s soothing approval. Still, he swallowed nervously before daring to lift his gaze, unable to rise on his own.

Oriel stood above him, smiling down with nurturing temperance, his violet eyes calm and slow-blinking. The rose gold rays from the room’s floor-length windows caught the prince's silver locks, backlighting him in a glow that felt almost divine. The sight of him eroded the tension in Galvahin’s features, melting his anxious frown into a shy, nervous smile.

“That’s very kind of you, Milord,” Galvahin said, his brassy tone almost sheepish. “It is most gratifying to see you as well.” He hesitated, wishing the sentiment to be entirely true—for in most ways, it was. But then his lips tightened, his voice faltering slightly. “I–I hope your tasks haven’t been too bothersome.” This statement was honest, but not all for reasons Galvahin was particularly proud of. He did care for Oriel’s well-being, but he also dreaded the idea of the archfey being in a foul mood—a scenario he couldn’t help but imagine carried perilous consequences.

“You and your condolences are delightful,” replied Oriel with a gentle tilt of his head, the subtle movement causing the tips of his curtain bangs to sway gently. “I do appreciate that about you. Your geniality is one of your most charming traits, my dear knight.”

Every uttered praise was elation to Galvahin’s ear, the gentlest of embraces around his hermetic soul. Approval wasn’t merely something he craved; it was his waxen wings, his inability to resist looking back into the underworld, the arrow in his heel. Yet even as something in his chest stirred under the prince’s twilight gaze, the weight of the book clutched softly under his arm grounded him—a quiet reminder of the gifts he still owed.

“You’re too kind,” Galvahin replied, his bassy voice carrying the smallest tremor of anxiety. “I don’t deserve such flattery.”

“Oh—but you do,” Oriel interjected, his dulcet tone dripping with ambrosial succor. “At the moment, you may be the most genteel creature in all my court. I enjoyed your company yesterday, and I look forward to having it today as well.”

Again, the praise and its delivery seeped into the cracks of Galvahin’s guarded mind. It unfurled gentle waves of sedative warmth, tingling and dancing throughout his chest, before settling into his stomach to flutter about, like the most colourful of insects. The sensation was almost enough to make the knight collapse under its nirvana. Outwardly, his doublet reflected the feeling, golden specks twinkling like starlight against the dark expanse of his black and blue attire.

“Th–thank you, Your Grace,” Galvahin murmured, his deep voice bashful and unsteady. With visible trepidation, he raised the book, offering it to Oriel along with a shy, jittery smile. “This is for you. I hope it’s to your liking.”

Oriel’s warm smile deepened as he gently collected the book from Galvahin’s open palms, his violet eyes flitting over the cover before he began to skim its pages.

“This is excellent, my knight,” he said pleasantly, his gaze tracing over the text. “You have my gratitude.” With delicate precision, he slipped the note from within the front cover, unfolding to read, an intrigued smile playing on his lips. “Oh,” he continued, his tone laden with even further approval. “Most excellent.”

With a gentle wave of his hand, a shimmer of teal magic enveloped the note, encasing it in a wooden frame. A quick snap of Oriel’s fingers caused the framed missive to dissolve into silvery teal light before reappearing on the wall, proudly displayed alongside the other artwork in the room. Galvahin’s chest welled with relief—until Oriel, with pococurante flair, tossed the book over his shoulder. It sailed through the air before landing with a loud thud on the desk behind him, scattering a few papers.

Galvahin’s face froze in polite befuddlement, his earlier nervousness now tempered by silent confusion.

“Is something on your mind, Jackalope?” inquired Oriel, his melodic cadence languid, mischievous, and intoxicating as ever.

Perspicacity blossomed in Galvahin’s mind as he weighed Oriel’s fondness for the note yet cavalier treatment of the book. In hindsight, it was rather obvious why the prince preferred one gift over the other, the knight quickly coming to understand fey’s value of impalpable significance over material commodity. The realisation sent his gut into a furious typhoon as he drew connections to the next gift he owed the prince.

“Y–yes, Sire,” Galvahin muttered, gunmetal eyes anxiously darting to the floor. “I have… another gift to offer you.”

“Oh?” Oriel’s curiosity lit up his glamourous visage. He peered theatrically to the left and right of the knight, as if to search for whatever Galvahin was referring to. “What is it? I’m eager to see, though I did plan on our exchange for after our repast. Tell me, dear knight, what else have you brought for me?”

Galvahin inhaled deeply, clearing his throat and forcing the alluvion of consternation surging within him back down into his gut. The back of his throat was as dry as kindling. When he finally spoke, so faint, so barely audible, it was practically evanescent.

“A kiss...” The words emerged so softly, so quietly, they made Toby’s spritely voice sound, by comparison, as loud as a roaring dragon.

Vociferous, giddy laughter rang out, echoing off the living wood walls with suddenness enough to make the knight wince slightly.

“Come again?” Oriel inquired, his lilting voice buoyant with amusement as he fought against an overflow of boisterous chortles. “Apologies, dearly. I know my ears are much more stupendous and adroit than yours, but even I didn’t quite catch that.”

Still kneeling, Galvahin began to fidget, twiddling his thumbs in anxious anticipation of having to repeat himself.

“A kiss, Sire…” he murmured, brassy voice wrought with nervous deference. His gunmetal eyes darted back up to Oriel’s, seeking a reaction—any reaction—and, hopefully, their reassurance. “I have been given a kiss, and our agreement states that it belongs to you.”

Oriel’s smile remained unwavering, but he blinked once, leisurely and slow. For a moment, it seemed as if time had frozen. The prince stood utterly still, as though transformed into a marble statue of his own likeness. His breath paused, his delicate features unmoving.

Galvahin scoured for any hint of information. Then he saw it—something faint, fleeting, and imperceptible. A flicker in Oriel’s eye, indecipherable in its meaning. It reminded him of the subtle shadow he’d glimpsed there at the feast the day before, though this one lingered a fraction longer. It was like a single footstep heard from beyond the fog or a silhouette obscured by a veil of trees in a darkened forest. The faintest suggestion of something distant, hidden, and elusive, so ephemeral it may as well not even exist. So subtle, it should have been easily missed—to anyone else. But to Galvahin, it was unignorable, as though it called to him directly.

And then, as quickly as it had appeared, it fled, disappearing into the twilight depths of the archfey’s eye like a star falling and vanishing into the night sky. Galvahin blinked, his mind grasping as his gaze caught something else.

A faint colour bloomed across Oriel’s fair cheeks—the barest wash of flush, so subtle it seemed transparent. No. Surely, it was a luminescent illusion, the way the rosy sunlight spilled through the room’s grand windows. The knight had to be imagining it. The prince was not blushing. He couldn’t be.

Galvahin blinked again, and as his eyes reopened, Oriel’s animation returned in full. Whatever spell of stillness bound the prince seconds before was gone, the fleeting moment lasting no more than a few heartbeats in length.

“A kiss?” Oriel exclaimed, his honeyed tone mostly unchanged, though now threaded with a touch of obstreperous curiosity. “From whom?”

Galvahin’s grey eyes darted away, nervously glancing around the room as if searching for an exit. His gaze landed on Meliora’s note, now proudly framed on the wall—but something beside it caught his eye. The red chrysanthemum he gifted to Oriel the day prior. The vibrant flower was pressed flat into a matching frame, hanging with an air of pride, as though it were a piece of fine art like the intricate paintings surrounding it. The sight of it unexpectedly softened his nerves, and he drew focus back to the prince.

“From Thelanna,” Galvahin replied softly, his tone earnest, the unease in his voice beginning to ebb.

“Thelanna?” Oriel echoed, before bursting out into laughter. “I should have guessed.”

“I–I understand if you wish not—”

“No, no,” Oriel interjected softly, his voice lowering into a whisper. “It is a lovely gift.” As he spoke, the prince descended, closing the space between himself and the knight.

Galvahin’s eyes widened in apprehensive fervor as Oriel’s visage drew near, the scent of tuberose wafting from him to caress the senses. Frozen, Galvahin’s gaze darted to the prince’s delicate hand, adorned with silver rings, as it rose to cup his bearded cheek. The touch was gentle, inviting—an oasis of solace for the knight’s weary spirit, a balm for the burdens of his mind. It was almost instinctive, the way he wanted nothing more than to lean into it, to surrender to its quiet comfort.

He blinked again, pulling his attention back to Oriel’s eyes as the prince’s lashes veiled the sugilite irises beneath them.

“I will claim what is owed, Galvahin,” whispered Oriel, the words soft yet commanding, both a gentle invitation and a solemn decree. With eyes closed, his supple lips curved into a serene smile, tilting his head in expectation.

Galvahin hesitated, worry and trepidation cascading over his expression like a waterfall. From this close, every detail of Oriel’s visage came into focus, and without meaning to, the knight’s gaze lingered. He took in everything: the flawless sheen of Oriel’s fair skin, punctuated by minute, almost invisible pores; the silvered arches of his brows; the soft camellia hue of the man’s lips. Even the faintest crease at the corner of his mouth, etched by millennia of immortal joviality, and the delicate flutter of his pulse beneath his cheekbones. Each detail whispered poetry. Galvahin’s mind was castaway in admiration, yet his longing overpowered it. He had to give what was owed.

Slowly, like a tide inching forward, Galvahin closed his eyes and inclined upward into the kiss. Time stretched thin as their lips met—warmth against warmth—and an undertow flooded the knight’s senses and psyche.

Oriel pressed into the kiss, the faint tickle of his skin brushing Galvahin’s scruff. A spark ignited where they joined, sending a radiating warmth through Galvahin, filling him with qualia new and inexplicable. It was the calm embrace of a reassuring hug, melded with intimacy so vast it felt as if he would drown in its enrapturing comfort. A single ray of moonlight, a soft glow that banished the shadows. The burning brilliance of sunlight, its intense heat almost unbearable. Warm and cool, soothing and thrilling, terrifying and beautiful, triumphant yet yielding—it was all things at once in paradoxically equal measure. 

Poppies. Lavender. Tuberose. Gardenia. 
An elation. 
A moment passed. 
The kiss deepened. 

Oriel parted his lips ever so slightly, a subtle invitation that sent Galvahin’s stomach into a fluttering frenzy. With hesitation but irresistible yearning, the knight reciprocated. The softest of tones slipped from his throat as their breaths intermingled, the prince’s exhale brushing across his tongue like a waltz of humid flame.

Salty. Honeyed. Piquant. Resinous. 
An exultation. 
Tenderness lacked knavery. 
Thoughts lingered kaleidoscopically. 

In numerous ways, this was Galvahin’s first kiss. His first kiss with a man. His first kiss with head tilted upwards. His first kiss with someone he truly, utterly admired—someone who, at the same time, terrified him: another first. It was the first kiss to stir something so profound in him, something he couldn’t quite name. The kiss itself was a seed planted within him. A catalyst. The end of something old.

A soft, teal-polished thumb brushed through his beard—and he almost melted. That one caress was enjoyable alone, but coupled with the kiss? A balance of serenity and ecstasy he hadn’t known was possible.

When the kiss drew to its quiet conclusion, Galvahin gently receded, his lips parting from Oriel’s with the faintest echo of a bilabial click. His eyes remained closed for a lingering moment, savouring the sensation blossoming within him—something unnamable but undeniable. When he opened them, the prince’s gaze met his, violet and tranquil, and for a fleeting moment, Galvahin felt… seen.

The knight dared not look down to witness what new horror had painted itself into his enchanted attire. Yet if he had, it would’ve been a revelation all its own.

No dreaded black. 
No sickly russet.
No shameful magenta.

Instead, a single, beautifully radiant hue adorned his attire—a colour as boundless as the sky, as wondrous as the sea, and as gentle as a cool breeze.

Cerulean. 

Notes:

Blue (Armed with Love) | Wham!

(Blue)
Can't you see me falling apart?

Chapter 6: The Grove

Summary:

Breakfast at Oriel’s results in two gifts, one riddle, zero clarity, and the sneaking suspicion that the prince is flirting with the knight—but like, in a way that could be argued as “just being polite.” Seeking solace in the garden, Galvahin instead gets gaslit, gatekept, and girlbossed into utter oblivion by some flowers who hate him for being alive.

“Let us try to assume our fundamental ambiguity. It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our life that we must draw our strength to live and our reason for acting.”

Simone de Beauvoir

 

“Have you always been this quiet in the mornings, Jackalope?” Oriel’s caramel words cut through the silence with the same elegance he used to slice through a cube of lavender-hued, sparkling cheese. The cheshire crumbled at the edges as it was cleaved, delicate fragments falling away like periwinkle graupel. 

Behind the seated archfey, a wall of florals twisted and writhed, the living vines twitching with restless energy. Each strange bloom—shades of cool blues and deep purples—opened and closed like the maws of furry beasts, their stamen lapping across petals like tongues on hungry lips. Above them, silvered chandeliers hung from the arched ceiling, their intricately swirling designs veined with the same crawling vines. Oriel had guided Galvahin to this room for their repast, though the knight had been so dazed during that he scarcely noticed the curving hallways turned back in on themselves, defying the logic of space to lead back to occupy the very room they’d departed from. Here, dappled light from the Feywild’s pinky-blue sky filtered through small windows lining the wall opposite the prince, casting an ethereal glow on his countenance. 

Oriel smiled softly as he regarded Galvahin at his immediate right—a position the prince had insisted on, going so far as to pull out the chair for him with a flourish that left Galvahin flushed. The knight was in no state to decline the gesture, nor would he have if what had previously transpired was only a fleeting thought in his imagination. The table itself, hewn from living wood, supported a delicate feast of fruits, cheeses, and honeyed breads. Though four chairs surrounded it, only two were occupied. 

Galvahin fumbled the silver fork in his hand, his nerves conspiring against him. 

“Oh—I,” he stammered, attempting to catch the fork as it tumbled from his grasp. In his haste, he knocked it further from his reach. Just before it clattered to the floor, the utensil vanished into a cloud of shimmering teal mist before instantly appearing in Oriel’s upheld hand. 

“Here,” the prince said, offering it back with his ever-present smile. His serene amusement—impervious as diamonds. 

“Apologies… Sire…” Galvahin muttered, his voice low and uneven as he reached to take the utensil. But when he tugged lightly, he realised Oriel was not yet willing to relinquish it. Their fingers brushed against one another, and Galvahin’s breath caught. Nervous gunmetal darted up to meet the prince’s composed violet. 

“Why do you apologise, my knight?” Oriel murmured, his head tilting ever so slightly. The motion sent a silver curtain of hair cascading over his shoulder, catching the light—and Galvahin’s gaze. The knight’s eyes flicked briefly to the rhombus-shaped cutout in Oriel’s robes, offering a glimpse of luminous skin from his décolletage to the curve of his solar plexus, before stormy grey retreated away. 

Galvahin swallowed hard, words lodged in his throat. He wished desperately for the fork to vanish once more, to dissolve into nothing, but instead it lingered—a tenuous bridge between them. 

“It’s just—” he began, only to falter as Oriel’s smile deepened ever so slightly. The ephemeral curve of those perfect lips made Galvahin’s brows knit anxiously. Clearing his throat, he tried again, his voice more measured this time. “I don’t want to be an inconvenience to you… more so than I already have.” 

“You think yourself an inconvenience?” Oriel inquired, tone soft. “A bothersome task I must endure?” 

“I—well,” Galvahin stammered, the corner of his mouth pursing in response to his perceived solecism. “I’m grateful, Your Grace, truly. I just don’t want to add to your burdens. I’m sure you have more pressing matters to attend to.” 

“Do I appear burdened to you?” asked the prince, his delicate lashes lowering briefly as he released the fork. 

Caught off guard, Galvahin yanked the fork back with unintended force, the sudden motion almost comical in its abruptness. He hadn’t realised how much tension he had been holding in his grip until the archfey’s alabaster, dainty fingers released their hold, as if relinquishing not just the utensil, but something deeper and unseen. 

“No,” Galvahin muttered, his voice low, brittle with contrition. Without thinking, his hand moved with practised ease, restoring the fork to its correct placement. The gesture was seamless, almost ritualistic—an unconscious act born of years spent internalising the art of propriety. In moments of disquiet, this minuscule restoration of order was as automatic as breath, as if aligning the silverware might realign something within his being. Yet even as he attempted to steady himself, a flicker of heat crept along his collar—shame or something else—he couldn’t quite name. For a moment, he stared at the fork on the table. Earlier, it had been a source of anxiety, but now it only served as a reminder of some faint, uneasy pang Galvahin felt when his physical contact with the prince had been severed. 

You seem to be enjoying yourself, he wanted to say, but nerves clamped his tongue in their vice. Instead, he pivoted clumsily. “It’s a lovely meal, Your Grace. Thank you again.” 

Oriel chortled lightly. He was clearly amused by Galvahin’s awkward gentility, though whether it was endearing or entertaining to him, the knight couldn’t discern. 

“I’m delighted to hear you say so,” Oriel replied, his words wrapped in sweetness. “Which part was your favourite?” 

Galvahin’s eyes flitted over the remnants of the shared meal, tracing the vibrant tableau spread before them: technicolour cheeses that shimmered faintly like reflections of moonlight on water, bread glazed with honey the colour of dawn, and alien-looking fruits so plump and radiant they seemed picked from the heavens themselves. His eyes lingered briefly on the small pots of preserves, their jewel-like hues glistening under the chandelier’s soft illumination, their rich, sugared scents wafting into the knight’s nose. 

“The preserves?” Oriel said lightly, his tone coaxing, teasing. His gaze sparkled with mischief. “I enjoyed those too,” he continued, taking a bite of one of the cheeses still on his plate. “Though, personally, I prefer something more savoury. Your sweet tooth, however, is charming.” 

Galvahin’s jaw tightened. How was he able to do that? Oriel’s ability to read him was unnerving. The colours of his enchanted attire were masked by the room’s soft, shifting hues, but Galvahin pondered—briefly—if Oriel was peering straight into his head. It was a terrifying thought, that his mind, the last bastion of his privacy, was now a panopticon of two—himself and the archfey. The idea felt like a frigidly cold blade splitting apart his soul, much too disconcerting to dwell on, and he forced it back into some locked corner of his heart. Yet if Oriel wasn’t reading his thoughts, it felt as if he didn’t even need to. The prince’s perceptiveness was disarming enough. 

“What else are you pondering, little Jackalope?” Oriel replied, his voice lilting, petals and thorns all at once. If he truly wished to know, he could pluck the answer from Galvahin like a harp string. But for now, he seemed to take more delight in coaxing it from the knight’s lips. 

For a moment, Galvahin considered bringing up their kiss. The memory of it still flared. It was an altar upon which some undiscovered, vulnerable part of himself had been laid bare. He could still feel the intoxicating, decadent warmth of Oriel’s lips—their lingering softness a colossal, immovable effigy exacting long shadows over all else that passed through his consciousness. Most of all, he wanted guidance, a hint as to what it all meant. Or even—most hesitantly—some insight into what the kiss meant to him: to Oriel. 

The archfey’s mind was an enigma, a labyrinth shrouded in silvery mist where Galvahin wandered aimlessly, lost and searching. He instinctively understood, despite Oriel’s graciousness, that unseen dangers in this place were as unknowable as they were inevitable, an oppressive presence that seemed to linger beyond the veil of the prince’s soothing voice and friendly countenance. At any moment, he feared he might provoke the ire of some lurking monstrosity—a grotesque fusion of man and beast, all sinew and savagery, poised to tear him apart for the crime of trespass. No ball of string guided his path, no maiden gifted him a sword nor showed him the way. He was utterly, dismally alone here, the rumble of heavy, cloven footsteps echoing through the fog his only real companionship. 

I want to see—to know. 

As quickly as the thought arose, it withered, dying on the vine of his soul like a rotting fruit. His words fell back into his throat, swallowed bitter and whole by his cowardice. Instead, he muttered something safe and insipid—platitudes about the room’s beauty, the lush decor, the artistry of the Feywild. Even as his words left him, they felt hollow, like a craven shield raised against an unarmed opponent. 

“I see.” Oriel chuckled, leaning back in his chair with the languid grace of a predator. “Ever the gentleman. Let’s hope that never changes.” 

The prince’s enigmatic smile lingered as they finished their meal, but it was his parting words that truly carved themselves into the knight, ringing louder than the chime of crystal goblets. 

“ Do remember, Galvahin—The Feywild loves those who wander. Just be sure you don’t get lost. ” 

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

Wander. Lost. 

The words clung to Galvahin like ticks, leeching vigor as he walked through the lightly wooded expanse of Oriel’s enchanted garden. The lingering taste of honey and fruit still danced on his lips, accompanying the remembrance of the kiss. The knight’s glaive rested against his shoulder, its sharpened, rectilineal blade catching the ephemeral shimmer of silvered branches and the Feywild’s sherbet-hued sky, a celestial canvas streaked with tangerines and magentas. 

As he moved, the world shifted past him. Vines and roots recoiled from his heavy steps as though respecting some unspoken boundary. Their movements were subtle—visible only in the periphery of his vision, yet frozen the moment he glanced directly. The faint hoots of small beasts echoed through the grove, mingling with the hypnotic drone of cicadas, their unusual tones more melodious than the typical buzz of ordinary insects of their nature. Despite the low-hanging sun, today was much warmer than the last. Occasionally, a bead of sweat would form across Galvahin’s forehead, before dripping down into his beard, leaving a cool, refreshing trail in its wake. The warmth of this day had encouraged him to seek the shadowed embrace of the garden’s shaded hollows. 

He shook his head, attempting to banish Oriel's words from his mind. Stubbornly, they persisted, like a splinter lodged beneath his skin: The Feywild loves those who wander. Just be sure you don’t get lost. 

Was that supposed to guide him? Was it encouragement? A cautionary note? Or, rather, was it just a fey jest—a subtle jab designed to unsettle him? It rang true in its irony; he had wandered here, into this realm of impossible beauty and ephemeral danger. He’d wandered into the Feywild after his own negligence in training had led him astray in the darkened forest. Even now, he wandered—through this uncanny garden, this alien wood. He wandered into his accord with the archfey, into the sinuous halls of Oriel’s court. He had wandered into Thelanna’s circumambient vines, her allure ensnaring him in its comforting thorns. 

He bit down a curse. Was it himself he resented most, or Thelanna, for drawing him into this entanglement? Perhaps both. Perhaps neither. The knot of frustration in his chest tightened as his thoughts drifted back to Oriel, the prince’s teasing remarks brushing the edges of his mind with an icy and unctuous phantom touch. Oriel had promised to guide him here—to lead him. No words had been spoken, no vows sworn, but Galvahin had gleaned enough to sense the weight of those unspoken intentions. Actions, he knew, often spoke louder than any Fey pledge. The prince’s kindness felt like a silver coin—dazzling and valuable, but also double-edged, equally a symbol of consumption as much prosperity. 

He thought of the day prior—their strange yet enchanting walk. Despite his trepidation, he had come to regard it with fragile fondness. Yes, the archfey unnerved him. Yes, the prince seemed eager to tease him, to draw him out only to leave him unmoored. And yet, Oriel had been kind to him, if in his own way. A generosity that Galvahin couldn’t help but cling to, even as he doubted its sincerity. 

Perhaps it meant nothing. Perhaps it was all a carefully calculated deceit, another thread in the web of manipulation Oriel sought to weave around him. But even if it was some stratagem to lull him into complacency, Galvahin craved it. He longed for the enrapturing and saccharine effluvium of Oriel’s platitudes like a bee longs for nectar, drawn irresistibly into the embrace of a pitcher plant. 

Galvahin lifted his head, his gaze drifting through the grove. His grey eyes caught on a Fey cicada clinging to a nearby trunk—a small, oblong creature covered in fine, velvety fuzz. Its abdomen quivered in rhythmic pulses, revealing a pinwheel of gold and violet patterns that scintillated like a mirage. Verdigris wings, delicate as old glass, flicked with lazy hum as its buzzing blared. The knight continued forward, craning his neck to search for the clouds that brought him such joy the day prior. Instead, he was met with disappointment—the sky was veiled, its expanse smothered by the interlaced canopy above. 

It felt exquisitely cruel, abandoning him to wrestle with his thoughts. The kiss may have been a mere amusement to the prince, but to Galvahin that sort of gesture was suffused with significance. He longed for Oriel to have uttered something, anything, to soothe his frayed nerves. Yet, simultaneously, he was engulfed in a deep guilt for not broaching the subject himself. Could he truly fault the prince? Perhaps, considering how much more well-versed he seemed to appear on this topic. That beauty, that enticing charm—there was no way the prince was inexperienced in matters of affection. 

So then, what was the intention? To watch Galvahin flounder in confusion? To take glee in his embarrassment? If that were the case, he yearned to harbour resentment for the archfey, to nurture a seed of bitterness for its manipulative nature. But each time he tried to cultivate this malice, Oriel’s smile would bloom in his mind, pruning the knight’s budding frustration. For reasons unknown, damning the prince felt like damning something intrinsic within himself. 

And then, of course, there was Thelanna. She knew of the accord—the debt she would leave with Galvahin by bestowing him that kiss. But why? What was her motivation, if any? Until now, she had been kind to the knight, her comforting friendliness a rare and grounding force in this bewildering world. Was it merely a selfish act of longing? Or did she, like the archfey, potentially find amusement in the prospect of embarrassing him? Of hurting him? Or even most unnervingly, was there no thought behind it at all, the act as capricious as the wind? 

The questions burned within him, a rising impatience demanding answers he doubted he would ever understand—much less receive. He wanted to believe she meant him no harm, that her actions were driven by something other than malice. But was that itself another Feywild trick? Another bog he was fated to sink into? Her kind, after all, were infamous for their seduction of mortals. The accounts he once dismissed as tavern-ale-fuelled embellishments now loomed vivid in his mind: Beware the dryad’s enticement, for it almost never ends well for the mortal. 

Yet, for as many cautionary tales of fey harming, there were an equal number of reports of them helping. For every rumour of a stolen child replaced by some changeling shifter or a curse that traps princesses in one-hundred year slumber, there were stories of beautiful maidens emerging from lakes to bestow armaments upon worthy heroes or accounts of faeries granting wishes to orphans they adopted as their own. 

Most common, though, were tales of harmless Fey pranks. Tying the hairs of sleeping mortals in tiny knots, hiding mundane objects around homes, bestowing quirky, overtly specific gifts—buckets that never filled, gems that whispered crude jokes, or flowers that always made one sneeze whenever they were smelled. 

Galvahin looked down at his hands, clutching one of the two gifts Oriel had bestowed upon him at the end of their repast: an ocarina carved from pallid ivory, etched with swirling patterns of thorny vines. Cold to the touch, it was polished to a mirror-like sheen, so much so that he could make out his faint reflection in its glint. 

“For you, my knight,” Oriel had said, tone his usual ambrosia. “For when you’d rather play the melody than be part of it.” 

The knight wondered what that could possibly mean. Was it simply for making music? For creating rather than listening? That felt too simple—did Oriel ever mean anything at face value? Perhaps he was teasing, some sly remark about Galvahin’s awkwardness in this place. The melody—their games—he had been stumbling through it all. Was it meant to make him laugh? Or some cryptic warning? Or—worst of all—a prank? 

His brow furrowed as he mulled over the prince’s words, the weight of them a complete mystery. After a moment, he tucked the instrument into a satchel—his second gift from Oriel that day. 

The leather pouch, attached at Galvahin’s hip like a belt, was medium in size, no larger than the length of his forearm. Like his doublet, it was a deep cobalt intricately decorated with lace-like patterns etched into the fabric. Most curiously, it seemed slightly larger on the inside as though enchanted to accommodate a surprisingly vast array of trinkets and tools. With its silver buckles and silk lining, it was in equal parts stylish and pragmatic. 

His thumb brushed softly over the leather of the gift, and Galvahin felt a pang of guilt. The terms of the accord were clear—anything Oriel or Galvahin received was to be bestowed upon the other—but he couldn’t fathom anyone presenting this to the archfey. It seemed far too practical, far too grounded in its purpose. Like his cobalt vestments, it felt unmistakably for the knight. This satchel, in some unassuming way, spoke to him as thoughtful—something genuinely helpful. After all, what was a bag for, if not to relieve burdens? The simple gesture felt oddly tangible among the lurid resplendence of everything else in this realm. Perhaps he was overthinking it all, letting his mind spiral unnecessarily. He’d called to mind the advice he received the day prior: Do as the fey do. 

Galvahin wasn’t exactly sure what a fey would do in this scenario—caught between the charms of a mischievous dryad and the magnetic pull of a capricious archfey prince—but he could grasp what they certainly wouldn’t do: sulk in the woods like some teary-eyed babe, griping over the meaning of the gift and every spoken and unspoken word or exchange. Or… maybe they would. He wasn’t certain. Still, Galvahin was beginning to find his constant anxiousness over it all increasingly distasteful, even trite. Whatever lesson the Feywild meant to impart to him, it wasn’t this, and it certainly wasn’t fun. 

In all likelihood, that was the point. The beginning and end to both Thelanna and Oriel’s motives: fun. Galvahin wanted to groan aloud. His heart wasn’t a playground for their puerile antics, even if they seemed all too willing to invite him in on the recreation. He’d expected there to be challenges in this realm, yes—but he’d imagined they’d be battles fought with blades, not the slow unravelling of his sanity through a series of intimate exchanges. 

I wish they would just tell me. 

Sighing, he pressed forward, continuing to wander despite the risk of getting lost. In any case, it wasn’t like standing still would help him. His mind continued to churn, to batter him with its questions—until a shrill voice suddenly screamed from the ground below. Terribly startled, his heart fell into his gut as he instinctively reached for the haft of his glaive, attire darkening with plumes of black smoke. 

“HEY HEY HEY WATCH IT!!” caterwauled a tiny, unnervingly piercing voice. “YOU’RE GONNA STEP ON US!” 

Galvahin froze, his eyes darting around with anxious fervor, searching for the source of the voice. 

“Down here!” the voice bellowed again, sharper this time. 

Glancing down, he scanned the ground beneath him, dappled with light filtering in through the trees above. All he could see was a patchwork of grass, dirt, twigs, and a few stones—save for a bush of marigolds. The flowers formed a swirl of vivid hues, each bloom a bright, distinct colour. 

“Apologies, I can’t see you,” replied the knight, his cadence low. “Where are you?” 

“ARE YOU JOKING?” the voice snapped, tone carved with indignation. “You’re looking directly at us!” 

“I–I am?” Galvahin stammered, his gaze focusing for movement—until he caught it, a faint rustle in the flower patch. “Are you… in the flowers?” 

“In the flowers? Wow.” The voice oozed disdain. “So you think we’re just some background decoration? That’s so reductive.” 

As the words left the unseen speaker, Galvahin’s gaze locked onto the source—a single orange marigold, stem twitching slightly with each syllable. 

“We put all this effort into our vibrancy, and this is the thanks we get?” chimed a second voice, this one seeming to emanate from a delicate blue bloom. “Dismissed as part of the scenery? Unbelievable.” Its petals quivered dramatically, as if punctuating a complaint. 

“I… beg your pardon. I didn’t realise you were… individuals.” Galvahin’s voice faltered; he wasn’t sure if ‘individuals’ was the right term. Would the flowers take further offence? He was beginning to think he was losing his mind entirely. 

“‘Didn’t realise,” it says,” mocked a purple marigold, petals flicking to emphasise its sarcasm. “Is ignorance your go-to excuse for everything?” 

“‘Individuals,’” a red marigold added, tone grating and discontented. “I bet that’s what you tell all the things you plan to trample on. ‘Oops, didn’t know you mattered.’”

Now this was a first, thought Galvahin. Berated by flowers. In all his travels, he’d dealt with broken wagons, squabbling merchants, and even ambushing bandits—but flowers, shrieking at him in indignation? This was absurd even by Fey standards. Whatever the case, he swallowed his pride and dropped to one knee—to which the marigolds promptly shrieked. A chorus of diaphanous voices rose from the flowers, urgent and ear-splitting like an archet dragged mercilessly across frayed, unwilling strings—pleading, scolding, and reprimanding all at once, as though his very presence fractured something unseen. 

“STOP! STOP!” 
“NO YOU FOOL!” 
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” 
“UGH!” 

“Wh—Sorry!” Galvahin froze mid-motion, completely taken aback by their reaction. On one knee, he darted his eyes around, scanning the ground for any sign of harm. Had he crushed something? His tone teetered on desperation, confusion evident in his voice as he spoke. “What is it? What did I do?” 

“This is a sensitive ecosystem,” a pink marigold cried, its leaves shaking as if in distress. “You’re disturbing it with your massive weight! ” 

“You clumsy giant!” a yellow marigold added with venom. “You probably killed an earthworm! Murderer! ” 

A cacophony of insults followed, each voice tempestuous and unrelenting. 

“Bumbling oaf!” 
“Lumbering beast!” 
“Brainless monster!” 
“Moron!” 

The enchanted fabric of Galvahin’s doublet swirled in muted greys and deep blacks as he frowned, feeling an unexpected sting at their derision. They were just flowers, after all, and clearly not inclined to grant him their favour. But still—their words bit deeper than he cared to admit, leaving his dignity smarting with the aftermath of their tiny, persistent cuts. 

Steadying himself, Galvahin straightened slightly and offered a formal bow, his voice adopting a polished air of nobility. 

“I truly apologise,” he began, brassy tones suffused with earnestness. “I assure you, most sincerely, I meant no disrespect. If any harm has been done, it was entirely unintentional.” 

So far, his encounters with the Feywild had left him stumbling, unable to summon any semblance of his usual charisma or composure. But these marigolds—rude as they were—did not seem capable of causing him any tangible harm. With this in mind, he had a sliver of confidence that allowed him to address the flowers with steady resolve. 

“If there is any way I can rectify my mistake,” he continued, his gaze low, “you need only ask. It would be my honour to set things right.” 

For a brief moment, Galvahin dared to hope his contrition would be enough to pacify the marigolds—or, at the very least, stroke their overblown egos. He was sorely mistaken. 

The flowers erupted into a chorus of jeering laughter, their petals and foliage rustling with exaggerated amusement. 

“Oh, did you hear that?” cried the orange marigold, its tone dripping with obvious sarcasm. “Its ‘honour!’ How noble! Truly, we’re in the presence of a hero.” 

“And that voice!” added the purple marigold, mimicking a melodramatic falsetto. “‘I assure you, most sincerely,’” it mocked, wriggling its stem for emphasis. “It sounds like it’s auditioning for some tragic play! Bravo!” 

“Pfft, please,” scoffed the red marigold, its inflection acidic. “With a face like that? They wouldn’t even let it sweep the stage.” 

The marigolds cackled in unison, their laughter sharp and stinging. Galvahin’s jaw tightened. 

“Would they even let it through the theatre doors?” sneered the pink marigold, feigning scandal. “Imagine the disaster!” 

“As if it could fit in a seat!” chimed the yellow flower. 

“Or through the entrance!” added the orange marigold, its laughter reaching a fever pitch. 

The knight inhaled deeply, attempting to quell the sharp sting of their words. They’re just flowers, he reminded himself. But the insults didn’t feel small—they bloomed, releasing a deleterious allelopathy that suffocated his resolve. 

“Do you think it actually believes itself worth forgiveness?” the purple marigold continued, tone dripping with disdain. “What arrogance.” 

“I bet it does this everywhere,” added the yellow marigold. “Knocking things over, stomping through life, muttering some empty ‘sorry’ and moving on like nothing happened.” 

“What a classic brute,” sneered the pink marigold. “Big, ugly, and thoughtless. So typical.” 

“Do you think it even feels bad?” asked the red marigold. “Or is it just faking it? Pretending to care so it can sleep better tonight.” 

“All so it doesn’t have to think about how much damage it leaves in its wake,” grumbled the orange marigold, voice low and biting. 

Galvahin swallowed hard. He had heard venomous insults before—drunkards and thieves hurling curses at him as he dragged them from taverns—but none had ever pierced as deeply as this endless barrage. His shoulders tightened as the weight of their accusations began to pile on, each word digging into a place inside him he didn’t want to examine too closely. He wasn’t perfect; he never claimed to be. But to hear his flaws distilled, ridiculed, and exaggerated? It was almost more than he could bear. 

“I—” he began, but his voice cracked, the confident timbre faltering under the strain. He averted his gaze, blinking rapidly to chase away the warmth building behind his eyes. “I… didn’t mean to offend. I was only trying to—” 

“‘Only trying’,” mocked the purple marigold, interrupting him. “Oh, did you hear that? The poor thing was only trying.” 

“How tragic,” said the pink marigold, tone laden in false sympathy. “It must be the real victim here, huh? Oh, its poor feelings!”

“Maybe it should cry about it,” the red marigold hissed, and the flowers burst into another fit of laughter. 

Galvahin’s head lowered, his lips tightening into a thin line. Their words began to blur together, the individual insults indistinguishable from the shrill chorus of mockery. For a moment, he considered walking away, abandoning the scene entirely. What could he possibly do to satisfy them? Nothing, it seemed. But as he kneeled there, rooted to the spot, a flicker of something stronger than pain burned inside him—a quiet, simmering frustration. 

Why was he letting them get to him? Why did it hurt? They were just flowers. Weren’t they? 

Galvahin straightened slightly, forcing himself to meet the marigold’s mocking gaze—if flowers could even possess such a thing. The sting of their words clung like nettles, but he swallowed his pride and mustered what courage he could. 

“Enough,” he said, his voice steady but strained, flicks of dark crimson emerging across his attire like burning embers. “I have done nothing to deserve this… this vitriol. You accuse me of being thoughtless, but look at yourselves! You mock and insult me without cause. What purpose does this serve, other than to make yourselves feel superior?” 

The marigolds stilled for a moment, as if taken aback by his sudden defiance. But then, the orange marigold gave a derisive snort, its petals flitting. 

“Oh, we’re the problem now?” it spat. “Listen to this—turning it around on us! Typical.” 

“So predictable,” chimed the pink marigold, its tone oozing with condescension. “Can’t handle a little accountability, so now it’s our fault. So original.” 

“‘Without cause’, it says,” added the blue marigold, its voice sharp and cutting. “As if trampling into our space uninvited isn’t cause enough. As if its very existence here isn’t disruptive.” 

“And now it’s playing the victim,” said the red marigold, leaves trembling with indignation. “Do you think that works on us? Do you think we’re fooled by you?” 

Galvahin’s fists tightened at his sides, his jaw clenching as he tried to maintain his composure. Their words felt like a swarm of wasps, each sting more painful than the last. He opened his mouth to speak, but the yellow marigold cut him off. 

“You’re the one being rude,” it said, its voice rising to a shrill pitch. “Barging in here, acting all high and mighty, and now you’re trying to lecture us? The audacity… It’s downright toxic.” 

“Why don’t you go back to whatever ugly hole you crawled out of?” sneered the orange marigold. “You don’t belong here. You’re just a big, lumbering oaf, stomping through life.” 

“Probably thinks it’s special,” the red marigold hissed. “Thinks it’s some grand hero. But all we see is some clumsy, self-centred brute.” 

“You think you’re better than us, don’t you?” snapped the purple marigold, its petals shaking with barely contained rage. “You think your apology makes up for your unwelcome existence here?” 

“The Feywild is for the beautiful,” the pink marigold jeered. “Not ugly, bumbling beasts like you.” 

Galvahin’s shoulders slumped under the weight of their relentless criticism, each word landing like a blow to the chest. He felt his throat tighten, nerves wavering as the flickers of crimson faded into ashy blacks and sombre greys—like a smouldering coal snuffed out by a splash of icy water. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps he didn’t belong here. Perhaps he was— 

“And another thing!” the orange marigold began—only for its tirade to be abruptly cut short by a sharp crunch. 

“Oops,” came Thelanna’s light, musical voice, thick with feigned innocence. “Was that important?” 

The flowers froze, their chatter instantly silenced as Galvahin’s grey eyes lifted to see the dryad, one bare, chartreuse foot planted squarely on the flattened remains of the orange marigold. She cocked her head, an impish smile playing on her face. 

“Well, this is awkward,” she said breezily, brushing a leaf from her shoulder. “What did I miss?” 

Notes:

Headlock | Imogen Heap

You've been walking, you've been hiding 
And you look half dead half the time 
Monitoring you, like machines do 
You've still got it, I'm just keeping an eye 

Chapter 7: The Hill

Summary:

Galvahin asks Thelanna why she kissed him. Surprisingly, she gives a straight answer—though with such forward coquetry, he briefly considers never asking anything ever again. Later, they hike up a hill that definitely wasn’t this tall at the start. At the top, he’s welcomed by a nymph who knows too much, a satyr whose greeting likely qualifies as a grapple check, and a familiar centaur who drops terrifying information like it’s the weather report. Oh, and everyone’s favourite tree is here too.

         “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. 
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. 
  I learn by going where I have to go.” 

Theodore Reothke

 

“I don’t think you had to kill it…” Galvahin’s voice was low, contrite. He trailed a step behind Thelanna, the marigolds now a memory. The grove’s trees arched overhead, their branches swaying gently, casting slowly shifting shadows across the forest floor. 

“Kill it?” Thelanna echoed, her tone a mix of incredulity and amusement. “Galvahin, it’s just a flower. It’ll grow back.” 

“I suppose that’s true…” he muttered with an uncertain expression. “But still. It didn’t feel… kind.” 

“Kind?” Thelanna stopped and turned to face him, her emerald eyes narrowing slightly. “After the things they said to you? I overheard plenty, you know. Priggish little weeds. I should’ve pruned the whole lot.” 

Galvahin’s lips pressed into a thin line as he considered her words. The marigolds had been haughty, insolent, and downright sadistic, their taunts cutting deeper than he cared to admit; nonetheless, he couldn’t help but wonder what had driven their behaviour. Their venom felt deliberate, yet their frailty was evident. It seemed like an overcompensation. 

Perhaps it was a defence mechanism, he thought. They were just flowers, after all—powerless and fragile. Maybe their words, cruel as they were, were the only thorns they could wield. 

“You’re almost too amiable for this place,” she continued. “It’s a good thing sanctililies are about the meanest things you’ll find in Oriel’s garden.” 

“I gather there are worse creatures outside the confines of the palace?” he asked. 

“Much,” she said, the perimeter of the grove coming into view now, brighter light parting between the spaces in the trunks of the trees. 

As the light drew nearer, so too did Galvahin’s burning question, a nagging desire that refused to be ignored. His reservations about Thelanna’s actions still lingered, but the uncertainty surrounding her intentions gnashed against his mind like a tooth on bone. For a myriad of reasons, it was hard enough to navigate the complexities of his entanglement with Oriel; with Thelanna, at least, there was a glimmer of courage—a chance to clear the air. 

When they emerged fully from the grove, the open sky stretched above them, a striking contrast to the shadowed woods behind. From the outside, the grove now appeared as nothing more than a modest copse—its vastness somehow diminished. He blinked, shook his head, and pressed on; such peculiar sights were becoming routine for Galvahin. Without hesitation, he stepped forward to face Thelanna. His gunmetal gaze met hers, steady yet laden with the weight of his unspoken thoughts. 

“Why did you kiss me?” The words left his lips before he could second-guess them, the suddenness of the question catching them both off guard. 

Thelanna’s eyes widened briefly, her surprise instantly giving way to a soft, breezy laugh. 

“You don’t waste any time, do you?” she replied, her tone light and teasing. Before Galvahin could muster a response, she stepped closer, her emerald gaze locking into his. “Why do you ask? Were you hoping for another?” 

“That’s—” Galvahin stammered, his words faltering as she leaned in and the earthy, oaky fragrance of her presence flooded his senses. Frozen, the knight was unsure whether to step back or stand his ground. 

Thelanna leaned closer still, her face now mere inches from his—to which his attire betrayed his flustered state in shades of soft peach. 

“Because you need only ask,” she murmured, her voice playful yet touched with a faintly seductive edge. Her lips curved into a mischievous smile. “It’s a fair guess that you enjoyed it as much as I did.” 

Galvahin’s brows knit in vexed frustration. She wasn’t wrong—he had enjoyed their kiss, immensely so. It had been an unexpectedly tender exchange that left his heart palpitating and his mind alight with a giddy, almost adolescent thrill. The moment had been exciting, yes, but it had also been deeply bolstering. Despite his overwhelming fluster, being pursued in such a way stirred something gratifying within him, though his pride bristled at the thought of acknowledging it. 

Usually, it was Galvahin who felt obligated to make the first move, to lead the choreographed dance of courtship—a role that always felt more burden than privilege. He had little success in such pursuits, not for lack of effort, but because initiating those delicate overtures often left him stiff and unsure, abrading against his nature. In truth, it struck him as unfair that the exigency of chasing often fell so heavily on men. That expectation, more than anything else, had contributed to his struggles with affairs of the heart. It wasn't only the fear of rejection that stymied him, but the awkwardness of donning a guise that felt so inherently discordant with his spirit. 

As for Thelanna’s teasing suggestion—that he’d like another kiss—the answer was obvious, so much so that he didn’t even need to consider it: yes, he wanted to kiss her again. The thought carried a certain blissful allure, a promise of a moment he could actually prepare for and luxuriate in without the shock that paralysed him the first time. And if that kiss resulted in further rendezvous with Oriel… well, some secretive part of him simmered at that prospect too, a furtive frisson he refused to fully examine. Conveniently, his inhibition could shift the onus for his ardor onto the dryad, a comforting excuse that let him avoid the deeper verities ensconced in the recesses of his id. 

And in regards to her veiled insinuation—if he might pluck the most sacred bloom of her verdant bower— 

No. 

Galvahin’s mind shunted that notion with a fervent, almost militant refusal. For now? 

Out of the question. 

Kisses and fleeting caresses, however? Those he could permit himself to indulge in—if only momentarily. Resisting the mesmeric pull of this place, of her affection, felt like wading upstream in a river of silt—a torment more malignant than the possible consequences of yielding. 

Yet even among these concessions, his shame remained a stifling bulwark, damming the currents of his longing with baleful incompassion. Beyond that edifice, his cardinal inquiry still loomed: why had Thelanna kissed him in the first place? 

No matter how halted and maladroit he felt, Galvahin couldn’t ignore what mattered most—her feelings. He wouldn’t let himself engage in anything further without understanding her intent. It would be unfair to continue if it meant risking her disappointment, or worse, falling short of fulfilling some unspoken supposition. Thelanna was lovely—enchanting, even—but he wasn’t in love with her. To let her believe otherwise would feel dishonest, wrong in a way that unsettled him to his core. 

“P-please just answer the question,” Galvahin urged, his voice faltering as his eyes darted away. Difficult enough to speak to her so directly, but looking at her while doing so? Impossible. The voluptuous curve where her breast met her clavicle, the arresting pull of her eyes—lustrous pools of jade splendour—it all made meeting her gaze an insurmountable challenge. Despite his tremulous gentility, the grim seriousness in his tone made it clear—this question, and her answer, still bore significance to him. 

Thelanna responded with an easy, knowing smile, her hands clasped behind her as she inclined away like a reed in a breeze, studying him with a mixture of bemusement and unabashed admiration. 

“You’re handsome, Sir Galvahin. Isn’t that reason enough?” she teased, her words light but deliberate in their impact. The dryad leaned closer, her movement unhurried, exuding the confidence of someone in total control. Her fingers reached for the clasp on his cape, adjusting it with a deft touch that seemed unnecessary—entirely an excuse to draw nearer. 

“Just look at you,” she continued, her voice breathy as her index finger trailed along the brawny curve of his deltoid, her touch sprightly and efficacious. “Broad shoulders.” The digit lingered before wandering across his chest, tracing the pattern of his doublet. As she moved, the cobalt garment surrendered to rippling waves of warm hues—peach and magenta—betraying the turmoil the motion left within him. 

“Strong,” Thelanna murmured, her fingertip following the line of his collarbone before it drifted upward, grazing the side of his neck. Galvahin swallowed hard, the apple of his throat bobbing as the dryad’s chartreuse index found its way into his scruffy beard, the gentle pressure precise, lingering. 

“A chiselled jaw,” she whispered, her thumb stroking across his cheek, a gesture intimate enough to send shivers throughout. 

Galvahin’s grey eyes flitted away from her contact, his resolve fracturing under her enthralling encroachments—a glacier cleaving into the sea under a summer sun. Her fingers, cool and pleasing, sent rivulets of sensation coursing through his skin, soothing against the oppressive heat of the day yet uncomfortably disarming in their quiet potency. Her verdant fragrance wreathed him, its decadence toeing the line between tantalising and tormentous. From the corner of his eye, he caught the faint flutter of her autumnal tresses—soft waves, shoulder-length, and middle-parted—dancing delicately in the zephyrs. 

Thelanna wasn’t only beautiful; she was adorable, her button nose and dewy, forest-dappled eyes exuded a charm so potent it could thaw the iciest of frozen hearts. It was as if the concept of ‘cute’ had found its living embodiment in her. 

He longed to retreat, to distance himself from the sway of her teasing ministrations, yet his feet betrayed him, refusing to obey. Rooted to the spot, his body defied the feeble protests of his mind, leaving him entrapped in her, utterly subject to her whims. Perhaps it was simple discomfort, or perhaps—unspoken and far more clandestine—it was something deeper: a furtive, long-buried yearning, a forbidden pleasure in surrendering to this unfamiliar pull. Galvahin’s joints stiffened, tension seizing him in a coiled spring. 

Thelanna, emboldened by his reaction, tilted her head, her lips curving into a soft pout—playful yet taunting. 

“That brooding knightly charm of yours…” she sighed theatrically, her breathy tone both indulgent and mocking. “It’s such a shame not to take advantage of what’s right in front of me.” 

Her thumb rested on his lanate cheek for a moment longer before she withdrew with a calculated slowness, letting her absence leave its own kind of ache. 

“Besides,” she added, her smile curving into something even more wickedly playful, “It’s not like I’m the only one who’s noticed your appeal.” Her emerald gaze glinted with amusement as she leaned closer, her voice brushing against him like another caress. 

Galvahin’s breath hitched, his chest rising and falling in an uneven rhythm as her words settled over him. The delivery had been tempestuous, almost overwhelming, yet the message carried a strangely soothing comfort. No florid sonnets or lofty proclamations—just a simple admission, friendly yet touched with desire. Was it truly a relief? The voice within him that might have wished otherwise seemed to fade farther into the background with each passing moment here, receding like an echo in the expanse of a vast, uncrossable valley. That part of him craved an excuse to end this, to capitulate to some perfunct ideal of humility, yet another part—a bolder, more instinctive one—thrilled at the prospect of a reservation-free dalliance, a connection unburdened by expectation yet ignited by a mutual, visceral understanding. 

And truthfully, the illusion of choice was slipping further from his grasp. Thelanna’s presence, as comforting as it was at times inundating, seemed to fill the space around him, and she plucked at his strings with tactile precision. Galvahin couldn’t deny her charm—caught tightly between captivation and conflict. 

But how could he evince this to her? As ruminative as he was, words often forsook him in moments like these. He wanted to match her boldness, to show his enjoyment beyond discomposed glances and broken syllables. In some distant dream, perhaps he had the loquacity to unravel his heart with ease, but here—in this life—he was shackled by maddening reticence. Then, with sudden clarity, a simple phrase resurfaced: 

Do as the fey do. 

Galvahin took a diffident step forward, grey eyes lowering to the grassy floor dotted with delicate rings of fungi. He shifted, his brows arching inward, before cautiously taking her hands in his own. The assurance of the dryad’s touch sent a tremor of valour through him. 

“Thank you,” he murmured, his expression uncertain yet guileless. “I was worried that I was reading too much into it… or not enough.” 

Thelanna’s brows lifted in brief surprise before her expression melted into one of quiet delight. She stifled a giggle, her emerald eyes alight. 

“You’re not disappointed?” she asked, her tone sweetly playful, tart like fresh citrus. “Here I was thinking you wanted some grand storybook romance.” 

“No—actually, I’m relieved,” Galvahin confessed. His gunmetal gaze lifted slowly, his candour laid bare. “In truth, I was worried you’d be the one disappointed.” 

“Disappointed that you’re not about to fall at my feet, profess undying love, and beg my hand in marriage?” Thelanna laughed, the sound light and bright as wind-bells. “Can’t deny that might amuse me—but honestly? Being romantically tied to a mortal? Generally not advised.” 

“Why is that?” 

“Different worlds. Different expectations—rarely ends well for either party.” Her voice softened, and for a breath, her expression grew wistful, shadowed by some distant thought. Then, with an almost deliberate flick of her hair, the moment passed. Her digits gently traced along his knuckles as she smiled again, her mischievousness rekindled. 

“But as to other aspects?” Thelanna’s fingers were light as a whisper, yet they hummed with piquancy. Her words twisted between her teasing touches like tendrils of ivy. “That’s definitely encouraged.” 

A brief nip of his lip preceded a tentative smile that quirked unevenly across his scruffy face. His cheeks flushed as a soft, nervous chuckle slipped past his guard. Though Galvahin’s posture remained tense, his eyes scintillated with nascent eagerness. 

“Now you answer my question,” Thelanna pressed. 

The knight’s brows lifted in polite befuddlement, his countenance questioning yet silent. 

“Did you want another?” Her lids lowered and her green gaze was aglow with toying expectation. 

Galvahin stilled, his lips pressing into a fainthearted line, as his mind drifted anxiously between decorum and desire. Slowly, tentatively, he nodded—his eyes finally meeting hers in quiet surrender. 

Thelanna obliged with a languid grace. 

Her hands rose to cup his face, her movement slow and considerate. The dryad rose to him, sealing their mouths in a kiss that burgeoned as her head swayed slightly. Her parted lips pressed gently but proactively against his own, her exhale warm with quiet satisfaction. A silken flick of her tongue followed, charting the velvet boundary of the knight’s mouth with frolicsome exactitude. 

Familiar as he was with her brazenness, it felt naïve to be startled by the surge in her intensity. This swell of sensuality made Galvahin feel as though the ground beneath him might fracture. His body dismissed the faint objections of his mind—rather than pulling away, he startled himself by embracing her, his palms settling at the curve of her waist. The motion was slow, cautious, and clumsy with experience too infrequent to be instinctive.

The knight’s lips parted ever so slightly, an unspoken invitation for the dryad to explore at her will. 

Thelanna did not hesitate. Her tongue slipped past the gate of his lips with purposeful yet restrained urgency—a warm, serendipitous symphony against his own. When their tongues met, Galvahin choked back a flustered, breathy keening, his composure fraying, unravelling at the seams—dissolving into reckless sunder. 

Timid though he was, his willingness shone through—a novice, yes, yet one who was willing to learn despite the hesitance that anchored his every movement. His greenness was apparent in the shy, shaky rhythm of his embrace, but the quiet fervor beneath it spoke volumes—a declaration of trust, a submission to the unknown. 

As their pace decelerated, the movements softened into something tender, unhurried. Thelanna’s lips lingered for one final, idle moment before she pulled back, her hands still cupping his face as though reluctant to let go. The kiss drifted apart like the final line of an unfinished ballad, their shared breaths curling like forgotten refrains. The silence that followed wasn’t empty but overflowing with unspoken satisfaction—a quiet cadence rich with possibilities yet unwritten. Thelanna’s smile curved gently, a flourish at the note’s end, not as a conclusion, but a delicate postlude—an overture to something newly begun. 

Galvahin’s breath was unsteady, his flushed cheeks and peachy-magenta vestments still burning with the aftermath of her touch. His heavy-lidded gaze, listless and hypnotised, traced the pillowy line of her upturned lips as the dryad inclined her head, a playful glint sparking her expression. 

“Still breathing?” Thelanna asked, the sweetness in her voice tempered by a simper.

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

“H-how much farther did you say it was?” Galvahin asked, striving to keep his breath unlaboured as the heat bore down on him, bordering the edge of sweltering.

As ever, he followed in Thelanna’s wake, her movements imbued with their customary airy grace. At first, the incessant need to be led—whether by Thelanna or Oriel—had blistered the edges of his pride, a taper’s flame searing the corner of a cherished vellum. It wore on him in subtle, inarticulate ways. Helplessness, even in a world as eldritch and unpredictable as the Feywild, felt like a dereliction, a rejection of his virtus. A voice nestled in the marrow of him—the same caustic whisper that decried his very being and scourged him for falling short of some imagined ideal—called it unseemly.

It was a burden carved into his very being, chiselled by nobility’s unrelenting hand: remain ever steadfast, never cede, never deign to seek guidance. But beneath that edict, something even more pernicious had entwined itself—a creep not merely tied to his station, but his identity. He was a man. And men, he had been taught, should never need be led.

Now though—he wasn’t so sure. His mind, lucid and pragmatic, understood the tactical merit in surrendering the lead. He was, without question, adrift in an unfamiliar domain. The calculating part of his psyche found solace in accepting this, cataloguing this surrender as a pragmatic decision. Yet beneath that veneer, something less analytical and more vulnerable stirred. He was beginning to realise that he didn’t just tolerate being guided—he rejoiced in it.

There was an exquisite liberation in relinquishment, in letting another chart the course, bearing the mantle of choice. It was more than a physical relief—more than simply navigating the maze of the garden. In this budding connection with Thelanna, he found himself immersed in a current that was almost serene when he didn’t resist it—when the waters weren’t made turbulent by his own misgivings.

Where would this meandering path lead him? He was learning to accept the mystery, to release himself into uncertainty with something approaching faith. Galvahin recalled Oriel’s words about how the Feywild “loves those who wander.” Thelanna had certainly taken to him. Yet, the prince’s admonishment still loomed: don’t get lost. 

Perils would always persist—but maybe acknowledgement was enough. Perhaps it sufficed to bow one’s head to the inevitability of danger and forge onward. Life had already swept past him too many times, caution choking out his ambition. But here, in this crucible of both heart and resolve, perhaps he could cultivate a newfound courage—one that danced with the unknown and found grace in the spaces between the uncertainties, even within their hazards.

With companions like Thelanna—or even Oriel—by his side, would he ever truly be “lost”? Suspicion still lingered like a specter. Could their actions be duplicitous? If so, what course remained to him? Confront them? Decry their wickedness? Smite them in righteous wrath? These notions oscillated on absurdity. And if they weren’t beguiling him, if their actions were truly benevolent… then what did it say about him to assume such malice? The thought coiled within him, a leaden weight strangling his gentle heart. 

It felt like an insidious wrong to expect treachery simply because of their nature, their renown. Not only to them—but himself. The assumption resembled a bias nameless but profane, rooted somewhere bitter and possibly ignorant.

No. He would choose to temper his trepidation, to quiet the clamor of mistrust in his breast. And if these were, indeed, his final days—if some ineffable horror waited at the terminus of his journey, ready to devour him for his folly—then he would at least allow himself to savour the moments before ruin. Not because it was the easier path, but because it gratified him. The knight could give himself that kindness—that fragile reprieve, that comforting solace in the face of the unknown. 

With this solitary act of hope, he could dare to believe that everything might be well. That it was permissible to be led, to surrender his pride in the pursuit of something grander. 

And if he did become lost? Well—perhaps then they could all be lost together. That, too, would be okay.

“Oh, you poor thing!” Thelanna teased, her fingers laced through his, but her gaze fixed ahead. “You’ve been where we’re going. We’re almost there.”

The journey so far twisted through the garden like a sinuous, mercurial thought. They passed beneath archways of stone marbled with ebony moss, past clusters of scuttling fungi that reconfigured themselves into constellation-like patterns with tiny, circling motions. A monolithic sundial, carved from crystal and alive with refracted sunlight, cast slowly whorling patterns over the grass—a strange curio in a place where penumbra reigned and temporality balked at convention. Here, moments stretched into hours with each new marvel yet contracted others into mere heartbeats. But Thelanna, accustomed to the garden’s capricious nature, marched on without pause, granting Galvahin no reprieve.

Ahead, a towering hill ascended like the curve of some ancient titan’s shoulder, crowned in a flourish of wildflowers. It climbed so high that clouds gathered just beyond its peak, hiding the treetops and palace walls from view. The sight of it made Galvahin’s heart sink: it loomed not only as a feat of exertion, but as a threshold unknown and unassailable. He grimaced, exhaustion already creeping into his limbs. In this realm, distance was fickle, space unravelling and re-knotting itself at a whim. Paths that seemed leagues away arrived in seconds; others mere steps ahead instantly became unending trials. The Feywild cared little for consistency. 

“Just up here!” Thelanna chirped, towing him behind with ease. She moved as though the climb were a dance, her bare feet skimming across the grass without a sign of strain. She paid the heat no mind, her skin unblemished by perspiration.

Could dryads sweat? Galvahin wondered. Do they tire? 

He knew that mortal elves didn’t need sleep, but dryads? Complete mystery. Do trees sleep? And what of the other fey? He supposed that eladrin like Penthesia didn’t need sleep either—being, as some said, the predecessors of all other elves. He could recall spotting pixies napping in flowers… though they may have just been resting their eyes. 

The more zoic fey, like centaurs and satyrs? Definitely sleepers.

And… Oriel?

The thought took hold, unbidden yet oddly vivid. Did the archfey sleep? Did he lie in still, serene silence, eyes closed beneath a curtain of silver hair?

Flush blossomed as he envisaged it—the prince’s tranquil, slumbering form bathed in lunar glow. He quickly pushed the image from his mind, as though afraid it might be overheard by the garden. 

The climb began in earnest, and Galvahin felt the weight of it. His boot sank into the soft, verdant incline with each step, the grass beneath seeming to watch with silent pity. The air thickened, growing warm as the low-hanging sun draped the hillcrest in aureate haze. His muscles strained, lamenting the unrelenting ascent, and his breath turned shallow despite his best attempts to maintain composure. Every heartbeat reverberated in his ears, a dull threnody that marked the slow erosion of his resolve. The cobalt lustre of his attire began to give way to shades of grey and russet.

Thelanna, ever blithe, darted ahead with ease. She barely seemed tethered to the earth at all, her feet brushing over the incline as though the hill itself rose to meet her halfway. Galvahin watched her with quiet admiration, but as the ascent dragged on, a familiar verdigris tint began to bloom across his doublet—the same vivid green that had surfaced when Penthesia spoke of Meliora. It spread like a noxious miasma, intangible yet suffocating. For the dryad, this was nothing more than a whimsical jaunt—a carefree dance over the grass—but for the knight, it was a silent reckoning. Each laboured step pulled not only at his weary muscles but at the hidden parts of himself he longed to be free of—his fear of inadequacy, his weariness from a lifetime of striving to be more. The hill wasn’t merely a feat of nature; it was the embodiment of every struggle he tried to conquer through sheer will.

She floats like a leaf, and the ground bows to meet her. 
I move like a stone, and the earth grips at my feet. 
She laughs, the air brightens. 
I hesitate, and clouds dull. 
'The Plane of Faerie mirrors the mind,' they say— 
Is that why my path spans ever onward? 

Halfway up, he paused, leaning on his glaive for support as sweat slicked his bushy brow. His storm-grey gaze trailed upwards to the summit, still touched by wreaths of pearlescent clouds. The distance between here and there felt immeasurable—like every ambition he’d pursued but never quite reached, yet something in the sight of it tugged at him soft as a lullaby but unyielding as a gauntlet. His thighs ached, and the thought of turning back was tempting in its simplicity. Just as doubt threatened to take hold, Thelanna’s laughter rang out from further up the hill, light and jocular, unburdened by the weight that held him down. For a moment, it was enough—a reminder that he didn’t have to ascend alone. With a trepidatious yet determined breath, he steadied his footing and pressed on, the hill ahead rising like a hushed covenant he couldn’t yet fully understand. 

When he crested the hilltop, the strain in his muscles released like a crossbow bolt cut loose. He nearly faltered but what met his eyes made him pause: Klimvarh, the tree he had befriended during his stroll with Oriel the day prior, stood resplendent on the opposite slope. The mighty sycamore rose regal and grand, his trunk thicker than a drake’s coiled tail. His branches swayed in the breeze, their gentle motion like a wordless greeting.

Beneath Klimvarh’s shade, a small gathering of fey lounged on a woven blanket, their forms haloed by speckled light. Most were familiar—Meliora, the silent centaur with an ever-present book, and Astor, the nymph Galvahin had noticed at yesterday’s breakfast—the one Thelanna claimed called him “tantalising.” But one figure among them was new: a reclining satyr, his lazy posture exuding devils-may-care confidence.

Thelanna bounced ahead, her joy palpable. Astor sprang to their feet to meet her halfway, and the two embraced briefly before dissolving into laughter. They glanced back at Galvahin, quick and conspiratorial, their smiles sending heat up his neck and into his bearded cheeks.

Behind them, the satyr sauntered forward while Meliora remained seated. Still, the centaur lowered her book to greet the arrivals with a welcoming smile.

As Galvahin tentatively approached, he searched the details of Astor and the satyr. Like Thelanna and Oriel, they both appeared to be around his age, though he reminded himself that assumptions such as these held little weight in the Feywild.

The nymph was statuesque, their form understated yet commanding. Astor’s lilac-hued skin caught the light like dust-kissed blooms, and their mod-cut hair, soft as hydrangea petals, framed angular cheekbones, a sharp jawline, and brightly fuchsia, thin eyes. Their physique was fluid and powerful—broad shoulders, a flat chest, and long, graceful limbs. They wore a white tweed vest, unbuttoned at the collar and without an undershirt, paired with tailored straight-legged hosen that accentuated their willowy frame and ended in bare feet against grass. Though taller than Thelanna, they were still shorter than Galvahin.

The satyr watched with keen, umber eyes, his polished walnut horns curving back over a crown of thick, curly bistre hair and bovid ears. A beastly mustache and beard complemented his ever-so-slightly gap-toothed grin with impish charm. Coarse hair tufted across his chest, torso, and arms, tracing down sandy-beige skin to his chocolate-furred thighs and caprine legs tipped with cloven hooves. Roughly the same height as Astor, his physique was softer than Galvahin’s—more supple and less built, though still sturdy. To the knight’s modest discomfort, the satyr wore nothing more than a flimsy orange loincloth, flaunting an unapologetic glimpse of where his furry ferine haunches merged with manly torso.

Thelanna pivoted to face Galvahin, her emerald eyes gleaming as she gestured for him to step closer, to join the circle beneath Klimvarh’s branches.

“Well,” she said, her mezzo-soprano lilting with waggish authority. “No need to stand there like a lost little fawn. Go on—introduce yourself.”

“Oi!” interrupted the satyr with a brassy tone, merry and rhotic. “Faun? I’m standin’ right here Lanna.” His umber eyes narrowed in prankish flair.

“What—” Thelanna whipped toward him, consternation knitting her saffron brows. “That’s not—I meant—”

The realisation hit mid-sentence, softening her bewilderment into a look of affectionate exasperation. The satyr’s grin widened; he was clearly baiting her. For the first time, Galvahin saw the dryad teeter on the edge of irritation—but, true to form, it was assuaged by her characteristically bubbly demeanor.

Astor watched with rapt delight, their periwinkle fingers brushing their lips as though holding in laughter, posture alive with anticipation. The satyr, meanwhile, lowered his coarse lashes and smiled with the smug satisfaction of someone who knew exactly how charming he was.

“You would know a thing or two about a little faun,” Thelanna quipped, recovering with ease. Her eyes swept up and down his fleecy physique, pausing pointedly at his loincloth.

“Little? ” the satyr gasped, pressing a hand to his chest as if mortally wounded. He pranced forward, shoulder dipped and chin lifted, striking a ludicrously gallant pose. “That’s not what ye said last time, now—was it?” he drawled, his rugged voice an earthy rumble dripping mischievous swagger.

Astor erupted with laughter—a rippling, melodious peal that danced across the hilltop.

The dryad lowered her lids, lips curving in coy exactitude. 

“Maybe I lied,” she teased, voice low and breathy as she swayed toward him. “Maybe I only said that because I thought it would grow—like your ego.”

The satyr froze, his grin unbroken, though a faint flush emerged below his brunette beard.

“Tsk, ye would say that,” he tutted, ruefully shaking his head. “Yer halls are well-trod—it’s a pity me steps leave no trace.” His chuckle was subdued, a low thrum beneath his teeth.

Thelanna’s laughter rang out, bright and clear. 

“And what of your well-trod halls?” she shot back. “Copernico shadows your every step, and I know it’s not because he wants more of your awful poetry.”

“Oi, now!” the satyr barked, umber eyes glowing with feigned indignation. “There’s all sorts o’ poetry, ye philistine! Macushla loves ‘em all!”

“Macushla? Oh no… ” Thelanna’s voice pitched with exaggerated pity as she turned to Astor. “He’s calling him macushla now.” She shook her head, a tragic air descending. “In love already? Do you think we should put him down?”

Astor all but keeled, breathless with cachination over the pair’s volleyed banter. 

“Stop, stop—” the nymph gasped, their accent thickly Sylvan. “All day, I could watch you two flirt. But you are being rude—so very rude!” Their fuchsia eyes slid to a flustered Galvahin, who stood like a cast-metal statue, his cobalt vestments storming in hues of blue, peach, and ebony. “See how he’s holding it all in? Stoic as stone… but ready to crack.” Astor’s lids lowered in devilish amusement. “Bet teasing him is easier than even teasing Penthes—”

A small leather bookmark thunked against the side of Astor’s head, silencing them mid-sentence.

All eyes swivelled toward the source—Meliora, still seated, her serene countenance unchanged as her nose remained buried in her book.

A beat of silence and then the hilltop erupted into laughter. Thelanna and the satyr bent over, Astor rubbed their temple in mock offence, and even Galvahin chuckled despite himself—a quiet, bashful sound.

When the mirth settled, Galvahin seized the lull. The fey’s playful irreverence and shared history left him slightly adrift, especially the veiled insinuations to what he considered were private matters. Still, he donned his sense of propriety like a mantle and bowed low, his garments smoothing back into placid cobalt once more. As ever, decorum grounded the knight.

“I am Galvahin Alderwyn,” he declared, his baritone firm with renewed focus. “Apologies—I didn’t realise Thelanna intended to introduce me today.” Straightening, he offered a faint, restrained smile. “She neglected to mention our destination.”

Thelanna closed her eyes and puffed out her chest in delight, as if savouring some unspoken triumph.

Galvahin shifted his attention to the nymph.

“You must be Astor?”

Astor’s lapis brows arched briefly before settling into a look of friendly gaiety.

“Indeed!” the nymph replied, extending a graceful hand. “Charmed, you must be.” Their voice, a lilting countertenor, glimmered with humour as they watched Galvahin’s diffident handshake—a brush more than a clasp. “So polite—just as Thelanna promised.”

The dryad beamed, radiant with pride at the validation.

“Ah, so ye’re the new guy Lanna’s been shaggin’,” interjected the satyr with knavish glee, gap-toothed grin mischievous and unrepentant. Galvahin’s doublet flared another burst of peach as his grey eyes widened into silver saucers. 

“I’m Flint,” he added with a wink, his voice a warm drawl. “Me friends call me that ‘cause I’m the spark in their lives.”

“His friends call him that because he is dense as dirt and half as deep,” murmured Astor, fuchsia irises glinting with diablerie. 

Flint let out an exaggerated cry, dramatically draping a wrist over his brow as though about to swoon. 

“Ye see how they wound me, Galvahin? Misery—pure misery! Glad t’have someone around who's got some manners!”

As if choreographed, Thelanna and Astor both rolled their eyes in playful unison.

“Th-thanks,” Galvahin stammered, his expression flushed yet beguiled. The knight had encountered crassness like the satyr’s before, but never this friendly and jovial. “It—it’s not like that, by the way—” he hastily clarified. “We don’t… do that.” He shifted, visibly uncomfortable. 

“I’m messin’ with ye!” Flint teased, his laugh a soft, gravelly sound. 

The knight’s fluster deepened, though an awkward smile tugged at his lips.

“Anyways, it’s great to meet ye,” the satyr warmly added.

“It’s an honour to meet you as well,” Galvahin replied, hesitantly outstretching a hand for a shake.

“Oh no, none o’ that,” Flint said, brushing the gesture aside, his smile and spread arms wide. “I’m a hugger—bring it in!”

Galvahin froze for a heartbeat, his inclination at odds with the boisterous warmth in Flint’s outstretched arms. He was stricken by the audacity of such informality. Those sorts of eschewed embraces weren’t exactly a customary occurrence where he came from, especially between men. Yet here, beneath Klimvarh’s verdant sprawl—where decorum seemed a quaint relic—the notion of restraint felt like its own kind of opprobrium. With measured caution, he stepped forward, as though nearing the maw of some mythic leviathan.

Flint’s embrace crashed upon him like a springtide gale, turbulent yet curiously tender—a paradox of force and comfort. The satyr’s arms, furred like moss-covered boughs, cinched him in a vigorous clasp. His hand, heavy like a smith’s hammer, struck Galvahin’s back with such exuberance that the breath shuddered in his chest. A fleeting second passed before Flint pressed his cheek against the knight’s cobalt-clad collar, the gesture startling in its unbidden compassion.

Galvahin, reticently starved of touch, stood spellbound, his hands alighting awkwardly upon Flint’s wiry shoulder blades. The tang of hircine musk and spiced leather unfurled in his senses—an odour pungent as driftwood baked in brine and potent as rain on stone. For a span of a single breath, he surrendered to the solace of camaraderie and closed his eyes, a mariner adrift in strange but tranquil waters.

“There ye go,” Flint declared, giving him an extra jostle before releasing with a satisfied huff. “Now ye’re one of us!”

“Galvahin, careful,” Astor warned, their curling grin an ocean wave. “Flint is a gateway to folly. You’ll be dancing on your hands and composing odes to the moons before long.”

Galvahin’s brow quirked, his countenance caught between confusion and candour. “The moons deserve an ode.”

Laughter erupted anew, a crescendo of mirth. Galvahin’s earnest expression only deepened their amusement, as if he’d overlooked some unspoken jest woven into Astor’s jocular admonition.

“See? There’s hope for him yet!” Flint crowed, clapping his hands together with a resounding smack. His umber eyes traced up the knight’s glaive, and he let out a playful, upward-pitched whistle, a testament to his admiration. “That beauty yers? Take it ye’re some kind o’ warrior?”

“I’m a paladin,” Galvahin replied, subtly shifting his stance to place himself between the inquisitive satyr and the polearm strapped to his back.

“Ah, a knight,” Flint amended with appreciation.

“Where is your armour then?” interjected Astor, their fuchsia gaze alight with idle curiosity as they appraised his shimmering cobalt vestments.

Galvahin faltered, a splinter of unease lodging in him. He had no desire to divulge the truth of the iron rivets—or the fatal weight they carried—but the reminder unsettled him. He still needed to speak with Oriel about its proper disposal.

“It’s—” He paused, searching for the right words. “It was damaged in a battle… A monster attacked me before I arrived in this realm.”

“Attacked?” Astor repeated, their countenance sharpened with concern.

“Monster? ” Flint’s incredulity teetered between amity and dread.

“Y-yes,” Galvahin confirmed, momentarily disarmed by the fey’s abrupt shift from teasing to empathy. The sincerity in their eyes eased the tension that had been brimming within him. He recounted the encounter in terse strokes, a nightmare given flesh: sleek black fur rippling over sinuous muscle, barbed tendrils writhing like serpents from its chucks, and viridescent eyes that pierced predatory intent.

“Eep,” murmured Astor, their expression grim as they exchanged a troubled glance with Thelanna. The dryad’s lips pursed in a faint, sympathetic curve. 

Flint winced, grimacing as though envisioning himself caught beneath those sharp fangs and lashing tendrils. 

“Displacer beast,” Meliora’s low, calm voice cut through the conversation. The centaur’s bespectacled, hazel eyes remained fixed on her tome, her composure untouched by the gravity of the revelation. 

The hilltop stilled as all eyes turned to her in unison, their expressions a tableau of curiosity and quiet concern.

“Displacer beast?” Astor’s lapis brows furrowed. 

“Displacer? Hardly know—” Flint began, his jest instantly cut off by Thelanna’s swift swat to the chest. Though her face was set in disapproval, she stifled a single, stiff laugh beneath her sealed lips.

“Yes,” Meliora continued, unruffled. “It sounds precisely like a displacer beast. Malignant creatures. The Unseelie bred them for the Wild Hunt, though eventually most turned against their masters.” She thumbed a page in her book. “You’re fortunate to have survived.”

Galvahin stood rigid, his spine straightening as the name of Unseelie summoned phantom recollections. All fey were steeped in caprice, but the Gloaming Courts were regarded as shadows incarnate, revelling in cruelty and chaos. While Seelie delighted in puckish trickery, their dark counterparts unravelled their quarry thread by thread: mind, body, and soul. He recalled, too, the ancient animosity between them, a feud of veils and blades, whispered betrayals blossoming into outright war. Yet, in dim alcoves of dusty archives, some scholars whispered that the division was merely a ruse—a masquerade of light and dark obscuring a deeper, even more inscrutable veracity. 

For the first time since his arrival to the hilltop, silence reigned. The boisterous chatter of the fey ceased, as though even mentioning the Unseelie might summon them to sow misery. Galvahin tarried, letting his eyes wander as though seeing the hilltop anew. Until then, he had been too befuddled with Thelanna’s cohorts to notice his surroundings in detail.

The landscape surrounding Klimvarh had transfigured since his visit with Oriel the day prior. The knight’s memory of the location felt evanescent, almost unrecognizable. He glanced back in the direction he had climbed, down the hill that sapped his strength. A sardonic sense of satisfaction welled within; he wasn’t surprised to see that, from this vantage, the slope appeared modest, no taller than a single-story rise despite appearing as massive as a tower from its piedmont. Another shining example of the Feywild’s utter irreverence for the continuity of dimension, he assumed.

His gaze drifted to the far side of the hill, where another feature caught his attention: a lambent lake, wide as an acre, cradled by a lithic, moss-covered outcrop. Waterfalls cascaded down the modest cliffside, their coruscating streams pooling into aerated whitewater below, a halcyon sight that starkly contrasted the tension that lingered. A cool breeze drifted from the lake’s surface, stirring the wildflowers at the hill’s edge and brushing softly against his bearded face—a refreshing reprieve from the heat. The crisp scent of florals and damp earth hung faintly in the air, cutting through the day’s warmth with a subtle, invigorating coolness.

Galvahin turned, sangfroid reclaimed.

“It’s good to see you again, Meliora,” he said, bowing again. “Thank you for the book. It was profound.”

For a breath, Meliora remained still, her expression unreadable. Then, for the first time since his arrival, she closed her book, marking her place with a tawny index finger, and looked up, her bespectacled gaze meeting his in muted affection.

“It’s very good to see you as well,” she replied, her voice calm as the lake’s surface. Her amber eyes crinkled at the corners, soft dimples curving into view like hidden valleys. “I’m pleased you enjoyed it.”

Galvahin’s smile echoed hers in kind—a brief, silent exchange of fondness—before Meliora returned to her reading, the page turning with a sibilance of paper against skin. 

The satyr and the nymph exchanged a quizzical glance at the display of quiet familiarity between the knight and the centaur. Flint’s bushy brow arched, his mustached labrum quirking in bemusement. Astor responded with a slightly tilted head and shrugged shoulders, wordlessly conveying: Don’t ask me…

Galvahin approached Klimvarh, his posture staid but softened by rapport. The sagacious sycamore’s foliage rustled gently. Their exchange was brief but ardent—the knight offering his gratitude for the cool shade, and the tree responding in kind, assuring him that such comfort required no thanks. 

The soft shiver of Klimvarh’s leaves carried a whisper of welcome, mingling with the distant warbles of birds and the lapsings of waterfalls. A few steps away, the woven blanket beneath the tree’s shade beckoned, a magenta brocade scattered with platters of Fey fruit, leather-bound journals with gilded edges, a trio of glass bottles filled with effulgent amber and indigo drinks, and a hurdy-gurdy resting beside a waterskin and a stack of worn books—one opened to an intricate atlas of constellations, another displaying a risqué sketch of an eladrin in the nude. Galvahin’s gaze quickly averted.

“Come, Galvahin,” Astor chimed before poisedly descending to the blanket, patting a space beside themself. “Let us rest.”

Thelanna followed suit with a playful glance at Galvahin, as if daring him to resist. Flint returned back into his favoured sprawl, one arm tucked lazily behind his head, while Meliora remained upright with equine lower half folded beneath her as she stayed rapt in her book, a faint smile playing at her lips.

Galvahin hesitated, glancing once more at the sycamore in search of silent guidance. Klimvarh’s boughs swayed in response, their rustling a gentle benediction of consolation. The knight exhaled, unfastening the baldric across his chest before easing his glaive to the grass.

With a slight measure of effort, he settled onto the blanket, lowering himself into a sideways sitting position, one leg bent inward and the other stretched along the ground. The braiding warmth of the low-hanging sun and the cool breeze embraced him, soothing his weary frame. Laughter rang out, buoyant and carefree, as the fey shared lighthearted conversation over a bowl of silver-sheen berries passed graciously among themselves. For the first time in living memory, Galvahin allowed himself to simply… be.

Notes:

Human Behaviour | Björk

There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic
To human behaviour
But yet so, yet so irresistible
And me and my fear cannot
And there is no map
Uncertain 

Chapter 8: The Fey

Summary:

The knight is slowly realising that Fey friendships are a full-contact sport. At this picnic, Flint’s water becomes firewater, a game of keep-away from Penthesia turns lethal, and Astor sketches with way too much detail. Meanwhile, Thelanna gets outed as a fujo, Meliora informs everyone that a flute can be a war crime, and in the end, Galvahin ends up on his knees (again.) If trees had eyebrows, Klimvarh’s would be waggling by now.

"Was he a beast, that music could captivate him so? He felt as though the way to the unknown nourishment he longed for was coming to light.”

Franz Kafka

 

“What about you, Galvahin?” chimed Astor.

The knight blinked, momentarily pulled from a wandering haze. He’d been following at first, attentive to their banter. But then, as often happened, his mind had eddied. It wasn’t that he fell out of place exactly; it was more that he struggled to find moments where he could meaningfully interject. The fey spoke in a peculiar language of veils and undertones, their words tangled with metaphors and playful ambiguity. Rarely was anything ever uttered plainly. Meanings were often swathed in ribboned riddles. By the time the intent in their phrases had been disentangled, the topic had shifted, like unwrapping a present only to find that the festivities had moved on. 

Eventually, Galvahin had resigned himself to watch in quiet contentment. Though he enjoyed their company, his thoughts floated like a lone leaf gliding across the mirror-still expanse of the nearby lake.

“Oh—” he stammered, sitting up straight and collecting himself with a small cough. “Apologies. What was that, Astor?”

“I think we broke him a wee,” guffawed Flint with a bright toothy grin. Meliora wet her finger and turned another page of her book. Thelanna cast Galvahin a reassuring smile. 

“Is your heart heavier at dawn or dusk?” repeated Astor, leaning toward the knight with wide, fuchsia eyes, the nymph’s curiosity as bright as their gaze. 

Galvahin’s hands twitched at his sides, and he leaned back slightly, trying to make sense of the question. 

“I’m not sure I understand,” he admitted, brows furrowed. 

“It is a simple question,” Astor replied with a lilting smile, swaying forward as they gestured with periwinkle hands. Their exaggerated movements encompassed the others lounging around. “Thelanna answered ‘dawn’.”

“Aye—me and Tori and ol’ Klim here said ‘dusk’,” interrupted Flint, folding his bristled arms behind his head as his grin widened. “Between ye and me—I think he only says that ‘cause o’ the whole bein’-a-tree thing.” 

The corner of Galvahin’s lips tugged into a puzzled expression.

“And you, Meliora? What did you say?” he asked softly.

“She didn’t answer,” Thelanna replied in a tone light and curious. The dryad’s gaze lingered briefly on the silent centaur, as though inviting her to speak. Meliora remained poised, her bespectacled amber rooted to the page of her book, expression serene. A moment passed before emerald eyes returned to Galvahin with a thoughtful hum. “I think those two already know,” the dryad added, resting one finger against her chin while pointing to Astor and Flint with the other.

The nymph and the satyr exchanged a glance, expressions brimming in mischievous certainty.

“‘Dawn’,” they said in unison, their voices interlaced with shared delight. Laughter followed before their gazes turned expectantly toward Meliora.

The centaur flashed a faint crescent of a smile, the corner of her mouth barely lifting. Yet her eyes, though friendly and content, remained distant behind her glasses, fixed on the words of her book. 

Galvahin’s thoughts coiled inward. A strange query—and not one he thought he would ever consider. Is my heart heavier at dawn or dusk?

Early morning was often mantled in promise, fresh starts and untrod paths. But it also carried the weight of expectation and the pressure of what lay ahead. He reminisced the sepulchral stillness of daybreak, disrupted only by the soft, eerie cooing of mourning doves. Their song was both gentle and haunting—a wistful refrain immersed in a sombre longing. As a boy, Galvahin had believed they were named for the hour they sang, not for the mournful cadence of their call. Now, as a man, that innocent belief felt like a relic of another life. 

The knight mulled over the other option. Twilight was a gilded threshold. A period of reflection, yes, but also a time when shadows lengthened and gathered, when solitude felt sharper and vulnerability closer. The dusk pressed on him with invisible hands, the night itself hissing promises of dread in his ear. In those hours, pride became brittle. He pined for reassurance—someone to stand watch so he wouldn’t have to. A friend to hold back the dark, even if that wish for protection scraped raw the veneer of independence. 

Galvahin’s gaze lowered to the magenta brocade beneath him, tracing the broidered arabesques until an image caught his eye: a butterfly splintering from a chrysalis, its delicate cerulean wings still curled and glistening.

“Lately, it feels as though my heart is heavy at all times…” he murmured, the confession spilling forth unbidden.

As soon as the words left his lips, Galvahin froze, flabbergasted by his own candour. That wasn’t meant to be spoken aloud. A hollow constriction settled in his chest as the colour of his attire dimmed, cobalt fading into shadowy opalescence of obsidian and hoarfrost, threading through the silken fabric like the first breath of winter’s nightfall. The knight hesitantly glanced up at the others. 

To his surprise, he was met not with consternation, but hushed understanding. Each of the fey held his gaze with a distinct expression of wordless empathy. Thelanna’s round, chartreuse face gentled into an oblique, wistful smile. Astor’s fuchsia eyes glistened like dew-ridden weigelas as their lips curled into a sympathetic pout. Flint’s grin remained bright, undeterred—a brusque bastion of comfort. Even Meliora had glanced up, her amber gaze alighting on him with serene, silent concern.

“Aww…” Astor murmured, their voice tremulous with a near-heartbreaking sweetness. “That is so beautiful.”

“Ye look the part of this serious, gruff cavalier,” Flint said, clapping a ponderous palm on the knight’s shoulder with a resounding thud. “But deep down? You’re just a big softie!” He snickered. “I like ye already!”

Galvahin blinked, his brows lifting as an unfamiliar warmth unfurled in his core. Their reaction—it confounded him.

“I, uh…” he stammered, grasping for composure. “Apologies. I didn’t really answer the question.”

The hilltop erupted into laughter, ebullient and untethered. The fey’s joy rippled through the air like a heavy gust stirring the grass. Galvahin’s cheeks flushed, trepidation undone by their carefree exuberance.

“Not a worry, lad,” chortled Flint, giving him another hearty pat.

“Yeah—I think I prefer your answer anyway,” added Thelanna, a chartreuse finger adjusting a saffron strand of hair behind her tapered ear.

“Agreed!” Astor rang, bobbing their head with enough effusive glee their silver earrings tinkled like tiny bells.

For a moment, the muted greys and blacks of Galvahin’s doublet brightened with a shy peach, before darkening again, only to smooth into cobalt once more. As the fey’s banter resumed, Galvahin exhaled softly, a quiet smile settling on his lips as flecks of cerulean twinkled at the hems of his regalia, like streaks in a larimar geode. 

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

Galvahin tentatively selected a handful of silver-sheen berries from the wooden bowl in Astor’s outstretched hands. He withdrew a handkerchief from his satchel, carefully wrapping the fruit and tucking it safely away. His lip quirked unevenly. The berries looked delectable.

“Ye thirsty, Galv?” brayed Flint. The satyr’s voice tolled like a tocsin, loud enough to stir the birds resting in Klimvarh’s boughs. 

“The corners of your mouth are white,” Astor observed, fuchsia gaze narrowing in concern. 

Flint scrambled across the blanket, knocking over a platter of candied petals as he fumbled for his waterskin. His hasty bumbling was at odds with his grin, unrepentantly roguish. 

“Here!” he declared, thrusting the leather bota toward the knight. 

Gloaming billows bloomed against blue as Galvahin instinctively leaned back, his mien tightening in polite distress. His ashen eyes flickered between the waterskin and Flint’s jovial face. He didn’t want to offend the satyr by refusing, wary of fracturing the fragile fellowship he had only just begun to build. Unease curled within. How to explain his pledge with the archfey? The knight cast a glance to the dryad, hoping for a lifeline. 

To his dismay, she was staring skyward, seemingly lost in admiration of the Feywild’s padparadscha sky.

“He can’t accept that.” 

The voice rang out cold and clear—a recognizable monotone that carried an authority as quiet as it was resolute.

Galvahin’s gaze snapped to Klimvarh’s trunk. There, leaning against the sycamore’s colossal frame, stood a familiar eladrin guard, her golden armour glinting like a wildfire beneath the low-hanging sunlight. 

“Penthesia!!” Thelanna’s voice brightened into an ecstatic trill. She sprang up and launched herself into the eladrin with unrestrained joy, chartreuse arms flung wide, and toes floating off the floor. 

Penthesia didn’t so much as sway. Her stoic composure remained steadfast, though one hand rose to pat the dryad’s shoulder in a gesture of composed affection. The contrast between Thelanna’s exuberance and Penthesia’s implacable poise was stark, but for those who knew the eladrin, even the subtle acknowledgment was akin to a heartfelt embrace. 

“Aye, the marble muse herself has arrived,” quipped Flint, scratching his beard with a broad grin.

Astor’s eyes glinted with mischief as they regarded the eladrin, their whimsical smile tilting as if already formulating some playful scheme. Yet, the warmth in their expression softened the glint of trouble. The nymph, too, shared a quiet fondness.

Penthesia nodded to both of them in acknowledgment before gently extricating herself from Thelanna’s clinging embrace. She made her way to Meliora and lowered herself gracefully beside her wife. The centaur closed her book with care, her amber gaze warming as their eyes met. Without a word, the two shared a lingering kiss—slow, unhurried, unapologetically intimate. 

Galvahin bruxed, turning his gaze floor-bound as coral motes appeared on his cape, like ripened fruit floating in a river. The knight admired romance in theory—chivalric vows, fleeting glances, and wistful poetry—but the reality of public tenderness always left him flustered. From the corner of his eye, he stole cautious glances, hoping the moment would pass quickly. 

“How was your governessing today, my love?” Meliora’s voice, deep and rich, had softened into something gentle, as if reserved only for Penthesia.

“Oh, I’m sure you can picture it,” Penthesia replied, her usual stoicism replaced with quiet levity. “Nothing of note—aside from corralling his latest bauble. ” 

Galvahin’s brows snapped together.

Bauble? 

It often took him a moment to decode the fey’s subtle barbs, but he caught this one easily enough.

That’s rich, he thought, hiding his irritation behind a fixed expression. Coming from the supposed ‘most stunning of orchids.’

Though his facial features betrayed little, inwardly, the knight was rolling his eyes. 

Thelanna’s index finger lightly brushed his shoulder, tracing a flickering crimson spot that pulsed and fluttered like a shallow wound. Galvahin’s gaze darted to her touch, softening as he noticed the delicate, smart-like flecks scattered across his doublet. His brows softened as he looked upon her. 

“That’s a new one,” the dryad murmured, her voice low and laced with amusement as she settled onto her heels beside him. 

Galvahin exhaled slowly, lids lowering in quiet resignation of Thelanna’s perceptivity. He shot a tentative glance toward Penthesia, lifting his hand in a shy, halfway wave that barely stirred the air. To his quiet surprise, she returned the gesture—subtle but unmistakable—though her expression remained as impassive as ever. 

“Wait—” interjected Astor, countertenor inquisitive. “Why can’t he accept that?”

The gazes of the nymph and the satyr turned toward the eladrin, expecting an explanation. Penthesia, however, simply shifted her aureate attention toward Galvahin, as if goading him to speak for himself. The two fey followed her eyeline, resting on the knight.

Galvahin’s stormy eyes flicked toward Thelanna, searching for rescue. She merely blinked and offered him an encouraging smile, her slight nod speaking volumes.

With a resigned sigh, Galvahin turned to face the others. In brief, he explained the terms of his accord with Oriel.

“So… Yeah,” he trailed, his voice softening. “That’s why I can’t accept—or drink—that. It’s technically a gift.”

An awkward pause lingered as he glanced downward, his expression clouding. Saying it aloud made the reality of his circumstances feel heavier. Though Oriel’s generosity cloaked itself in splendour, it bound Galvahin in ways he hadn’t fully considered. The archfey had positioned himself not only as a magnanimous benefactor but as the knight’s sole provider—everything of sustenance or necessity filtered through his lavishly munificent fingers. 

The knight shifted uncomfortably, his mind circling around the implications like an emaciated vulture searching for carrion. Was he free to enjoy anything from the garden itself, given that it was all under Oriel’s domain? His thoughts snagged, another unspoken question twisting in his chest. What other consequences—such as Thelanna’s kiss—might unravel from this bond he’d so willingly accepted? 

“Aye, not a problem!” boomed Flint, cutting through Galvahin’s reverie. The satyr popped the cork of his waterskin and drank vigorously, amber liquid spilling into his beard. 

Galvahin’s brow lifted as he caught the sight of the dark hue. His nostrils flared slightly, confirming its nature.

…Whisky?

For a moment, he was baffled. Offering liquor in this heat, when he was already parched, seemed absurd, downright reckless even. And yet, frustration tightened in his chest: Galvahin loved whisky. But as a wandering knight with scant coin, he could rarely afford anything stronger than ale. His tongue traced the dry patches behind his lips as he imagined the tannic mouthfeel and peated burn. If not for the circumstances—Oriel’s accord, his dehydration, his own reticent nature—he may have asked for a sip.

Galvahin watched silently as waves of verdigris unfurled like leaves on his doublet. Flint finished with a resounding hiccup and extended the empty waterskin to him, nodding at the nearby lake, its surface beckoning with refreshing resplendence.

“Ye can borrow that—just give it back after,” the satyr said with an easy grin. 

“Oh—” Galvahin stammered. “Thank you, Flint, most kindly.” 

He leaned forward to retrieve the bota from the satyr’s outstretched hand. Rising with trepidation, he gave him and the rest of the fey a polite bow before making his way toward the lake.

When he reached the water’s edge, he cast a glance back up at the congregation. The fey watched in their usual peculiar way, each face alight with a different shade of curiosity, amusement, or stoic expectation. With a resigned sigh, Galvahin bent to unlace his boots. 

Careful to shield his virtue with his cape, he stripped down his petticoat breeches and underling tights, hastily untangling the fabric from his sericeous calves and each other. He lifted one foot, wobbled awkwardly, and nearly toppled before righting himself as he pulled his silken britches up. His doublet flashed hues again—flushed with an embarrassed peach—while the discarded tights shimmered with a matching blush. 

Huffing again, he rolled his pant legs up to his knees and stepped gingerly into the cool water. Flint’s waterskin, still reeking of fermented rye, dangled from his hand as the lake’s surface rippled gently around him. 

Galvahin submerged the bota, watching pearlescent bubbles ascend to the surface as the clear lake water poured in. His gaze drifted to the cascading waterfalls and baroque panorama surrounding him. Mortal concerns of giardia and cholera seemed not only improbable but laughably trivial compared to the more mysterious and unpredictable dangers that lurked within the Feywild’s enchantments. When the bubbles ceased, signifying it was filled, he lifted it to his lips for a sip—only to recoil as a familiar bitter burn hit his tongue. 

A sputtering cough escaped him, and he spit the amber tincture back into the lake with an undignified spray. Laughter erupted from the fey atop the hill. The dryad and nymph were doubled over, clutching their sides. The centaur and eladrin stifled their chuckles behind palms, though their eyes betrayed their amusement. Even Klimvarh rustled mischievously. Flint, meanwhile, gave an enthusiastic thumbs up, his grin wide as he stuck out his tongue in an impish wink. 

Galvahin’s brows knotted in frustration as realisation crystallised—it had been a prank, and they’d all known. He glared at the waterskin, now unmistakably filled with whisky once more. His umbrage smouldered like the crimson enveloping his vestments… but then, without thought, he raised it again and took another long, deliberate swig. 

The hilltop crescendoed with jubilation. Klimvarh, Astor, and Thelanna cheered like spectators at the climax of a play, while Flint whooped and punched the air with glee. Meliora gave a polite golf clap, and even Penthesia, stoic as ever, allowed the corner of her mouth to lift in a subtle smirk. 

Galvahin finished with a faint belch, barely audible but enough to stoke another round of applause. His tolerance and constitution carried him through the performance, though the warmth spread through him like fire licking the edges of old wood. The familiar euphoria settled in—a perilous comfort. He wasn’t a stranger to the soporific siren’s song of alcohol. Yet, surrounded by these wild and mirthful beings, a question began to form in the quiet recesses of his mind:

Who am I becoming? 

The thought sank like a stone in the lake’s depths. But as the liquor hummed his veins, another thought bubbled up to the surface:

Who cares? 

A wry simper tugged his whiskered lips. He leaned down, his cape dipping into the water as he cupped his hands to drink and rinse the burn from his throat. When he glanced back up at the hilltop, their raucous joy was infectious, almost impossible to resist.

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

Galvahin’s head was reposed in Thelanna’s pliant lap, her fingers deftly weaving tiny florets into petite braids behind his ear. Her thighs, supple and temperate beneath him, offered solace as the other fey laughed and lounged, the Feywild’s sun dancing across the horizon like a child’s spinning hoop. Though he still held a whisper of reservation, he relinquished into the dryad’s verdant embrace. She beamed as her chartreuse digits combed through his dark, short locks; in every place her touch strayed, calming reassurance flowed. 

His gaze drifted down the length of his reclined body, his doublet coruscating cerulean like the exposed plumage of a magpie. Gunmetal eyes landed on his bare toes against the grass, still damp from wading through the lake. The hairs atop lay flat, like the rivulets and furrows in a sand garden. Ordinarily he would’ve donned his boots and tights the moment he emerged, eager to fortress himself beneath seemliness. Yet after that swig of whisky, the notion seemed unnecessary—trivial, even. 

The knight traced the contours of his exposed, hirsute calves, following to the ankle. Galvahin’s feet were broad and calloused, but unshod, they betrayed unexpected tenderness. The pale arches bowed with understated elegance, a contrast to the sharply rugged creases along his heels—like riverbeds worn by time. Blue veins mapped paths over the tops, pulsing faintly beneath copper-brushed skin. A faint sheen clung to them, catching the light like dew on the sunlit stones that littered the lakeside. When he flexed his toes, the stretch of muscle felt almost indulgent—an indistinct reminder of how exposed yet strangely free he felt without footwear. 

He glanced at the other fey, noting their bare feet or hooves they traversed their lurid and dazzling home upon. Flint and Meliora, of course, never needed shoes. But even Penthesia, ever composed and distant, wore sabatons with open soles. 

Perhaps the fey were onto something with this choice of fashion. 

“Does that not count as a gift as well?” Astor queried, sitting up straighter as their curious gaze flitted between Galvahin and Thelanna. 

The knight and the dryad exchanged a brief, blank glance, both of their countenances questioning—neither of them had considered it until now. Yet after the nymph’s remark, the truth of it felt obvious in its simplicity. 

“I… don’t exactly know how to braid hair,” Galvahin confessed, his brassy voice low and uncertain. The mere thought of his fingers threading through Oriel’s silken locks sent a soft gulp down his throat, his mind turning hazy at the prospect. 

“I could teach you,” Thelanna mused, emerald eyes drifting toward the other fey. Her malachite lips curled with mischief. “But who will be our guinea pig…” 

Her gaze roamed over her compatriots before appraising Astor and Flint. The pair struck theatrical poses, like eager ingenues at an audition—the nymph framing their face with a playful smirk, while the satyr flexed with a ridiculous grin. 

“Love you guys, but,” Thelanna giggled, “neither of you have hair as long as the prince’s.”

Her attention shifted to Penthesia’s flowing, flaxen tresses.

The eladrin’s brow lifted, but her composure remained as still as steel. Her aureate eyes, however, glimmered with a pointed lack of amusement—a wordless and resounding:

No. 

What followed could only be described as a still and silent duel—a skirmish where the unsheathing of épées was replaced by glances and subtle shifts. 

Thelanna tilted her head, brows lifted in an expression of feigned innocence, lips gently curved in friendly expectation. 

Penthesia, her features as serene as a statue, locked her gaze into the dryad with unrelenting force, as though willing her to vanish through sheer resolve. 

A playful pout formed on Thelanna’s kiwi-green lips, accompanied by a soft furrow of saffron brows—a most endearing performance. 

Aureate eyes narrowed ever so slightly, Penthesia’s lack of approval sharp enough to cleave the air between them. 

The dryad blinked theatrically, lashes fluttering like the wings of a sprite, her hands clasped in an exaggerated display of obsecration. 

Galvahin’s gaze flitted between the two like a wary scribe, etching the scene into his mind. The knight was uncertain if this was a prelude to chaos or comedy. Accompanying his bemusement was the amused bruissement of Astor and Flint, their whispers curling like quiet gamblers placing bets on an unseen game. 

Without a word, Penthesia shifted her weight and crossed her arms, a motion simple, final, and absolute. 

It should have been the killing blow.

But Thelanna, guile as ever and armed with a curling simper, knew her opponent’s hamartia all too well. She redirected her attention to the eladrin’s centaur wife seated beside her.

“Hmm,” she mused coyly, affectation as innocent as a newborn lamb—all while Penthesia’s expression tightened like a fist clasping a hilt. 

“Meliora’s hair is still too short…” Thelanna remarked with feigned consideration, letting the silence stretch. And then—with the precision of a fencer’s strike: “But I suppose you could always braid her tail!” 

Astor let out a muffled snort, while Flint, failing to hide his mirth, covered his face with both hands as his shoulders quaked. 

Penthesia’s composure fractured for the briefest heartbeat—a minute shift to her golden gaze, a twitch of the brow—but it was enough. Meliora, serene as ever, simply lifted a palm to her lips and let out a soft, lilting giggle, her amber eyes never straying from the pages of her book. 

Before Galvahin could so much as raise a hand in objection, Penthesia was already seated beside him, legs crossed, her flaxen hair cascading forward to volunteer itself. Her silent approach had been so swift that the knight hadn’t noticed until she was already there, hair drawn high like a banner awaiting braiding. 

“W-wait.” Galvahin’s voice cut through the laughter, brassy and firm. He straightened, scooting a deliberate inch away from both the dryad and eladrin. His brow furrowed in disapproval. The knight locked eyes on Penthesia, his lips pressed into a thin, resolute line.

“You do not have to do that,” he continued, his tone as commanding as a general addressing a battalion. His gaze darted briefly to Thelanna, whose lips curled into an innocent, childlike pout. Her emerald eyes flitted skyward, feigning nonchalance—an expression as exasperating as it was endearing. 

Penthesia remained still, inscrutable as ever, though she regarded the knight sidelong with a faintly lifted brow. Her demeanor always left him uncertain, but he could sense a flicker of curiosity, as though she found his objection peculiar. 

“Do what you like,” she sighed, her voice calm yet touched with something wry. Turning slightly to face him, she added, “Who knows what sort of paroxysm you’ll be subjected to if it’s discovered you’ve been holding out in your agreement.” 

Galvahin’s brows knit at her remark, but he softened a breath, reminded how easily Fey banter could blend the line between genuity and jest. Still, the sense of choice—the assurance of permission—mattered deeply to him. In the Material Realm, so much had always been dictated: codes of conduct, courtesy, unwritten rules that governed every breath. Here in the Feywild, amid all its whimsy and chaos, respecting another’s autonomy felt like its own kind of eccentricity. 

He shifted slightly, levelling Penthesia with a steady gaze. His expression was resolute.

“Only if you’re sure,” he said gently. “I would never take part in anything you don’t choose freely.”

Penthesia’s aurate eyes studied him for a moment longer. Then, with the faintest twitch of her lip, more suggestion than smile, she inclined her head in ascent. 

“It is fine.”

“Yay!” Thelanna exclaimed, and she clapped her hands together softly. Her gaze shifted to the nymph. “Astor, sweetie, can I borrow your mirror?” 

Astor blinked, momentarily startled. A bashful smile flickered as they raised a lilac arm behind their head sheepishly.

“Oh—um,” they mumbled. “I am so sorry! I forgot it by the riverbank again. I was admiring myself and got… distracted.” 

“Tori without their favourite lookin’ glass?” chuckled Flint, twirling the tips of his beard. “Now that’s a cryin’ shame.”

Astor turned toward the satyr with wide, watery fuchsia eyes, their lips puckering into an exaggerated pout. 

“I know!” they fulsomely warbled, drawing out the last syllable for increased dramatic woe. 

Without a word, Penthesia reached over the brocade, fingers curling tightly around the golden hilt of one of her twin swords. The polished silver of the blade shimmered as she unslumbered it, the metal whispering as it slid from its scabbard of embossed crystal insects and ivy filigree. The edge gleamed like starlight, its surface so pristine that it reflected their faces like a mirror. With little fanfare, she extended the armament flat across her palms toward Thelanna. 

The dryad’s eyes gleamed with approval as she delicately took the blade. Galvahin couldn’t help but wince slightly as the dryad presented him the sword, his gaze tracing the parchment-thin blade he already knew to be lethally sharp. Yet when he glanced into the broad sheen, he caught a glimpse of his own reflection: wind-tousled hair, a slight flush on his whiskered cheeks—partly from the heat, partly from the whisky. He blinked at the unfamiliar sight of himself at such ease.

Thelanna, noting his expression, laughed softly as she leaned against him. She tilted the blade so that his reflection shifted, and her chartreuse fingers pressed gently against the curve of his ear. 

“See here?” she said, pointing to the minute plaits she had woven into the wenge-hued hair behind his ear, so dark it was nearly black. The tiny, two-inch long braids were no wider than twine, each dotted with miniscule blue daisies. The touch of her fingers sent waves of cool relief cascading through his skin. “We’re gonna make those—only larger.” 

Penthesia remained as composed as ever when she retrieved the blade from Thelanna, quickly stowing it away in its scabbard and setting it aside. Her lowered lashes and slight tilt of the head suggested silent approval to begin. Thelanna motioned for Galvahin to take a strand of the eladrin’s flaxen hair. 

“First, separate into three strands. It’s like weaving, you go over—then under, and repeat. Then, wrap the flowers in—not too tightly, or you’ll crush the stems,” she instructed, demonstrating with her hands. “Some people try to shove the stems in after, but that usually breaks them. See? If you weave them snugly between the strands, they’ll stay safe—like they belong there.” 

Galvahin mimicked her motions, his fingers hesitant at first but growing steadier as he practised. Thelanna’s soft encouragement—coupled with Penthesia’s quiet patience—bolstered his confidence. Soon, delicate blooms nestled securely into the golden braids, their petals gleaming like ethereal wisps in early morning light. 

A chorus of murmured admiration drifted from the others—Astor beaming, Flint offering an approving nod, Klimvarh remarking on how beautiful Penthesia’s new braids looked. Meliora’s amber eyes peeked over her book, her smile warm with unspoken pride. 

Galvahin exhaled slowly, his heart light. Furtively, he wasn’t just enduring the moment. He was savouring it. 

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

Gunmetal eyes swept across the undulating sea of blossoms, their shifting hues painting a scene fit for dreams. Petals of all hues stretched beneath the dawnlit sky, whispering in gentle rustles as the breeze stirred their satin corollas. Galvahin stood at the heart of the flowerfield on the hilltop, hand cradling his scruffy chin, eyebrows lifted in pensive contemplation as he surveyed the flowers before him. Each bloom seemed to glow within, offering its vibrant essence to the knight. 

Teal would be best… he mused, eyes flitting to a cluster of pale, jewel-toned petals that shimmered like stained glass. I should gather the violet ones too and let him choose. 

Sinking to one knee, Galvahin extended his hand and gingerly plucked a single poppy, his fingers moving with trepidation. The memory of the marigold’s cruel taunts haunted him—mocking voices like the rustle of dead leaves still alive in his mind. He half-expected the poppy to recoil, hiss, or bloom into something monstrous. But no. Here, atop the hill, the flower was simply a flower, its stillness unbroken by mischief or malice.

The blossoms near his feet swayed in quiet harmony, brushing against his unshod toes. Their touch was like whispers of soothing velvet against the calloused ridges of his skin. He flexed his broad foot slightly, feeling a press of petals as though testing their sincerity. This time, it seemed, the Feywild had offered him peace without pretence. 

Taking his time, Galvahin selected each bloom with care, laying them gently upon his spread handkerchief—the very same he’d used to carry the silver-sheen berries offered by Astor. Each flower had to be immaculate—or at least unblemished. Nothing less could be presented to the archfey in earnest. Not for fear of his ire, but for fear of how it might shape the prince’s perception of the knight. 

Remember, Thelanna’s words unfurled in his memory. Leave a long stem—you can always trim them later. 

When the task was finished, the handkerchief cradled a bounty of teal and violet poppies, their stems neatly aligned into a bouquet. He tucked the bundle carefully into his leather pouch and rose to his feet, florals cradled safely away. 

The bouquet felt heavier than mere stems and petals should’ve allowed as he turned to rejoin the others lounging on the brocade. For a moment, he paused at the hill’s edge, his gaze wandering across the garden, the wind tugging at his hair and the edges of his cape.

When Galvahin descended, his mind circled the notion of braiding Oriel’s hair. It was a simple act in concept, yet one tangled with meaning. The archfey’s presence was a chimera of contradictions: elegance and peril, charm and mystery, kindness wrapped in riddles. The prince’s silken locks, cascading like rivers of melted argentum, were a beacon of otherworldly allure; to weave his fingers through them felt like treading hallowed ground. 

There was something sacrosanct in the idea, as though to braid the prince’s hair was not only an offering of skill, but an encounter with something vast and ephemeral. Like attempting to plait moonbeams. 

A flicker of doubt pricked at Galvahin’s resolve. Tendrils of shadow, faint and wispy, coiled briefly along his sleeves before vanishing. The archfey’s whim could reshape fate itself; what if this seemingly innocent gesture could become a test of loyalty or control? What if he invited unseen fetters or fiascos? 

And yet… there was another verity nestled beneath the hesitation—a quiet, neglected yearning for nearness. 

It felt foolish, juvenile even. They had already shared a kiss, and he had only known the prince for a couple of days. But still. Oriel’s grace, his wit, the effortless way he commanded attention without so much as a glance; it all captivated Galvahin completely. Though he barely dared admit it to even himself, he longed to span the chasm between them. Braiding the prince’s hair could be a wordless way of conveying it all: I see you. Not only for the power you wield, but for… you. 

The thought sent a soft heat through Galvahin’s core. This time not from shame, but from a delicate hope. Perhaps, just for a moment, they could share in something more than an accord written in clever bargains. Entrusted with that kind of proximity, that fleeting moment of kinship—it was an ache that whispered beneath all of the knight’s well-practised restraint. 

Yet even then, trepidation lingered. What if, in reaching for that closeness, he touched upon something he couldn’t fully understand—or worse… something he could never withstand being without. 

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

Seated sidelong on the brocade with the fey, Galvahin tilted his head as he studied the palace walls, their twisting spires reaching skyward like crystalline vines frozen mid-climb. The facade shimmered with embedded gems, their surfaces vibrant with shifting hues—sapphire blues melting into topaz golds, while streaks of amethyst seemed to pulse faintly, the living wood alive with magic. Delicately intricate windows punctuated the walls, their panes of iridescent glass refracting into a prismatic dance. Each window was unique in size and shape, their chaotic placement defying any discernible pattern of floors. 

His gaze traced the alien, though undeniably elegant, architecture encircling the garden. The walls themselves were etched with strange, fluid designs—spiralling motifs that shimmered faintly, like silver ink. Some resembled abstract geometry, while others evoked images of flora or strange beasts unfamiliar to him. The interplay of detail and disorder was mesmerising, and he wondered if there was any intentionality behind its design, or if it had simply grown this way. 

“I know you two enjoy your quiet time, but—” Astor’s voice broke through the gentle hum of conversation. Galvahin’s grey eyes darted to the nymph, startled by the uncharacteristic seriousness in their tone as they addressed Penthesia and Meliora. The usual lilting melody of their voice carried a firmer edge, their thick Sylvan accent deepening with their simmering impatience. “It is not every day we meet someone new. Could you not participate more?”

“Oh, uh,” Galvahin stammered, raising a hand to deflect the tension. “It’s really no trouble—”

Astor’s lapis brow arched as their gaze snapped to the knight, scrutinising him with a mix of incredulity and mischief. 

“Oi now, they’ve got a point,” Flint interjected with a chuckle, his rhotic tone bright and unbothered. “‘Sides, I’m curious to see where Tori’s goin’ with this.” 

Galvahin’s discomfort grew as his gaze flickered nervously between the others. Thelanna’s playful smirk spoke of amusement, Penthesia’s impassive expression hinted at indifference, and Meliora’s serene demeanor remained unbroken, though a faint wrinkle in her brow betrayed curiosity. Or perhaps mild annoyance. It was clear he had become the centrepiece of whatever game the nymph was organising. 

Astor’s fuchsia eyes glimmered as they dilated their focus on Meliora. The centaur continued to read, her amber gaze tracing the lines of her book, seemingly impervious to the escalating antics. Penthesia remained still, her golden eyes distant as if observing something far beyond the immediate moment. 

“I am only saying,” Astor began again, voice lilting with mock exasperation, “if we’re going to have a gathering, it requires a certain… participation. Otherwise, what is the point of having such splendid company?” 

“I really—”

“Not now, Galvahin, do not interrupt,” said the nymph.

Thelanna let out a laugh, clearly enjoying the show. Flint, too, grinned widely as he leaned forward, eager to witness whatever chaos Astor was about to unleash. 

Before anyone could respond further, Astor leapt to their feet with a dancer’s grace, their lilac skin gleaming under the mottled sunlight. With a quick, fluid motion, they plucked the silvered spectacles from Meliora’s face, holding them aloft like a prize. 

Meliora blinked, her calm expression shifting only slightly as she tilted her head. A faint smirk tugged at the corner of her lips, though her amber eyes now fixed on Astor with quiet intensity. 

“These frames are positively enchanting,” Astor declared, hopping backward with a flourish, glasses spinning delicately between their fingers. “Truly, how do you manage to look so stoic while wearing them? It is practically a performance.” 

“Feckin’ hells, Tori,” howled Flint, his hands firmly clutching his sides as his crinite chest heaved with laughter. “Now ye’ve done it. Meli’s strictly off-limits—best pray Penthi’s feelin’ merciful today.”

Penthesia, who had thus far remained silent, turned her full attention to the nymph. Her aureate eyes glinted like molten gold, her expression calm but heavy with warning.

“Return them.”

“Oh, do not be so dour,” Astor replied breezily, stepping back as though Penthesia’s words were mere suggestion. “I am only borrowing them. Besides,” they added with a sly grin, their gaze drifting to Galvahin, “I think our knight should try them on. Would he not look positively scholarly?” 

Galvahin stiffened, his cheeks instantly flushed. 

“Uh, I don’t think—”

“Splendid idea!” Thelanna interjected, clasping her hands in delight. “Let’s see it!” 

Penthesia’s aureate eyes narrowed, the faintest flicker of annoyance crossing her composed face. In one seamless motion, she unsheathed one of her twin swords, the polished blade catching the light in a flash of silver brilliance. Rising fluidly to her feet, she moved with intimidating poise. 

Galvahin’s spine snapped straight, as if pulled by an invisible string, his stormy eyes widening in alarm. Shadows bled across his cape, the fabric darkening to a stygian black. His chest coiled, his heart sinking into his stomach as he watched Penthesia approach the nymph, her presence an unsettling mix of urbane beauty and veiled menace. 

Astor however, remained utterly unfazed. With a lilac hand pressed theatrically to their lips, their fuchsia gaze roved up and down Penthesia’s form, as though sizing her up—or, perhaps, simply admiring her. A bashful giggle escaped their lips as they donned Meliora’s spectacles, tilting their chin upward for exaggerated flair.

Without warning, the nymph pivoted and leapt into the flower field, swandiving as if into a crystalline tide. The blossoms seemed to part for them, petals scattering into the air like a wave as they vanished into the sea of blooms, leaving only a rippling flora trail in their wake, shifting hues marking their passage beneath the herbaceous surface. 

Galvahin’s stormy eyes followed the unfolding chaos with mounting dread, his gaze flickering to Penthesia as her posture shifted into a stance of lethal intent. For a brief, fleeting moment, he dared to hope that Astor’s retreat might diffuse the situation, that perhaps the eladrin’s cool composure would prevail over the nymph’s irreverent antics. But no—Penthesia’s focus sharpened, her golden gaze locking onto the rustling blooms with chilling resolve.

With effortless precision, Penthesia sprang into motion. Her every step scattered petals in her wake, her movements sharp and deliberate. The silver blade in her hand glinted like a shard of moonlight as she leapt into the air, her body a flawless arc of deadly elegance. The sword plunged into the flowerbed with a whispering hiss, slicing cleanly through leaves and stems. A heartbeat later, the rustling blooms shifted, a wake darting away from her strike as Astor’s escape carved a fresh trail of undulating flora. 

“W-wait,” Galvahin’s brassy voice fractured with uncertainty, his grey eyes wide with alarm. The brazen audacity of Penthesia’s actions—a blade driven into the blooms with such precision—seemed horrifyingly reckless to him. He began to rise instinctively to intervene, but was stilled by a soft, verdant hand on his shoulder. 

“Don’t interrupt!” Thelanna’s voice was light and merry, her emerald eyes sparkling with mischief. She gestured toward the unfolding scene with an airy wave, as though it were nothing more than an elaborate sport. “This is Fey politics at its finest.” 

Her words, paired with her radiant grin, struck Galvahin as jarring. To her, this chaos was entertainment; to him, it bordered on catastrophe.

Astor leapt from the flower field, their willowy form bursting through the blossoms like a fish leaping from a pond’s surface. Penthesia was on them in an instant, her blade slashing and stabbing in precise arcs, each a deadly display of elegance. Yet the nymph danced around her attacks with a nimbleness that approached mockery, their feet gliding effortlessly over the blossoms. Every missed blow seemed deliberate, Astor leaning just out of reach, their hands grazing Penthesia’s armour in fleeting, teasing touches.

With a sudden flourish, the nymph sidestepped a strike and turned inside Penthesia’s guard, leaning close against her chest. Periwinkle fingers traced up her golden platemail, their voice a sultry coo.

“Missed me.” Astor’s lips brushed the edge of Penthesia’s pointed ear before they spun away with a peal of laughter. The eladrin’s blade sliced through empty air as the nymph arched their back, narrowly evading her next strike. 

Galvahin, his expression taut with alarm, finally had enough. His hand gripped the shaft of his glaive, the weapon glinting in the Feywild’s radiant, rosy sunlight. 

“Enough!” he bellowed, his brassy voice cutting through the chaos. His cape billowed in hues of deep crimson as he leapt to his feet and ran toward the scene, his chest tightening with frustration and resolve. 

Before he could act, Astor sank back into the flower field with a theatrical sigh, their form disappearing beneath the blossoms as though swallowed whole. Petals scattered in their wake, shimmering in the air like suspended jewels. 

Thirty feet away, the blooms blossomed once more, and the nymph reappeared, rising as if borne upward by unseen hands. They smirked, adjusting the spectacles perched jauntily on their nose. 

“You will have to do better than that, Penthesia,” they taunted, their voice sing-song and teasing. 

Penthesia responded without hesitation. Her entire form dissolved into a cloud of golden mist, her silhouette melting away like sunlight on frost. Instantly, she reappeared in front of Astor, her blade plunging forward with lethal precision. The sword pierced straight through the nymph's chest, the polished metal shimmering as it emerged from their back. 

Galvahin froze, his breath catching in his throat as horror twisted his features. His glaive fell to the ground. 

Astor staggered dramatically, one hand clutching their chest, the other reaching toward the heavens.

“Et tu, Penthesia?” they gasped, their voice laden with melodramatic woe. One trembling hand reached toward the heavens while the other caressed the eladrin’s face with exaggerated tenderness. “Then fall, Astor…” 

Penthesia, unfazed, retrieved the glasses from Astor’s face and turned on her heel, striding toward Meliora with an unbroken serenity. She handed the glasses to the centaur, who accepted them with a soft smile, calmly placing them back on her nose as she returned to her book. 

Behind her, Astor staggered, spinning slowly as though overcome with fatal agony. Their fuchsia eyes brimmed with tears as they turned to the knight.

“Galvahin… Avenge me!” the nymph croaked, collapsing onto their knees in a cascade of blossoms. They fell back into the flowers, one hand draped over their forehead as they muttered between giggles, “Now I am dead… Now I am fled…” 

Galvahin, his pulse pounding, stumbled forward, only to stop short as he saw the truth. The area of Astor’s chest where the blade had pierced shimmered briefly, the fabric unbroken, and the wound dissolved into petals before vanishing entirely. The nymph peeked one eye open, biting their tongue to suppress laughter, their chest unmarred. 

“Astor!” Galvahin exclaimed, his voice wavering between fury and relief. 

The nymph sat up, a broad grin splitting their face.

“Oh, relax,” they giggled, flopping back onto the flowers. “You should have seen your face—it was priceless.” Their eyes darted up and down Galvahin’s form, mirth overtaking the nymph. 

The knight stared at Astor, his emotions a whirlwind of worry, frustration, and exasperation. Thelanna and Flint, still seated on the brocade, burst into uproarious laughter. The dryad’s voice rang out with exuberance:

“Told you! Fey politics!”

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

Galvahin shifted his weight, carefully recalibrating his position to ease the tingling prickle of torpor creeping through his leg. He moved with deliberate slowness, careful not to disturb the artful sprawl of trinkets and treats scattered on the magenta brocade. The others seemed content in their own small worlds: Flint and Thelanna engaged in their usual dynamic of cutting banter that teetered the edge of flirtation, Meliora setting aside one book and reaching for another. Penthesia, her ponytail of golden plaits catching the light like tongues of fire, rested her back against the centaur's flank, eyes closed in meditative stillness. Klimvarh, too, had gone quiet, his great branches swaying as if lost in some arboreal dream. 

Astor, though, was uncharacteristically the most silent. Seated across the blanket, their focus was entirely consumed by a leather-bound journal. Its cover was adorned with detailed sketches of mantises and strange, eldritch flora. The nymph’s head inclined in concentration, their periwinkle fingers gliding gracefully across the page. Whatever they were working on, it held their complete attention, their normally animated features softened by a rare tranquility.

Galvahin’s curiosity piqued, and the corner of his lip quirked faintly as he observed. For a moment, he hesitated, unsure whether to interrupt. But the sight of the nymph immersed in their craft stirred something within—a silent paean, mingled with his furtive love for artistry.

“Are you… drawing something, Astor?” Galvahin asked, his bass tentative yet warm, the faintest edge of excitement slipping through his usual reserve.

“I am so glad you asked!” Astor replied, voice bright with enthusiasm as they flourished their page. Fuchsia eyes sparkled with joy as they tilted the journal toward themself. “I am drawing you—hold on, it is almost finished...”

Galvahin’s brows lifted, a faint flush creeping beneath his scruffy cheeks. He instinctively straightened his posture, the knight’s stomach heavy as an unexpected flutter of flattery coursed through him. Despite the compliment, reticence kept its hold, leaving him reeling between gratitude and bashful self-consciousness.

Flint erupted into a bellowing laugh and his shoulders shook in a steady rhythm like a beating drum.

“Oi, Galv, brace yerself. Not sure ye’ll fancy one o’ Tori’s portraits,” he teased.

Galvahin’s brow furrowed in confusion at the satyr’s remark. The admonishment felt oddly presumptive, even playful as it was. What could Astor draw that he might find objectionable? Surely, art was a universal language—an avenue of expression that transcended even the Feywild’s peculiarities. Still, unease lingered.

“Let him decide that for himself!” Astor chirped brightly, making one final adjustment before flipping the journal around with an excited grin.

Galvahin tilted his head, his stormy gaze settling on the sketch. At first, his brows knit as he tried to make sense of the illustration. Then, in an instant, his eyes flew wide—as if viewing a nightmare conjured alive. The flush in his cheeks vanished, rendering his previously inquisitive visage pale and frozen as a tundra. His doublet, previously a serene cobalt, darkened like an eclipsed sky, the colour draining into a void of horrified black.

The charcoal sketch depicted him from a sidelong angle, slightly facing away and kneeling with one leg folded beneath—scant any shred of clothing. Instead, his lifted knee and body were wrapped in vines, intricately woven in a manner that emphasised both restraint and aestheticism, the knight snugly fixed into a position of enforced supplication. The botanical ligatures encased his arms behind himself, the tight knots and decorative loops pressing into his skin, accentuating the pillowy muscle of his hispid forearms, back, and thigh. Every line of the vines was deliberate, a web binding his form in a salient blend of touching vulnerability and audacious panache.

His posture was curled inward, exuding a tension that could be read as pensive… or perhaps submissive. Head bowed, his lashes were closed, his bearded lips faintly lifting in an expression of serene, oneiric tranquility—utterly at odds with the raw sensuality emanating the composition. Despite the lack of any explicit view of genitalia, the depiction was disarmingly carnal. Every curve of muscle and fat, and every shadow and line on his rugged form was precisely rendered in refined detail.

Galvahin’s throat tightened. What struck him the most was the haunting accuracy. The languid tension of reposeful muscle, the tactile realism of his weathered dermis, even the faintly exaggerated curve of his dasypygal posterior—all of it was immortalised with undeniable skill. It was as though Astor could see beneath his attire. Or (a more frightening prospect) had gleaned the knowledge from the voyeuristic pixies who had spied on him in the bath.

“This is stunning, Astor,” Thelanna exclaimed, her voice alight with wonder as her lips parted in awe. “Masterful, possibly your best yet!” 

“Aw, you really think so?” Astor turned to her with a delighted grin. “That is sweet of you. Thank you!”

Galvahin was stone-still, air entirely filched from his chest. 

“Say,” Astor began again, turning back to the knight with a tilted head. “Would you like to have it?”

“N-no!” The word burst from Galvahin instantly, his hands shooting upward in a frantic, borderline histrionic gesture of refusal. It was pure instinct, a visceral, unfiltered reaction driven by the panic of imagining this sketch in the archfey’s hands. The mere thought of Oriel’s lilting smirk—or worse, his potential commentary—turned Galvahin’s stomach in horror. The prince already possessed an arsenal of ways to unsettle him. 

Best not give him any ideas…

Flint exploded into laughter, one hand wiping away a tear of mirth as the other pointed at the knight. 

“See? Told ye he’d hate it!” 

Galvahin’s head snapped up at that, panic-stricken eyes locking onto Astor. The nymph’s bright and cheery demeanor faltered, their fuchsia gaze clouding with discomfort. It was a sight that pierced him like a nail in the heart—a sharp, stabbing sensation of guilt. 

His mind fractured as emotions fought for control. For his entire life, he’d adhered to propriety, modesty, abstention—all born of suppression and a deep-seated need to please others, to not offend, to not take up too much space. With his size and strength, the dread of being assumed as domineering or predatory had long loomed over him. He knew the look, had seen its hunger in the eyes of those around him: men who pursued others like quarry, desires made into weapons of conquest. How Galvahin detested them. Disgusting. And it wasn’t just animus he felt. It was righteous fury, a burning desire to shield the vulnerable. To imagine himself grouped with those men filled him with nausea and carved anguish directly into his core.

Yet now, those highly revered convictions had become the very source of indelicacy. The rules of this place inverted everything he’d ordinarily assume, transforming reticence into insult. The realisation struck him with the force of a gale. It was as though the blade the knight spent his years honing and wielding with pride had suddenly transformed into a serpent in his hands.

Galvahin’s brows furrowed. His stormy eyes returned to the sketch. In all honesty, the depiction was masterful, just as Thelanna had said, even if he found the subject matter challenging. He wished he could enjoy it, take flattery. Instead, his lips pressed into a thin line. For a fleeting moment, he allowed himself to envision stepping into the composition, his posture mirroring its bound repose, the tactile sensation of the vines pressed taut against skin, and furtively, something within him stirred—a faint flutter he wasn’t ready to name. 

The knight dropped his gaze downward, seeking composure. His attire was mostly black, with hints of teal, russet, and… Oh. Magenta. A few flickers, here and there. Hm. He had expected the sight to startle or unnerve him more, but instead he felt adrift, detached in a way he couldn’t define. His eyes lifted again to meet the nymph’s. 

“That’s not true at all,” Galvahin said firmly. “I do not hate it.” He paused, the tension in his frame softening. “It’s just… I’m not used to seeing art like this. I was—” He hesitated, searching for the right word. “—surprised, that’s all. I think you’re incredibly talented, Astor, truly. You should be proud.”

The knight exhaled and the corners of his lips curved into a faint, reassuring smile. 

“But still… I cannot accept this, as I wouldn’t be able to keep it. And really…” He nodded to the journal. “I would be remiss to break up your portfolio.” 

Astor blinked, shoulders easing as the tension slipped away. For a moment, they remained silent, seemingly needing time to absorb Galvahin’s words. Their lips parted slightly, as if on the verge of pressing the issue further, but instead, a soft smile unfolded across their face. A faint flush deepened the lilac hue of their cheeks, betraying a bashful pleasure at the compliment. 

“Thank you!” the nymph chimed. “You are very kind to say that.” Their smile quirked further, mischief gleaming in their fuchsia eyes. “And, you know, you are right. I had not really thought of it. Though…” They leaned forward, closing the journal and setting it aside, the nymph’s gaze unbroken from the knight. “I have to ask… what exactly have you given the prince?”

It had been pleasant, however fleeting, to bask in that rare moment of collected confidence. 

Galvahin should have expected it by now, how deftly the fey could tug the strings of conversation, how effortlessly they danced between empathy and amusement. Naturally, the knight froze, composure cracking as the question hung in the air. 

This time, it was Thelanna who burst into cachinnation. Meliora cast a sidelong glance from the corner of her amber eyes. Penthesia cracked a single lid, her meditation unbroken save for the faintest flicker of interest. Flint’s lip quirked into a sly smirk. 

Galvahin’s joints stiffened.

“W-well,” he stammered, his stormy eyes darting upward as if searching the clouds for guidance while he took a mental recount. “So far, a flower.” His gaze flicked to Thelanna and, to his displeasure, she was biting her lip, either in flirtation or attempting to hold back laughter; the knight was unsure which he would find more unsettling. “A-and…” He turned to the centaur. “The book Meliora gave me.” 

Gods above, please let that be enough. His chest tightened as the silence stretched. 

Astor’s smile curled into something sly, their fuchsia eyes narrowing with playful curiosity. They leaned forward to rest their chin in a periwinkle palm. 

“Interesting,” they teased with a tone light as a dandelion seed. “Who was the flower from?”

Galvahin’s pulse skipped. He was beginning to suspect the nymph already knew the answer to every question they were asking. 

“Thelanna gave it to me when she first showed me to my room.” He inhaled deeply, as if bracing to be struck. 

“I see,” responded Astor, shifting their chin to the other palm. “You two seem rather… close. At least from what I see and hear. The flower, the braids… one only has to wonder.”

“That—” Galvahin began, but caught himself just in time. Heat returned to his cheeks once more. Quickly, he recovered. “We’re—um—friends.”

“Friends?” Astor pressed lightly. “Only friends?”

Galvahin’s brows knit as he cleared his throat. 

“What are you getting at?”

“No need to be coy.” The nymph blinked. “I think you know exactly my meaning.” 

“Come on lad,” teased Flint. “S’not like Lanna hasn’t shared a detail or two.”

“It’s not polite to talk about that sort of thing where I come from,” said Galvahin, his tone slightly clipped. The knight glanced once more at Thelanna. His eye twitched at her pitifully poor attempts to hide her amusement. Chartreuse hands were clamped over her mouth and her shoulders trembled with suppressed laughter. Galvahin’s nostrils flared slightly as he exhaled, returning his gaze to Astor. “Especially while the other party is present.” 

“Look around you,” replied Astor, gesturing to the lush scenery. “Do you feel tethered to where you come from, or are you free to say as you please here?”

Galvahin’s attention flickered across the brocade, landing anywhere but Astor’s piercing fuchsia gaze. He shifted his stance slightly to lean away, his discomfort evident in the faint crease of his subtle frown. Thelanna’s smirk from the edge of his vision only worsened the unease. Her silent gratification was almost grating. 

“It isn’t a matter of being tethered,” he stated cautiously. “It’s about respect—for everyone. Some things are just… personal.” 

“‘Personal’?” Astor echoed, arching an eyebrow. Their countertenor was unmistakably teasing. “I think you will find that here in the Feywild what is personal often becomes universal. ” 

“Aye Galv,” chortled Flint as he reached for his whiskyskin. “Secrets hardly last long,” he added before taking a swig. “‘Specially when you’re so bad at keepin’ ‘em. I mean… ye’ve been squirming nonstop since Tori brought it up.” 

“I—I’m not squirming,” Galvahin retorted, his tone only slightly touched with the distaste he felt at that observation. 

“Oh, please!” The satyr’s laugh was even more boisterous this time. “Ye look like ye got caught tryin’ to pilfer the queen’s jewels.” He pointed playfully at the knight’s enchanted doublet—entirely flush with peach. “And while I don’t know for certain, I’m pretty sure yer fancy kips only flash that colour when ye’re feelin’ embarrassed.”

Galvahin’s jaw tightened as the chuckles around him grew. He cast a sharp glance at Flint, the satyr grinning as he tilted the whiskyskin in a mock toast. 

“Your insight is… helpful as ever,” said the knight, his tone uneasy but still managing a note of dry humour. “If you must know…” He flitted his attention momentarily to Thelanna, who was now fiddling with a blade of grass. “We did share… a kiss.”

“Two kisses now,” the dryad corrected him with a giggle. 

“Right…” Galvahin exhaled slowly. “Two kisses.” He shifted again, grey eyes returning to the brocade once more, his voice barely above a murmur. “She said it was for fun. Nothing more.” He hesitated, weighing whether to say more, but the words slipped out before he could stop them. “But, she hasn’t exactly mentioned what she thinks of… the other kiss.” Galvahin glanced up at Astor briefly before returning his focus back to the floor. 

Thelanna’s smug expression faltered. For the first time, it was the dryad whose complexion had flushed, the apples of her cheeks deepening from chartreuse to myrtle. Her fingers stopped their thrumming, and she turned away, tucking a strand of autumnal hair behind her pointed ear. 

“Oh, well… I didn’t think it was worth mentioning,” she muttered, her voice unusually timid. “It’s not as if it’s… that big of a deal.”

Astor tilted their head, fuchsia gaze sparkling with interest.

“Not a big deal, you say?” the nymph mused. “Yet, here you are, looking as bashful as he does. Curious.” 

“She finds it titillating,” Penthesia said simply before Thelanna could stammer a reply, her tone and countenance as bland as if she was revealing a fact as mundane as the weather. 

Astor and Flint doubled over, tumultuous with laughter. Meliora stifled a giggle. 

The word ‘titillating’ reverberated Galvahin like a thunderclap. The corners of his lips knit and he froze. His thoughts? Gone. His breath? Stuck somewhere between his lungs and throat. The knight stared at the eladrin. Then at the dryad. His lips parted slightly, but no sound escaped. 

“Penthesia!” Thelanna shrieked, her chartreuse complexion deepening further. Her hands shot up, as if physically trying to swat the words out of existence. “What are you doing? Don’t just—Don’t just say things like that!”

“Oh, this is too good,” Flint laughed, slapping his caprine knee for dramatic effect. “I could’ve told ye that! Tsk, poor Galv looks like he just got brained by a warhammer.” He leaned toward the knight with a wicked grin. “‘S’the matter, mate? Didn’t think Lanna had such… vivid interests?”

“They’re lying!” Thelanna cried, her mezzo-soprano cracking with embarrassment. “Or—or misinterpreting things! I mean, come on!” She turned to the knight, her hands flailing as she tried to conjure an explanation. “It’s not like I’m—I mean, it’s funny, that’s all! You and the prince. It’s amusing! Who wouldn’t find it a little amusing?” 

Galvahin’s grey eyes were wide and unblinking. He looked as though he were trying to process an entirely new language. A faint squeak, perhaps the start of a word, escaped his throat, but it was quickly smothered by the void of his mind. 

“Amusing, you say?” Astor’s periwinkle index pensively brushed their chin. “Oh, do elaborate, Thelanna. Amusement can mean so many things.”

“No!” Thelanna yelped, now pointing an accusatory finger at the nymph. “I will not be elaborating because there is nothing to elaborate on!” Her voice pitched as her arms crossed. “This whole thing is ridiculous! Right, Galvahin?”

The knight blinked rapidly, his stiff posture unchanged. 

“Um—” he managed, before quickly losing the thought again once more. At this point the peachy hue on Galvahin’s vestments was effulgent enough to cast a soft illumination on his countenance. 

“I believe there’s an Elvish word for that,” Meliora offered brightly, though her barely-contained mirth betrayed her. “Women who savour the charged tenderness between men.” 

“Elves have a word for everything,” Penthesia added dryly. 

“Is there an Elvish word for two people who never speak but suddenly have so much to say?” Thelanna’s words were sharp but not unfriendly as she continued to fidget with her hair. 

As Galvahin’s thoughts slowly began to coalesce, the fey’s teasing banter blurred into a dull hum, drowned out by the insistent thrum of his pulse. He had feared that his kiss with Oriel might provoke jealousy in Thelanna—or perhaps even distaste. But to discover her reaction veered into lascivious? That was a revelation he hadn’t prepared for. True, he was beginning to understand that fey held a certain sense of openness toward matters of intimacy, judging by Thelanna and Flint’s unabashed attitudes. 

But this?

The knight found himself at a loss when confronted with her actual feelings. In his experience, courtships between men rarely drew much attention from anyone, least of all women. More often than not, they were treated with either indifference or silent aversion. The idea that Thelanna found intrigue, even pleasure, in his impulses was disorienting. It felt oddly less dismissive than her claim that the matter was merely “funny.” A bitter seed had long sat heavy in his chest: the intimacy Galvahin furtively longed for was too often treated as a punchline, an easy source of slapstick rather than something to be understood or romanticised. 

“That’s fine,” he interjected, cutting through the fey’s playful persiflage. His voice, still tinged with bashful hesitation, was softened by awkward sincerity. “It’s certainly… flattering, Thelanna,” Galvahin swallowed, the heat in his cheeks unbearable as he dared to meet her gaze. “I’m—um… not offended by your… perspective.” 

Thelanna blinked, caught off guard by Galvahin’s response. For a moment, her flustered demeanor faltered. Then, reclaiming composure, she gave a small, sheepish laugh. 

“That’s… good,” she said, her cadence quieter now, discomfiture subdued. “I wouldn’t want you to be.” Then, realising the weight of her words, she quickly stammered, “N-not that I’m confirming—or denying—anything!” 

Astor clapped their hands suddenly, drawing everyone’s attention back to them.

“Well, this has been thoroughly delightful!” said the nymph with an impish grin. “Edifying, even!”

“You are relentless,” Galvahin groaned, running a hand down his face.

“Of course,” Astor smirked. “Darling, ‘relentless’ is how one survives in the Feywild.” 

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

“Klim, Klim, Klim… ye’re always barkin’ for a tune, aren’t ye?” drawled Flint, pinching the bridge of his nose with a jocose, toothy grin. “Guess I’ll humour ye—but don’t blame me when you start swaying like a sapling in a storm.” 

With a flourish, the satyr reached across the brocade and plucked his hurdy-gurdy from its resting place. Leaping to his hooves, he slung the instrument’s leather strap across his bristly chest and pranced a few steps away. He turned back and raised a finger to the air. 

“Prepare to be enchanted!” he declared, giving the crowd a confident wink. His fingers glided along the drone strings with a teasing touch before resting them on the handle and keys. 

When his hand turned the crank, Flint’s song burst forth, lilting yet untamed, each note crackling with an alien, electric vitality as virid runes flared along the instrument’s frame. The melody pulsed with a primal, sensual energy, sharp strings and resonant tones blurring together in a romantic rhythm, as if matching the cadence of quivering respiration. It begged movement and each beat dazzled with magic. 

Astor tapped their finger lightly on their knee, while Thelanna swayed her shoulders with casual ease. Flint’s grin remained fixed, but his playing grew sharper, more deliberate. Meliora tilted her head slightly, her gaze aglow with a subtle curiosity as she examined the instrument. Penthesia’s eyes narrowed in the faintest of appraisal. 

Galvahin nodded subtly to the song’s easy rhythm, a faint smile softening his bearded features. 

As Flint quickened the tune, Astor and Thelanna rose to join him. The dryad turned to the knight and extended her verdant hand in invitation. 

“Come! Come dance!” Her solicitation was draped in her usual gracious charm, cheeks upturned with gentle warmth. 

Galvahin hesitated. His hand hovered near hers, but he drew it back before their fingers could touch. He turned his gaze away.

“I… I don’t dance.” 

A lie. 

In truth, Galvahin loved to dance. And not only that, he excelled at it. Despite his bulky stature and awkward reticence, the man had always held a hidden, graceful dexterity. Dance had been one of his foremost lessons as a noble child, long before he trained in combat. Tutors marvelled at his fleet-footedness, often jesting that his movements held the elegance of an elf, contradictory to his almost orcish physique. Galvahin had always found such comparisons overly fanciful, but he’d taken pride in the praise nonetheless. 

It was this same sense of balance and fluidity that drew him to polearms. A glaive, with its perfect balance of reach, precision, and strength, felt like an extension of the same rhythm he’d mastered in dance. Every parry, thrust, and slash—the cavort of combat itself—held its own kind of dignified waltz. But here, among the fey and their unknowable games, he felt that same rhythm falter. The risk of being seen too clearly, exposing too much—of being analysed or even critiqued by them; it held him firmly in place. 

“Suit yourself!” Thelanna laughed with a teasing tone, before spinning away to join Astor. 

Oh. Galvahin blinked, surprised she hadn’t pushed the issue further. Part of him had wanted her to. As he watched the nymph and the dryad sway together, a faint thread of regret wove through his chest. 

Astor and Thelanna shimmied in playful harmony. The nymph’s movements were quick and light, almost like a flickering flame, while the dryad swayed in easy elegance, a leaf floating on a breeze. They circled one another, Astor’s silver earrings twinkling in the light, Thelanna’s autumn locks bouncing with the rhythm. The two laughed as if the chaotic dance was a secret only they understood. 

Galvahin’s lip quirked, his head bobbing subtly to the rhythm. His gaze drifted downward to his satchel and Oriel’s decadent tenor resonated in his mind: For when you’d rather play the melody than be part of it. 

With care, the knight’s fingers unbuckled the satchel and drew out the ivory ocarina. Turning it over in his palm, he studied the intricate embossing of thorny vines that coiled across its surface. He wasn’t skilled in wind instruments, yet as his fingers brushed its polished surface, certainty settled over him. This was evidently no ordinary tool of music. 

“My, my,” chimed Meliora, closing her book as her amber gaze fixed on the ocarina in Galvahin’s hands. The instrument seemed to hold her rapt, and she nudged Penthesia gently, her expression filled with curiosity. “That’s certainly a rare treasure.” 

Penthesia’s cutting gaze snapped to the ocarina, her aureate eyes widening briefly before narrowing in measured intensity. The shift in her otherwise stoic demeanor was palpable. 

“ Where did you get that?” she demanded, her usually indifferent tone singed with incredulity. 

“Oh—” Galvahin hesitated, his fingers tightening around the instrument. “His Grace gifted it to me. I’m not entirely sure what it is, to be honest.”

“You should play it,” Meliora interjected with a light laugh, lifting her fingers to her lips as though amused by her own suggestion. Her gaze flicked toward her wife, a hint of mischief glinting behind her glasses. Penthesia’s brows furrowed in response. 

“Are you certain?” the knight asked, stormy eyes darting to the eladrin, whose fixed-stare made him second-guess the suggestion. 

“Don’t,” Penthesia said flatly. 

“Oh, ignore her,” Meliora countered with casual nonchalance, pushing her wife’s shoulder with a teasing nudge. The stark contrast between their reactions left the knight uncertain. 

Galvahin turned his attention back to the ocarina, rotating it over once more. Taking a steadying breath, he closed his eyes and brought the instrument to his lips, the cold surface pressing against his skin. 

The melody that poured forth from the ocarina filled Galvahin’s senses completely, its keening, metallic tones obscuring Flint’s hurdy-gurdy. The sound was otherworldly, resonant and haunting, each note vibrating like the hum of a tuning fork. His fingers moved with uncanny precision, as if guided by an unseen force, playing with a skill that far surpassed his own experience. The unexpected beauty brought a rare smile to his rugged features, and he swayed gently, caught in the strange rhythm. 

Galvahin’s brows furrowed in confusion when his eyes opened. Penthesia and Meliora had vanished. Relief washed over him as he spotted the couple on the far side of the hilltop wildflower bed. Meliora stood with a faint giggle, her fingers pressed to her lips, while Penthesia offered a sharp, restrained wave, their expressions difficult to make from this distance. 

He continued to play, but as his gaze turned back to the others, Galvahin’s breath caught. 

Astor, Flint, and Thelanna were all hunched over, hands clamped tightly over their pointed ears in attempts to block out the sound. Their faces and postures contorted in agony: the dryad and the nymph had collapsed to their knees, while the satyr’s hooves scraped the ground, his usually cocky demeanor replaced by raw misery. 

The ocarina faltered in Galvahin’s grip, his doublet erupting in shadow as dread gripped his chest in a vice. The song was no mere melody—it was tormenting them. 

“Bloody shite, Galv!” exclaimed Flint, his voice brimming with huffy bravado as he planted his fists on his ferine hips. His words, though laced with lividity, came out uneven, his breath still catching from the pain. “What the feck is that thing? It felt like ye were feckin’ my ears with a godsdamned dagger!” 

“That is… certainly one way to put it,” muttered Astor, their periwinkle fingers pressed firmly against their temples as if trying to soothe a migraine. “But yes, as Flint so delicately phrased it—what the fuck is that?”

Thelanna remained kneeling, her head tilted. She blinked sluggishly, and her jaw slacked in stunned silence, evidently still trying to process what just happened. 

Galvahin’s shoulders began to shudder, his chest tightening in response to their gazes. His hands fidgeted and his stormy eyes flickered downward in disbelief and shame. The realisation he had caused them pain, even unintentionally, left him hollow with guilt. 

In a shimmering cloud of golden mist, Penthesia and Meliora reappeared seated on the brocade, the centaur’s hand clasped gently in the eladrin’s. 

“Eclipsing flute,” stated Meliora matter-of-factly, adjusting her glasses with deliberate poise. “Its melody repels fey.”

"'Repels’ is a feckin’ understatement!” barked Flint, running a hand through his hair. “Felt like it lit me bloody head on fire!” 

“You knew what it was, and you still told him to play it?” Astor pressed, arms crossed in pointed indignation. They sighed and shook their head, fuchsia eyes closing. “I guess it is only fair.” They turned to Galvahin. “Honestly, it is a relief I do not have to lay this at your feet.”

“Ha! Look at him,” chuffed Flint, a broad grin spreading across his face. “How could anyone hold a grudge against that bonny, bighearted eejit?”

“Those puppy-dog eyes are more lethal than Thelanna’s,” Astore replied with a light laugh. 

Galvahin picked up the ocarina, examining it in his hands. If someone had given this to Oriel, what kind of being gifted an instrument designed to repel the very creatures it might otherwise entertain? Was it meant as a weapon? A prank? A veiled insult? And why then had the prince seem so eager to pass it along to him? The knight felt a pang of unease, the nature of the instrument profoundly unsettling. 

“Why would someone give this to the prince?” he asked hesitantly.

“Oh, I imagine it was an offering—a pomegranate branch with thorns, if you will,” Meliora replied lightly, adjusting her gaze once again to the ocarina. “Perhaps an attempt to flatter… or, more likely, he won it in a game. He does enjoy collecting peculiar oddities—like you, for instance.”

Galvahin’s face soured slightly as he felt another embarrassed heat fill his cheeks. His brows knit as he pressed further:

“But… wouldn’t it harm him to play this?” 

“Please.” Meliora gave a soft laugh. “I sincerely doubt that flute’s paltry charm is potent enough to so much as tickle an archfey—let alone harm one.” 

Klimvarh’s deep voice rumbled from the edge of the gathering as he offered his insight, jesting that he found the melody entrancing. The observation drew Galvahin’s gaze as sarcastic chuckles rang out from the fey. The sycamore’s leaves swayed lightly, despite the lack of a breeze. 

The knight rose to his feet, clutching the ocarina tightly. His doublet brightened from its shadowy turmoil into a deep, penitent blue. He turned to Astor, Flint, and Thelanna, each of whom still bore faint traces of discomfort. Thelanna sat cross-legged and her chartreuse fingers combed through her auburn hair, seemingly to ground herself. Flint’s grin had returned but faltered at the edges, while Astor continued to rub their temples. 

Galvahin bowed low, deeply dipping his head.

“Apologies. Thank you for your forgiveness, truly.”

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

“Ugh,” groaned Astor, fanning their flushed periwinkle face with dramatic flair. “It is unbearable today.”

“I noticed,” Thelanna said, her chin inclined to squint at the sky above. “It’s never this hot.” 

“I am wilting,” the nymph huffed. 

“Count yer blessin’s,” Flint shot, his voice gruff with heat-induced irritation as he swiped at the damp fur on his chest. “At least ye lot aren’t walkin’ ‘round wrapped in shag.” 

A single bead of sweat slid down Meliora’s nose, landing squarely on the pages of her book. She frowned, visibly unimpressed, and snapped it shut with a sigh of mild annoyance. Beside her, Penthesia silently offered a handful of silver-sheen berries, her expression cool and unaffected by the oppressive warmth. Klimvarh, seemingly revelling in the heat, made a wry remark about the shortcomings of flesh compared to sturdy bark.

Galvahin tugged at his collar, his grey eyes scanning the shimmering lake beside the hilltop. The low-hanging sunlight glinted off its surface, teasing ripples of sapphire and silver that beckoned with refreshing promise. The heat of the day had bore down on the knight, and he was sweating in places no code of honour could ever prepare him to endure with dignity. He glanced at the others, noting how their usual effervescent demeanor had been dampened by the swelter. 

The knight hesitated, his fingers flexing at his sides as an offbeat thought crept into his mind. It felt… uncharacteristic, impulsive even, but it clung to him stubbornly. His gaze lingered on the lake. It wasn’t just the discomforting heat; it was the easy camaraderie of the moment. For once, he yearned to shed his guarded nature and offer something unreserved. Swallowing the lump of hesitation, he spoke. 

“Perhaps…” His voice was quiet at first, barely loud enough for even the observant Klimvarh to catch. Galvahin cleared his throat and tried again, forcing himself past the knot of his self-consciousness. “Perhaps we should cool off. The lake is right there.”

The words seemed to ripple through the group, leaving a momentary silence in their wake. Astor froze mid-fan, fuchsia gaze blinking in astonishment. Thelanna straightened, seemingly dumbfounded at his suggestion. Flint’s ears twitched, and a slow, mischievous grin spread across his face. 

“Well, I’ll be damned,” the satyr teased, feigning disbelief. “Our oh-so-dignified knight suggestin’ a dip? The heat must’ve well and truly scrambled ye.” His laugh was a deep, rumbling chuckle that set his bristled chest shaking. 

“Not a bad idea,” said Meliora, her serene voice punctuated by a graceful stretch of her arms. 

“Say no more,” added Astor, already springing to their feet. 

“Oh, so you do know how to loosen up,” Thelanna quipped, leaning closer with an arched brow. “I would’ve expected you to melt into your doublet before admitting how hot you are.”

“Hey, I’m not entirely incapable of… relaxing.” Galvahin smiled faintly, a cool wave of relief washing over him at their easy acceptance of his suggestion. The thought of dipping his feet in the lake once more, letting the water chase away the heat, or even going so far as to impishly splash his newfound friends—it was a blissful vision he found himself happily anticipating.

He leaned forward, preparing to rise, his eyes focused on the brocade beneath him. But then, he froze: Flint’s orange loincloth flew past his periphery. Before he could react, Astor’s hosen followed suit, fluttering to the ground.

The knight’s blood ran cold as Meliora’s jerkin joined the growing pile, followed by Thelanna’s foliage dress, its leaves rustling as if for susurrating emphasis. The low, deliberate clicks of Penthesia unbuckling her armour echoed in his ears, each one hammering at his composure like the toll of a distant bell. 

His stormy gaze remained fixed downward, his pulse quickening as he stared at the growing pile of clothing. This… This was not what he had in mind. 

Galvahin sat in still silence, his thoughts racing as the sounds of the fey’s blithe tones and frolicsome steps grew further and further away. He felt like he’d fallen into a whirlpool, the fey’s laughter and carefree abandon crashing into him like waves. The glimmering lake no longer seemed inviting. The knight glanced away, shielding any view with a palm. 

Why did I suggest this? His fingers were clenching the silk of his breeches. What the hells was I thinking? 

“Oi, Galv!” Flint’s jocund brass rang out. “Ye comin’?” 

“He’ll join when he’s good and ready,” chided Thelanna, in her signature teasing lilt. 

Instinctively, Galvahin’s gaze flicked toward the commotion, drawn for just a fleeting moment—a habit he hadn’t meant to indulge. It was quick, the span of half a breath, but still enough to sear into his memory with a heat that made the day’s swelter feel frigid in contrast. A virid breast crowned with a mint nipple, the curve of a lilac bottom, the raw, unashamed vigor of a bushy tarse; each detail pierced into him like an unexpected strike in battle.

His breath hitched so sharply it nearly became a startled yelp. Heart pounding, he snapped his gaze away with such force it was a wonder he hadn’t whiplashed. 

With trembling hands, Galvahin hastily scrambled to gather his belongings. His mind felt absent, his forehead slick with sweat as he stuffed his tights into his boots and reached for his glaive. But then he paused, his grip faltering. 

What am I doing? he asked himself. Where is the danger?

Clutching the silken tights in his palm, he thought back to his earlier wish: to connect with the fey, to step out of his guarded shell and embrace their company. There had been missteps, yes, but they had shown him nothing but patience. This afternoon had left him baffled at how such a lively, joyous people had earned such a sinister reputation among mortals. If this were his only experience with the fey, he would think them utterly delightful. Well… also peculiar. And certainly lacking in boundaries. But still, splendid and enjoyable nonetheless. 

So why run? Why recoil from their openness?
Is that not what I’ve been admiring from afar? 

He stared at the tights clenched in his hand, watching as its embarrassed peach hue faded into its usual calm cobalt. But then, unbidden, the memory of their nudavigant forms flooded his mind once more: aphrodisian skin, vellicating limbs, and pliant hips… ambrosial folds… The vision lingered far too long, vivid with mortifying clarity. Cheeks flushed. Flesh pulsed. He grimaced as the colour on the tights began to shift again. 

Magenta.

His throat tightened in frustrated embarrassment. When his mind returned to Galvahin, he was already halfway across the far side of the hill, his belongings clutched tightly to his chest as he walked hurriedly away from the distant sounds of laughter and splashing trailing behind him. 

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

Galvahin stepped through the arched vestibule into the dimly lit hallways of the palace, leaving the garden behind. He kept his head down as his boots clicked faintly against the polished wood floors. Even this small noise grated his nerves. 

Idiot.

He turned sharply at a corner, unsure entirely of his direction, though he pretended otherwise. Just earlier, the garden paths had seemed mercifully traversable, as if the Feywild itself had pitied the sorry knight and eased his way. Now though, the hallways stretched endlessly before him, their turns unfamiliar and nonsensical. The walls began to narrow like the clenching fist of his thoughts. 

Cur.

What was happening to him? His mind twisted and contorted with dismay, choking on the memory of his reaction. The images returned in flashes—bristly nipples, chromatic curves, decadent thigh roots—until the knight shoved them aside with violent force. Too close. The Feywild was by all accounts a hostile place, a realm that thrived on seduction and corruption, and he had almost fallen prey to its bait. 

Lecher. 

Galvahin veered to his left, his steps growing heavier, as if shame itself dragged them down. He shouldn’t be feeling this way—this grotesque debasement, this lack of discipline. A knight was meant to be pure, stoic… chaste. Modesty and control were his armour, and yet, in that moment, they still failed him. Or worse, perhaps they had been stripped away, revealing something baser beneath. The idea made him recoil. 

What kind of paladin was he? His ideals were meant to be his foundation, yet now they only felt like a prison. 

Why was I made this way?

A man whose desires so ferociously clashed with his principles. Was that his true self? Was this who he had always been? Or was he becoming something else entirely, reshaped and corrupted by the Feywild? Could he ever reconcile the person he clung to with the one this realm was unmaking? 

The air in the hallways grew cooler, the faint scent of flowers fading into the deeper aroma of moss and damp stone. He noticed the way the foliage began to drape low, ivy tendrils inching like reaching fingers. It might have seemed enchanting under different circumstances, but now it felt oppressive, pressing down like the weight of his worries. 

Coarse. Crude. Lumbering. 

Galvahin didn’t belong here. That much was clear. The fey were creatures of enigmatic grace and ethereal beauty, their very essence unmarred by mortal life. And what was he in comparison? A clumsy, hulking man, his body roughed by years of toil and failure. His hands, calloused and ghastly, held no business touching the sublime of their world. He could never be admired the way he admired them. 

Caitiff. 

A recurring role in the hippodrome of the knight’s joke of a life. Even before this place, he never truly belonged, never had friends, never made connections. A formless spirit, he’d been a stranger in the Material Plane. Now, in the Feywild, he was a stranger still, a misstep marking every move. His prudishness, his stiff ideals, his ill-timing, and abrasive nature—they repelled others. Just like the eclipsing flute. His very presence was out of tune, notes clashing in a discordant mess.

What is the point in even attempting?

Gods, where is the room? 

I know it’s around here. 

Galvahin’s steps slowed as he turned another corner. The hallway twisted ahead, foliage framing edges like a canopy, and he recognised the familiar landmarks. This spot was where he had his walk with Penthesia that morning. His quarters couldn’t be far now. 

His fists tightened, nails digging into his palms. For a moment, Galvahin faltered. The guilt chewed on him, the shame of his wandering, libidinous mind worse than any injury. He shouldn’t have thought of them in that way. Lust had no place in a knight’s heart, especially not here. He flashed back to the lake, to their laughter, to the brief glances he had stolen, and he felt sick. What would they think of him if they knew? 

It didn’t matter. He judged himself enough for both of them. 

Disgraceful. Deplorable. Pathetic. 

Why should the fey deign to tolerate his company, let alone embrace it? They were better than him in every conceivable way. They were free, unburdened by the chains of fear and shame. He had lowered his guard once, and that had been a mistake. Galvahin should have known better. 

He would never escape who he was: a recreant trapped by ideals, his virtues now made into manacles. A man who longed to admire beauty from afar but could never dare to reach for it. It was his curse. It was what he deserved. 

Disgusting.

The word echoed with every step, each corner Galvahin turned pulling him deeper into the labyrinth of his thoughts. His stormy gaze remained fixed on the polished wood beneath his boots, his pace sluggish and leaden. He couldn’t be the hero he once envisioned, the man who he so desperately dreamed of becoming. And if he couldn’t even hold onto that… how could he ever hope to be what the Feywild demanded of him? 

The answer was simple.

He couldn’t.

A hollow and resigned sigh slipped past his lips. He lifted his stormy eyes reluctantly, the weight of languor making the effort unbearable. But then—his heart jolted, a marionette string pulled taut. 

The sight of what stood outside his door hit him like a flash of light in a storm, sudden and all-consuming. The tempest in his mind stilled. Without noticing, his breath came easier, and his sluggish steps quickened, each movement toward what lay ahead shedding the heaviness that gripped him moments ago.

The inky black of his vestments faintly bristled as cobalt streaks of light wove through, an evening tide submerging volcanic sand. Lowering his head as he reached the door, Galvahin’s palm rose instinctively as he knelt. 

A pale, delicate hand extended toward him, smooth and weightless as it settled into his. 

His head bowed lower, pressing his lips to a silver ring that adorned it, gentle and eager. The gesture came effortlessly, as though it had been etched into his very soul. 

The knight closed his eyes, utterly placid as the back of a pliant index caressed up his bearded cheek—languorous, pastoral… anagogic. 

Tension unravelled. The knot in his chest loosened, replaced by a weightless sense of surrender: a waking, unending hypnic jerk that gripped him with terrifying, euphoric bliss. 

And then, in a velutinous tenor, a single word filled the air: 

“Jackalope.”

Notes:

Over the Rainbow (Cover) | Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh, why can't I? 

Chapter 9: The Shell

Summary:

Galvahin attempts to say goodbye to the past—but Oriel insists on narrating. A sombre burial becomes a farcical affair, a familiar nuisance crawls out of the woodwork, and the laws of physics remain a mere suggestion. And yet, somehow, the greatest challenge remains: dinner arrangements.

“All things change; nothing perishes.”

Ovid

 

The weight of the armour pressed into Galvahin’s chest, heavier than he remembered. It wasn’t the metal—his body had long grown used to its encumbrance—but something else. Something more dissonant. The blue of his doublet dulled, the weight of his past bleeding through the very fabric.

His mind meandered back to the hour earlier, the laughter of the fey still ringing in his ears, sharp as a falchion’s bite. How easily they moved, how effortlessly they existed in their own skin, untouched by the compunction that clawed at him.

And then, there had been Oriel. A single presence—the only one who had made the world stop spinning.

Galvahin clenched his jaw. This wasn’t the time to linger. Whatever conflict stirred inside him, it would have to wait. Now, something else needed to be laid to rest.

Oddly enough, Oriel had seemed almost nonplussed when Galvahin mentioned his old armour, as if the matter had effaced his mind entirely. That struck the knight as strange, given the established lethality of its iron rivets. Perhaps it was beneath his notice, or perhaps the prince had more pertinent things to think about than a knight’s discarded carapace. 

Galvahin barely had time to adjust the cumbersome bundle in his arms before Oriel threw open a set of tall, arched doors, stepping out onto a path mottled with rosy sunlight and mossy, crystal stepping stones. He did not turn to check if the knight was keeping up. 

“I trust you don’t expect me to carry that for you,” the prince remarked airily, hands clasped behind his back. 

Galvahin scoffed, shifting the weight of the metal against his chest. “Perish the thought, Your Grace.” 

“Good, good.” Oriel purled in approval. “I believe you already owe me too many favours as it is.” 

The knight slitted his eyes, but Oriel’s back was already to him, the prince gliding down the path toward the towering treeline beyond the palace grounds. 

Galvahin sighed and followed. 

As they moved deeper into the woods, the light coagulated into something tangible, hanging in the air like dust motes caught in amber. It took Galvahin a moment to realise it wasn’t light at all, but the flicker of countless wings—an iridescent swarm drifting lazily through the trees. 

Butterflies. Or something like them. 

They coruscated in every shade, their colours like oil on water, suffusing with every slow, deliberate beat of their wings. The air hummed softly as they moved, an almost musical rustling, like pages turning in an ancient book. 

Galvahin nearly dismissed them as another of the Feywild’s strange but harmless spectacles—until he looked closer. 

It was not patterns that marked their delicate wings. It was eyes. 

Dozens of them. Each one exquisitely wrought, liquid, and terribly aware. Some blinked slowly, their dark lashes fluttering like petals. Others remained fixed, watching him in quiet, unsettling appraisal. 

One landed on the back of his hand. Its wings pulsed gently, catching the light in lurid hues. Its blue eyes, eerily human, blinked—once, twice—perfectly in sync with his own. A flicker of trepidation coiled through him, and for the briefest moment, the fabric of his sleeve darkened—cobalt swallowed by black like ink seeping into the silk—before steadying back to its usual hue. 

His breath stilled. 

The moment stretched long and taut, some part of him convinced that if he dared to move, if he even breathed, the eye would see too much—some truth about him he wasn’t aware of. 

A quiet chuckle drifted through the space between them. 

“I think they like you,” Oriel mused, his tenor edged with quiet mirth. “Or perhaps they’re just trying to understand you.” 

The butterfly fluttered its wings once more before it lifted, vanishing into the kaleidoscopic swirl of its kin. Galvahin exhaled slowly, flexing his fingers to shake the lingering sensation of being perceived. 

The archfey had already moved ahead, guiding them toward a dense, shadow-dappled stretch of trees. The knight followed, but the quiet disturbance of the moment still clung to him, a whisper in the back of his mind. 

Then he saw the river. 

Or rather, the river above them. 

It stretched through the canopy like a silver vein, winding lazily between the trees, its surface rippling with moonlight despite the daylight filtering through the leaves. Tiny minnows swam through it, nacreous bodies flickering between the branches, weightless in a current that had no gravity. 

Galvahin’s steps slowed. 

A droplet detached from the current above and fell toward him. He braced instinctively, expecting the cool splash against his cheek, but as soon as it touched his skin, it simply… disappeared. Absorbed, as if it had never existed at all. 

Oriel reached up, letting a thin stream of water curl around his fingertips before flicking it toward Galvahin’s puzzled mien. The knight flinched, but felt nothing—only the fleeting suggestion of coolness, like the memory of mist against his skin.

He inclined his head, watching the way the water coiled and uncoiled in the air. “A curious thing, isn’t it? A river with no bed, a current with no end.”

Galvahin tore his stormy gaze from the water, but the unease in his chest lingered—so did the pale streak ghosting through his doublet, a fleeting glimpse of hesitation before it faded back into cobalt.

“…What happens if someone swims in it?”

Oriel turned to him then, his expression sphinxlike. Almost amused. Almost knowing. 

“You could try,” the archfey murmured, “and find out.” 

Galvahin looked from the prince to the water. “Would I drown?” 

“Oh, Jackalope… You want me to ruin the mystery? Where’s the fun in that?” 

“If it’s so harmless, why don’t you try it?” 

“Simple,” Oriel smiled. “I wish not to get my hair wet.” 

Galvahin’s chuckle was quiet at first, but it built into something full, unguarded. “Truly, a prince’s worst nightmare.” 

“Well, I wouldn’t say worst.” Oriel arched a brow, pretending to consider it. “That honour is reserved for tangled knots and ill-fitted collars.” 

Galvahin let out another laugh, tipping his head back to the prince. “And here I thought you feared nothing.” 

“Fear? No, no.” Oriel clicked his tongue. “I simply have standards.” He gestured at the suspended water. “A tumble through that? It wouldn’t be fearsome. Just… indecorous.” 

“And that, of course, would be unbearable.” 

Oriel’s grin sharpened, his gaze flickering over Galvahin like a cat who’d found something amusingly fragile to toy with. “For me? Perhaps not. For you? Well… that remains to be seen.” 

The moment languished—too long, too aware. 

Galvahin’s throat tightened, heat pooling in his chest as his mind betrayed him. He shouldn’t be thinking about it. But Oriel’s words had painted an image in his mind far too easily. 

The prince, half-submerged in water, silver hair slicked back, droplets clinging to his bare chest. It was much too vivid. Galvahin blinked hard, but the memory of the fey at the lake surged up to meet the fantasy—laughter on the shore, exposed physiques flashing in the sun without shame. He had run from that sight, barely holding himself together. And now, Oriel had unknowingly put him back in it. 

Galvahin’s doublet flushed, peach spreading through cobalt like the sunlight over that very lake’s surface—subtle, inescapable. His voice failed him. Instead, the knight made a small, helpless sound at the back of his throat—something between a cough and an aborted laugh. He immediately regretted it. 

Oriel didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. 

Instead, he turned away, the effortless motion carrying the weight of amusement unsaid. The rustle of his silken robes against the moss was the only sound between them, save for the murmur of the suspended river above. 

Galvahin clenched his teeth, willing the warmth in his face to fade as he fell into step behind him. He focused on the path instead, on the soft give of the forest floor beneath his boots, the scent of damp earth and something sweeter, almost intoxicating, laced on the air. 

And yet, as they walked, he swore he could still feel Oriel’s eyes on him—like the ghost of a touch at the nape of his neck, a murmuration of a feather teasing the edges of his thoughts. Part of him was unsettled; another part of him stirred. 

Ahead lay a small glade, bathed in a hush that felt different from the rest of the forest. Though the palace walls still cut an elegant figure beyond the trees, the space here felt apart, suspended between the two worlds. The air shimmered where the light touched the ground, painting the moss in fluctuating chroma. High above, delicate petals drifted from unseen branches, catching on the wind before dissolving into nothing at all. 

“Here will do,” Oriel declared, sauntering into the glade as he appraised his surroundings. 

Galvahin adjusted his grip on his armour, eyeing the archfey with a quiet perusal. “For what, Milord?” 

“A burial, of course,” replied Oriel, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Your old armour deserves its rest, does it not?” 

For a moment, Galvahin said nothing, only studying the battered plates in his arms. The armour had borne the brunt of his battles, the fury of the elements, and the quiet, unseen wars of his own making—each fight another attempt to be something more. To lay it to rest felt strangely final. 

“You speak as if I should mourn it,” the knight murmured, voice quieter than he intended. “Or as if I should be relieved.” 

“I would never presume to tell you how to feel about it,” Oriel said, violet eyes glinting. “But things left behind tend to have a way of shaping what comes next.” 

Without waiting for a response, he exhaled—an almost theatrical suspiration, as if the very act of magic bored him—and snapped his fingers. With a soft pop, a shovel materialised midair and dropped unceremoniously at his feet. Oriel regarded it with blithe amusement before nudging it toward Galvahin with the tip of his shoe. 

Without hesitation, Galvahin crouched, the metal plates in his arms giving a dull clangor as he set them aside and reached for the shovel. Wordlessly, he drove the blade into the earth, the soil giving way with surprising ease. Another push, another scoop—until a quiet, lilting chortle broke through the lull of the glade. The knight stilled, his shoulders tensing before casting a slow, measured glance toward Oriel. 

With nothing more than a flick of the archfey’s wrist, the ground unspooled before them, soil shifting aside in a lissome, unbroken sweep. Oriel admired his work for a moment before casting Galvahin a sidelong glance, violet eyes alight with risibility. 

“Jackalope,” he purred, tilting his head in mock solicitude. “You watched me conjure a shovel from thin air, and yet, somehow, you still thought I’d leave you to sweat and labour in the ground like some common farmhand? That I’d lounge here, thoroughly entertained, while you spent the next hour digging a perfectly symmetrical hole?” 

Galvahin’s grip tightened around the shovel’s handle. He glanced at the gaping pit, then at the archfey, then back at the useless tool in his hands. 

“Well…” His mouth twitched, the barest ghost of a smirk. A streak of slate grey flickered at his cuffs—exasperation, resignation, perhaps both. “Yes, Sire. That does sound like something you would do.” 

Oriel leaned against a tree, watching Galvahin with idle amusement. “You truly believed that?” 

“Call it wishful thinking.” Galvahin dropped the shovel, a soft clatter as it fell to the ground below. 

“My knight…” Oriel sighed, theatrically shaking his head. “I was beginning to think you understood me.” 

“Oh, I understand you,” Galvahin muttered, raking a hand through his hair. He leaned over once more to retrieve his armour. “That’s why I understand exactly how much trouble I’m in.” 

“Hmm…” Oriel tapped a finger to his chin, his violet gaze twinkling. “And when, pray tell, did that realisation strike? When you haplessly stumbled into my court? Or perhaps when you so eagerly embraced my hospitality?” His lips upturned, utterly delighted. “No—wait. I know. It was this morning—when you started looking at me like that.” 

“That—” the knight stammered, flush creeping up his cheeks. “That’s a harsh question, Your Grace. You want me to admit I was slow on the uptake?” He pinched the bridge of his nose before nodding to the shovel. “Better question—why summon it if you never intended for me to use it?” 

“Oh, but you will be using it.” Oriel cajoled, his tone light and breathy. “Do you think I’d let such a sentimental moment pass without you doing any of the work? No, no—” He pointed to the shovel. “I am simply facilitating your moment of closure.” 

“…I see.” Galvahin blinked. “Well, far be it from me to question your methods, Milord.” 

“Would you rather bury it with your bare hands?” asked the archfey, eyes narrowing impishly. “Because I can make the shovel disappear, if that helps.” 

The knight cast a glance at the shovel. Then at the pit. “I think I’ll manage, Sire.” 

Oriel’s laughter came out soft and sugared, wrapping the edges of his mischief. He didn’t say a word—he simply smiled. 

Galvahin dropped the last vambrace into the pit with a metallic thud, eyeing the rest of the pieces of mail and leather piled around it. He tilted his head toward the prince, feigning gravitas. “Say something poignant, won’t you? I’d hate for my poor armour to think it died in vain.” 

“You do remember I promised you a new set, yes?” Oriel purred, his violet gaze tracing a lazy line across the makeshift grave. “But fine, if you insist… Here lies the armour of the most unfathomably dense, laughably noble, vexingly selfless, devastatingly handsome—” 

Galvahin choked, his cape erupting in peach. “Sire—” 

“—achingly sincere, tragically duty-bound, and—shock of shocks—an unexpectedly talented kisser for someone so woefully diffident.” 

The knight tensed, heat creeping along his lips. 

“Oh, don’t look at me like that, Jackalope. You did insist on something poignant.” 

Galvahin opened his mouth, closed it, then huffed under his breath. His hands found the shovel before his mind had fully caught up, scooping and tossing dirt into the grave with a kind of mechanical, weary efficiency. The faster he buried his armour, the faster he could bury this entire mortifying exchange. 

Oriel, thoroughly pleased with himself, sighed plaintively. “Truly the end of an era.” 

As Galvahin pressed the final shovelful of earth into place, he wiped his brow, only to succeed in smearing dirt across his forehead. He shifted slightly. His past was buried, yet the weight of it remained. Not quite relief. Not quite regret. 

He cast a glance at Oriel, expecting another quip—but the prince’s attention had drifted elsewhere. 

Oriel’s gaze was fixed on the treeline, his usual air of beguilement replaced by something glacial and acrid. For the first time, Galvahin saw an expression on the archfey’s visage he had hoped he’d never witness: disgust. 

A wrinkle touched the bridge of Oriel’s nose, his mouth poised between a sneer and a sigh. Whatever he was looking at, it displeased him immensely. The air stirred, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and something ranker—something foul and feral, just beneath the sweetness of the glade. Galvahin stilled, nostrils flaring slightly. It was familiar in the worst way. 

“You’d think they’d have the decency to hide properly,” Oriel murmured, nodding his head toward the treeline. 

Galvahin pivoted sharply, one hand already shifting to his glaive. Through the tangled bramble, he spotted them— 

Goblins. 

Two of them, armed with jagged daggers and hunkered like carrion birds in the underbrush. Their short, bilious forms were wretched things, all knotted sinew and patchy, filth-matted hair. One’s ear twitched at his movement, its wart-covered snout wrinkling as it let out a low, rasping snicker. The other licked its lips, sharp teeth flashing, bulbous yellow eyes blinking too quickly as it stared at him. 

Galvahin’s expression twisted into a grimace, russet ripping across his doublet like a smear of soil; he knew goblins all too well. Born of the Feywild’s chaos, they had long since outgrown their origins, spreading like a plague across both realms. Here, they were scavengers and vermin, working through the umbra of greater creatures. But in the mortal world, they were worse—raiders, slavers, murderers—festering in the dark places where civilization failed to keep its grip. 

He remembered one such infestation near a hamlet in the south. Alongside a hired barbarian and a local ranger, he had tracked them through the night, following the scent of smoke and blood. By the time they reached the mill, the fire had already caught, its glow stretching long across the fields. He found a farmer’s son crumpled in the dirt, throat slit, his tiny fingers still curled around a wooden doll. The goblin that did it had barely turned before Galvahin struck it down. 

It died fast. 

The farmer’s grief did not. 

Oriel let out a gentle tut, as if disappointed. “Jackalope, this was meant to be an intimate affair. And now look—unwashed, uninvited guests loitering about at your armour’s wake.” He waved a hand vaguely. “Do be a gentleman and… send them off.” 

“Apologies, Milord.” Galvahin shot the prince a flat look. “I seem to have left my invitation list at home.” 

“Ah,” Oriel quirked a languid, entirely unrepentant grin. “But you do have a blade. Which, in my experience, is far more persuasive.” 

“Right,” Galvahin sighed, drawing his glaive in a fluid curve. “Diplomacy, then.” 

He didn’t wait for them to make the first move. Ceding the initiative to goblins meant giving them control, and he refused to grant them that advantage. But deeper still, buried beneath instinct and training, there was a thrill—an eagerness sharpened under Oriel’s violet gaze. 

Galvahin would not disappoint. 

The second goblin stepped from the brush, but the knight was already above it. His glaive swept low, steel singing through ether and humour alike in a smooth, effortless motion. Syrupy blood arced in a perfect, burgundy curve—but not a drop touched him. That was the other aspect he loved about polearms—their reach, their precision. A glaive did the work of a butcher without leaving him looking like one. 

Galvahin’s gunmetal gaze flicked to the first goblin. It stood frozen, pug-snout twisted in terror, mouth hanging open in a silent scream. The knight’s glaive was raised, poised for another killing strike—but he waited. As expected, the creature’s nerve shattered. The dagger clattered from its grip, and it dropped to all fours, scrambling into the underbrush with a frantic, wheezing yelp. Galvahin exhaled, watching it go. No surprises there. Goblins loved the taste of carnage, but only when they weren’t the ones bleeding. 

The hush of the glade stretched, dense and inviolate. The slain goblin lay sprawled where it had fallen, its limbs askew, its final expression twisted into something grotesquely unfinished. Its dark sanguine oozed into the moss—yet the moss did not darken; it drank deep, indifferent to the creature’s end. 

Galvahin rolled his shoulders. His pulse had slowed, but the tension remained coiled in his spine, thrumming beneath his skin. The fight was over before it had even begun, but it hadn’t ended. Not really. 

He adjusted his grip on his glaive, its steel slicked with burgundy, the remnants of gore stubbornly clinging. He turned toward the floating river, stepping into its cool penumbra. The current hovered above him, aetherial and glistening, its crystalline surface shifting like spun glass. With a slow, deliberate motion, he lifted the glaive and submerged the blade. 

The blood unravelled, dissolving in a single ripple, vanishing as though it had never been there at all. Galvahin’s lips pressed into a thin line. 

Oriel approached in a slow, unaffected measure, watching the knight rinse the blade with the satisfied air of an artist admiring his own work. 

“That was beautiful just now, you know,” he mused. 

Galvahin nearly fumbled his glaive, his breath stalling as his cape flickered—cobalt swallowed by peach for only a heartbeat. He gripped the hilt tighter, turning slightly. “What?” 

Oriel’s lip twitched. 

“Don’t be so modest.” His voice was light, conversational, but his gaze lingered, lingering like fingertips brushing too close to bare skin. “You were graceful. A predator in motion. It is a pity the wretch perished before it could marvel at its own undoing.” 

The knight knit his brows. “I wasn’t putting on a show.” 

“No,” the archfey conceded, observing the final tendril of blood disappear down the floating river. “But I was watching, and that’s practically the same thing.” 

“Murder is hardly an art, Milord,” Galvahin said, flicking the water from his glaive. The droplets shimmered for a moment before vanishing into nothing. 

“Ah, but that depends entirely on who’s holding the blade,” Oriel purred, tenor smooth as silk. 

The knight frowned. There was something in that remark he found deeply disquieting. Letting the moment settle, he sheathed his glaive before shifting his gunmetal gaze back to Oriel. 

“Will there be another feast today?” he asked hesitantly. 

“Of course.” The prince’s visage brightened, as he’d been waiting for the question. “What kind of host would I be if I let my guest go hungry?” 

The knight almost scoffed, reminiscing the day prior's breakfast banter. “The Fey kind?” 

“Touché,” Oriel giggled, shielding his mouth behind a silken sleeve. 

“Should I assume this will be like last time?” Galvahin’s words slowed, unsure. Nervous. “Just… you and me?” 

“Yes. Only us. But also—no,” murmured the prince, violet eyes glinting. “This one is special.” 

“How so?” 

Oriel stepped forward with unhurried grace, erasing the distance until only a single pace remained between them. He moved with the ease of someone who had never been denied, his presence pressing close, deliberate. When he spoke, his voice was smooth as the river’s current above them. 

“Because tonight, the setting is yours to choose.” Oriel’s gaze dragged over Galvahin. “Shall we dine beneath an endless desert sky? Atop a glacier that sings when the wind moves through it? Or perhaps somewhere darker? Pick well, my knight. I’d hate to think you lack imagination.” 

Galvahin inhaled slowly, only to curse himself for it. Oriel’s scent—tuberose and gardenia, rich and heady—curled around him like a whisper at his throat, clinging to the air, to his thoughts, to him. It was distracting in all the worst and best ways. 

The Feywild offered a thousand places where a man might lose himself, and Oriel, ever the agent of mischief, would delight in watching him stumble into the wrong one. Cliffs that lured travelers to the edge, forests that rearranged their paths, lakes where reflections watched rather than mirrored. No. He needed somewhere open, somewhere honest. 

“I’m waiting,” Oriel drawled, his voice laced with amusement. 

Galvahin tensed, his thoughts slipping—not to forests or mountains, but to the sea. To its vastness, untamed and endless. To the sharp bite of salt in the air, the waves ceaselessly carving the coast only to pull it back into their depths, a rhythm as ancient as time itself. He wasn’t a poet, nor did he pretend to be. But Oriel had woven a world into his question, and Galvahin, despite himself, felt compelled to do the same. 

“The beach,” he said at last, his voice steady despite the unease curling in his chest. “A seaside where the tide takes what it wants.” 

The knight was unsure if he meant the sand or himself. But something in Oriel’s smile told him the prince already knew. 

Notes:

Husk | Men I Trust

Erosion, shadow be thy husk
Go downwards at your behest
Devotion, hard to find
Repay me, in kind

Chapter 10: The Shore

Summary:

A knight, a prince, and a kiss beneath twin moons. Galvahin discovers the true power of Fey trickery: attraction is not a saving throw he can pass.

“'What must I do, to tame you?' asked the little prince.
'You must be very patient,' replied the fox. 'First you will sit down at a little distance from me—like that—in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day…'” 

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

 

“Tell me, my knight.” Oriel’s tenor curled through the glade, soft and measured. “If a door appeared before us, would you be gallant enough to open it?”

And there it was—sudden, seamless, as though it had always been waiting. 

A threshold to nowhere. Or perhaps everywhere. 

Its frame was a tangle of blackened vines, blooming with pale, luminescent flowers that quivered as though responding to some ephemeral breeze. The door itself was a work of art—ink poured into oil, iridescing in bruised hues of violet and teal, reflecting light that did not exist. And at its heart, a handle gleamed, not quite gold, not quite silver, but some nameless metal that held the coruscating colours of every sunset he’d ever seen. 

Galvahin’s stomach coiled with caution, but something in his chest unfurled—some foolish, knightly impulse drawn to the quiet romance of the gesture. A simple, chivalrous thing. A door, waiting to be opened. A prince, waiting to be served.

And yet, even as wariness whispered at the back of his mind, as tendrils of shadow crept up his sleeve, his fingers had already found the handle.

The world lurched, not violently, but like the gentle pull of a tide ebbing beneath his feet. The redolence of wildflowers and damp earth faded away like mist, replaced by the crisp tang of salt and seaweed. 

Galvahin first noticed the light—soft and endless, the sun suspended low on the horizon, caught between rising and setting. Its golden glow stretched across the water, the reflection refracted by slow-moving waves, shifting like molten glass. The tide breathed over the smooth, pearl-dusted shore—but when he lifted his gaze, his breath caught.

The sky was not empty.

Suspended above him, great dark silhouettes glissaded lazily through the air, casting slow-moving shadows across the sand.

Whales.

They hung there, weightless, their enormous bodies shifting with the unhurried grace of creatures forever unfettered by fear. One flicked its massive tail, sending out a ripple through the sky itself, the air warbling in a way that made the knight blench and his doublet blacken. Another rolled onto its side, its pallid underbelly catching the dim glow of the sun before it dove downward—straight into the sea.

It breached into the waves, disappearing beneath the surface, but the water did not swallow it whole. No sooner had it vanished than it ascended again, emerging back into the sky with a rolling, upward fall.

Higher still, a pod of dolphins pirouetted and played, their sleek bodies breaching downward into the sea as though gravity itself had flipped. Yet they never stayed submerged. They always returned, always lifted back into the ether, caught forever between the two realms, their movements punctuated by staccato clicks and high, trilling whistles echoing over the endless shore.

Oriel stood a few paces ahead, his gaze fixed on the horizon. He inhaled deeply, seemingly savouring the salt-tinged air, then glanced over his shoulder with a languorous smile. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Galvahin’s chest tightened.

It was.

And yet, he could not shake the feeling that he was only borrowing this moment, a guest in something far beyond himself.

Oriel’s gaze flicked back to the horizon, but amusement still lingered at the edges of his lips. With a slow, idle wave of his hand, the air between them rippled, like heat bending over desert sand.

It emerged from nothing, a low, three-sided table rising from the ground as if it had always been there. The table’s surface was preternaturally smooth, polished to a mirror’s sheen, reflecting the stretched gold of the sun. The wood—if it was wood at all—burnished with undulating shades, the table’s grain moving like the tide, swirling in slow, mesmerising patterns.

Around it, cushions bloomed from the sand, unfolding like anemones. They were rich in colour—deep blues, silvers, and iridescent purples that shimmered at the edges, their embroidery morphing in slow, animated tessellations. The moment they settled, the sand beneath them smoothed, firming just enough to offer a steady place to sit. 

“Come now, Jackalope.” Oriel turned back to him, violet eyes bright with satisfaction. “You wouldn’t have me dine alone, would you?”

Galvahin swallowed, his fingers flexing at his sides. The pillows looked sumptuous, inviting, a stark contrast to the ever-present wariness heavy in his chest. It was an invitation, yes, but something more.

The knight pressed his glaive into the sand, the weight of it settling before he moved. With steady steps, he approached, lowering himself onto the waiting cushion. The moment he settled, the pillow shifted ever so slightly, as if adjusting to his weight—no more than a breath of movement, but enough that he found himself just a little closer to the prince than he’d meant to be.

His jaw tensed. The shade of his cape flickered—charcoal, then peach, then back to its original cobalt hue. 

But Oriel only smiled, reclining on his own seat with seamless grace, stretching out with the indolent ease of a being born of absolute luxury and effortlessly shaped by it. 

“Much better,” he murmured, tracing a fingertip along the edge of the table.

A soft chime rang out—pellucid, distant, like bells submerged beneath the waves.

And then, the food appeared.

The plates did not fall into place, nor did they appear with any ostentatious flourish. They simply were, as though they had always been there, waiting for the knight’s grey eyes to catch up. A platter of roasted pork, dark and lacquered with caramelised glaze, its scent rich with spice and honeyed warmth. A shallow dish of pale fruit, cool and glistening, a dusting of crushed herbs curling like ash against the porcelain. 

Oriel reached for his goblet, turning it lazily between his fingers before looking at Galvahin. 

“What shall I pour you?” he inquired, his tenor poised between affability and provocation. 

The shore stretched wide, the sky illimitable, the moment too perfect to last.

Galvahin did not know why that discomposed him. 

“Water would be fine, Your Grace.” 

Oriel stilled for half a breath, then let out a hushed, insouciant chuckle. 

“Water?” His lips quirked, as if the word itself amused him. “Really?”

The archfey leaned forward, propping his elbow against the low table, violet eyes coruscating with something just shy of mischief. “You sit at my table, on a shore where even the salt tastes like sugar, under a sky where whales swim as easily as birds—and you choose water?”

He exhaled, shaking his head. “No, no. That simply won’t do. Pick something else.”

Galvahin worried the inside of his cheek with his tongue. This was ridiculous.

And yet, he was already relenting, wasn’t he?

“Water,” said the knight, dry as the shore beneath them. “And…” The moment stilled, gravid and thin as the edge of a whetted dirk. “A whisky, Sire.” 

“Whisky? How intriguing. How bitter.” Oriel tilted his head. “I assumed you only ever surrendered to sweetness.” 

“Sweet tooth or not, I still prefer whisky. I can like both, can’t I?” Galvahin’s digits tensed. He hadn’t meant to sound so defensive. 

Oriel hummed, as if considering the answer, though his smirk intimated foregone satisfaction.

“You can, of course. Though I do wonder—does the preference change with the company?”

He lifted a hand, and the air between them stirred, as if a breeze had passed through without touching the sand. Two glasses coalesced in teal mist before Galvahin—one a simple goblet of clear water, the other a heavy, square-cut glass, golden whisky swirling over a single translucent shard of ice.

“There,” Oriel cooed softly, watching him. “One to cool your head, one to warm your chest. Which will you reach for first?” 

Galvahin’s fingers hovered over the glasses, the space between them narrowing as the moment stretched. A quiet choice, yet it felt heavier than it should.

At last, he reached for the whisky before slowly bringing it to his lips, his stormy grey eyes darting toward the archfey.

Oriel said nothing, did nothing, save for the slight lift of a brow, his smile unmoved, his expression a thing impossible to truly understand.

It was too smooth, too rich, the kind of whisky that belonged in a world far removed from his own. Dark fruit and charred oak, a ribbon of caramel warmth beneath it, and something else—something almost floral, lingering at the edges of his senses.

Galvahin swallowed, the heat blooming through his chest, a decadent conflagration, a perfection that left no room for doubt. 

He set the glass down, his fingers tensing against his knee as he cast the archfey another furtive glance. “You are generous, Sire.”

“Naturally,” Oriel teased, violet eyes skimming to the table-knife beside the pork. His fingers curled around the hilt, lifting it with casual ease—only for Galvahin to stop him. 

A broad hand—rough, deliberate, but unhurried—closed around his delicate wrist. As soon as their skin met, a rivulet of umbra sluiced across the cobalt sleeve, gone almost as quickly as it had come. 

The prince’s skin was ethereal, yielding as if carved from cloudstuff. For a fraction of a second, the knight faltered, his grip light, almost uncertain—perhaps expecting resistance, or reconsidering altogether. 

But Oriel did not pull away. 

So, without a word, but with a fortitude that surprised even him, Galvahin took the knife—not forcefully, not rushed, but with the quiet conviction of a man retrieving something that had always truly belonged to him, yet had somehow slipped from his grasp. 

The blade met the pork, slicing cleanly through the lacquered glaze. The first portion landed on Oriel’s plate. Galvahin did not look at him. 

Some imperceptible ripple wavered in Oriel’s repose. Infinitesimal. But there. 

It was slight—only a heartbeat of hesitation, a pause where there should have been none. His fingers twitched at the loss of the blade, vacancy where possession had once reigned. 

And then, the moment passed. 

“Ah.” A smile curved his lips, almost lazy. “How chivalrous.” 

Galvahin placed a second portion onto his own plate, but his movements had slowed. 

He hesitated—just for a breath—before finally looking up. 

The archfey’s gaze was already waiting for him. Assessing. Delving. Enrapt. 

Galvahin held it, though his syllables nearly faltered upon his tongue. 

“…Naturally.” 

A cryptic oscillation passed through Oriel’s violet eyes—a shadow—gone in an instant, supplanted by a simper that was, perhaps… a second too slow. 

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

A jungle loomed beyond the sand, a verdant sprawl where roots twisted over one another like knotted rope. Towering trees leaned over the shore, their limbs burdened with draping lianas, while orchids clung to the boles in splashes of lurid colour. The distant trill of tropical birds wove through the crush of waves, latticed by the occasional rustle of movement unseen in the underbrush. 

The plates had vanished, leaving only silence. Neither Galvahin nor Oriel spoke. Instead, they sat in stillness, their gazes lifted to the sky, where leviathan forms drifted in slow, ponderous arcs. The whales’ voices vibrated through the air, low and resonant, a song both immense and distant—like wind keening through a hollowed-out world.

Oriel turned toward Galvahin, the breeze stirring his silver hair. “Tell me, my knight—have you ever seen a whale?” His eyes gleamed. “Much less one that flies?”

“Only in storybooks, Sire.” A beat. Then Galvahin let out a slow breath, rubbing calloused fingers over his bristled chin. “Well. That’s not entirely true. I did see one once—when I was a boy.”

“A real one?” Oriel’s violet gaze flickered with interest, his smile deepening. He shifted, resting his forearm on the table as if settling in. “Now, you can’t simply say a thing like that and not elaborate.” 

Galvahin’s brow furrowed, his fingers pressing lightly against the side of his glass. “I must have been eight. Maybe nine.” He let out a slow breath. “My father brought me along on one of his business trips. He was busy—of course—so I spent most of my time with my nanny.”

“One day, she took me to the shoreline. And there it was.” He hesitated, his stormy gaze veering toward the aureate horizon. “A whale. Beached and half-buried in the sand. I don’t know if it was dead before or after it washed up, but…” His fingers flexed against his knee. “It had been there long enough for the birds to claim it.” His voice thinned slightly. “People just stood there. Watching. No one was really doing anything.” A slow exhale, a brush of ebony shadow on his doublet. “I remember feeling… profoundly sad for it.” 

“Ah, yes.” Oriel splayed a palm over his chest, mock solemn. “Nothing like a tale of decay and seagulls to set the mood.” His smirk deepened as he swirled his drink. “I must say, Jackalope, I was expecting something a little less… tragic?” 

Galvahin’s chuckle was quiet, almost thoughtful. “You might change your mind about the story by the time I’m done.” He took a sip of his whisky, then smirked. “I think you’ll enjoy the ending at least.”

“Oh?” The prince arched a silver brow, tilting his head. “Well then, don’t leave me in suspense.” He leaned forward slightly, resting his chin against his palm. “Though, I must admit, I’m struggling to imagine how this turns uplifting.” 

Galvahin laughed, this time a little louder, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t say uplifting—just that you might enjoy it.” 

Oriel’s eyes narrowed with mirth as he sipped his wine, following along. 

“See, after a few days of that whale sitting there…” The knight leaned back, setting his glass on the table. “It had started to… ” He gestured vaguely. “…ripen. The whole town stank of it. People were gagging in the streets, merchants were threatening to leave. It was, to put it mildly, a disaster.” 

“Charming,” chortled the archfey. “Mortals and their little… crises.”

“Glad you’re entertained.” Galvahin exhaled through his nose, amusement still tugging at his lips. “Anyway—the local lord, in all his infinite wisdom, decided to solve the problem the efficient way: by putting his court wizard in charge. And this wizard—well.” He chuckled. “Let’s just say her idea of ‘efficient’ involved a great deal of firepower.”

Oriel blinked once, his goblet poised mid-sip. 

Galvahin paused for effect. “And so, with the entire town watching, the wizard stood before the bloated, rotting corpse and—” he mimicked an explosion with his fingers, “—detonated it.”

The prince aspirated sharply through his nose, lowering his drink just enough to keep from choking. 

Galvahin’s smirk widened. “Chunks of rotten whale everywhere. In the streets. On the roofs. Coating the marketplace. People were screaming. The smell? Worse. So much worse.”

“The lord was nearly drowned in official complaints. The wizard was banned from ever using evocation magic within town limits. And the town square?” He exhaled, shaking his head. “I heard it smelled like putrified blubber for months.”

Oriel laughed, loud and unrestrained. “Mortals,” he mused. “Give them magic, and they wield it like a club.” 

“Oh, of course,” Galvahin drawled, arching a brow. “Because every mortal mage is a reckless pyromancer.” He took another sip of whisky, setting the glass down with a quiet clink. “What of druids, then? If anyone understands magic as something beyond a tool, it’s them. And if I recall, the fey have always had a hand in shaping their traditions.” 

“Druids?” Oriel chuckled, low and incredulous. “Oh, Jackalope, be serious.” He reclined slightly, draping an arm over the table’s edge. “They think themselves stewards of nature, but really, they just scurry about in it—like children fussing over pebbles in the dirt.” He clicked his tongue, tone wavering somewhere between levity and condescension. “Druids speak of balance and harmony, yet half of them transform into wolves and solve their problems with their teeth.” The archfey almost scoffed. “Subtle.”

“Right.” Galvahin arched a brow. “Because the fey have such a measured and reasonable approach to nature.” He tapped a digit idly against the table. “Tell me, when was the last time one of your kind did anything subtle?”

Oriel leaned forward and let his fingers drift over the knight’s hand, a whisper of warmth against the rougher texture of the knight’s skin. The touch was fleeting, yet light enough to be deliberate, a mere whisper of almost imperceptible pressure. But Galvahin’s body noticed—his breath stammered, the hairs on his arm rose. A shimmer of peach tinged his sleeve, brief, barely there, but revealing all the same. 

“Right now.” The prince’s voice was effortless, mellifluous as crushed velvet.

Galvahin’s world contracted to the nexus of sensation. It was nothing. Had to be nothing. Just the barest brush of skin—too casual, too effortless to matter. 

And yet, it did. 

Stillness gripped him first, an instant of hesitation before his body caught up. Then he pulled away—not hurried, not sharp, but deliberate, as though any quicker might betray him. His fingers found his whisky, curling stiff around the glass.

“F-fair point.” The words came out uneven, and he hated it. Galvahin turned his head away from the archfey as he took a slow sip. The scald in his throat was an anchorage, but it did nothing to slow his pulse. 

Oriel was silent at first, save for an exhale—not disappointed, not triumphant, but somewhere in between. 

He shifted his violet gaze toward the sea, his voice settling into a rich, indulgent drawl.

“Don’t look away now, Jackalope. You’ll want to see this.”

Galvahin hesitated, but turned his head, his stormy gaze following the prince’s.

The sun, once a fixed sentinel over the endless horizon, had not moved—until this moment. Now it started its descent, its last breath of light gilding the waves and transforming them into rolling folds of copper and rose. The sky and sea merged, reflecting one another in flawless, unbroken symmetry.

Then, a shift. A tremulous pulse at the edge of the world.

The aurum waned. The carmine burgeoned.

And then—the green came.

Not a brief flash, not a passing illusion—a viridescent specter. A glow that held, stretching across the water’s edge like paint staining a canvas in slow motion. It was neither warm nor cool, but another thing entirely, enfolding itself around the air, around the sand—around them.

Galvahin’s breath slowed. 

“It doesn’t fade,” he murmured.

“No,” came Oriel’s voice, gentle as the zephyrs. “It never does.”

Above them, the twilight deepened, a vast expanse of porfýrachrome effulgence stretching across the sky. Diaphanous filigrees of stardust bled across it, eddying in slow patterns, their glow pulsing like the gasp of an invisible god. Constellations shimmered, fixed yet vibrant, their edges traced in silver blaze. The sky did not darken; it only grew richer, cascading over the firmament like a gossamer veil of fire and wine.

The awareness came first, caressing at the liminal cusp of Galvahin’s consciousness before he turned. Oriel’s gaze was, of course, already there—steady, enigmatic, the kind of attention that pressed without demanding. It should have unnerved him, and in some ways, it did. But what unsettled him more was the quiet, reluctant part of himself that did not mind it at all.

Something passed between them—silent, intangible. Galvahin sensed it before he could name it, before the faint pull of a smile touched his lips. It wasn’t pointed or wry, nor anything easily defined. Just a brief, unguarded softness, slipping through the cracks of his thoughts before he even knew to catch it. 

When Oriel’s head tilted, his silver hair caught the light, flickering to platinum and jade in the virid glow. There was something in his violet eyes—sharp, glinting, almost playful—like a fox outwitting a hound. 

“I wonder,” he mused, the words unfurling with indolent reverie, “if you’ve forgotten what binds us.”

Galvahin nearly scoffed under his breath. 

Forgotten? Not in this lifetime. 

“Never, Sire,” he said flatly.

“Good, good,” hummed the archfey. “Then tell me—what have you brought me this fine evening?” 

The clasp of his satchel gave way with a soft click, the silver buckles reflecting a shimmer of green light. Galvahin’s fingers curled around the edges of the leather as he lifted the flap, careful not to rush. The satchel, like so many things in this moment, was a gift—pragmatic, elegant, a contradiction wrapped in silk lining. He had worn it at his hip since Oriel had bestowed it upon him that morning, but only now did he pause to consider how naturally it had already become part of him. 

His fingers moved without thought, brushing past the eclipsing flute and a few pieces of parchment. He found the folded handkerchief by touch alone—soft linen, its edges embroidered with a simple motif of ivy. Drawing it out, he unfolded it carefully, revealing its contents: the silver-sheen berries, round and gleaming, resting beside the carefully plucked poppies, their teal and violet petals as vibrant as they had been that afternoon. 

For a moment, he simply looked at them. The accord made the nature of gifts clear, but some things felt less like offerings and more like… provisions. A kindness extended without pretense. But Galvahin had already learned. 

Even if he couldn’t discern it, nothing in this realm was ever truly without meaning.

Oriel took his time. He traced the handkerchief’s embroidery with idle appreciation before plucking two poppies—one teal, one violet. He held them delicately in his palm, turning them so their petals caught the light, their shades veering between shadow and glow.

“I do appreciate a thoughtful composition,” he murmured, brushing a fingertip along the curve of a petal. “Teal and violet—what impeccable taste.” 

He let the silence stretch for a moment before glancing at Galvahin, curiosity sharpening the edges of his tone. “Whose hands plucked these, I wonder? A stranger with an artist’s eye… or someone who knows exactly what pleases me?”

For a heartbeat, the knight could only stare.

The prince’s praise had been delivered with casual indulgence, yet it landed with the force of a lance to his chest. 

Teal and violet—what impeccable taste—someone who knows exactly what pleases me; Oriel’s approval reverberated through his marrow like a struck lyre’s trembling glissando—resonant, as though every part of him sang in tune. 

He had chosen them.

It was Galvahin who had spent those long moments appraising each bloom, ensuring they were flawless, their colours rich and unmarred. He had picked them with care, tucked them safely away as though they were some sacred offering, all while telling himself it was nothing—just a simple token, part of an unspoken ritual, a mere courtesy to Fey sensibilities.

And yet… hearing Oriel admire them now, something baffling in his chest wanted to preen. He liked them. His colours, the shades of his magic, his eyes—Galvahin had chosen well. The prince was pleased.

That realisation should have bolstered him. Instead, heat licked at his throat.

How did I not think of this sooner?

It wasn’t just an offering, was it? Not merely a bundle of stems and petals to be regarded with passing interest. In the Material Realm, a bouquet carried meaning—intent—an unspoken language of affection, of care, of… interest. 

And here he was, presenting a collection of perfectly selected florals in the prince’s own favoured hues like a moonstruck whelp trying to court a Fey lord.

Had he unwittingly crafted a romantic gesture?

A tincture of panic threatened to rise, but he smothered it swiftly. No… no. It wasn’t that at all. It couldn’t be. He wasn’t some lovesick fool fumbling his way through clumsy overtures. It was a practical matter—a thoughtful touch, perhaps, but nothing more.

Regardless, he should clarify before Oriel made his own assumptions.

Galvahin swallowed, coaxing hydration into his throat before speaking, his brassy voice softer than usual, careful. 

“They aren’t meant as… that is, I gathered them for braiding.” He lifted a hand, fingers brushing lightly behind his ear where Thelanna’s handiwork remained. The tiny braids, nearly imperceptible in the dark sweep of his hair, still held their dainty blue blossoms, entwined with meticulous artistry. “Thelanna gave me these earlier today. She taught me how.”

A distraction. An explanation. A means of steering the conversation away from whatever nonsense his mind had conjured.

Oriel watched him with an idle smile, lazily twirling the poppies betwixt his fingers. For the briefest moment, a shadow flickered in his half-lidded, violet eyes.

“How charming,” he murmured. “My knight, learning the art of adornment.” His lips curled, leisurely and affable. “Tell me—whose hair have you practised on?”

There was no accusation in the words, only curiosity, yet Galvahin found himself hesitating.

He wasn’t sure why.

The answer was simple. Truthful. But something about Oriel’s question, the way it lingered, deliberate, made his thoughts lurch in unexpected directions. Was this a trap of conversation, another game where he was meant to tiptoe over double meanings?

Still, what use was hesitation? He had nothing to hide.

“… Penthesia,” he admitted.

A beat of silence.

Then, laughter—full, rich, delighted.

Oriel tipped his head back, his silver hair catching the virid light, mirth crashing through him like waves breaking against the shore. 

“Penthesia?” he echoed, as though he could scarcely believe it. “You—you braided her hair?”

Galvahin stiffened, unsure whether to be defensive or mortified, but Oriel was already shaking his head, his laughter tumbling unchecked.

“Oh, Jackalope,” he sighed between chuckles, violet eyes gleaming. “You truly are an endless source of entertainment.”

The laughter had scarcely faded when Oriel shifted, tilting his head as if considering something. Then, wordlessly, he adjusted his cushion, the movement small but deliberate, drawing him imperceptibly closer.

The knight stilled.

A glimmer of argent filament caught his eye—a sleek strand slipping forward, gleaming in the ambient light. Oriel held it deftly between his fingers and, with the kind of listless opulence that spoke of eons of control, he extended it toward Galvahin.

Not over his shoulder. Not facing away.

Directly.

This wasn’t how he’d learned. The memories of hair-braiding before this moment had involved distance—Thelanna’s gentle laughter above him, Penthesia seated, head turned slightly aside. Even in the act of braiding another’s hair, there had been an unspoken boundary, a division between the hands and the face.

Now?

Now, Oriel was looking at him, presenting his hair as though daring him to take it.

“Not nervous, are you?” The prince’s voice was satin-draped steel, his smirk light but teasing. “Or have I at last found a task too daunting for my valiant knight?”

Galvahin set his jaw, reaching forward before he could think better of it. “No, Milord.”

His fingers found silver, the strands slipping through like spun silk—lighter than air, softer than anything he had a right to touch. His pulse cantered. 

Oriel’s simper deepened.

The first braid began well enough.

Galvahin’s hands moved with careful certainty, fingers threading through silver strands that slipped between them like water over polished stone. Oriel’s hair was soft—too soft, finer than Penthesia’s, light enough that it hardly seemed to hold weight. It whispered over his knuckles as he gathered each section, its smoothness betraying how easily it could slip free.

Still, he took his time. The poppies nestled into the folds, their jewel-bright petals stark against the pale gleam of Oriel’s tresses. He wove them deliberately, wrapping each stem snugly between the strands, just as Thelanna had taught him.

It wasn’t perfect—but it was workable.

Then—Oriel shifted.

Infinitesimally. Scarcely noticeable. But it was enough to disrupt Galvahin’s rhythm.

The next twist was too tight, the strands bunching unevenly. He loosened his grip—too much. The following fold sagged, the tension fraying like an unspooled skein. A poppy toppled askance, its stem barely holding, the petals crumpling against the twist of silver.

He clenched his jaw. Fix it.

But suddenly, his hands weren’t listening.

The careful braid began to warp before his eyes, the symmetry breaking apart. One section twisted too high, another pulled too low, the strands interweaving in errant discord. He endeavoured to smooth them, to correct the angles, but it only made it worse.

The pattern he had built was coming undone, dissolving into entropy.

This was wrong.

Wrong.

His fingers had woven clean, sharp braids before. Penthesia’s had been precise, the sections sleek, the flowers set in place like they had always belonged there. But this—this was a disaster.

It looked terrible. 

Charitably, he could call it an unseemly tragedy, but in actuality, it was a humiliating insolence. 

Ignominy ignited beneath his dermis, rising hot along the back of his neck and burning its way into his ears. He could see the shift in his sleeves, the cobalt fabric telling the story as it bled from peach to an oozing, suffocating black. How much he furtively looked forward to this moment, a chance to impress—and now all he wished for was to disappear entirely. 

How could he have allowed himself to fail at something so trivial? His hands knew the weight of a glaive, the mechanics of a crossbow, the precision of dressing a wound—yet here he was, clumsy and useless over something as simple as a braid. 

Oriel was watching.

Galvahin’s pulse escalated into a tempest. He could feel the weight of those violet eyes on him, studying the trembling in his hands, seeing how bumbling, how unskilled—how unworthy—

His breath caught.

Then—warmth.

A soft press over his knuckles.

Galvahin froze.

Oriel’s hands rested lightly over his own. Not guiding. Not stopping. Just… there. A counterweight, steadying, anchoring.

Galvahin’s fingers stilled beneath the touch, the tight coil in his chest loosening—not completely, but enough.

The prince’s fingers curled ever so slightly.

A pause. A heartbeat.

A moment for the air to settle between them.

Galvahin inhaled, deep and slow, only then realising how shallow his breaths had become.

When he finally lifted his gaze, expecting some sharp remark, some smug amusement at his failure, he found neither.

Oriel was watching him, yes. But there was no mockery. Only patience.

“You’re thinking too much,” the prince murmured, his voice a thread pulled between them, warm as candlelight.

And then, as if nothing had happened at all, Oriel withdrew.

His touch had gone, and yet it still lingered, a brand without fire, an ache absent of pain.

Galvahin undid the braid with careful, practised motions, forcing his hands to steady even as his stomach twisted.

It was a ridiculous thing to care about. A braid. Nothing more.

And yet, Oriel had seen his failure.

That was unacceptable.

His second attempt was faster. Tighter. He wove the silver strands with a soldier’s discipline, binding them as though securing a piece of armour. There would be no softness this time, no clumsy hesitation.

By the time he finished, his fingers had begun to tremble. He ignored it.

He did not ask for Oriel’s opinion. He did not need it.

But still… he listened.

For a hum of approval. For the lightest exhale of amusement. For anything.

Oriel did not grant it.

Galvahin clenched his jaw, his knuckles whitening against his knee.

Then, finally—

“Better,” Oriel murmured, his voice unreadable.

Better. Only better.

Galvahin pressed his tongue against his teeth, trying—failing—to keep the question locked in his throat.

But it raked its escape out anyway.

“What’s wrong with it?”

He didn’t look at Oriel when he said it. Couldn’t.

“Nothing,” the archfey mused. “It’s perfect.”

Galvahin’s shoulders tensed. He shot the prince a hesitant glance. 

“Then why—”

“Tell me, my knight—does better always mean perfect?” Oriel’s lips curved, gaze heavy. “And does perfect always mean better?”

Galvahin’s mouth twitched. Of course, you would say that.

Only a creature like Oriel—untouched by failure, by inadequacy—would ever question whether perfection was truly better. For him, there was no effort. No striving. He existed in a world where luxury and power bent to his whims, where flawlessness required no sacrifice.

Galvahin had never—could never—know that kind of ease.

His throat tightened, but outwardly, he hesitated just long enough to make his uncertainty look deliberate. Thoughtful.

He inhaled—once, carefully. Then, slowly, he said, “That depends. What do you mean by perfect?”

Oriel let out a quiet hum, fingers tracing along the plait as if considering its merit.

“Perfection rarely holds my interest.” He glanced at Galvahin, his smile deepening just so. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

What could that possibly mean?

Galvahin warred against the impulse to waver under Oriel’s gaze. He gave a small, almost humourless chuckle.

“I’d ask if that was a compliment, Sire, but I doubt you’d give me a straight answer.” 

Oriel hummed again, the sound rich and blithe. “Oh, my knight. That was most certainly a compliment. You should savour it.”

Galvahin exhaled, pressing his tongue against the bastion of his molars before responding. “Forgive me if I find that difficult.” 

Oriel let out an exaggerated sigh. “Will I always have to pry the smallest joys from you?”

Galvahin didn’t answer. Instead, he palmed his whisky, bringing it to his lips with the same steady ease he brought to his glaive. The sip was weighted with contemplation—or at least feigned to look that way. He let the burn settle before setting the glass down, the quiet clink punctuating the motion. 

For a moment, neither of them spoke. The space between them remained poised, balanced on some unseen edge, a conversation unfinished but unwilling to move forward.

Then, lazily, as if the thought had only just occurred to him, Oriel’s fingers drifted toward the handkerchief-wrapped bundle on the table. Once more, his touch skimmed the fabric, lingering at the edge before lifting a single, silver-sheen berry, turning it in his hand like one might inspect a pearl. His violet eyes flickered, something akin to quiet mirth.

“A gift of fruit,” he mused. “Who gave you these?”

Galvahin hesitated only for a breath before answering. 

“Astor gave them to me,” he said. His voice was steady—though his stormy gaze wavered, just slightly.

The knight glanced at the berries again, gleaming like drops of mercury in the dim light. It had seemed like nothing at the time—a small kindness, freely given. But now, under the archfey’s violet eyes, even that minuscule gesture felt weighty. 

Oriel was quiet for a long moment, studying the berry, the gleam of its skin. 

“Astor,” he echoed, slowly turning it between his fingers. “They do have an eye for things worth savouring.”

Then, with no change in expression, no excess flourish, he lifted the berry and held it just before Galvahin’s lips.

“Taste it for me.”

His words were quiet, low—closer now, the space between them drawn tighter. The berry’s aroma—sweet, with a teasing bite of citrus—swirled in Galvahin’s breath, lost in the drifting floral haze that lingered against the prince’s pulse. And then, just slightly, Oriel’s fingers grazed his chin, the cool press of his touch brushing against the coarse scruff of the knight’s beard.

Galvahin tensed, his body locking into stillness when the berry had neared his lips. He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Then—his mouth parted, and before he even had time to register the act, the berry was on his tongue.

And with it, the ghost of Oriel’s touch.

Just barely there. Just enough to feel it.

The taste was rich—ripe, syrupy, with a sharp citrus bite that made his pulse stumble. He swallowed, but Oriel didn’t move, didn’t pull his hand back right away. He was watching again, that same quiet, lingering scrutiny.

And then, just before he withdrew, his fingertip dragged—intentionally, unmistakably—along the curve of Galvahin’s lower lip. A fleeting touch, but it seared through him like a spark on dry parchment, leaving a bright bloom of flushed magenta across his collar—an unbidden, sordid confession stitched in colour. 

“Sweet, isn’t it?” Oriel tilted his head, smiling faintly. 

Of course, it was sweet. 

But sweetness was not what lingered. 

No, it was the feeling of something pilfered—given—before the knight even realised it. Worse, something he had wanted to offer. 

The memory of Oriel’s touch lingered, phantom warmth refusing to fade. Heat trailed down his spine, pooling low, unwelcome yet impossible to ignore.

He wanted to blame the whisky. The Fey magic. Anything but the truth—that Oriel had made this into something felt. And Galvahin had felt it. More than he should have. More than his contrition would allow him to. The simmer prickling his skin, the way his breath stuttered, the traitorous shiver in his fingers—it was shameful how much he basked in the shadow of that touch, how much he yearned for it.

“It… It is, Sire.” His brassy voice faltered, soft and unsteady.

Oriel’s gaze flicked to the bundle of fruit, then back to Galvahin. “Will you feed me one?”

The question caught the knight off guard—not in its boldness, but in how effortlessly it slid between them, making any potential protest feel pointless.

Galvahin opened his mouth—perhaps to argue, to deflect—but the words never came. Instead, he swallowed, pulse kicking against his ribs—then, wordlessly… he nodded.

His fingers twitched as he reached for the fruit. He hated how much he hesitated—hated that something so simple could be turned into something else entirely. A trivial thing, an offering of fruit. But of course, it wasn’t.

The berry was cool, smooth against his fingertips. Lighter than it should have been. And yet, somehow, it pressed against his skin as if it held the weight of a mountain.

The knight’s throat tightened.

Slowly, he lifted it.

The motion should have been effortless. Instead, it felt like a gauntlet.

Oriel tilted his head, watching. Waiting.

Galvahin should have just done it—should have ended this before it unravelled into something he couldn’t take back. But before he could move, before he could even steel himself, Oriel leaned in—just slightly, just enough for the knight to feel the whisper of respiration against his knuckles.

Just enough to force his own breath to catch.

His fingers almost faltered.

The moment stretched, delicate and treacherous.

Then—

“Don’t overthink it, Jackalope.” Oriel’s voice was soft, warm as honey. “You’ll spoil it.” 

Galvahin focused on the fruit—not on the lips that awaited it, not on the way the archfey’s violet eyes glimmered like an animal awaiting its prey.

The berry brushed against Oriel’s vermilion cusp, but the prince didn’t take it immediately. Instead, he lingered—just for a heartbeat—allowing the moment to pull, to tremble, to tighten. Then, lips barely parting, he accepted it, slow and unhurried, and Galvahin felt it—

A scintilla of warmth, of something soft and damp against his fingertip.

A tongue.

Heat shot through him like a fulmination of electrified delirium. His respiration arrested—razor-edged in its inertia—his sleeve flaring magenta, the colour blooming across the fabric like blood in water.

The knight narrowly swallowed a curse.

His teeth clamped down on his lower lip, as if he could bite back the reaction, as if the sting might tether him to something solid. But the colour only deepened, betraying him.

Oriel took his time chewing, his expression unreadable—pleasant, almost idle—but impossibly lovely. Silver hair kissed by the twilight glow, the gentle gleam of his lips, the effortless, poised grace that made him seem less like a man and more like an eidolon hewn from moonlight and myth.

Beautiful.

Dangerous.

Something ancient stirred behind that gaze, something older than kingdoms, and Galvahin burned beneath it. He wanted to look away. He couldn’t.

His fingers tightened into a trembling fist against his thigh, desperate to snuff out the sensation still tingling in his skin.

Oriel exhaled a slow, almost indulgent breath.

“Just as I thought,” he mused. “…Sweet.”

Galvahin turned from him, pulse hammering against his chest, against his throat, against the fragile barrier of his restraint. 

He needed to move, to do something before he drowned beneath the gravitas of this moment, of the way the prince was still watching him.

With a sibilant inhalation, he leaned over, delving toward his satchel with a little more force than necessary. Leather creaked beneath his grip as the knight rummaged with frenetic intent, hands searching for anything that would cut through the haze in his head.

A scrap of parchment brushed his fingertips.

He latched onto it like a lifeline.

“I—” He cleared his throat, grasping at the words before they could slip through his fingers. “I was given something else today.”

Oriel made a soft sound—something between intrigue and levity—but said nothing, letting Galvahin flounder.

He pulled the parchment free, unfolding it with metronomic precision. The ink was a little smudged, the corners slightly crimped. Tucking it away earlier, he thought little of it at the time, but now it felt… different.

He glanced at the words, at the lopsided scrawl of Flint’s handwriting.

“A limerick,” he admitted. “From Flint.”

The prince’s eyes glimmered, intrigued. “Oh, this should be good.”

Galvahin exhaled through his nose, ignoring the residual heat in his cheeks. The poem was absurd, nonsensical, barely worth repeating. But right now, it was better than the silence.

And so, he read.

The knight cleared his throat, smoothing the parchment before beginning—only for Oriel to start giggling once he read the second line.

It was soft at first, just the faintest shake of his shoulders, a suppressed mirth that he made no real effort to hide. Galvahin ignored him and pressed on.

By the third line, the archfey’s laughter grew, bubbling over in an unmistakable carillon of gaiety. His fingers brushed his lips as if to stifle it, but it was pointless. He was beaming, bright and unrestrained.

Galvahin hesitated, his lips pressing together. What was so funny?

Then, as if spurred by some sudden thought, Oriel sat up straighter, his violet eyes capering with mischief.

“Wait, wait, pause,” he gasped between breaths.

Galvahin shot the prince a nervous glance. 

Oriel’s grin was all pleasure, all satisfaction, like a bard who just found the perfect melody. 

“Jackalope,” he drawled, “can you do a handstand?”

The knight stilled.

He looked down at the parchment. Then back at Oriel. “What?”

“A handstand,” the prince repeated, his tone innocent like a lamb—as though he hadn’t just tactlessly cut Galvahin off with a ridiculous non sequitur. “Upside down. Legs in the air. That sort of thing.”

“I know what a handstand is, Sire.”

Oriel hummed as if considering that. “Do you? I’d hate to assume your talents.”

Galvahin simply stared. His mind was still teetering, still trying to make sense of the fatuity of the moment.

“You… want me to do a handstand?”

“And if I do?” Oriel’s voice was lazy, amused, as if he’d asked something as ordinary as whether the knight preferred cookies or cake.

“That—” Galvahin hesitated, fingers curling around the parchment. “I don’t… Why?”

“Why not?” he countered, violet eyes glinting.

Galvahin’s brow corrugated. A panoply of rational objections flooded his mind; impropriety, awkwardness, the sheer lunacy of it, his pride, the very real possibility—no, certainty —of making a fool of himself. Yet here, on this strange and boundless shore, suffused in its verdant gloam, with Oriel watching him like a riddle waiting to be solved… none of them seemed to matter.

Would it be so bad to play the fool… just this once? 

Galvahin didn’t answer himself right away. Instead, he exhaled slowly, folding the parchment with careful exactitude before setting it on the table. After a brief hesitation, he reached for his satchel, fingers resting against the buckle as though reconsidering. Then, with a quiet click, he unfastened it, setting it next to the parchment. The prince watched him, expectant, amused—already relishing whatever spectacle he assumed would come next.

The knight rose in a single motion, his weight pressing deep into the cushion and sand before shifting free. He took a few steps away from the table, rolling his shoulders as if shaking off the weight of hesitation.

Then, with neither word nor warning—he bent over.

His hands found the ground, fingers pressing firm into pearl-white grains. The earth compacted beneath his weight, yielding where it had no choice but refusing to scatter. And, with effortless momentum, he lifted—legs sweeping straight overhead, stalwart frame upended with near absolute control.

For a man of his size, the motion should have looked unwieldy. Unbalanced. And yet—

He held.

The breath between movements stretched, the sand a cool presence against his head and palms, the crash of the sea steady at his side. In the sky, nebulae smouldered in the ebon canopy, silver fire threading through the dark like cinders caught in slow descent.

And beyond, the horizon had rearranged itself.

It was like floating just beneath the surface of the sea. The cetaceans erstwhile adrift above now swam below, their forms meandering in the endless expanse of an upturned celestial ocean. Dolphins breached into the waves, disappearing briefly only to crest again in the air with playful ease, while a whale’s flipper sculpted a slow undulation through the sky itself, distorting the stars in liquid bends of light.

For now, the inversion felt seamless, like this was how the world had always been—where sky and sea were flipped, where the rules of gravity bent to whim rather than law.

And through it all, Oriel watched him. Grinning. Smug. Upside down.

Galvahin met that grin and arched a brow.

And, perhaps just to prove a point, he stayed there.

The prince took his time retrieving the parchment, brushing an errant grain of sand from its edge with an absent flick of his fingers.

Then, with deliberate nonchalance, he strolled over to where the knight still held himself steady, broad frame inverted yet unshaken. Crouching smoothly, he propped an elbow against his knee, violet eyes glinting with an insufferable simper.

“Well,” he drawled, turning the parchment idly between his fingers. “It seems you were rudely interrupted.” He tilted his head, considering. “Shall we begin again?”

With a slow flourish, he rotated the limerick upside down and presented it before Galvahin’s capsized view.

“Go on,” he purred, tapping a single, teal-polished finger against the paper’s edge. “Start from the top.”

Galvahin gave the parchment a flat, unimpressed look before relenting with a steady breath.

“Fair Filgor, a faerie lad beaut,
A poet, quite fond of his flute—”

He could already hear it. The shift in Oriel’s breathing. The telltale anticipation coiled at the edge of mischief.

“He played with a friend,
From dusk till day end,
And much to his sorrow, spoil’d his new suit.”

The moment stretched.

Then—predictably—Oriel’s smirk deepened.

Galvahin closed his eyes briefly, his jaw tightening. He inhaled through his nose, measured and deliberate, weighing every possible reaction before settling on the inevitable.

His grey eyes flicked back to the prince.

“Was there,” he intoned, brassy voice flat, “a purpose to this?”

Oriel stared at him for a heartbeat—then guffawed, the force of it shaking his chest. He practically doubled over, one hand braced against his knee as the other fanned dramatically at his face.

“You can’t be serious,” he wheezed, violet eyes shining with wicked glee. “You truly haven’t figured it out?” He leaned in slightly, his smirk sharpening. “I thought, perhaps, the rush of blood to your head might jog something loose.”

Galvahin huffed, voice tight. “It’s a limerick, Your Grace. They’re meant to be ridiculous.”

“Oh, of course, of course,” Oriel nodded sagely. “Sheer nonsense, wholly devoid of anything deeper to… grip onto.” He sighed dramatically. “But oh, you must admit, poor Filgor’s plight is absolutely tragic.”

The knight knit his brows. “I fail to see how—”

“Despoiling one’s attire in so lamentable a fashion.” Oriel tutted, shaking his head. “And after such a thorough, climactic performance.”

Galvahin’s grey eyes narrowed. “I—”

“To be fair,” the prince continued, as if thoughtfully weighing the matter, “flutes do require a certain finesse. The breath control, the finger work—”

The knight’s lips parted, but what came out was neither word nor sense—just a low, incredulous breath. 

Oriel leaned in just slightly, voice dipping into something terribly conspiratorial. “And of course, there’s the matter of spoilage.” His smirk widened. “I wonder—what exactly do you think ruined Filgor’s suit, hmm?”

Galvahin’s eye twitched. 

“…Ink?” he asked hesitantly. “From writing lyrics?” 

“Oh, yes. Ink…” The archfey’s lashes lowered. “Is that your final answer?”

The knight’s lips pressed firmly shut. His brain lagged behind the words, like a cavalier clenching the reigns of a spooked destrier—just before it bolts.

He blinked.

Then blinked again.

Then—

His stomach lurched—up? Down? Inverted horror was a new experience. 

The full force of epiphany crashed into him like a cartwheel gone wrong—which was fitting, because that was practically what happened next.

His arms jerked—whether in shock or sheer, physical rejection of reality, it was unclear—but either way, his equilibrium vanished.

Galvahin toppled into the sand with the graceless grandeur of a sundered colossus, his back hitting first, then his limbs scattering in an inelegant heap. The impact drove the air from his chest in a sharp, undignified gasp.

Oriel folded, laughter wracking through him, utterly merciless.

The knight lay there, staring up at the starry sky, his lungs straining to drag in air that had so unceremoniously been knocked from him. His doublet flared peach and crimson before blotches of black seeped at the edges, like mould on bright fruit. 

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

Flint… The satyr’s cheeky, winking, tongue-out grin burned in his mind’s eye. I might just have to kill him.

Galvahin had actually believed—gods help him—that a gift from Flint of all people might save him from impropriety. As if a single moment in the satyr’s company hadn’t already proven him a menace.

Still supinated haplessly in the sand, the knight pinched his nose as a low, pained groan escaped his throat. He refused to look at Oriel, refused to bear witness to whatever pompous expression had no doubt been carved onto the archfey’s infuriatingly flawless face.

A shift—subtle, assiduous. The sand gave way beside him, the weight of another body pressing into it, stirring granules against his sleeve. Oriel had eased down onto his elbow, reclining with sedate grace. His laughter had dulcified now, tapering into the afterglow of mirth.

Between the knight and the sea, the prince settled in.

“Oh, Jackalope.” His voice was light, breathless from laughter. “I think Flint’s poem might be my favourite gift yet.” Then—almost idly, as if the correction had only just occurred to him—he hummed, “No—” The word was lighter, softer. “No, I suppose it would be my second favourite.” 

Something in the way Oriel said it made Galvahin’s chest tighten, a flicker of realisation catching at the edges of his thoughts. 

Oh. 

His breath snagged—just slightly. He almost turned to look at Oriel, almost acknowledged the weight in those words. 

Almost.

But no. No, he was imagining things. Reading into something that wasn’t there.

The knight exhaled slowly, fixing his sidelong gaze on the endless horizon, determined not to acknowledge how near Oriel had drawn. The tide ebbed in its metered rhythm, an easy, endless thelassic respiration. He tried to match it, to let the quiet wash over him.

“You suit this place,” Oriel murmured, tone softer now, as if the thought had simply unwound itself rather than been spoken. “Or perhaps it suits you.” 

Galvahin’s fingers gnarled against the sand, the words sliding too easily under his skin. He turned his head, but he did not answer.

A pause—unrushed, expectant.

Then:

“Your eyes…” Oriel’s voice turned pensive. “They don’t retain their colour here, do they?”

Galvahin’s gaze flickered—against his better judgment—toward the prince. Oriel had turned his head, just slightly, watching.

“That grey—it takes on whatever it touches,” Oriel mused, not quite smiling. “Green when the tide glows. Gold when the sunlight fades. Like the sky, like the sea—like something meant to reflect the world instead of simply seeing it.” 

A slow beat. A breath caught between them.

Then, with the quiet ease of something incontrovertible—

“No… no. You’ve always been beautiful.” 

Galvahin’s throat bobbed, his breath slow, measured. His lips pressed together, a rigid line that wavered before giving way, corners downturned, his brows knitting into something too subtle for sorrow, yet too raw for dismissal.

He shifted, rolling onto his side, his back to the prince, to the sea. The movement was careful, deliberate, but the way his frame curled inward, the slight bend of his knee, the slow pull of his arm toward his chest—it spoke of distance. Not rejection, not quite. But something close. Something like retreat. His doublet mirrored the shift, its rich cobalt hue draining into slate grey, then black, like a lantern snuffed in the dark.

Oriel’s compliment lingered, unshaken, like the briny residue of the sea foam clinging stubbornly to the shore. 

“Please…” An exhale shuddered through the knight, unsteady, frayed at the edges. “Don’t… Don’t be cruel to me.”

Beautiful. 

The syllables pressed against his ribs, insidious in their weight, sinking somewhere beneath his breastbone like a stone swallowed whole.

No… no, not me. 

His eyes were grey. 

Grey.

Not green. 

Not gold.

Not violet.

Not the kind of colour that belonged to beautiful things. 

His eyes merely gleaned beauty, reflected it like a mirror, catching the resplendence of the world around him but never holding it. It was an illusion, a trick of the light—nothing more.

And Oriel—oh, Oriel knew beauty. 

Lived within it. 

Embodied it.

Was it in a way so effortless, so untouchable, that to hear the same word pass his lips in reference to Galvahin felt obscene. 

False charity, a kindness meant to amuse. 

A jest at his expense.

Because what else could it be?

It wasn’t like when the voyeur pixies had called him beautiful, their words meaningless beyond the moment. And it wasn’t like when Oriel had called him handsome, his tone syrupy and sharp, meant only to unnerve. Even when the archfey had called his name or fighting beautiful, it had been something separate from him, something he could distance himself from.

But this—this had no edges, no wryness to soften it.

It was given plainly. As if it were fact.

Perhaps that was what stung the most. Not the word itself, but the implication that Oriel—magnificent, radiant, with his impossible grace and faultless skin—would even think to cast such a pitiable thing in his direction.

Galvahin swallowed against the tightness in his throat, his body tensing against itself. 

Don’t be cruel to me. 

Cruelty doesn’t always wear teeth. Sometimes, it sounds like something soft, something that almost feels like kindness. And, truthfully, that’s the worst kind of cruelty of all.

For a moment, silence pooled. 

Galvahin lay still, angled away, his breath even but tight, like someone waiting for a wound to settle into pain. The jungle before him loomed dark and close, thick with unseen shapes and sounds, but it was nothing compared to the presence at his back—the warmth of a body that had not left, the hush of someone thinking.

Oriel did not speak right away.

For once, there was no teasing, no indolent ribaldry needling at the edges of the quiet. Just a stillness that was—considering.

And then—

A shift. A breath.

A hand, light and deliberate, settling over his shoulder.

It wasn’t demanding. Not a claim, not a command—just a presence. A point of contact, resting over fabric gone dark as the deep sea.

Galvahin shuddered. He did not turn.

He only listened.

Oriel’s voice, when it came, was different now—softer, unembellished. Like sharing a secret through a partition, as if he were standing on the other side of a door.

“Galvahin, I…” he whispered. “I would never.”

A pause—thin, fragile, deliberate. Then, quieter still—

“I promise.”

There was no mischief in it. No lilting mockery, no pointed indulgence. Just words, low and uncertain, carrying something that almost—almost—sounded like sincerity.

Like something real.

Galvahin’s fist curled up against his chest, his breath hitching—just slightly—before steadying once more.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t move.

But he felt it—the weight of the words lingering against his skin, soft as a touch through silk. A hand against glass. A voice behind a mask.

Oriel shifted slightly behind him, a movement Galvahin barely registered—until a slow exhale, deliberate, passed between them.

“I have a confession,” the prince murmured.

Galvahin said nothing. The sand beneath his palm was damp, cool in a way that eased him. He pressed his fingers into it, feeling the grit, something solid, something real.

“No one endowed me anything today.”

The tide swelled, pulling back with a soft hiss.

Then—gentler still, as though hesitant to even say—

“No one… Except for you.”

The knight’s fingers froze. He let the sea fill the silence, let the words sink in without yielding to them.

And yet—before he could stop himself, his head turned, his stormy gaze flickering sidelong toward the prince.

Galvahin expected to see the Oriel he knew—the smirking trickster, the unshaken archfey whose laughter always danced just at the edge of carelessness. The impossible being who owned every room he stepped into, who bent moments to his will like a weaver twisting thread.

But that wasn’t who lay beside him now.

The Oriel before him looked… different.

His violet eyes, so often alight with sly amusement, held none of their usual playfulness. His expression was neutral, almost guarded, save for the faint furrow in his silver brow—a whisper of something like worry, like waiting. The braid Galvahin had woven for him rested slightly askew in the sand, its misplaced strands and poppies seeming to beckon for a gentle touch to set them right. 

Galvahin had spent two days now caught in the orbit of this creature, this archfey who danced through words and moments like they were his for the taking. Even so brief, he had seen the way Oriel wielded his charm, how every glance, every tilt of his head, every careless stretch of his fingers was a calculated gesture meant to intrigue, unsettle, or provoke.

But here, now, the shape of him felt changed.

There was no masquerade in the way he lay beside him, no artifice in the way he watched. It was a strange, startling sort of quiet—one that made Galvahin hesitate before fully meeting his violet gaze.

He had spent all this time seeing the archfey as something inviolable, something perilous. A force as capricious as the sea, as elusive as smoke; however, seeing him now…

He looked so… small.

Galvahin had known the prince was slight. Had already been aware of it in the way one knew a thing without ever really feeling the weight of it. But now, as Oriel lay in the curve of the sand, his frame looked delicate in a way that made the knight’s chest tighten. He always cursed himself for noticing the prince’s beauty—but not before had he thought him fragile.

Yet, right now, it was all he could see.

And it slid into him like a dagger between his ribs.

Because an archfey was supposed to be something more—something larger than life, impossible to contain. Only now, with just the quiet weight of his words between them, he seemed… smaller. 

Not weak. 

Not diminished. 

Just a man.

A man, smaller than him. A man, frail in ways the knight hadn’t allowed himself to see. A man who, for all his power and beauty, for all his charisma and wit, could be hurt.

And the thought of that—of something wounding this version of the prince—made something deep in Galvahin’s chest twist, fierce and wordless.

Slowly, a heliotrope glow crept over Oriel’s face, softening the angles of his features, washing over silver lashes and the curve of his cheekbone with a spectral light.

Galvahin’s respiration stilled, his gaze flickering upward, drawn by the voiceless herald of something vast.

Above them, clouds had unravelled, revealing the twin moons of the Feywild. The larger flickered with lilac fire, its glow shifting at the edges, ceaselessly mutable. The smaller, glaucous one wended close behind, orbiting with unerring devotion.

But unlike days prior, they were no longer full. Had they transformed, or had they always been this way? Time here did not obey, waited for no cue, cared not for what moments ago had been true. Now, their edges dwindled into shadow, waning crescent, though Galvahin could not recall the nights that should have passed for such a change. Their glow bathed over Oriel, limning his delicate semblance in amaranth and argent, turning him ethereal once more, something transient—something that, like the moons, might not be the same when next he looked.

Galvahin cleared his throat, his voice coming steady despite the tightness in his chest. “My condolences, Your Grace.”

For a second, a shadow flickered across Oriel’s face. Then, like the tide swallowing footprints, it was gone—replaced by a smirk, by the easy, effortless levity that had always been there.

“Oh, Jackalope,” he sighed, shaking his head. “And here I thought you were learning.” A teasing gleam in his eye, a playful lilt to his words. “Save your grief for something worth mourning.”

The warmth was abrogated. The prince he had seen—tenuous, vulnerable—had vanished, leaving only this: untouchable, unfazed, and wholly in control.

And, oddly enough… the knight did not mind. 

A moment passed. Another wash of the waves.

Galvahin loosed a long, put-upon sigh and rolled onto his back, throwing an arm over his face as though utterly defeated.

“I must say, Sire, I expected better.” His voice dripped with exaggerated letdown. “Not even a cursed amulet? A fabled sword? A book of riddles that drives the reader mad?” He peeked at Oriel through his arm. “Honestly, I’d have taken anything. I was looking forward to another of your hand-me-downs.”

His smirk sharpened as he let the words hang, before adding, “How awful. Just as I was starting to think of myself as a collector of dangerous gifts. The ocarina was a real conversation piece.”

The archfey hummed, low and contemplative. “Such generosity on my part, and yet such… insatiable greed on yours.” His lips tilted. “Really, I ought to punish you for being so terribly ungrateful.”

Galvahin let out a dry laugh, tipping his chin toward him. “Didn’t you just vow to spare me your cruelty?”

Oriel arched a silver brow. “Cruelty?” He tsked, shaking his head. “How small-minded of you. Cruelty is a thing of malice. Discipline, however—now that is an art.” His smirk widened. “Would you deny me my sense of justice?”

Galvahin flushed, but his scoff came quick, rolling his eyes as he tipped his head back against the sand. 

“Deny you your sense of justice? Heavens forbid.” His voice dripped with sarcasm, but the heat in his ears and doublet betrayed him.

Then, tilting his head toward Oriel, he let his voice drop into a lazy drawl. 

“I would never. I promise. ”

Oriel exhaled a slow, deliberate breath, then sat up, stretching as though terribly bored. His silver hair slid over one shoulder, catching the violet glow of the moons.

“You swear never to deny me?” he mused, as if considering the words carefully. Then, with an impish look, he leaned forward slightly, voice dropping to something giddy and far too onanistic.

“Careful, Jackalope. I might just hold you to your word.”

Galvahin stiffened, the memory of their bargain pressing against the back of his mind.

Oriel’s smirk widened. “Wouldn’t that be tragic?”

Galvahin swallowed, his brassy tone dry. “…Devastating.”

The prince laughed, joyous. He sighed, languid, stretching back onto his elbows with an air of careless grace. “Mm. But now I almost feel bad.”

Galvahin glanced at him, skeptical. “Do you?”

The prince made a thoughtful noise, tapping a single finger against his lower lip. “No,” he admitted, then smirked. “But I could be persuaded.”

Galvahin’s lips parted, his retort ready—but Oriel was already shifting, rolling onto his side to face him, propping his head against his palm.

“I could offer you something else,” he mused, violet eyes half-lidded. “If only to soothe your delicate pride.”

Galvahin tensed, but godsdamnit, there was something in his tone, in the way he looked at him, that made him wonder.

“…Such as?” he asked, before he could stop himself.

Oriel’s grin widened. “Oh, now you’re interested.”

He didn’t even glance at the sky when he plucked the star from it.

One moment, his fingers were empty; the next, they were cradling a sapphire flame, its light flickering with a pulse too slow, too measured to be anything but alive. It hung there, delicate, weightless, its glow washing over the prince’s pale skin and casting the hollows of his knuckles in blue. He turned it over between his fingers as if it were no more than a bibelot—a trivial thing, as easily taken as a flower from a vine.

Galvahin barely managed to track the movement, his mind stalling over the sheer impossibility of it. His lips parted, but no words came. What was there to say? That he’d just stolen a piece of the firmament? That such things should not—could not—be done with the same ease as pulling a coin from his pocket, as though the night sky had simply been waiting to be spent? 

Oriel’s gaze never left him. If anything, he seemed more interested in watching Galvahin’s reaction than the fucking miracle resting in his palm.

And then—casually, languidly, as though handing over a trinket—Oriel reached out and pressed the star into Galvahin’s hand.

“There,” he murmured, voice velvet-soft, indulgent. “Take it. It suits you more than the heavens, anyway.”

Heat flared up the knight’s throat so fast it made him dizzy.

The star was cool to the touch, a sculpted incandescence smooth as a polished pebble. It didn’t burn, didn’t flicker or fade—but breathed, faint and steady, like it had only now begun to understand what it meant to be held. The glow bled through Galvahin’s fingers, turning the weathered edges of his palm luminescent, shifting ultramarine to indigo where his grip tightened.

His doublet confessed him effortlessly, peach hues spilling at the seams, touched now with the soft glow of cerulean.

“…You can’t just do that,” he muttered, his voice hoarse, half-accusing.

The prince arched a brow. “Oh? And why not?”

Galvahin clenched his jaw, struggling to wrangle his composure. “Because—you just—” He exhaled sharply, his grip flexing around the celestial impossibility in his palm. “You pulled this straight from the sky.”

“And?” Oriel’s smirk curled, slow and wicked. “Would you rather I put it back?”

The knight scowled, wrenching the star closer to his chest. Like hells he would.

Oriel laughed, utterly, devastatingly delighted.

Galvahin’s fingers clenched tighter around the star, as if it might slip through his grasp if he weren’t careful. He needed a moment—needed to breathe, to find something solid amid the absurdity of it all. With a slow exhale, he shifted, pushing himself upright, intent on putting the star away before Oriel’s violet gaze could unravel him any further.

The low table sat a short distance away in the pearlescent sand, its mirrored surface reflecting the twin moons like a second sky. He could tuck the star into his satchel there, out of sight, out of mind.

Or so he thought.

The instant he moved, Oriel’s hand shot out—lightning-quick, deceptively gentle—as his soft fingers closed just below Galvahin’s coarse wrist. Not tightly. Just enough to stall him, to remind him that leaving was a choice he’d have to consciously make.

Galvahin hesitated, his stormy gaze flicking to where Oriel’s digits rested against his skin. There was something irksomely casual about the way the prince held him—unrushed, unbothered, as if Galvahin had never actually intended to get up at all.

“Now, now,” Oriel murmured, as if Galvahin had done something truly tragic. “Must you be so quick to discard my generosity?”

“I’m not discarding it,” the knight said, glancing toward his satchel. “I just don’t think it needs to be clutched in my hand all night.”

The prince exhaled, mocking profound disappointment. 

“A pity,” he drawled, fingers lingering just a second too long before he finally, slowly, let go. “I had half a mind to ask if you had any other treasures to share with me tonight.” 

Something in the way he said it—light, idle, yet edged with unmistakable intimation—made Galvahin’s stomach dip.

He stilled.

Oh.

That’s what this was about.

Oriel was watching him again, violet eyes keen, expectant, the barest glimmer of mischief curling at the corner of his mouth.

And suddenly, the memory of Thelanna’s lips—soft, warm, damp—burned across the knight’s mind.

Galvahin exhaled, steady and slow, before turning back to meet Oriel’s gaze head-on. “And if I did?”

Oriel’s brows lifted, the glint in his violet eyes darkening. 

“Oh?” He shifted, the space between them drawing tighter without a single movement. “Then I would insist you tell me exactly how it tasted.”

Galvahin’s breath caught. His mind conjured it instantly—soft, warm, the lingering taste of chestnut, the faintest hum of gratification before Thelanna had pulled away. 

His throat dried.

Oriel watched him, waiting. Expectant.

The knight clenched his jaw, forcing himself to scoff. “Would that matter, Sire? Something tells me you’d insist on tasting for yourself.” His smirk was forced, but at least it was there.

The prince let out a long-suffering sigh, draping a hand to his sternum as if struck by some grave misfortune. “Alas, I fear I must disappoint you. Our dryad friend’s charms would be thoroughly wasted on me. A terrible shame.” 

Galvahin chuckled, low and skeptical. “What, upset she didn’t try to kiss you instead?”

Oriel hummed, considering. “Mm, I am fond of a well-timed act of devotion. But Thelanna?” He waved a lazy hand. “Not quite my inclination.” 

His simper sharpened, violet eyes gleaming as he tilted his head. “Tell me, my knight—do I strike you as the sort to pine after muliebral nymphs and moon-eyed maidens?” He exhaled theatrically. “No, I’m afraid I prefer a more… elusive pursuit.” 

The knight blinked, his breath stalling for half a beat.

Oriel’s voice dipped, smooth and deliberate. “Which does leave the small matter of how I’ll be entertained. But I’m sure you’ll be pleased to figure that out for me.”

Galvahin swallowed, shifting slightly where he sat. “I—” He exhaled, glancing at Oriel from the corner of his eye. “…I don’t know if I’d go as far as to—”

Oriel hummed, tilting his head. “Mm. But some distance, then?” His smirk deepened. “Come now, Jackalope. Show me what you’d allow.”

For a long moment, Galvahin didn’t move. His fingers flexed at his sides, his grip bracing instinctively around the cool, steady glow of the star. He hesitated, hovering just above Oriel’s waiting hands. The prince did not push—did not urge—but simply watched, his gaze steady, his smile inviting.

With a slow, bracing inhale, the knight allowed himself to close the distance, his hand brushing first—uncertain, testing—before wrapping, deliberate and slow, around the prince’s fingers. And then, with a quiet exhale, he sank back, shoulders pressing into the sand, his heartbeat a measured drum against the hush of the waves and the lurid melodies of whalesong. The star remained between them, cupped in his palm, its sapphire glow flickering across their hands.

Galvahin pulled gently—an unspoken supplication, a silent request. The prince followed, not hurried, not reluctant, but with the measured ease of something inevitable, something that had already been decided before this moment. 

Oriel had always been lovely, in the way only something unknowable and dangerous could be. But here, now, so close, he was… devastating. The twin moons and green flash bathed him in their spectral glow, casting soft halos over argent strands kissing the knight’s chest, the gleam of his slow-blinking, silver-lashed eyes catching on every infinitesimal flicker of virid, twilight glow. His lips parted, lazy, inviting, a smile half-formed yet enigmatic. 

Galvahin inhaled, slow and steady, forcing restraint into his bones even as his chest grew tight. The air was thick with Oriel’s scent—tuberose and gardenia, rich and heady, twining with the briny crispness of the ocean breeze, like crushed petals beneath the sea. It curled through his breath, settling deep in his lungs, intoxicating in a way that made it harder to think, harder to hold himself still. 

So, instead, he counted every shade of violet in the prince’s irises, from amethyst to the soft blue of a fading bruise. 

Oriel crooned, tilting his head. “Is that all, my knight?” His tone was rakishly goading. “I have to admit, I was hoping for a bit more… enthusiasm.”

Galvahin’s fingers twitched against the star and Oriel’s palm, his eyes cinching in vexed irritation.

The prince languished, put-upon, dramatic. “Or have I overestimated your fealty? Your… fervor?” He tutted. “Pity. I suppose I should lower my expect—”

Galvahin’s lips sundered him mid-word—before the thought could even fully form, before that insufferable smirk could settle, before he could say one more godsdamned thing.

Ugh. Just shut up already. 

One second, smug words.

The next, silence.

A much better sound. 

This time, it was Oriel who faltered. 

Just slightly.

Just enough for the knight to feel it—the breath he forgot to take, the palpitation in the way he parted his lips, the flicker of hesitation where there should have been gall. 

Galvahin did not wait. 

Before the prince could gather himself, Galvahin’s free hand slipped over his damask-draped back, fingers splaying ample and unwavering between his shoulder blades. Oriel’s body settled fully into him, lean, lithe, and undeniably tangible, his weight pressing down only enough to be felt, to be real. The knight inhaled, his chest rising against him, slow, steady, measured. Their hips were still parallel in the sand, but now—there was no space between their torsos, no room for distance.

Then—a sound.

Hushed, reft of air, torn from the prince before he could suppress it.

A quiet, helpless squeak caught in his throat—gone as quickly as it came.

Galvahin imbibed it whole.

And it was exultant.

His doublet refracted the feeling—cerulean light welling over the fabric, now streaked with bold striations of self-assured gold. Oriel’s robes, iridescing teal and violet like an insect’s wing beneath the light, drew a playful contrast to the colours.

Their first kiss had been nerve-wracking, but this—this was something else. Galvahin felt it the instant he parted his mouth, the way Oriel’s breath hitched, the way his fingers twitched against his chest. 

Gods, yes.

Galvahin tilted his head slightly, subsuming, beseeching, requisitioning. His beard scritched over Oriel’s skin, rough against nectarous lips, a delicious chiaroscuro of textures. The prince exhaled into him, the humid warmth of it pooling between them, thick with the scent of sweat and something darkly sweet—berries, wine, anise, decadence.

His taste was maddening. Sweet, yes, but layered with something richer, more intoxicating, like the first sip of a forbidden draught. Galvahin pressed deeper, his tongue brushing against Oriel’s, a fleeting, testing caress that sent heat lancing through his gut. The prince responded with a slow, teasing flicker in return, and fuck—Galvahin pulled him closer on instinct alone, his arm locking around him as if daring him to pull away.

Oriel didn’t.

In fact, the opposite.

The reversal was imperceptible—so effortless, so seamless that Galvahin barely noticed until it was too late. One second, the prince had ceded control, breathless, hesitant. The next, his palm had tightened around Galvahin’s own, interlocking digits pressing into the sand, pinning it with nothing but a slow, casual shift of weight. 

And then his other hand landed—firm, rubbing over the knight’s chest, slow, taunting, as if mapping every tense muscle, every barely-contained reaction beneath.

Galvahin shuddered before he could stop himself.

Oriel felt it.

And hummed.

The sound—sonorous, sybaritic—sank into his skin, winding tight around the knight’s ribs like a vise.

Oriel’s polished nails grazed airily down the doublet, a salacious little rake over fabric that made Galvahin’s breath stutter and his grey eyes bolt open. The colour beneath the archfey’s fingertips had responded like living pigment, cerulean and gold melting into rich magenta in the wake of his touch, as if he were dragging a brush through water colour. He hummed again, pleased, his fingers pressing just a bit harder.

Galvahin tried to focus on anything else—the pressure of Oriel’s digits against his own, the cool weight of the star still trapped between their palms, the shifting tide humming in his ears. But Oriel’s lips nipped against his, teasing, tasting, playing him like an instrument he already knew too well. And his body—traitorous, wretched thing—began to respond.

It crept in with wicked patience, a slow unravelling, like ivy wrapping around stone, persistent, inevitable. The warmth no longer tarried at the edges of his senses—it percolated, settled, took seed, making itself known in a way he could no longer dismiss. His silk breeches, so light and indulgent in their design, were now an exquisite torture, offering no resistance, no modesty—only excruciating, teasing friction that made every inhale heavier, every second more unbearable.

A fulguration of panic roiled through his gut.

No.

No, no, no, no— no.

His muscles locked, a dire, mortified rigidity overtaking him. Not here. Not now. Not where he could see—

And Oriel would see. He already felt it, had to have felt it—not literally it—but the cadence in Galvahin’s breath, the way his body tensed, the way his fingers seized stiff against the prince’s back. The archfey was too observant, too perceptive, too—

Galvahin turned over. Careful. Deliberate. A measured motion that should have looked natural, unhurried—should have, had he not drawn one leg up the moment his back left the sand. His knee bent, foot pressing firmly into the ground as if bracing himself, as if steadying his breath, his pulse, anything. But the motion was clear in its purpose, the angle of it shielding the evidence of his turgid shame from view.

A heartbeat passed. Another.

Then, before Oriel could react, before he could smirk, before he could say anything, Galvahin moved.

The knight scrambled to his feet with uncouth urgency, opaline granules scattering behind his steps as he scampered toward the shoreline. 

The moment his knees hit the sand, the water surged forward to claim him.

Spume frothed over his silk-clad thighs, waves breaking against his legs before retreating in a cold, unfeeling caress. The chill jolted him, a stark contrast to the fever still coiling in his groin, to the suffocating heat that had driven him from Oriel’s touch. 

Galvahin cupped seawater in both hands and splashed it over his face, again and again, as if sheer force could scrub away the heat clinging to his skin. But the chill did nothing to douse the slow, insidious burn knotting low in his stomach. The memory of touch, of pressure, of lips against his, refused to dissolve.

The shame was worse than the heat, worse than the weight of his own body’s response. How he could still feel Oriel’s breath against his tongue, the way he had—hells—melted into it. He had been played. Made into a thing that wanted. That needed. And for what? The amusement of a creature that could shatter him with a single whim?

His hands curled into the sand, damp grains biting into his palms. The breeches clung to him, heavy with seawater, their colours bleeding, draining. Magenta dissolved, fading with every retreating wave until only cerulean and black remained. How fitting. The night ocean mirrored the change, its depths an endless well of darkness, the surface phosphorescing with bioluminescent blue, as if the sea itself carried his war within it. 

He had read fables before of merfolk who wasted away in grief, dissolving into seafoam when their hearts could bear no more. As a boy, the knight was puzzled at the notion; how could infatuation, a mere feeling, unmake something so completely?

But now—kneeling in the surf, his heart a maelstrom of mortification and yearning, his body betraying him so thoroughly—he thought, perhaps, he fathomed their plight after all.

Galvahin’s stomach twisted. He had to get himself under control. He had to—

His fingers twitched.

His palm was empty.

His breath stopped.

The star.

He whipped his head around, scanning the shoreline, eyes wild. His hands plunged into the water, fingers clawing through wet sand, through foam and broken shells.

Damnit—no, no, no, no—

The tide took. The tide withdrew. 

And the star was nowhere to be found.

The search was growing desperate, sand clinging to his hands, his pulse hammering. His throat tightened as he dug through the shallows, barely able to think over the—

“Looking for this?”

Galvahin froze.

The intonation was smooth as the seafoam, entirely too self-satisfied.

His body tensed as he turned, slow, reluctant, already knowing what he would see: Oriel. Unbothered. Standing just beyond the reach of the waves, rolling the star between two lazy fingers.

The sapphire light caught in his argent tresses, glinting off his sharp, rapacious grin, his violet eyes glimmering with dulcet delight.

Galvahin swallowed hard, too stricken to rise. He was drenched, cold, half-panicked—and Oriel was relishing every bit of it.

His fingers reached out, curling around the star—but just as he was mere inches from claiming it, the archfey’s grasp tightened.

A flicker of movement—then the star was gone, whisked effortlessly from his reach as if it had never been his to possess. Before the knight could so much as scowl, before his frustration had time to solidify, Oriel gave a flick of his wrist—sending the celestial body streaking through the air, a shooting, sapphire arc of light carving a seamless path toward the low table. It tumbled once, then slipped soundlessly into Galvahin’s satchel as if it had chosen to arrive there on its own. 

The knight inhaled, slow and deep, grey eyes narrowing.

“…Sire,” he muttered, rubbing a weary hand down his face. “Has anyone ever suggested putting a bell on you?”

Oriel tipped his head back, cachination bursting from him like a song unhindered, full and rich. Damn him. Galvahin had grown accustomed to that sound—but now he was craving it with a force that felt profane.

“Oh, Jackalope,” he chuckled, wiping at the corner of one violet eye. “In your current state, I do believe even a tarrasque could dance a merry jig behind you, and you’d be none the wiser.”

Galvahin froze—then snorted, the laugh cracking out of him before he could stop it. The image was too absurd: a tarrasque—colossal, cataclysmic—mincing across the shore like a capering show pony.

The prince inclined his head, grinning like he’d caught him in a scandal. “What a sight! A valiant knight—brought to tears by the image of a dancing tarrasque.” 

“If one did show up right now, I’d shake its claw and thank it for the distraction.” Galvahin shook his head, half-chuckling. 

“Oh, I see,” Oriel giggled. “A creature of overwhelming weight and immense size.” His violet eyes flickered with mischief. “Looking for a companion who might make you look petite for once?” 

Galvahin deadpanned, staring at Oriel with the exasperation of a man who had suffered one too many indignities in a single evening. Then, without breaking eye contact, he flicked his fingers through the seawater and sent a small splash right at the prince’s face. 

Oriel gasped, utterly scandalised, blinking away droplets like a doused lamb. 

“You absolute beast!” He clutched his chest. “My hair! You got my hair wet.” 

“Relax, Sire.” Galvahin’s smirk widened. “I’m sure it’ll dry before the next century.” 

“Oh, my knight.” Oriel’s violet eyes narrowed, his lips upturning into something dangerously saccharine, something that sent a jolt through Galvahin. “What an endless font of poor decisions you are.” 

The tide pulled back, an eerie silence pooling between them before the ocean itself seemed to rise, summoned forth by invisible hands. A wall of water loomed, shimmering in the bioluminescent light. 

Galvahin had just enough time to mutter, “Oh, hells—” before the wave struck. The force of it tore him from his knees, flipping him end over end, weightless and utterly at its mercy. Water crashed around him, filling his ears, dragging him up the shore in a graceless sprawl of limbs before finally depositing him in a sputtering heap. The tide receded, leaving him beached in the sand like a fish too stupid to swim. 

He lay there for a long moment, letting the moons and stars spin above him. Then, unceremoniously, the knight spat seawater into the sand.

Above him, Oriel loomed, hands behind his back, tilting his head as he drank in the sight of his ruined, waterlogged knight. His smile was all teeth, violet eyes glinting with that distinct, infuriating delight.

Galvahin lolled his head back against the sand, letting the last of his pride drain out with the tide.

“My most sincere regrets, Your Grace,” he said, his tone the only part of him left dry. “I truly apologise for the traumatic loss you’ve suffered.” 

Oriel’s brows lifted, feigning innocence. “Hm? Loss?”

“Your hair.” Galvahin dragged a weary hand across his beard before gesturing to the prince's hardly dampened locks—while the knight’s own lay flat and sodden. “It’s ruined, surely.” 

Oriel leaned down further, not quite crouching, not quite bending, but just enough to make his victory absolute.

“My knight,” he purred, smiling sweetly. “You’re lucky you’re adorable—otherwise, I’d have flung you into the deep and let you swim back.” 

Galvahin huffed a laugh, rolling onto his elbow, halfheartedly flicking a bit of wet sand toward Oriel’s foot.

“How gracious,” he teased. “Truly, I must be so cherished to warrant such clemency.” His grey eyes flitted up to the prince, full of playful exasperation, already absolving him of his dastardly behaviour. “Tell me, Sire—shall I begin my prostrations at once, or would you prefer a written ode to your boundless compassion?”

Oriel gasped dramatically, pressing a palm to his chest. “A written ode? Do you think me so easily placated?” He exhaled, as if pained. “No, no. Nothing less than a ballad will suffice. And, of course, a performance—under the full moons, atop a cliff, with a tragic quiver in your voice.”

“Poetry, perhaps, I’ll oblige.” Galvahin glanced away, his fingers brushing absently at his jaw, where his beard was still damp with seawater. “But singing? I must decline.” A breath of laughter escaped him, quiet and self-effacing. 

“Oh, don’t be absurd,” Oriel said airily. “Of course it must be sung. Poetry without melody is like a banquet without wine.”

Galvahin arched a brow. “And I suppose you have an entire orchestra hidden somewhere on this shore?”

“Hah! If only,” Oriel said, shaking his head. “No, I suppose we must make do with just one instrument.” He tapped his chin, considering. “A lute will suffice. I’ll fetch you one.” 

“You will do no such thing,” Galvahin scoffed, breathless from laughter. “I’ve already been tricked by one of your instruments. That lute would probably force me to strum until my fingers bled—or worse—be cursed to play only the worst tavern songs. Loudly. On its own. At night.”

“Tsk, such little faith in my gifts.” Oriel let out a chuckle, his shoulders shaking as if he could barely contain himself. “Next, you’ll be telling me you don’t trust me either.” A giggle spilled free, bright, unrestrained. “The horror.”

Their cachination crashed over them like the wave. Galvahin let himself be consumed by it, a deep, shuddering sound breaking free from his chest. He had not laughed like this in—hells, he didn’t know how long. Not a chuckle, not a scoff, but something full-bodied, something real.

Oriel, the insufferable thing, laughed even harder, tipping sideways into the sand, gasping through his mirth. His silver tresses fanned out around him, his violet eyes gleaming, his body shuttering with amusement. He pressed a hand against the ground, as if trying to physically steady himself, but another giggle overtook him.

Galvahin sighed, shaking his head, though his own chuckles still trembled. He scrubbed a hand down his face, raking damp fingers through his dark, tousled hair. The sea whispered against the shore, the salt-tinged air cold against his skin.

Silence settled, the kind that felt neither empty nor uncomfortable—just… still. 

Galvahin turned his head. 

Oriel had yet to move, still curled comfortably into the sand, the last traces of laughter shimmering in his violet eyes. He exhaled, slow and satisfied, stretching one arm above his head with a languid ease. His silver hair tumbled over his shoulder with the shift, a few stray strands catching on the delicate branches in his crown. 

His robe had twisted slightly with his movements, slipping off one shoulder to reveal the smooth, opalescent sheen of his skin. The hem fluttered over his legs, baring the curve of one thigh where it had ridden up. An anklet, adorned with a single deep violet gem, winked in the starlight as he idly shifted his foot. One hand trailed across his stomach, fingers tracing the embroidered designs of his attire, while the other toyed absently with a loose strand of hair. The motion was idle, unthinking—an unconscious sort of grace that only made him more impossible to ignore. 

Galvahin’s breath came slow, heavy. 

Gods. 

He’s beautiful. 

Galvahin had jested about writing a poem to the prince’s so-called compassion, but if he were ever to put quill to parchment, surely it would be for this. The silver sweep of Oriel’s hair against the darkened sand, the way the twilight wove soft light over his skin, the faint shimmer of his earrings as his head idly shifted. He had spent so much time trying to ignore the archfey’s charm—but it was this moment that made him wonder if resistance was ever an option at all. 

If he is a most lovely gleam, 
Then I’m a moth with burning wings... 

Oriel blinked, his lashes flickering against his cheek, and when his violet gaze shifted—Galvahin realised, with a sharp hitch of breath, that the prince had been staring at him, too. 

“Is…” the knight hesitated. “Is something the matter, Sire?” 

Oriel hummed in a way that felt like a secret yet to be spoken. “Oh, nothing at all.” 

He leaned in—not rushed, not hesitant, just… inevitable. Galvahin held still, barely daring to breathe as the prince closed the space between them, his silver hair slipping forward in a cascade of starlight. 

Then—a touch. 

Not a grasp, not a caress, just the slow, deliberate drag of the back of Oriel’s wrist against his beard, tracing from jaw to chin. It was barely anything. Soft. Teasing. Yet Galvahin’s pulse throbbed as if the prince had pressed a cutlass to his throat. 

Oriel’s lips parted, his breath warm in the cool night air. His violet eyes gleamed, alight with something playful. 

“I’m just thinking about how much fun this is all going to be.” 

Galvahin’s throat bobbed. 

Notes:

Weird Fishes/Arpeggi | Radiohead

In the deepest ocean
The bottom of the sea
Your eyes
They turn me

Chapter 11: The Rule

Summary:

Galvahin reads some books. The books read him for filth.

“It is a common sentence that knowledge is power; but who hath duly considered or set forth the power of ignorance? Knowledge slowly builds up what ignorance in an hour pulls down.” 

George Eliot

 

“AHH!! He gave you a freaking star?! I want every last detail—” 

“Shhhh!!” 

Thelanna barely had time to inhale before a sharp gust of air rustled her autumn locks, and a blur of movement streaked past her. Something zipped between the towering bookshelves, faster than Galvahin’s eyes could track, kicking up loose parchment in its wake. A moment later, the source of the interruption materialised atop their desk—a small, sharp-featured creature with pale blue skin, perched with an exaggeratedly rigid posture, one foot tapping against the polished wood at a speed bordering on imperceptible. 

Galvahin had met Rilien Hastleaf all of fifteen minutes ago, but that was still fourteen minutes longer than he needed to understand exactly what kind of fey he was dealing with. The quickling had appeared the instant they crossed the library threshold—not walked, not even run, but appeared, as though moving at a normal pace was impossible. He spoke faster than Galvahin’s brain could process, rattling off a breathless, high-pitched monologue about the library’s rules while simultaneously shuffling a dozen scrolls, reorganising a stack of books, and shushing an unseen patron in the span of three heartbeats. 

And now—he was scowling at Thelanna, his arms crossed so tightly over his narrow chest that it looked as though they might fuse to his jerkin. 

“Too-loud—too-loud—far-too-loud—unacceptable—atrocious! Do-you-think-this-is-a-marketplace? A-theatre? A-barn? A-banquet? A-ball? A-birthday-party?” 

His yellow eyes burned with disapproval, flicking between them like an overburdened instructor trying to decide whether to scold or simply drop dead from sheer frustration. 

“Yes—yes—I-know-you-came-with-Meliora’s-recommendation—I-know-she-escorted-you-here-personally—I-was-there! I-was-here! I-was-watching! Do-you-think-this-means-you-get-special-treatment? That-rules-will-suddenly-cease-to-exist-for-you? That-the-ancient-and-sacred-laws-of-library-etiquette-will-bend-to-your-every-whim—just-because-Meliora-trotted-you-in-like-children-on-their-first-day-of-lessons?” 

The quickling let out a sharp gasp as if the sheer audacity of the idea had physically wounded him. 

“No. No-no-no. No-no-no-no-no-no. Not-now. Not-ever. Not-this-library—not-this-librarian. Let-me-make-this-abundantly-clear: Meliora-is-an-exceptional-judge-of-character—an-even-better-judge-of-books—but-that-does-not-automatically-make-her-an-exceptional-judge-of-volume.” 

His gaze whipped to Galvahin, who had wisely remained silent throughout the entire exchange. 

“And-you-you’re-doing-exactly-what-you-should-be-doing—see-him? Quiet—composed—dignified—radiating-the-kind-of-noble-restraint-that-every-library-patron-should-aspire-to.” He gestured dramatically toward the knight, as if expecting Thelanna to collapse in enlightenment, quill already in hand to record the sacred wisdom he had just imparted. 

Then—back to the dryad. His tiny fingers twitched at his sides, as though physically restraining himself from shaking her by the shoulders. 

“And-you—you’re-a-tragedy—a-travesty.” The quickling’s foot tapped at impossible speed, frustration radiating off him in waves. “Do-you-live-like-this? Well-do-you? Just-shouting-your-thoughts-into-the-void? Just-every-single-little-thing-that-pops-into-your-mind? Do-you-announce-your-every-revelation-to-the-heavens-like-some-court-minstrel-who-can’t-contain-her-overwhelming-joy?” 

Thelanna blinked, caught off guard. 

“…I was excited,” she muttered. 

“Oh-well-why-didn’t-you-say-so?” Rilien threw his hands in the air, blurring into a spin on his heel with exasperated flair. “Excitement-changes-everything! Shall-we-now-burn-all-the-rules-to-ash-because-you-were-excited? My-mistake—I-will-alert-the-archivists-at-once—‘Oh-ho! Oh-ho! My-deepest-apologies—the-rules-of-scholarly-respect-are-now-void-because-someone-couldn’t-subdue-their-enthusiasm!’” 

Thelanna’s emerald eyes widened. “…Sorry?” 

Rilien’s sharp inhale nearly whistled through his teeth before he pressed a cornflower hand to his forehead, as though suffering from some great cosmic burden. 

“Fine. Fine. Fine-fine-fine-fine-fine. I-shall-be-merciful—most-merciful—but-only-if-you-keep-your-volume-at-acceptable-levels. No-screaming—no-yelling—no-heavy-breathing—no-gasping—no-excessive-exclamation-points. In-this-library-you-will-only-whisper—or-mutter—or-better-yet-most-preferably-you-will-not-speak-at-all. Follow-this-simple-rule, and-I-won’t-have-to-hex-you-into-a-volume-I-deem-acceptable.” 

With that, he zipped out of sight, only for his voice to drift back from across the room—somehow—though he had just been standing before them. 

“And-you-should-follow-your-friend’s-example. It-would-do-you-some-good.” 

Thelanna scowled, her arms crossing over her chest as she shot Galvahin a glare. 

“Oh, shut up,” she whispered. 

Galvahin didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. His gunmetal eyes gleamed, his shoulders quivering just slightly with suppressed mirth. A clipped exhale through his nose and a faint shimmer of cerulean at his hemline were his only tells—the closest thing to a chuckle the dryad would wring from him in present company. 

Thelanna’s glare deepened. “You are laughing at me.” 

The knight tilted his head just enough to look the very picture of innocent stoicism. He would savour this small victory while he could. There were larger battles ahead, and they could not be fought with smirks alone. 

This, of course, was no ordinary library. This was a palace of information, a temple of words, yet it bore all the fickle, untamed qualities of the rest of Oriel’s court. It stretched far beyond what the eye could see, its corridors winding and shifting as if the shelves themselves were rearranging their contents with each passing moment. The air was suffused with the redolence of aged vellum and spilt ink, yes—but something else the knight couldn’t quite name: something weighty, like a thought at the edge of a memory that refuses to be recalled. 

The energy here simmered knowledge and whispers. Glyphs slithered across pages like restless eels, shifting between scripts and languages with each blink. Some books glowed from within, their words etched in brilliant constellations of light. Others pulsed darkly, as if bound with secrets better left unread. 

Above them, a massive domed ceiling stretched—if it could be called a ceiling at all. Instead of wood or stone, it was a vast, glistening surface of liquid ink, shifting between colours, showing glimpses of stories yet unwritten. Here and there, droplets fell, splattering onto open books, forming words before sinking into the pages. 

Galvahin had stood in fortresses and palaces, in ruins and dungeons; however, never did a place watch him the way this one did. Here, knowledge was not merely gathered; it was cultivated. Something about that distinction sent a susurrus of unease down his spine. 

When they arrived, books had appeared before him as if the library had plucked them from the ether on his behalf, offering up knowledge at its own whim. No indexes to peruse, no catalogs to consult—just a steady materialisation of tomes, precisely the ones he needed, whether he was ready for them or not. 

The first bore an elaborate, cursive script on its spine, the delicate Sylvan letters flowing like filigree over the leather binding. Galvahin traced them with a digit before prying open the cover. Beside it, a plainer, though much thicker book rested: 

"A Practical Common-to-Sylvan Translation for the Weary Traveler." 

Weary traveler indeed. 

Sylvan was older than Elvish, its predecessor, and to Galvahin’s immense frustration, it was even more complicated. He had thought his childhood lessons in Elvish were difficult enough—his tutors had drilled the language into him with painstaking precision, each fluid phrase structured with elegance but at least some semblance of logic. Sylvan, by contrast, held no such mercy. Where Elvish was refined, Sylvan was florid, unrestrained, poetic to the point of absolute impracticality. It wove metaphors where a single word would do, replaced direct statements with riddles, double meanings, and references to stories and myths of times long past. 

He skimmed a passage in the translation guide, then glanced between the texts before him, comparing words. 

“The living run with silver laughter…” He frowned. That was supposed to mean “potable water.” 

And this one— “Beware the honeysuckle words of midsummer, lest your path wind where none can follow.” 

It meant “Don’t trust the locals.” 

The knight scrubbed a weary palm across his beard. His third morning in the Feywild, and he could already tell—it was going to be another long day. 

With some reluctance, he set the dictionary aside and turned to the second book. 

Its cover was a gaudy spectacle: a beaming, mustachioed human draped in an ostentatious tunic, while an exaggeratedly ruffled high collar wrapped around his neck. Atop his head perched an entirely too large floppy hat adorned with a jaunty feather while one hand balanced an open tome. In his other, he brandished a quill as if it was a duelist’s rapier, striking a dramatic pose beneath the curling, gilded title: 

"Volo’s Guide to the Feywild." 

The knight’s brows knit. Isn't a penman supposed to put his picture… on the back of the book? 

He had never heard of the author before, but judging by the tone of the introduction, the man held no shortage of opinions on the Feywild—or himself. 

“Dearest reader, should you find yourself inexplicably drawn to the Feywild—whether by deliberate means or, as is more often the case, by accident—fear not! The most esteemed Volothamp Geddarm shall be your trusted and humble guide through this most pretty, perilous, and perplexing of realms! I have, of course, survived the experience with all my limbs intact (though I have acquired several glowing freckles and, for a time, an extra shadow), and I am prepared to share my wisdom so that you might do the same! 

For it is I alone who have mapped the shifting glades of The Whimsywobbly Thicket of Occasionally Malevolent Mushrooms, danced the Neverending Never-Not-New Nelly-Nancy-Nettle Nae-Nae without succumbing to eternal servitude at the behest of the Bumblebee Baronesses of Boogieburg, and correctly answered the Riddle of the Seventy-Two-Petalled Bloom (which, I am told, had stumped even the greatest minds of the Fey Courts for centuries—though I suspect they simply lacked my keen intuition and natural charm). I have tricked will-o’-wisps into leading me to safety, bested a talking sword in a battle of wits, triumphed over an Unseelie duke in a potato sack race, and, most impressively, avoided being transformed into anything at all for an entire tenday—an unmatched record here amongst mortal scholars! But perhaps my greatest accomplishment was—” 

Galvahin’s grey eyes glazed over. 

By the gods, he thought. Does this man ever stop congratulating himself? For all his vanity, even Sire would call this excessive… 

The knight sighed and flipped to a random page. It wasn’t only Volo’s self-aggrandising that vexed him; it was the man’s accounts, each more baffling than the last. 

Like this excerpt, for instance: 

“Should you find yourself in Hither, Thither, or Yon—congratulations! You are somewhere (probably)! These lands are famous for their picturesque views, unique flora, and deeply personal existential challenges. In the swamps of Hither, a well-meaning stranger may attempt to trade you a goose for your first memory—a common local greeting! Those who travel through Thither’s woods will find its trails inviting, its wildlife charming, and its echoes entirely their own (unless, of course, they aren’t). As for Yon, you will want to pack light, step carefully, and be mindful of the altitude—the air is thin, the cliffs are temperamental, and some of the boulders hate being stepped on (they will make this abundantly clear).” 

A goose for your first memory? Surely even the fey could come up with a better bargain than that. And talking boulders? Galvahin could believe in talking cats, even talking trees—those he had seen. But rocks? Nonsense. And those names—Hither, Thither, and Yon? Ridiculous. He could practically hear a giggling child coming up with them on the spot. 

Or even more egregious—this section: 

“Lost at the Witchlight Carnival? Do not despair! Simply seek out the elegant, enigmatic, and ever-so-slightly exasperated guardian known as Dirlagraun. This is no ordinary displacer beast—no, dear reader, she is a marvel of discipline, dignity, and deeply begrudging patience! While others of her kin prefer to lurk in the shadows, Dirlagraun has chosen a far nobler path: watching over the misplaced children of the carnival and returning them to safety. 

She’s easily recognised by grand fabric butterfly wings affixed to her tendrils (an artistic triumph that serves no practical purpose besides sheer majesty) and the keg of toffee apple juice slung about her neck—a vessel of unimaginable power, known to quell tantrums and silence even the most determined sugar fiends. One of the carnival’s most curious attractions, she is—” 

Galvahin closed the book. Nine hells, this man isn’t simply a fool—he’s a public menace. 

It wasn’t just folly, this was weaponised stupidity—no, worse, it was stupidity with a platform. Volo was out there, right now, somewhere in the planes, convincing people of potato sack-racing Unseelie and baby-sitting butterfly-winged displacer beasts distributing enchanted juice. 

The Feywild was ridiculous, yes, but this? This was lunacy. 

No wonder so many mortals get lost here, the knight thought to himself. Half of them were probably following this idiot’s advice. 

His greys flicked toward Thelanna, wondering what had her so captivated—then he spotted the book in her hands and squinted, half in disbelief, half in deeply reluctant amusement. 

The cover was, to put it mildly, salacious: a towering, silver-eyed lycanthrope standing atop an oceanside cliff, his shirt nowhere to be found, his trousers hanging dangerously low—far too low for the knight’s sensibilities. His flowing black hair (which, logically, werewolves should not have) whipped dramatically in the wind as he howled at the twin moons above. Pressed against his broad, furry, sculpted chest, a faerie woman no larger than his torso clung to him, her gossamer dress suspiciously sheer, her insectoid wings wavering in what could only be described as breathless anticipation. Her hands were splayed against his expanse of muscle—surely bracing for the sheer gravity of his brooding. 

Galvahin tore his gaze away from the artfully distressed trousers of the questionably shirtless werewolf and fixed it on the title instead. 

It was entirely too elegant for something this absurd. The Sylvan script glistened in argent filigree—as if to distract from the fact that the contents were almost certainly unholy. 

For a moment, he considered letting ignorance win. 

Then, scowling at himself, he snatched up the dictionary once more and started flipping pages. 

Galvahin read the title. 

Then read it again, because surely, surely he had translated it incorrectly. 

"The Alpha’s Binding Knot: A Love Both Wild and Untamed." 

The dictionary slipped from his fingers. He stared at Thelanna, exasperated, disappointed—and vaguely concerned for the state of literature. 

A soft thump made his eye twitch. 

He glanced at the desk. 

Another book. 

Then another. 

Then a third, appearing with a particularly smug rustle of parchment. 

Galvahin ran a hand down his scruff, staring at the growing pile of self-summoning tomes as if they had personally insulted him. They were stacked just slightly off-centre, as if mocking his attempt at keeping any sense of order in this gods-forsaken place. 

With great reluctance, he flipped open the dictionary, already dreading the migraine that awaited him— 

Only for another book to land on top of it. 

He shut his eyes. Took a slow breath. 

And turned back to Volo’s book instead. 

He wasn’t entirely sure what he was searching for. 

A habit, perhaps. Books had always been a solace, even when their lessons soured with age. When he was younger, he read to believe in things—gallant knights, daring rescues, tales that tied the world into something simple and noble. He wasn’t sure when he’d stopped reading for comfort and started interrogating those stories instead. 

Maybe he was doing the same here. 

He glanced past a dissertation on the importance of rhyming in Fey diplomacy, past a guide to identifying edible versus hallucinogenic mushrooms (a seemingly arbitrary distinction to most fey apparently), and nearly skipped past the next section—until something skipped within him. 

“A Catalogue of Archfey.” 

His breath slackened, drawn as if through unseen veils. 

That felt… relevant. 

He turned the page. 

“Some deities demand worship. Some rulers demand fealty. And then there are the archfey, who demand… entertainment. Equal parts majesty, menace, and mischief—wrapped in whatever fabric is currently in fashion among eldritch beings—these rulers of the realm are powerful beyond measure, enigmatic beyond reason, and dramatic beyond all possible endurance. You may occasionally find them in enchanted courts, lost in deep thought, or occasionally punishing an unfortunate gambler by transforming them into a deck of playing cards.” 

Galvahin closed his eyes. Counted to three. Opened them again. 

It did not improve his opinion of the words on the page. 

Verily, that was what the Feywild needed: a cavalcade of capricious deities with too much time on their hands and no concept of restraint. 

With a slow exhale, he turned the page, his eyes skimming the list of archfey. Some, he had heard of. Others… well, there was a distinct possibility Volo had invented them after an intense personal experience with enchanted mead. 

Titania, the Summer Queen—bright as the zenith sun and twice as scorching. Radiant, regal, and reportedly capable of reducing mortals to ash with a single withering remark (with many documented accounts, apparently). 

Oberon, the Green Lord—Titania’s equal in power, if not in impatience. Lord of beasts, champion of hunts, and (if Volo’s account could be believed) personally culpable for no less than seven amorous encounters between unsuspecting mortals and particularly coquettish trees in just the last century. 

Galvahin’s eyes stilled for a moment. 

Titania and Oberon. Not just any archfey. The archfey. The ones all the others answered to—whether they admitted it or not. The knight had heard their names since childhood, hushed in tales both cautionary and bedtime alike. 

And Oriel was their son. It wasn’t like the prince had been subtle about it—he had introduced himself as their scion—but knowing it and reading it in print were two different things. Galvahin exhaled through his nose, forcing himself to process what that actually meant. 

Oriel wasn’t just a monarch. He was Feywild royalty in the highest possible sense. One couldn’t say he simply played at aristocracy; he was steeped in it, shaped by it, moulded by two beings whose whims could shift the balance of an entire plane. Nobility? No, this was what nobility wished it could be—rooted in something ancient, something immutable. The archfey wasn’t carrying a mere title, he was born into a birthright woven before epics, before diadems, before the very notion of dominion itself. 

Which meant that, in just three days, Galvahin had bargained, gifted, dined, resisted, kissed, and practically vowed fealty to the Feywild’s equivalent of a crown prince. 

Hardly the knight’s crowning moment of prescience. 

He skimmed the descriptions again. Titania—blinding, unrelenting, brilliant as the sun itself, and just as liable to burn anyone who comes too close. Oberon—wild, untamed, all instinct and sharp smiles, a creature of impulse and force of will. 

Well. Galvahin let out a quiet, humourless chuckle. That makes sense. As they say, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree—though in Oriel’s case, the knight suspected it cartwheeled dramatically into a bed of violets before deciding to throw a masquerade ball in the petals and negotiating a bargain with the orchard farmer. 

His amusement flickered. Then dimmed. 

That old adage never quite sat right with Galvahin. He wasn’t sure if he had fallen close to his own father’s roots, or if he’d simply been left rolling, unclaimed, somewhere in the dirt. After all, what had he inherited from the man? A noble upbringing? Table manners? The weight of a name? The nagging feeling that every achievement was just privilege in disguise? And, of course, absence. That, most of all. 

And his mother… well. There was no tree to fall from there. A vague, blurred sense of warmth. That was all he had of her, really. A feeling. Not even a memory. 

The knight swallowed. Pushed the ache down. 

Oriel could trace his heritage back through the very bones of his world. Galvahin could barely trace his past beyond a crest on a ring and the stories others had told him. 

He turned the page. 

The next section of the book was a tangled mess of ink. 

Galvahin had been prepared for florid embellishments, for unnecessary asides, and for the occasional completely fictitious claim—he had spent the better part of an hour parsing through Volo’s prose, after all. But this? This was an affront to order itself. 

At the top of the page, in swirling script, the title stood proudly: 

“An Account of the Royal Lineages of the Feywild.” 

Below it, chaos reigned. The family tree sprawled across the parchment like a network of veins, twisting and coiling in on itself, branching at all angles, doubling back, looping around where no logical lineage should loop. Every inch of the parchment was drowning in names, transcribed both in clear Common script and the refined calligraphy of Elvish. Some were blotted out entirely, only for new names to take their place as if Volo had changed his mind mid-word. 

The more Galvahin tried to follow a single thread of descent, the more lost he became. Every time he traced a line, it led him to some bizarre, impossible conclusion. One name connected to three different consorts—two of whom were listed as one another's siblings. Another name split into five branches, each indicating an entirely different mother. A dozen children born of unions that should not, by any mortal understanding, have been possible. 

He turned the book sideways. Then upside down. It didn’t help. 

“The hells…” muttered the knight. 

Thelanna leaned over and let out a quiet, whispered chuckle. “Oh, you sweet thing. You’re trying to make sense of it.” 

Galvahin shot her a flat look. “You mean there is no sense to be made.” 

“Oh, there's logic,” she said, smirking. “Just not the kind that cares what you have to think of it.” 

She tapped a name—one of Oriel’s many half-siblings, though it was unclear whether they were Unseelie, Seelie, or possibly both. “This one? The records say she was technically born before Oriel, but her mother didn’t give birth to her until last millennium. And that one—” She gestured to another sibling, connected by a dotted line, “—only exists every other decade, depending on who you ask.” 

Galvahin’s headache intensified. “That’s not how time works.” 

Thelanna’s eyes brightened. “It is if you ask the right person at the right moment.” 

He leaned back in his chair. “And this—” He gestured broadly at the sprawling mess of names and tangled relations. “—this is supposed to be helpful?” 

Thelanna hummed, flipping back and forth through the pages. “That depends on what you’re looking for. If it’s a sense of order? Then no. If it’s an appreciation for the breathtaking audacity of Fey courtship?” She arched a brow. “Then it’s a masterpiece.” 

Galvahin sighed and focused on what little he could glean. The only real, tangible fact amidst the madness was that Oriel, among his full siblings, was the youngest—at least, currently. That part was clear, if only because no other names came after his. 

“…I suppose that explains something,” he murmured. 

Thelanna tilted her head. “Oh? What?” 

Galvahin exhaled, staring down at the mess of ink. “The way he… acts. Not just the theatrics—though I suspect that’s an inherited trait.” He flicked his gaze toward the names of Titania and Oberon. “But the way he commands a room. The way he makes himself the centre of everything, even when he’s not trying to.” 

Thelanna smirked. “You think he’s overcompensating for something?” 

“What? No.” The knight shot her a look, unimpressed. “I’m just saying,” he muttered, “when you’re the youngest in that”—he tapped the book—“you either learn how to make yourself impossible to ignore… or you fade into obscurity.” 

Thelanna regarded him with something softer than amusement now. “Oh, so you do understand him.” 

Galvahin scoffed, shaking his head. “Understanding him and surviving him are two different things.” 

“Right. Because one makes the other that much easier.” The dryad grinned. “I wonder though, which precedes the former…” 

Galvahin frowned. “That sounds just like something he would say.” 

Thelanna laughed, entirely too pleased with herself. 

Sighing, the knight dragged his attention back to the book. He read past names both storied and absurd—Baba Yaga: Mother of All Witches, Mab: Queen of Air and Darkness, Neifon: Lord of Bats, Zybilna: Ruler of Prismeer—each one heralded with theatrical flair. 

Volo had spared no detail, cataloging their various epithets, their rumoured lovers, their legendary feuds, even their preferred modes of entrance to social gatherings. 

And then—Oriel: Crescent Prince. 

Galvahin paused. 

That was it. 

He turned the page. Checked the margins. Scanned for a footnote hidden in some absurdly tiny script. 

Still nothing. 

The longer he stared at the emptiness of the entry, the stranger it became. 

Volo, who had dedicated entire sections to the significance of pixie embroidery, had somehow written nothing about Oriel? 

Slowly, deliberately, Galvahin turned to Thelanna. “…This man wrote half a page on a displacer beast’s taste in fabric,” he muttered, “and yet, this is all he has on the prince?” 

“Oof.” The dryad tapped a chartreuse finger on the page. “That’s gotta hurt. Imagine pledging yourself to an archfey who doesn’t even get a full paragraph.” She leaned in with a wicked grin. “And here I thought you liked him for his personality.” 

“Interesting.” Galvahin rested his chin against his knuckles. “And your official position in this not-a-big-shot’s court is…?” 

Thelanna tilted her head. “Well, technically,” she whispered, “I think I’m supposed to be a diplomatic liaison.” 

“…And what do you actually do?” 

She shrugged. “Mostly I just instigate things and then watch.” 

“That seems…” The knight frowned. “Irresponsible.” 

Thelanna smirked. “I guess that makes two of us.” 

Galvahin arched a brow, skeptical. “Does it now.” 

She gestured lazily between them. “You, a starry-eyed knight desperate to prove himself. Me, a dryad who stays around for just enough entertainment. We’re both loyal to the fey equivalent of a younger sibling no one takes seriously.” She tilted her head. “Really makes you think.” 

Galvahin exhaled. “Think what, exactly?” 

The dryad tapped Oriel’s name on the page, lips curling in amusement. “Oh, you know.” 

“Do I?” 

“Absolutely.” Her finger flicked at the nearly empty entry. “No grand reputation. No famous exploits. Not so much as a postscript…” She let out a slow, wistful sigh. “He’s just hot, isn’t he?” 

Galvahin stiffened. “…What?” 

Thelanna grinned. “You heard me. The Feywild loves a pretty face. And when someone has no achievements but still gets invited to all the best parties? That’s a hot person right there.” She propped her chin in her palm. “It’s like court gossip. If someone has nothing going for them, but people still flock to them anyway—” 

“I—” Galvahin opened his mouth, then shut it again. His jaw tensed, visibly battling the logic of her statement. 

Thelanna’s smirk deepened. “You see it now, don’t you?” 

I loathe how much sense you’re making. 

The knight slowly ran a hand down his face. Thelanna’s amusement had, by now, fully settled into something smug and self-satisfied, and there was nothing he could say that wouldn’t make it worse. 

So, he chose not to say anything at all. Instead, he turned the page. 

A distraction. Anything but this conversation. 

For a fleeting moment, hesitation held him, his gaze wavering at the precipice of the parchment. Fey wrought nothing without intent—names, boons, even the act of speaking could be a trap if one wasn’t careful. He had no reason to believe Oriel’s family would ever concern themselves with him, but if there was even the slightest chance he might cross paths with one of them, he would not be caught in the fetters of ignorance. The knight had suffered enough embarrassments in this realm. Steeling himself, he began to read. 

Verenestra, the Oak Princess—patron of beauty, arbiter of grace, and mother of all dryads, though she has long since stopped taking responsibility for their behaviour. 

Hyrsam, the Prince of Fools—first of the satyrs, primal lord of music and mirth, and the only archfey known to have sparked a war using nothing but a well-placed jig. 

The Frost Prince—beauty turned bitterness, warmth turned woe. The Unseelie gave him a throne of ice when a mortal left his heart frozen in the snow. 

Verenestra, Hyrsam, and more names than Galvahin could take in at once. The pages were crowded with lineages, stories, fates intertwined between fey and mortal alike. He had expected as much; Fey aristocrats, if naught else, were creatures of unchecked excess—and mortals had always been drawn to them, no matter the warnings. Some of these names had sired entire noble houses. Others had taken lovers for an hour and forgotten them just as quickly. 

Yet only one had known the sting of reciprocal oblivion. The Frost Prince. No name. No tales of mischief or conquest. Just a wound left behind by someone who should have been insignificant. A mortal had changed him in a way none of the others had been changed. For all the archfey prided themselves on being untouchable, this was proof that they were anything but. 

The knight’s gaze lingered on the page, unease numbing the borders of his mind. Fey could be careless with mortals, but not always. Some watched them pass by like falling stars, beautiful and distant. Others refused to let them go, their affections turning to gilded cages. But this—this was different. This was desolation, not dominion. Galvahin’s thumb pressed against the parchment. If a mortal left Oriel, would he lament? Would he be indifferent? Or—his chest tightened—would he not allow it at all? 

The thought unsettled him. And the longer he lingered on these names, the more it felt like stepping over a threshold he hadn’t been invited through. Galvahin had been raised with courtly manners, with an understanding of where he stood among nobility. The Alderwyn name carried weight, but not the kind that could shape history with a whim. Oriel’s family? That was a different level of power entirely, the sort that came with unspoken rules and unabated legacies. He wasn’t sure if reading this was trespassing or not. But it felt like it. With a quiet breath, he turned a few pages. 

“Fauna of the Feywild.” 

Good. Something less personal. 

The names blurred as he skimmed, some half-remembered, others unknown. Jabberwock—a dragon of twisted tongue and madness. Kelpie—a drowning specter in the shape of a horse. Blink Dog— 

He paused. Blink Dog. 

These were the creatures that had come to his aid against the displacer beast. Volo’s guide described their deep, almost instinctual hatred for the beasts, their refusal to let them roam unchecked. It was grounding, in a way—knowing that even here, in a place where meaning could melt like mist, some things fought not for gain, not for survival, but because it was in their nature to stand against the dark. 

A creature that fights for what’s right, never flirts with you, and probably lets you ruffle its ears? I should have sworn an accord with one of these instead. An amused exhale left him. I wonder, do they wag their tails when happy, or does their whole rear end blink out of existence? 

Galvahin smirked faintly and shook his head before turning the page. 

Snawfus—a deer with floral-crown antlers and white-feathered wings. Leaves a trail of petals and disappointed hunters in its wake. 

Meenlock—skittering creatures born of terror and thriving off it. Basically, nightmares that got tired of being imaginary. 

Snallygaster—some sort of half-serpent, half-bird, half-octopus eyesore. Nature is still workshopping this one. 

Thunderbird—feathers of lightning, a cry that shakes the skies, and absolutely no respect for noise ordinances. 

Jackalope— 

Galvahin’s breath stilled. 

“Jackalope—A creature that cannot decide whether it wants to be majestic or adorable, and so it is both! Faster than a hare, prouder than a stag, and stronger than you’d think—its antlers have settled many disputes (mostly with bears who left looking distinctly more ventilated). These noble beasts only take mates when lightning cracks the sky, suggesting a deep appreciation for theatrics. You may lure one with whisky, but be warned—if it drinks, it does so as your equal, not your pet.” 

His gunmetal gaze flicked over the words, shoulders tensing— 

Then, something betrayed him. A twitch at the corner of his lips, too faint to be called a smile, but present all the same. 

Majestic and adorable… Whisky and equal footing… His thumb brushed the edge of his beard. I could have worse company. 

Galvahin let the pages fall beneath his fingers, skimming their contents with increasing skepticism. 

“The Official Seelie Guide to Unseelie Fashion: How to Spot a Villain by Their Taste in Capes.” 

Right. That was certainly neutral and unbiased. 

“The Art of Fey Gift-Giving: What’s a Thoughtful Gesture and What’s a Lifelong Binding Pact?” 

…Potentially useful. He made a mental note to return to it. 

“Understanding the Trickster Mind: A Deep Dive into Fey Mischief, Deception, and Why They Always Think It’s Funny.” 

Not today. 

“A Study of Emotional Amplification in the Feywild: Why You Are Feeling Way Too Much, Way Too Fast, and How It Will Absolutely, Inevitably Ruin Your Life.” 

That was needlessly dramatic. 

He skimmed the introduction, expression blank. 

“The Feywild! A land of heightened senses, poetic excess, and truly unreasonable emotional reactions. Here, a minor slight becomes a blood feud, a passing fancy transforms into undying devotion, and mild irritation escalates into an all-consuming vendetta that lasts several centuries. Mortals who enter this realm should be keenly aware that any emotion they experience—however fleeting—will be magnified tenfold, often in ways they find deeply distressing! This is not a theory, but a fact, as any adventurer who has been driven to tears by a particularly moving sunset will tell you.” 

Galvahin’s grip tightened on the book. 

No. 

No, that wasn’t right. 

He turned the page. 

“Consider the case of a travelling bard who entered the Feywild and, upon locking eyes with a beautiful stranger, fell into a love so deep and so immediate that she composed a thirty-verse ballad on the spot. When she attempted to leave the next morning, the overwhelming grief of parting was so unbearable that she collapsed, sobbing, into a hedge and refused to move for three days. This was an entirely natural Feywild response—though it was later revealed that the ‘beautiful stranger’ was, in fact, a lobster.” 

The knight blinked. 

Preposterous. That wouldn’t happen to him. 

He turned another page. 

“Even those of great discipline are not immune! Knights who pride themselves on restraint have been known to weep openly at the sight of a particularly noble squirrel, or throw themselves into blind, furious combat over perceived slights so minor that they could not recall them five minutes later. Many are alarmed to find that their usual composure has abandoned them, replaced by the volatile whims of their hearts laid bare.” 

Galvahin was frozen. 

That—that wasn’t— 

Another page. 

“For those who find themselves suddenly captivated by a certain someone—drawn in by their every word, intoxicated by the very notion of their presence—it is wise to remember: in the Feywild, such feelings are not necessarily real. They are echoes, distorted and amplified by the realm itself. What might have been a passing fancy elsewhere can bloom into something all-consuming here, a wildfire of passion kindled by the plane’s very nature. It is a common mistake for mortals to confuse this for genuine feeling, only to find their hearts wrung dry upon returning home.” 

Galvahin’s pulse thundered in his ears. 

No. 

He turned the page so quickly it nearly tore. 

“Should you suspect yourself to be under the effects of emotional amplification, it is highly recommended that you take a step back, remove yourself from the presence of the individual in question, and reflect—” 

The knight closed the book. 

His breath came slow, deliberate—like a man walking a tightrope over a pit of vipers. Thelanna was watching him, no doubt curious as to his sudden shift in demeanor, but he would not indulge her. 

Instead, he inhaled, exhaled...

And then, after a moment’s pause— 

Silently reopened the book. 

He still had a few things to check. 

Another page. 

“In particularly severe cases, mortals may find themselves not only drawn to an individual but utterly consumed by them—” 

Galvahin’s eye twitched. 

Another. 

“—exhibiting behaviours such as irrational protectiveness, obsessive thought patterns, and an overwhelming urge to pledge oneself entirely to—” 

The book snapped shut. 

His finger twitched. Not with fear. Not even with horror. The crimson soaking into his sleeves made that clear. 

He pinched the bridge of his nose. 

Then he opened the book. One last time. 

“—a phenomenon that is, of course, most commonly observed when a mortal has entered into a particularly powerful Fey bargain—” 

“Oh, for FUCK’S SAKE!!” 

The entire library stilled. 

A sharp gust of wind swept through the shelves, fluttering pages and rattling ink pots. A single, delicate quill rolled off the desk. 

Thelanna’s lips parted in slow, delighted anticipation. 

And then— 

A blue blur. 

Rilien materialised atop their desk, rigid as ever, glaring daggers at Galvahin. His arms were crossed tight like a vice, his foot tapping again at that ungodly, imperceptible speed. The quickling sucked in a breath so sharply, it was a wonder he didn’t siphon the ink from the very pages around him. 

“Too-loud—too-loud—FAR—TOO—LOUD—” 

Galvahin, barely restraining himself from launching the book across the room, lifted his gaze, gunmetal eyes full of murder. 

Rilien was unfazed. 

“NO—NO—NO—NO—NO—WHAT—DID—I—SAY—” The quickling’s voice was a staccato burst of fury. “Did—I—NOT—just—say—NO—shouting? NO—exclamations? NO—losing—your—entire—mortal—mind—over—a—book?” 

The knight inhaled through his nose. “I—” 

“Oh-ho! You-think-you’re-special? You-think-the-rules-don’t-apply-to-you-because-you’re-distressed? Because-you’re-having-an-existential-crisis?” The quickling threw up his hands. “Well-let-me-tell-you-something-Sir-Human—everyone-in-this-library-is-having-an-existential-crisis! Do-you-think-one-can-simply-read-The-Complete-Catalog-of-Possible-Dooms-and-not-have-a-breakdown?! And yet—AND YET—do-you-hear-them-screaming? No! Because-they-have-self-control!” 

Thelanna, still smirking, leaned toward Galvahin. “He’s got you there.” 

Galvahin clenched his jaw so tightly he might have cracked a molar. 

Rilien’s foot tapped at an even more impossible speed, his entire body vibrating with righteous indignation. “You-were-doing-so-well! So-quiet! So-dignified! So-perfectly-inconspicuous! And-now-look-at-you!” He spun in place so fast he blurred, as if winding himself up for maximum fury before jabbing a minuscule finger directly into Galvahin’s forehead. “Bellowing-like-a-barbarian-having-a-spiritual-awakening-in-a-mirror-maze!” 

“I-expected-this-from-her.” He flung a hand in Thelanna’s direction without even looking at her. “She-has-no-discipline—no-impulse-control—a-menace-to-any-environment-that-requires-even-a-modicum-of-restraint—” 

“Hey,” Thelanna muttered, not actually sounding offended. 

“—but-you!” Rilien turned back, bristling. “You-were-the-model-of-library-decorum! You-were-my-example! I-was-going-to-use-you-as-an-INSTRUCTIONAL TOOL! Be-like-the-human! I-was-going-to-say! See-how-he-controls-himself! See-how-he-understands-the-sacred-duty-of-silence?! BUT-NO! NO! YOU-HAD-TO-FAIL-ME! YOU-HAD-TO-SHOW-YOUR-TRUE-COLOURS! A-TRAITOR-TO-THE-CAUSE!” 

Galvahin’s jaw tightened. His pulse thundered. His hands curled into fists against his thighs. 

“I—” 

“No-no-no-no-no!” Rilien waved a hand in his face, cutting him off before he could speak. “DO-NOT-TRY-TO-DEFEND-YOURSELF! DO-NOT-SPEAK! DO-NOT-EVEN-EXIST-IN-MY-PRESENCE! YOU-HAVE-DISAPPOINTED-ME-ON-A-PRIMAL-LEVEL! I-AM-EXPERIENCING-A-BETRAYAL-SO-PROFOUND-THAT-THE-CONCEPT-OF-FORGIVENESS-HAS-LEFT-MY-SOUL-ENTIRELY!” 

Galvahin shot to his feet, chair scraping against the floor with an ugly screech. “IT WAS ONE EXCLAMATION—” 

Rilien let out an affronted shriek. “ONE?! ONE?! IS-THAT-WHAT-YOU-THINK-THIS-IS?! DO-YOU-HAVE-ANY-IDEA-WHAT-KIND-OF-SLIPPERY-SLOPE-YOU-HAVE-STEPPED UPON?! FIRST-IT’S-AN-EXPLETIVE—NEXT-THING-YOU-KNOW-THERE’S-AN-ORCHESTRA-IN-THE-YOUNG-ADULT-SECTION-AND-PEOPLE-ARE-HAVING-DRAMATIC-LOVERS’-REUNIONS-IN-THE-READING-NOOKS!” 

The quickling’s foot tapped even faster. “AND-I-WILL-NOT-HAVE-THAT-IN-MY-LIBRARY!” 

Galvahin let out an exaggerated gasp, clutching his chest as if struck by divine revelation, his free hand lifting in the perfect parody of reverence. “Oh, forgive me, mighty warden of the bookshelves, for my unforgivable lapse in—” 

“OUT!” 

Rilien’s voice cracked the air like a whip. He flung both arms toward the door so forcefully that a stack of papers was sent flying. 

“OUT-OUT-OUT-OUT-OUT! YOU-ARE-BANISHED—EXILED—CAST-INTO-THE-ABYSS-BEYOND-THE-TOME! DO-NOT-RETURN-UNTIL-YOU-HAVE-REGAINED-YOUR-SENSE-OF-SHAME-AND-THE-ABILITY-TO-SPEAK-IN-A-TONE-RESPECTFUL-TO-INK!” 

A gust of wind—a physical force of rejection—shoved both Galvahin and Thelanna backward as Rilien blurred out of sight. The next thing they knew, they were unceremoniously deposited just outside the library’s great archway, the massive doors slamming shut behind them with a definitive BOOM. 

Silence. 

Then Thelanna, still sprawled where she had landed, broke into unrestrained laughter. 

“Oh—oh, that was—beautiful.” She clutched her stomach, shaking. “You—you were his favourite! He was gonna use you as an example!” 

Galvahin dragged a hand down his face, releasing a long, gruelling exhale. 

He kicked at the floor. 

Notes:

Fleez | Yeah Yeah Yeahs

You know I won't do battle with no fiction
The wilderness' becoming my addiction
I shuffle 'round the creatures and the lords (The lords)
On the road again

Chapter 12: The Threads

Summary:

Galvahin sets out for clarity and dignity. Instead, he receives existential whiplash, two kisses, and a gift that feels like a quixotic love letter addressed to his soul.

“The ego is not master in its own house.”

Sigmund Freud

 

The redolence of warm wood and sunlit leaves clung to the air, viscid as nectar. Beneath Galvahin’s hands, the balcony’s railing pulsed with slow, somnolent life, its grain warped in patterns too organic to be carved. Together with Thelanna, he watched the Feywild’s sun lounging low in the sky like a cat in a patch of warmth, its glow gauzy and butter-soft, never fully committing to the passage of time. Though the hour should have been noon, the world clung stubbornly to morning, as if refusing to give up the gentle hush of waking. Below, the forest shimmered with colours that mortals would call unnatural—trees blushed with violet leaves, rivers flowed the hues of deep-sea pearls, and somewhere in the distance, a flock of birds erupted into a flurry of shifting gold, their wings catching light like scattered coins. 

Beyond the forest, the land unfolded in impossible layers, valleys dipped like bundles of silken fabric, and mountains that loomed not with menace but with regal quiescence. Their peaks, crowned in mist and draped in snow, shimmered as if dusted with the vestiges of forgotten starlight. Further still, waterfalls poured from floating isles, their streams caught in slow, lazy arcs before dissolving into the air like dye sinking into paper. The scenery here did not obey physics so much as it entertained the concept, bending it when it suited.

“Volo’s book read less like a guide and more like a prank—every line was pure mockery.”

Galvahin’s words came out in a flurry, haphazard and tumbling over one another. He wasn’t looking at Thelanna, his stormy gaze fixed on the forest below, as if the shifting landscape might offer him a steadiness that his own thoughts refused.

The dryad drummed her fingers against the railing, her mezzo-soprano light, idle. “Funny, I thought mockery only worked when the subject didn’t prove it right.”

Galvahin shot her a sidelong glare, the sharp cut of his jaw tightening as his grip on the railing flexed. Thelanna, utterly unfazed, let her emerald gaze flick down to his vestments, still a deep, smouldering red, his fury setting the very fabric aflame. 

“Damn, Galvahin,” she drawled, grinning. “If I’d known you looked this hot pissed off, I would’ve tried to rile you up sooner.”

He gave her a flat look, nonplussed. “Wonderful to hear that my anger provides you such fine enjoyment.”

Thelanna beamed. “Oh, it really does. But don’t worry—I’m still listening. It’s just… multitasking.” 

“If you enjoy my rancor so much, then maybe I should direct it at you.” The knight’s expression darkened. 

“Oh, look at you,” she chortled, crossing her arms. “Snapping at me like I’m the one who wronged you.”

“I didn’t wrong anyone,” the knight scoffed. 

“Didn’t you?” Thelanna quipped. “You disappeared yesterday without a word, left me and the others wondering if you got spirited away, and now you’re acting like I’m the jerk.”

He clenched his jaw. “I had my reasons.”

“Enlighten me,” she said, faux-patient.

The knight hesitated for half a second too long.

Thelanna smiled archly. “Ah. There it is.”

He exhaled, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “If you must know, I just needed some space.”

“Space?” she echoed, tapping a chartreuse finger against her chin. “Funny, I don’t recall anyone suffocating you.”

“Flint’s hug doesn’t count?”

“It does not,” giggled the dryad. 

His eyes flickered with irritation. “I needed to step away.”

“For the entire day?”

Galvahin’s lips pressed into a tight line. “Yes.”

Thelanna huffed. “Ah. I thought you were avoiding us.”

His nostrils flared. “I wasn’t. I just—” He hesitated, clearly loathing the fib before it left his mouth. “—had to use the restroom.”

A beat of silence. The knight, uncomfortable, shifted.

Then, Thelanna wheezed, doubling over in laughter. “You left us all wondering if you’d been kidnapped, and the great mystery is that you needed to piss?”

He scowled. “I can’t speak for the others, but—personally—I don’t make a habit of relieving myself in the middle of a picnic.”

“You’re adorable.” The dryad wiped a fake tear from her eye. “Flint’s going to love hearing that you abandoned us for a noble pilgrimage to the little knight’s room.”

Galvahin rubbed the back of his neck, his fingers pressing hard into the tense muscles there. “I—” He hesitated. “I suppose… I could have handled my departure with more courtesy,” he admitted. 

His shoulders squared, his chest tightened, and he gave a staid, yet earnest, noble bow. “For that, I extend my apologies.” 

“You know, at this rate,” Thelanna giggled. “We’ll make a proper fey of you yet. You’re already halfway there—confused, unpredictable, prone to brooding and emotional outbursts. All that’s left is to develop a habit of replying to people with riddles, and you’ll be set.” 

The knight stroked his scruff, feigning contemplation. “What verdant creature perches high, speaks too freely, and soon finds herself plummeting toward an inconvenient lesson?” His gunmetal gaze flicked pointedly to the balcony’s edge. “Take your time.”

“Oh my,” The dryad purred. “Is this your way of finally making a move, or do you just enjoy picturing me in precarious positions?” She waggled her saffron brows. “If tossing me around is the only way to loosen you up, I won’t object.”

Galvahin blinked at her. “You know, I was just beginning to believe I could possibly outpace your innuendos. That was naive of me.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she chuckled, tapping her chin. “You may have fumbled the riddle, but I still forgive you disappearing, seeing as you had such a nice evening.” She sighed dramatically, pressing a hand to her chest. “…You know, a proper friend would’ve at least sent word that you wouldn’t be returning. Instead, I had to piece it together this morning when you and Oriel were giggling over breakfast like a pair of gossiping pixies.”

The knight stiffened as his doublet revealed him, the blistered red and steely cobalt wilting into a delicate peach, like the bruised sunrise retreating into pale light.

His lips pressed into a firm line. “If I was in good spirits, it was because the morning was enjoyable.”

Thelanna gave him a grin. “Oh, I don’t doubt that. But you left the rest of us to guess at the finer details.”

Galvahin exhaled, shaking his head. “I think I’ve given you more than enough to work with.”

“Oh, you think that?” She clicked her tongue. “My dear, I am positively parched.”

“Then I hope you enjoy thirst.” His grey eyes flicked skyward in a theatrical roll.

“Hah!” The dryad leaned in, tone lilting. “Keep being this cheeky, I might start to believe the Feywild’s finally getting to you.”

He scoffed, but something flickered in his expression—a quiet wariness. “That’s what worries me.”

“Oh, Volo’s bit about emotions running wild here?” She snorted. “Yeah, that tracks. I once saw Klimvarh cry over a puddle. Claimed it ‘reflected his soul too accurately.’”

Galvahin let out a short, humourless laugh, raking a hand through his hair. “If the Feywild can shake even Klimvarh’s resolve over something as mundane as a reflection, it’s no wonder I feel like I’m coming apart at the seams.”

“Ah, yes. The tragic downfall of Sir Galvahin Alderwyn, unravelled by a realm of sparkles and strong feelings,” she said dramatically. “Go on, I’m listening.”

“Yes, laugh it up. I’ve clearly been felled by the dangers of unchecked sentiment.” The knight’s tone was light before he shook his head, pressing his knuckles against his temple. “But seriously, I—what if this place is making me feel things I wouldn’t otherwise? What if I’m just some—some puppet being jerked around by magic I don’t understand?”

Thelanna tilted her head. “And that terrifies you?” 

“Yes! Why wouldn’t it?” he shot back. “How am I supposed to trust my thoughts if it’s all just some faerie trick?”

“All right, then let’s flip it.” The dryad smirked. “What if you saw it from my side?”

Galvahin crossed his arms. “And that is?”

Thelanna leaned her elbows against the railing, studying him. “You think the Feywild is playing tricks because it’s different from what you know. But this?” She gestured around them. “This isn’t strange to me. It’s home.”

“Oh—” A flicker of embarrassment crossed the knight’s face as the realisation hit—he’d been thinking as if the world revolved around his reality alone. “I… hadn’t considered that.”

Thelanna shifted her stance, her gaze drifting past him. “Right. You didn’t. But let me ask you something—have you ever been to the Material Plane?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “I have. And you know what it feels like? Like someone stuffed cotton in my head, dulled my senses, and left me half-asleep. It’s quiet there. Not peaceful, just… muted.” She paused for a moment, her emerald eyes narrowing. “Tell me, do you know what most fey think of that place?”

Galvahin’s brow furrowed as her words settled, sheepishness overcoming him. “…N-no. I can’t say I do.”

The dryad’s lips curled into something not quite a smile. “It’s a graveyard with slightly more movement. Your home is where things go to wither.” Her emerald eyes locked onto his. “It’s dull, predictable, dying. If the Shadowfell is death, then your realm is the slow decay before it. You think this place isn’t real?” She frowned at him. “Maybe the Feywild isn’t the illusion—you just grew up somewhere too broken to recognise what life is actually supposed to feel like.”

Galvahin’s doublet paled, the colour seeping from it like dyes washed away by rain, leaving behind a dull, hesitant grey. He clenched his fists against the railing, against the wood. It pulsed beneath his palms, slow and warm, an ever-present reminder that even this—this—was somehow sentient in a way he could never quite make peace with.

He didn’t look up. Not yet.

A graveyard with slightly more movement.

It wasn’t true. Couldn’t be.

And yet—

The doubt festered. 

His respiration came slow as he lifted his stormy gaze beyond the balcony, beyond the terrace of woven branches and flowering ivy that cascaded like waterfalls of colour. The Feywild stretched before him, extravagantly vast, a world that did not sit still. The sun hung low, caught in a golden haze, the sky itself shifting in hue as though it would never decide whether to be ruby-tinted dawn or sapphire dusk, all while clouds moved like a blown breath, their shapes unfixed, curling and unravelling in their leisure.

Below, the forest stirred with its own quiet rhythm. The wind did not rustle the leaves; it played through them, plucking melodies from their branches. Galvahin could spot the river from the day before, the one Oriel had led him to, winding through the woods in its lazy, buoyant course. It didn’t follow gravity so much as it danced against it, shifting paths as if changing its mind with every idle twist. Not far in the distance, a moose with antlers of iridescent shadow stepped between the trees, its form flickering at the edges, half-there, half-elsewhere.

It should have been overwhelming.

It was overwhelming.

But beneath that, it was something else, too—something he didn't quite have the language for. Like nostalgia for a memory that didn’t exist. 

His doublet melted, the grey retreating, surrendering to the touch of deep cobalt.

The Material Plane had always been the anchor of reality—stable, comprehensible, governed by reason. Even the Shadowfell, wretched and ashen, was merely a drained reflection of his world, a place where life still existed, even if it had long since lost the will to thrive. But the Feywild? It was the inverse of all of that—a world that thrived too much, where existence did not settle so much as shimmer, eschewing stillness. It did not wait to be understood. It simply was. 

Even if he thought Thelanna’s comparison to the Shadowfell was a touch uncharitable, he couldn’t shake the feeling that had entrenched itself within his marrow: that he had never existed anywhere more vivid—more visceral—than here.

The knight swallowed, jaw tightening as he tried to force the thought away.

“I don’t know,” he said finally, his voice quieter, gravelled by something ineffable. “I don’t know what to make of that.” 

It was the closest thing to an admission he could give her.

Thelanna propped her chin in her hand, regarding him with open amusement. “Well, Jackalope, that’s a start.”

The name landed off—too familiar in the wrong mouth. Galvahin stiffened. The sound of it didn’t grate, exactly, but it felt misbegotten, like a borrowed cape that didn’t sit right on his shoulders. 

“Don’t call me that.”

Thelanna raised a brow. “What, Jackalope?”

His lip quirked unevenly. “Yes.”

She smirked. “Strange. You don’t seem to mind when he calls you that.”

Galvahin shook his head, exasperated. “I don’t mind nicknames, just… not that one.”

The dryad gave a slow, sagacious nod. “Not from me.”

His doublet flickered. He didn’t confirm or deny.

“That’s adorable,” she mused. “What, worried I’ll take the magic out of it?”

The knight barked a laugh. “I doubt you could.”

“Ooh, romantic.”

“By the gods, never mind,” he groaned.

Thelanna held up her hands, giggling. “Alright, alright, no ‘Jackalope.’ Wouldn’t want to overstep.”

Galvahin sighed, nodding. “Appreciated.”

“‘Sir Galvahin’ it is, then.”

His face immediately darkened. “Not that either.”

Thelanna blinked, all innocence. “Wait, seriously? You are a knight, right?”

“Yes,” he bit out.

“And you’re a nobleman?”

He worried at the signet ring on his pinkie. “Yes.”

“Then what gives?” She leaned in, utterly tickled. “Don’t tell me it makes you blush. That would be so cute.”

He scowled, his doublet betraying him with the faintest flush of peach.

“Oh,” she gasped, delighted. “It does make you blush.”

“I just don’t like it.” He glanced away. 

Thelanna gave him a look. “That’s not an answer.”

Galvahin tensed. “It makes me sound like something I’m not.”

“Which is?”

He hesitated, then sighed. “Someone above others. Someone more important. I was ‘Master Alderwyn’ before I could read, ‘Sir Galvahin’ before I’d proven anything. It’s never felt like something I earned. Just something I had to carry.” The knight shook his head. “No. I’d rather just be Galvahin.”

Thelanna tapped her chin, considering. “So, just ‘Galvahin,’ then. Hm… Gal-va-hin.” She let the name roll off her tongue with slow deliberation before shaking her head. “Nope. Too long. I don’t like it.”

He scoffed, almost laughing. “You don’t like my name?”

“Oh, I like it just fine,” she said breezily. “I just think it could be snappier.”

The knight groaned, already regretting his confession. “Let me guess. You’re going to come up with something.”

“You did say you don’t mind nicknames.”

“My mistake, clearly.”

Thelanna grinned. “Alright, Galv.”

He blinked, his stature stiffening.

She caught the change instantly, her smirk widening. “Oh? That one actually lands.”

Galvahin rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Isn’t that what Flint called me?”

“Flint has good taste,” she said, her tone smug as a polished button.

He sighed. “…It’s not terrible.”

“Well then,” Thelanna grinned, elbowing him lightly, “‘Galv’ it is.”

“Now that I think about it,” said the knight, ruminating aloud. “Some of the other kids used to call me that when I was young. I guess it was easier to shout across the field.” He let out a low chuff, smiling, nostalgic. “I’d forgotten about that.”

“Wait—other kids? You mean you actually socialised?” She gasped dramatically. 

“Don’t tease.”

“I’m not!” Thelanna exclaimed, her tone shifting to something between levity and fondness. “I just find it cute that you—stoic, broody you—once had little friends running about.” She leaned in. “Tell me more about the adventures of Junior Galv and his band of tiny knights.”

“I wouldn’t get too excited.” Galvahin’s bass softened, almost quiet. “It’s not as if we were some grand party of adventurers. We were just children, and I was just… there.”

“Ohhh, I see what’s happening,” she mused, crossing her arms. “You were the bashful, brooding type even back then, weren’t you?”

“Oh, stop.” He huffed. “It wasn’t some tragic tale. I got along with them just fine. They were always decent to me.”

“So what’s the hesitation, then?” Thelanna inquired, tilting her head. “If you got along, weren’t they your friends?” 

“I suppose…” the knight answered, unsure. “I mean, they never excluded me, and I had fun, but… I don’t know.” He paused for a moment, his gaze drifting upward and outward toward the scenery, lost in the memory. “I never quite felt… part of it. Like I was standing in the same place as them, but not really with them.”

“I’m not sure I follow. You were with them, but… not with them?” She arched her brow. “That sounds suspiciously like broody knight nonsense.”

Galvahin inclined his head slightly, his expression neutral as he spoke. “It’s like operating a lighthouse,” he mused, as if stating a simple truth rather than a deeply personal sentiment. “Watching the ships pass in the night. You send out your signals, hoping someone understands, but you never quite know if they do.” 

He tapped two fingers lightly against the railing, considering. “Maybe they thought of me as a friend—I don’t know.” A flicker of something—uncertainty, perhaps—crossed his features before vanishing. “I just remember feeling like an echo of the real thing, like I was acting out a role rather than actually being there with them.” He paused, his tone dropping lower, less matter-of-fact. “I still feel that way.”

The dryad let out a slow hum, tapping a finger against her chin as if considering something deeply. Then she tilted her head, feigning casual curiosity. “You ever think maybe you’re not a lighthouse at all, Galv? Maybe you’re one of the ships.”

Galvahin hummed in return, weighing her words. Then, with a wry smirk, he replied, “If I’m a ship, then I’m a wreck waiting to happen—because I clearly can’t read a chart to save my life.” He glanced at Thelanna, a flicker of challenge in his gunmetal eyes. “And you? What are you? A siren?”

Thelanna’s brows shot up, and a slow, wicked smirk spread across her lips. “I’m sorry, was that a flirt?” she asked, tilting her head as if she could hardly believe it. “Fuck me over a faerie ring, I think it was! Quick—do it again before you lose your nerve!”

The knight simpered. “A flirt, was it? And here I thought I was just making conversation. How careless of me.”

Thelanna burst into cachinnation, folding over the railing as if she might collapse. “Oh, this is rich. Either the Feywild is finally rubbing off on you, or this is the most ironic conversation I’ve ever had.”

He chuckled, subdued and bemused, cerulean painting his cobalt seams. “How so?”

She gestured between them, smirking. “Because this? This is connection, Galv. Whether you meant it or not. You can brood about your ship metaphors all you like, but you’re still here, talking to me. And now?” Her emerald eyes lowered in amusement. “Flirting.” She giggled once, not parting her lips. “So, which is it—are you lost at sea, or have you found something worth docking for?” 

“I’m sorry, ‘something worth docking for?’” Galvahin huffed a laugh. “You and I both know that’s a bit too poetic for whatever this is.” 

Thelanna’s smirk deepened, but there was a flicker of something else behind it—something edged with curiosity. “You say that, but you’re still humouring me.” She tilted her head, studying him as though she were piecing something together. “Not that I’m complaining. I was starting to wonder if I had to mind my manners around you now.”

The knight let out a breath, shaking his head as if trying to rid himself of an absurd notion. “I don’t know where you got that idea, but you don’t have to start treating me any differently.”

“Oh?” Thelanna’s tone lilted with amusement, her brow quirking as she leaned away a little. “And did you actually run that past the prince, or are we just going off hopeful intuition?”

His expression tightened, wincing like a man nursing a slow-building migraine. “I didn’t have to ask.”

The dryad clicked her tongue, grinning. “That bad, huh?”

Galvahin hesitated just long enough to make her grin widen before finally exhaling, his voice dry. “Let’s just say I’d rather not repeat his exact phrasing.”

Thelanna blinked at him, then nodded as though arriving at an unfortunate conclusion. “Right. No need to spell it out—I think I can guess.” She lifted a hand, counting on her chartreuse fingers. “He wouldn’t want to cage a wild creature. He believes in freedom, experience, indulgence.” A pause, then her smirk deepened. “Or, let me put it another way—he wouldn’t want to keep you from sampling every ripe fruit in his garden.”

“Close.” Galvahin gave a sharp, humourless laugh. “Worse.”

Thelanna stretched her arms overhead, making a show of feigning ennui. “Well, if you don’t want to tell me, I’ll just have to assume it was something truly filthy.”

The knight exhaled sharply through his teeth. “It wasn’t filthy.”

“Oh? So you will defend him.” She shot him a sidelong look, grin widening. “I’m imagining something with honey-dipped thighs, maybe a comment about keeping you well-fed in all the ways that matter—”

“For fuck’s sake,” Galvahin groaned.

“Or wait, wait—” Thelanna tapped her chin. “He said you’re his greatest temptation, didn’t he?”

Galvahin pinched the bridge of his nose. “No.”

Thelanna gasped, eyes alight. “His finest?”

“No.”

“His favourite?”

“Would you stop—”

“Oh, just spit it out then!”

Galvahin rolled his shoulders, bracing himself, then—voice taking on a soft, lilting tenor—mimicked, “I could never dream of keeping you from a feast when I know it’s my table you’ll crave the most.”

A beat of silence.

Then Thelanna wheezed, laughing so hard she nearly fell over. “Wow, that’s insufferable.”

The knight let out a quiet scoff, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh, his lips curving just slightly, just enough to be vexing.

“Isn’t it?” he said, the barest hint of amusement threading through his voice.

Thelanna’s eyes lit up. “Love that. You’re embracing the suffering now.”

He shook his head, but there was no real intensity behind it. “If I can’t beat you, I might as well ruin the fun by agreeing with you.”

The dryad clicked her tongue. “You’ve got a little too much of him in you.”

Galvahin blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t play dumb,” she said, cupping her chin in her palm. “That little smirk? That ‘oh-so-weary-but-secretly-amused’ tone? I’ve seen it before—only last time it was lounging on a throne, not brooding over a balcony.” 

His expression flickered—almost too quick for her to catch. He straightened, suddenly preoccupied with a loose thread on his doublet.

“So,” she continued, watching him closely. “When are you seeing him again?”

“This afternoon. He said he’d send for me.”

The dryad gasped. “Oh, look at you. Getting summoned. How delightfully dramatic.”

He shot her a dry look. “I think it’s simply efficient.”

She tapped her chin, eyes sparkling. “No, no. Summoning implies something more… theatrical. Like he’s about to conjure you out of thin air in a puff of perfumed smoke.”

Galvahin groaned. “For the love of—”

“Or—” she continued, relentless, “maybe you’ll hear music first. Yes! Some ethereal chime on the wind before he appears, all aglow, arms open, beckoning you into his embrace.”

He sighed. “Are you finished?”

“Not even close.” She clapped her hands together. “Oh, I can see it now. ‘Ah, my brave knight, return to me! I cannot bear another moment apart!’ And then—”

“Amusing,” Galvahin cut in, voice mild. “You shouldn’t be so smug.”

Thelanna laughed. “Oh, I shouldn’t? And why’s that?”

He arched a brow. “Because I’ll be sending for you later.”

The dryad blinked. Once. Twice.

Then, narrowing her eyes, she scoffed. “What?”

He nodded. “I’ll have you fetched.”

Thelanna’s lips parted, as if to argue—only to hesitate. “…Fetched?”

He hummed in confirmation.

She stared at him, suspicious. “For what?”

His expression remained unreadable. “You’ll see.”

The dryad crossed her arms. “That’s infuriating.”

Galvahin’s lips quirked. “Isn’t it?”

She smirked. “Oh, you’re so full of it.”

He frowned. “Pardon?”

Thelanna gestured at him. “That little maneuver you just pulled? Dropping hints, stringing me along, making me ask for more? That was a textbook Feywild tactic. You are one of us now.”

His doublet darkened, his expression flattening. “Don’t be absurd.”

“No, no, I’m serious.” She propped her chin in her hand, studying him. “You might actually be worse. We at least enjoy being cryptic. You, on the other hand, are just accidentally fey.”

The knight exhaled. “Unlike you two, I don’t withhold information for entertainment.”

Thelanna snorted. “Oh, pardon me, His Most Honourable.”

He ignored her. “I just simply believe in honesty. In fact, I hope to set an example by telling you outright.” He turned toward her, arms folding. “His Grace has planned a game. For the three of us.”

Thelanna gasped dramatically. “Wait, wait—so this is your mighty stand against fey deception? This? Telling me one whole truth?” She clutched her chest in mock reverence. “Saint Galvahin, patron knight of Not Lying One Single Time.” She grinned. “How noble of you.”

He sighed. “You can mock me all you like—”

“I intend to.” She leaned in, eyes alight with mischief. “So tell me, when I play cards, should I be a good little mortal and lay my hand face-up? Since you know, honesty and all?”

Galvahin scoffed. “That’s completely different.”

“Uh-huh.” She propped her chin in her hand. “So, lying is bad—unless it’s for fun?”

Galvahin exhaled sharply. “That’s how you think the world works? Like a card game?”

Thelanna tapped her chin, considering. “Well, I do like cards.”

“That wasn’t an answer.”

She flashed him a grin. “Wasn’t it?”

The knight exhaled, rubbing his temple. “First, we’re ships on the same sea. Now, we’re opponents at a card table. I’d just like to know which metaphor you actually believe.”

Thelanna smirked. “Both.”

He narrowed his eyes. “And that makes sense to you?”

She shrugged. “Don’t see why not.”

“Ships reach for each other. Card players hide their hands.” His tone was flat. “So which is it? Connection or cards?”

“Is there a difference?” mused the dryad.

Galvahin stilled for a moment, considering her words as his gaze traced the line of her jaw, the playful glint in her emerald eyes. She made him want to groan and laugh in equal measure. Gods, how could someone be so aggravating and so disarmingly cute at once?

“Ships drift. Cards conceal,” he said, stepping closer. "In any case, I’ll take the course ahead—even if it’s straight into a bluff.”

She hovered in, near enough for her breath to warm the space between them. “And if you lose?” she whispered, eyes aligning on his. “What happens when you crash into that bluff?”

“Mm. Pretend I said something clever about decks getting cut and shuffled,” the knight replied, bass lowering into something softer. “Happens to the best of ships… and the worst of hands.” 

“Oh, bold,” Thelanna purred. “And you’re sure you’re ready to face the break?”

“Honestly?” He leaned in further, tone wry. “I just know I intend to kiss you again—if only to spare us both the horror of another terribly-crafted gambling sailor proverb.”

The dryad smirked, voice lilting. “Well, well… what wind blew this shift into your sails?”

Galvahin gave a slow, self-aware shrug. “Maybe it’s like you said—the Feywild’s not playing tricks, it’s just… uncharted waters.” His lips curved, almost fond. “The wind was always there. I’m just learning how to catch it.”

Thelanna snickered, barely restraining herself.

The knight gave her a flat look. “I’m certain I missed the joke.” 

“Sorry,” she giggled, biting her lip before giving in to a full laugh. “Nothing. Just… I suddenly pictured you and Oriel in sailor uniforms.” She waggled her brows. “And let’s just say, the ropes stayed, but the shirts didn’t.”

“You get an awful lot of amusement out of me and him, don’t you?” Galvahin muttered, deadpan, though a faint blush crept to his ears.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Thelanna chuckled. “I have excellent taste, and I like men. Two of them together? Twice the fun.” She winked before waving a hand dismissively. “And since it’s clear he’s not eyeing me, I’ll just enjoy the view.”

“Ah,” he mused, feigning resignation. “So this is less about me and more about getting the indirect experience.” His smirk sharpened. “How flattering.”

Thelanna burst out laughing, tossing her head back. “Oh, please,” she grinned. “I’m still waiting for his voice to drop and for him to hit his second millennium of puberty before I’d ever consider chasing.”

The knight’s scruffy cheeks pinked as he crossed his arms. “His Grace’s power speaks for itself,” he huffed. “If you think he’s juvenile, that says more about you than him.”

“Don’t get all testy with me now.” She waggled a finger. “I’m sure plenty of folk are into moody little princelings. Just not me.”

“I’m sorry,” Galvahin scoffed, “‘moody little princeling’? Bite your tongue.” His doublet flickered a crimson dusting against the cobalt. 

“Funny,” chuckled the dryad. “You don’t get this defensive when I insult you.” She eyed him up and down. “Wonder what I should make of that.”

Galvahin’s lips parted, but no quip came. He stared past her, frowning, unsettled by how close to the mark she’d landed.

She hummed, tapping her chin. “Did I hit a nerve, or are you just daydreaming about his majesty’s… feast metaphors?”

He hesitated, stormy gaze flicking toward the distant treetops. His jaw worked wordlessly, digits tracing along the railing of the balcony as though searching for answers in its living grain. The pause lingered, hinting at a confession about to surface.

Then—

“I was just wondering,” said the knight, slow and contemplative, “how long I’d have to sweet-talk His Grace into a pardon for finally following through on tossing you over this railing.” His gunmetal eyes flicked back to her, deadpan.

Thelanna laughed. “Oh, you’d be forgiven before I hit the ground.”

He smirked, closing his eyes and lifting his chin as if genuinely weighing the option. “Tempting, then.”

Before Thelanna could reply, one of the balcony’s branches creaked softly, bowing just enough for a single leaf to break loose and land squarely atop Galvahin’s head. It perched there, pertinacious and absurd.

The dryad blinked, then grinned wide. “Would you look at that,” she said, eyes gleaming. “Even the foliage thinks you’re stalling.”

He sighed, plucked the leaf free, and flicked it over the railing. “Betrayed by the décor.”

Thelanna adjusted a strand of saffron hair. “So… toss me or kiss me? I think you’re running out of options.”

Galvahin quirked a brow. “I could still walk away.”

“You could,” she said, voice lowering. “But you won’t.”

The knight closed the distance just enough to blur the threshold between challenge and invitation. “What makes you so sure?”

Thelanna’s grin turned razor-sharp. “Because you’re already leaning.”

He huffed, but didn’t pull back—and when she tipped her chin up, daring him with her eyes, neither of them blinked before the space between them vanished.

The kiss wasn’t hesitant. It was mirth arrested mid-breath, her lips curling upward even as they pressed to his. A frisson of mutual mischief shared between them, tasting of wild mint and the faint sweetness of fruit lingering from breakfast. Her lips smelled of fresh rain and crushed verdure, like a vernal morn too brazen for gentleness. Galvahin swept his hand to the small of her back, where the warmth of her met the cool grain of the living wood beneath them.

The world pressed nearer, vines curling along the edges of the balcony, a stray petal brushing his cheek. When Thelanna nipped playfully at his lower lip, tickling his beard, the knight responded with a rumble, low and bashful, before deepening the kiss, all worn velvet and molten heat.

Galvahin knew he should’ve expected this. This was always how it would go with her—keen words, keener grins, and now another kiss tasting like hijinks and sugar. Somewhere in the back of his mind, the knight protested—this was ridiculous, reckless, fey folly. But as the dryad’s laughter melted into the kiss, curling at the corners of her mouth, all he could do was exhale against her lips and smirk despite himself.

He was enjoying it. Enjoying her. Enjoying the absurdity of it all, like a man who knew he was stepping straight into quicksand and decided to relish the vista ere the way down. The thought was preposterous—but then again, wasn’t everything in this place? With every heartbeat, he felt the gnarled yoke of restraint loosen, leaving only the undeniable, irksome verity: Galvahin was having fun.

It occurred to the knight, fleetingly, that Thelanna’s relentless teasing was almost a blessing. She kept him on his toes—no time to fluster over plunging necklines or errant thoughts when her wit was sharper, more merciful than any miséricorde.

His lips curved against hers, about to deepen the kiss, when the quiet buzz of insect wings tiptoed at the edge of his awareness. A tiny throat cleared behind them.

Galvahin broke away, scruffy cheeks warm, only to find Toby hovering nearby, adjusting his spectacles. 

“Sir Alderwyn,” the sprite intoned, voice stiff as starched linen. “His Grace is awaiting you. Shall I tell him you’re… indisposed?”

Galvahin stared, mortified, as Thelanna hid her smirk behind the back of her hand.

Toby, entirely unbothered, jotted something into a minuscule ledger pulled from his waistcoat. “I’ll mark down ‘delayed by woodland frolicking.’ Unless, of course, you’d prefer I note ‘captured mid-ritual courtship.’”

The knight sighed, pressing a thumb to his forehead. “Neither, thank you.”

Toby glanced up, deadpan. “Shame. His Grace does so enjoy details.”

Thelanna’s shoulders shook with contained laughter as Galvahin, resigned, straightened his collar. “Lead the way.”

The sprite tucked away his notes. “With pleasure.”

Galvahin turned back to Thelanna, his hand pressing to his heart in a half-bow that was equal parts chivalry and quiet apology.

Thelanna, of course, rewarded him with a wink and a fluttering wave of her fingers, her lips curling in barely contained roguery.

He huffed—somewhere between a laugh and a groan—and followed Toby as the sprite buzzed briskly through the vestibule and into the cool shade of the palace halls.

As they walked—well, as the knight walked, and Toby hovered—the golden glow of the balcony ebbed away. The halls shifted in hue to eau de nil, the shadows cast only by flickering sconces fashioned from curled leaves and glowing sap. A gentle trickling sound echoed faintly, as if streams coursed through the walls themselves. From deeper within, the knight could just make out the airy, lilting chords of fey instruments, their melodies light as locust chirping but tinged with something otherworldly, almost wistful. 

With the palace swallowing them deeper into its verdant throat, a strange sense of déjà vu stirred within. The hush of the hall, the trickling of water weaving through roots and wood: he had walked this path before, hadn’t he? Not here, precisely, but close enough. It called to mind the morning prior, when Penthesia had escorted him through similar halls to Oriel’s chambers. That quiet tread behind her—a surprisingly pleasant experience when she let slip her unabashed adoration for Meliora.

The knight almost chuckled aloud. This will be easier, he thought. Bureaucrats, he could manage. He’d spent enough time amidst courts and councils to know Toby’s ilk: efficient, curt, and relentlessly competent. Despite being no taller than Galvahin’s splayed hand, Toby was perhaps the most familiar thing he’d seen in this capricious realm. Like a ledger bound in stiff leather or a polished family crest—it was comforting, in its way.

And unlike a certain eladrin guard, he’s not sizing me up like he’s weighing the pros and cons of evisceration.

He cleared his throat, voice pitched low to suit the hush of the corridors. “Thank you for escorting me,” Galvahin began, tone courteous but warm. “You keep to your duties with unswerving diligence—it doesn’t go unnoticed.”

Toby’s wings buzzed faintly, though he did not slow. “That is appreciated, Sir Alderwyn.”

Galvahin pressed on, lips quirking slightly. “Do you prefer an honorific yourself?” His tone softened, an old instinct for navigating titles in noble courts slipping into place. “And—if I may—are you His Grace’s chamberlain? You seem far too capable to be anything less.”

“You may address me as Master Toby. And I am.” Toby’s quill halted mid-scratch, and the sprite cast a sidelong glance up at him, one brow raised. “Flattery, Sir, is often reserved for courtship or bribery. I trust this is neither?”

“I wasn’t—well, I mean,” stammered the knight, “It’s not—that is, I meant no such thing.” He raised his hands in a hasty display of denial, peach flushing his doublet. Gods above, does everyone here leap to that conclusion? A horrifying thought flitted past—was he developing a reputation? He banished it immediately.

“Ah,” Toby mused, his tiny but brassy tone touched with a light laugh. “Then you are simply gallant by nature. Perilous proclivity in these parts.”

“Remind me to be more brusque next time,” Galvahin muttered. “I’d hate to accidentally beguile anyone else.” 

Without missing a beat, the sprite quipped, “His Grace warned me you’d be courteous. I didn’t realise you’d be luminous. I’ve half a mind to requisition a shade.”

“Ah,” Galvahin mused. “So the flattery goes both ways.”

“Not flattery, Sir—observation.” Toby’s tangerine wings flitted an amused jilt. “Tell me, how familiar are you with sprite candour?” 

“I can’t say I’ve had the pleasure,” replied the knight with a half-shrug. “You’re the first I’ve had a conversation with.” 

“Then you should know,” Toby said, adjusting his rapier with one tiny hand. “Sprites perceive the temperament of others. Alignment, ethics, inclinations… they leave an impression. Not always pleasant, but useful in administration.” He chuckled, low and steady. “Yours is rather loud.”  

“Very well, Master Toby,” Galvahin said, voice steady but curious. “What does my aura tell you?”

The sprite drifted to a halt, hovering with practised poise. He dusted a speck from his sleeve before extending his hand. “May I?” he inquired, tone clipped, like a physician asking to inspect a wound.

The knight extended his index. Toby applied his palm with measured efficiency, the cool touch accompanied by the sterile sharpness of citrus cologne. “Hold still,” the sprite murmured. 

Galvahin’s instincts stirred to resist, but he forced them to quiet. With a quiet breath, he let the magic seep in, the spell slipping through like argent glow threading through a shutter’s seam—unobtrusive yet undeniable—illuminating the contours of him, unseen but felt. It left him exposed, but he held fast, steady as a soldier presenting a wound for mending.

Toby’s palm withdrew as his wings gave another thoughtful flick. “Your heart,” he murmured, “is a room of padlocks. Sturdy. Self-contained. Though layered—too many lost keys, too many closed doors.” A brief smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Good-natured to a fault, too,” he added, giving a sardonic nod. “I’m shocked you’re not already mounted on someone’s wall.”

His apricot eyes, framed with infinitesimal canthal lines, lowered. “No wonder His Grace finds you so diverting. A riddle behind every latch.”

Galvahin’s chest tightened as the weight of Toby’s words settled there. The sprite had peeled back layers with an offhand remark, exposing truths the knight didn’t often admit, even to himself. Too many keys, too many closed doors. It was disarming—being read so cleanly in a single beat.

He swallowed the reflex to stiffen, keeping his face composed, but inside, Galvahin couldn’t help but quietly bristle. Was this the sprite’s nature then? A surgeon with words, slicing through skin to take the measure of what lay beneath?

His gaze darted briefly to Toby—those crisp, precise gestures, the sharp intelligence behind every clipped word. He found himself wondering if the sprite’s soul was so easily measured. Or was it locked tight, too, but disguised behind spectacles and impeccable poise? For all Toby’s small stature, the knight felt as though he were standing in a magistrate’s court, caught beneath an all-too-perceptive gaze.

Galvahin exhaled through his nose, smoothing the front of his doublet. “I suppose I should be flattered.” He eyed the sprite keenly. “Tell me, Master Toby—does your own heart come as tidily catalogued as your ledgers?”

The sprite adjusted his spectacles with clinical precision. “Oh, no,” he replied. “A cluttered archive. Everything marked, cross-referenced, and promptly ignored.” His lips quirked before flitting ahead. 

“Now, if you’re asking for something expository: I enjoy tidy accounts, sharp quills, and outmaneuvering petty nobility.” His tiny but deep voice softened, almost imperceptibly. “Also, my garden. Though you’d never hear me admit that in court.”

“A curious balance,” Galvahin remarked. “Cutthroat in the court, but gentle among the hedgerows. You’ll have to show me that garden sometime—I’d like to see it for myself.”

Toby glanced back, bobbing through the air in an idle drift. “Do you always carry yourself like someone on trial?”

Galvahin smirked faintly. “Old habit.”

The sprite’s ledger snapped shut with a soft clap. “Sprites tend to read more than ledgers and inclinations, you know. We see patterns. Stories.” His grin sharpened. “Kismet.” 

Galvahin’s suspicion deepened. “Fortune-tellers, then?”

Toby’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Only when we’re bored.”

“Should I be concerned?” inquired the knight, hesitant. 

“Fortune’s a fickle thing,” Toby said, tone lilting as if reciting an old riddle. “Yours has teeth.”

Galvahin tilted his head, humouring him. “I thought luck was supposed to smile on me.”

“It does,” replied the sprite, the corner of his lips quirking his salted beard. “Like a wolf.”

“Fitting.” Galvahin exhaled through his nose. “I’ve been known to be partial to sharp smiles.” 

Toby’s grin widened. “Since you’re courting fortune’s fangs, might as well smell nice.”

With that, he dipped a hand into his bag, rummaging for a moment before producing a comically oversized sprig of sage no smaller than the knight’s forearm. The leaves emerged like a magician’s trick, too large by far for the minuscule pouch.

“From my garden,” he added, matter-of-fact. “Keeps spirits away. Or draws them in—depends who’s asking.”

The knight chuckled under his breath as he took the herb. “Surely you’re aware this is fated for the prince’s pockets. My inventory isn’t exactly mine anymore.”

Toby gave a small shrug, voice flat. “Possession’s overrated. Enjoyment isn’t.”

Galvahin huffed softly, bringing the sage to his nose. “I see.” He inhaled, taking in the sharpness of fresh-cut foliage, tinged with the ghost of campfire ash and wild grass. “What’s the going rate for fleeting enjoyment?” he inquired, steeling himself against sighing wistfully in the aroma. 

“How refreshing.” The sprite raised a brow. “A mortal who recognises a hook beneath honey. Maybe you aren’t so doomed after all.” He chuckled. “Lucky for you, this one’s pro bono.”

“Hmm,” Galvahin mused, “hook, honey—doom, charity... I was beginning to think I’ve never known the difference.” His voice dipped in gravitas. “Regardless, if you ever need the favour returned, I’m sure I can lift a ledger or two.”

“A tempting offer,” Toby said with another dry chuckle. “His Grace mentioned your flair for pest control. Best not offer your services too freely, lest I start sending you after every vermin that blemishes the court’s borders.” 

Has he been… boasting about me?

The knight’s lip twitched, a faint flush rising within as he tucked the sage away into his satchel. “One goblin, and suddenly I’m a rat-catcher.” The crunch of bone beneath his glaive, the memory of the moss drinking the blood without darkening, roamed through his mind, unbidden. His doublet flickered. “Charming,” he mused wryly.

Toby’s wings gave a single, deliberate flick as they reached the end of the corridor. “Your stop,” the sprite announced.

Galvahin followed his gaze—and there it was.

The door loomed with quiet majesty, a familiar tableau of Feywild splendour carved into living wood. This time, as he approached, his eyes lingered longer on the larger crescent moon at its zenith. Perhaps it was the way his vision had adjusted after following Toby so long, or perhaps his nerves had settled since the day before—but either way, the once elusive details now revealed themselves in full. The lone figure reclined there, hair spilling like cascades, minuscule mien tilted in an expression equal parts mirth and mischief.

His breath caught, recognition dawning. 

Oriel.  

Of course.

Galvahin scoffed softly, crossing his arms. “Subtle,” he deadpanned.

The sprite chuckled. “You’ve met the prince, haven’t you?”

Galvahin shook his head, amused, before opening the door with one hand. The wood parted soundlessly, giving way to a familiar hush within. Stepping inside, he let the door close behind him, the soft click leaving him alone with the scent of old wood and faint floral musk. His pace slowed as the corridor unfurled ahead, eyes drawn to the artwork adorning the walls—Feywild vistas painted in hues so vivid they bordered on the sublime.

One painting depicted a moonlit glade, where will-o’-wisps danced above a still pond, their glow bleeding into the water like drops of liquid quicksilver. Another illustrated a forest ablaze, but instead of fire, it burned with blooms—roses and foxgloves blooming in crimson plumes, devouring trees whole. 

His favourite, however, was a festival scene, vibrant with stalls selling glowing candies and glittering trinkets. Satyrs and nymphs twirled beneath banners that swayed like silk in the breeze. A wistful sigh escaped him; for a heartbeat, he ached to step past the canvas and join them. 

Muted elegance settled over the chamber as Galvahin rounded the curve. There, at the far end of the room, his gunmetal eyes fell upon Oriel, poised near the grand windows ahead. The archfey stood alone, framed by soft daylight pouring through glass, his profile steeped in quiet reverie as he surveyed the riotous bloom of the garden beyond. A slender braid clung to the sweep of his silver hair, tucked just behind his ear; softened by the passage of a day, it lingered still, a quiet remnant of the knight’s touch. 

Oriel’s glance flicked over his shoulder, and when their eyes met, a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—gentle, deliberate, and just a little amused. Galvahin felt the warmth spread from the nape of his neck down to his ribs, the fondness in that look stripping him bare faster than any blade could. His heart thudded. 

Brilliant, he thought. No chance of growing immune to that, is there?

The knight’s tendons twitched before he gathered himself and strode forward, each step betraying the quiet battle between duty and the rising flush of peach in his cape. When he finally reached Oriel, the knight dropped to one knee, trying to ignore how much it felt less like ceremony and more like symphony. 

Oriel’s hand drifted toward him, fingers poised in silent invitation. The gleam in the prince’s violet eye said everything. Galvahin caught it, huffed through his nose, and kissed the ring with an affection that was anything but formal. 

When he withdrew, the archfey’s fingers lingered, toying at the scruff along his jaw, tracing idle patterns with taunting listlessness. The knight leaned in without thought, the warmth of the prince’s hand sinking into him like the first rays of sunlight after a storm. His lashes lowered, and a soft, clipped sound slipped from him—too tender to be a sigh, too raw to be silence. He loathed how easily it left him.

Stop, he chided himself, but the thought dissolved beneath the gentleness of the touch. It was wrong, rash, racy—to wish for the prince to press harder, to lose that teasing patience. And yet, his doublet flared with a subdued cerulean, a quiet confession the colour of clear skies impossible to hide. The knight could exist in this moment forever; it was paradise, pure and pernicious.

“Mmm.” His thumb brushed the corner of Galvahin’s mouth. “A spirited morning?”

The words held no accusation, no pressure. Still, Galvahin stalled, excruciatingly aware of the prince’s digit—so near his lips that the thought of tasting it flared sharp and unwanted before shame clawed it back down. He wanted to pull away. He couldn’t. 

“Th-that obvious, Milord?” he stammered. 

Oriel’s grin was pure glee. “To me, pleasure lingers like perfume—you’ll carry it until dusk.” His voice softened. “I’m pleased you’re having fun.”

The knight flushed, a crooked smile tugging at his mouth as he glanced aside. “You’ve made it difficult not to.”

“Good, good.” Oriel closed in, vanishing the gap inch by inch, his heady scent curling around the knight like smoke. “Then allow me to make it impossible.” He blinked once, languid and entrancing. 

“Impossible?” Galvahin cleared his throat, resisting the urge to lean away—or in; he wasn’t quite sure. “I could… live with that.” The attempt at wryness dissolved beneath the fondness softening his gunmetal eyes.

“Mhm.” The prince’s laughter simmered as he pressed a thumb beneath Galvahin’s chin, coaxing it higher until the knight’s breath mingled with his own. “Then I trust you to be philanthropic with your spoils,” he whispered. “A joy hoarded is a joy squandered.”

Galvahin’s brows lifted, the faintest exhale escaping him as his lips parted, helplessly slack beneath the archfey’s touch. The fondness in his gunmetal gaze bloomed into something far more fragile—an astonishment tinged with appetency. He looked at Oriel as a mendicant might eye an offered goblet gilded in gold, torn between reverence and disbelief. For a heartbeat, he seemed ready to speak, but the words never came. Instead, he tipped subtly into the touch, supplicating his desire in silence.

“Ah.” The prince’s tone dropped, rich as spilled wine. “Shall I collect my tithes myself then?

The violet reverie of Oriel’s eyes subsuming him, Galvahin bit down his lip, nodding once—hesitant but certain.

The kiss, when it came, was velvet at first—an intimate press of lips, soft and exploratory, as though Oriel were memorising every edge of Galvahin’s restraint. The prince’s breath, warm and laced with the scent of wild herbs and faint jasmine, drifted across the knight’s skin. Then, with a languid hum, Oriel deepened the connection, coaxing Galvahin’s chin higher, aligning them until there was no space left to negotiate.

Oriel’s mouth parted, inviting more than demanding, teasing the knight’s lips into yielding with a winded gasp. The taste that followed was dusky, decadent—like spiced wine warmed too long by the hearth. Each careful caress of the archfey’s tongue was slow, reverent, drawing out Galvahin’s reluctance to savour the fragility beneath his brassbound demeanor. His fingers slipped from scruff to throat, dragging through the knight’s beard like a breeze through a briar patch, until his thumb rested firmly on the fluttering pulse at Galvahin’s neck. The thrum beneath it betrayed him—wild, unguarded—and his doublet bled from pale cerulean into rich magenta, exposing every ache and tremor.

Galvahin’s awareness frayed at the edges, his body caught between the deranging cadence of the prince’s touch and the sweet gravity of the kiss. Too much. Not enough. Even the ground beneath his knee seemed to melt, leaving him weightless, adrift, unravelling in hands he dared not refuse.

The kiss broke, leaving Galvahin’s lips parted, stunned in the wake of the archfey’s departure. A flicker of cool air grazed the space where Oriel’s warmth had been, pulling a quiet shiver from the knight’s shoulders. He blinked once, twice, then cleared his throat—too loudly, too sharp—and scraped together what dignity remained. 

“You…” he tried, pausing to steady his voice, “You never dabble in half-measures, d-do you?” 

Oriel ascended, but leaned in just enough for his words to graze the knight’s ear. “Half?” he teased, feigning insult. “You flatter me—I’ve yet to pour the first drop…” Straightening, he added softly, “You may stand.”

Galvahin rose stiffly, clearing his throat again as though it might dislodge the lingering heat in his chest. “Ahem—well. Right.” He fumbled for formality, stormy eyes darting anywhere but the archfey’s. “You summoned me, Sire?”

The prince’s lips curled, half amused, half indulgent. “I did. But we’ll get to that. First, tell me—how fares the knight who is now lightheaded?”

“He—I am well.” Galvahin adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves, voice clipped and brisk. “I spent this morning… researching. Languages. Feywild customs. Tactical reading.” His tone held the practised sharpness of a report, but then he stiffened, lips thinning as the memory surfaced. “Though, ah… we were rather abruptly ejected from the library.” His doublet shifted with a faint blush of peach. “By a quickling. Loud fellow. I, uh… may have contributed,” he confessed, glancing away. “Should you hear of it later, I apologise now.”

Oriel’s violet eyes twinkled. “Mm, there’s the troublemaker I knew was hiding beneath all that chivalry.” His tone dipped, teasing. “Next time you cause a scene, Jackalope, do remember to invite me. I’m partial to a bit of scandal.”

Galvahin blinked. His admission should’ve warranted a stern rebuke. Or at the very least, a clipped lecture about propriety. Instead, Oriel just stood there, dazzling, sovereign and jester in equal measure. The absurdity—the sheer, silly charm; it all made the knight’s heart lurch. 

“If it happens again, I’ll be sure to send you a missive—formal stationery and all,” he said, exhaling through a bashful smile.

The archfey let out a soft hum of mock consideration. “Hmm. Formal stationery… I accept. Though I insist you deliver it by hand.” His gaze flickered, brighter, hungrier, as he added: “I rather enjoy how you look relinquishing things… on your knees.”

Galvahin froze, mind emptied as if someone had knocked the entire thought clean from its shelf. Before the word fellatio could even begin to bloom in his subconscious, he hurled his focus toward the windows to fixate on a fantasy of launching himself through them. 

“Ah,” he croaked, voice fraying. “How… gracious.”

Oriel’s grin widened, delighting in the knight’s discomfort. “You do look charming on edge,” he purred. “But I’m feeling magnanimous. Let me distract you with something sweeter.” He pivoted, gesturing for Galvahin to follow him through one of the room's doorways.

The knight's palms itched with unease as he fell into step behind Oriel. He was imagining things—that had to be it. Still, his mind conjured a vision unbidden, one he immediately banished: the prince reclining across furs and silk, lit by candlelight, looking at him with that dulcet simper. He swallowed, working moisture into the dryness of his throat. 

Surely this wasn’t… No, the archfey had summoned him for business, hadn’t he? A gift, he’d said. Not… that. Even so, the knight’s steps lagged as he followed, jaw tight as though grinding stone. The edges of the thought stayed, clinging like mist, refusing to dissipate no matter how resolutely he told himself that this was just some innocuous errand, a polite gesture spun from the prince’s labyrinthine sense of amusement.

Galvahin rounded the corner, his gaze fixed low, the tips of his boots tracing patterns in the polished wood. When he finally glanced up, his shoulders sagged—not quite in disappointment, but in muted relief. The space beyond was no velvet-draped den of indulgence. Instead, it sprawled with a kind of erratic charm: pillows scattered like loose dice, a hammock slung between two beams, a table strewn with games and cards. His eyes caught on a mannequin in the corner, draped in dark cloth, its stature eerily close to his own. The tension eased as realisation settled in—this was no seduction. This was Oriel keeping a promise.

“Is this the fanfare, or will there be trumpets later?” he asked, tone clipped but faintly teasing.

The prince sauntered over, voice warm with mock lament. “Oh, darling, no trumpets. I spent all the fanfare budget slaving over this for you.” His grin curled as his fingertips ghosted over the cloth. 

“You spoil me, Your Grace,” said the knight, the affection in his voice tempered with formality.

He meant it. Oriel’s gestures, though maddening, struck deeper than expected. Still, knowing the archfey, he wouldn’t be surprised if the armour beneath the cloth included an ostentatious plume, an overcompensating codpiece, or cutouts showcasing muscles Galvahin would rather keep to himself.

That wasn’t what greeted him as the prince whisked the cloth away.

When the fabric fell, the armour revealed beneath pilfered the air from the room. The steel wasn’t the gaudy, polished mirror of ballads, but deeper—a dusk-forged hue, like moonlight swallowed by storm clouds. Silvered crescents complemented filigree winding across the chestplate, delicate and sharp all at once, curling like creeping ivy or the spirals carved on ancient standing stones. A cobalt cloak—heavy velvet, lined with faint, shimmering embroidery—pooled behind the mannequin like an abyss kissed by starlight. Beneath it, a baldric crossed the torso, its leather straps fitted for a polearm and threaded discreetly behind the chestplate, stitched with the same care as the armour itself. The fabric’s edges teased constellations, the barest hint of celestial patterns woven in threads so fine they were only visible when caught by the right angle of light. Its craftsmanship was impeccable: each line purposeful, each curve a shadow of grace and lethality intertwined. 

Pauldrons flared, not ostentatious, but strong, regal, as though they’d weathered both battlefields and Fey courts alike. Below them, the breastplate tapered into a fauld of dark leather edged with fine steelwork. From the waist hung layered midnight-blue leather tassets, sleek and angular, designed to allow movement without sacrificing poise. Nestled at their centre, just above the groin, gleamed a single amethyst—a muted magenta, like a bruise preserved in crystal. The placement sent a ripple of heat up Galvahin’s neck; he caught himself nearly smiling, equal parts embarrassed and quietly endeared. Trust a fey to slip in something so secretly suggestive yet still tasteful.

At the base, boots dyed the deep brown of rich soil stood, their leather stitched with living leaves—small green fronds curling as though they had taken root. The mannequin’s legs were wrapped in schynbalds of the same dusk-forged steel, layered like the protective scales of some otherworldly creature. Vambraces adorned the arms, sleek and understated, with argent flourishes that caught the light. Draped beneath them, a pair of black leather gloves clung to the mannequin’s hands, fingerless and worn-in, their seams stitched with near-invisible silver thread. The ensemble, though still, radiated potential, as if on the verge of movement.

His eyes aligned on the helm. Segmented, cold steel, crowned with antlers that swept and twisted upward like the boughs of a stag—no, a jackalope. They curved with an elegance that flirted with savagery, arching as though daring anyone to try and break them. The visor’s many horizontal eye slits, symmetrical and insect-like, gave it a quiet menace; eerie, sharp, entrancing. Proud. Defiant.

The knight felt it then, low in his gut. Awe. No tawdry embellishments, no insult to his dignity. Despite the unmistakable Fey artistry, it felt honest. Regal, yet grounded. Wild, but not unmoored. Oriel had distilled Galvahin’s essence into something tangible. This was no mere borrowed finery. This was his.

For a moment, he just stood there, letting the wonder roll through him before tucking it away behind something wry and soft. Hells, he mused inwardly, even the antlers are flattering.

His hand hovered over the helm’s slits, tracing the barest of a touch, before drifting to the delicate etching along the cuirass. He’d worn finery before—tailored surcoats, gold-threaded sashes, and stiff brocade doublets that had been fitted to parade him as his father’s heir; this, however? This was not a uniform to impress nobility. This was not opulence for opulence’s sake. It was something meant to belong to him. To suit him. It saw him for what he was and dared him to see it, too.

The revelation crashed like a cold tide meeting an aching shore. He swallowed hard, blinking rapidly as heat welled behind his eyes. “I’ve…” The words refused him, catching in his throat like a jagged hook. No one had ever given him something that felt this personal. Not his father, not his tutors, not the long procession of distant courtiers. He exhaled, the swell of gratitude surging unchecked. The next moment, he crossed the space and hauled Oriel into a crushing embrace, muffling the rising storm of emotion against the prince’s shoulder. 

He longed to break—to let it all spill out in a flood, to crumble against the prince and offer everything unsaid. But he clenched it back, strangling the urge in his throat. His fingers dug into the silk, numb and trembling. He’d admired Oriel as one might admire the moon: distant, untouchable. But now? Now, he burned to cast himself down before him, to fold across the man like a martyr reciting his last prayer. Volo’s warning about the Feywild’s emotional pull flickered in the corner of his mind, but he dismissed it, stubborn and resolute. No magic could counterfeit this. No illusion could ever feel so devastatingly real.

Oriel’s hand threaded into the knight’s hair, gentle as a pleased sound vibrated in his throat. “Oh,” he purred. “So this is how loyalty is measured now? Tight and trembling in my arms?”

Galvahin inhaled, sharp, mortified, and began to draw back, voice faltering. “I… forgive me, I—” But the prince’s hand slid from his hair to cradle the side of his face, fingers cool against heated skin. The knight’s protest dissolved before it fully formed.

“It’s alright.” Oriel let out a quiet laugh, softer than usual. “I’ll stand here all day, if that’s what you need.” His fingers stilled, voice dipping sweeter. “I… wouldn’t mind.”

The silence folded around them, delicate as the thin skin of a ripe fig. Galvahin’s throat worked as if words might claw free, but nothing rose. The ache wasn’t sharp; it was quiet, like pressing fingers against a bruise you almost forgot was there.

Oriel’s palm against his cheek anchored him, but it also left him hollow, as though he were a man clutching at something half-remembered in a dream. Familiar, yet distant.

He should have stepped back. He didn’t.

Instead, the knight leaned in, slow and careful, resting his face against the warmth of Oriel’s neck, unsure if it was comfort or weakness that guided him. He caught the verdant scent of petals, grounding him in its quiet familiarity. The prince’s skin radiated a slow, steady heat, soft through the silk of his collar, and Galvahin let himself sink into it, shivering faintly as the warmth bled into his own chilled muscles. His chest rose and fell against Oriel’s in an uneven rhythm, but the archfey’s heartbeat—faint, patient, and unwavering—echoed like a lullaby beneath layers of fabric and flesh. He could feel the curve of the man’s shoulder, the velvet-soft fabric warmed by their shared closeness, and as Galvahin exhaled, his own pulse fell into an uneasy syncopation with the prince’s calm. The edges of the tempest inside him dulled, the ache giving way relief.

The knight shifted and, with care, stepped away. His fingertips brushed briefly against the prince’s sleeve as he withdrew, grounding himself as though walking out of a haze. He smoothed the front of his doublet, then adjusted his sleeves, fingers deft and composed. The colour beneath his scruff lingered, but it had settled—no longer a fluster, but something softened, content.

A quiet calm bloomed in his chest, steadier now. His gunmetal gaze, once adrift, found its anchor as it returned to the prince, collected and resolute.

He cleared his throat lightly, voice steady, almost fond. “...Composure reclaimed.”

The archfey’s violet eyes raked over him, languorous and sharp. “Leaving so soon? Good, good.” He lowered his lids, his expression turning dulcet once more.  “Any longer and my hands would’ve started… wandering.”

Galvahin’s lips curved into something faint but certain, a quiet glint of mischief threading beneath the calm. His shoulders rolled back, brassy voice silk-smooth as he met the prince’s eyes.

“My winsome benefactor recently told me…” His tone teased, mellow but edged with sincerity. “That ‘the Feywild loves those who wander.’” He closed his eyes, tilting his chin up and leaning away in the perfect picture of noble innocence. “I’m beginning to share the same outlook.”

“Mmm,” Oriel murmured, voice warm but edged. “Any further wandering, and I might have to take you by the…”

The sentence trailed off. Galvahin barely noticed, gunmetal gaze pulled inexorably past the prince and toward the armour. The playful cadence of that lilting tenor faded beneath the rush of quiet awe stirring in his chest.

The trace of Oriel’s hand at his sleeve blurred into nothing as the knight’s gaze swept the dusken steel, the ivy-like filigree, and the cloak’s deep cobalt unfurling like midnight made tangible. His chest swelled, fingers twitching as if ready to reach out despite himself. A giddy warmth bloomed, and the faintest, involuntary chuckle slipped free—light, breathless, and embarrassingly genuine. At his side, the prince’s voice lapsed, words tapering mid-thought as Galvahin stood transfixed, grinning like a man catching his first snowfall. 

He shifted his stance, unconsciously rocking forward on his toes like a child about to run headlong into a festival square—before another thought crossed his mind.

The knight glanced sheepishly at Oriel. “Um, before I… lose myself entirely,” he said, voice warm with lingering excitement. From his satchel, he drew the sage. “A token, courtesy of your chamberlain.”

Oriel’s gaze sharpened, lips curling into something sly and slow. “Ah,” he chortled, tilting the sage toward the light. “A hand unseen, but familiar.” With a casual flick of his wrist, thyme bloomed at his fingertips, curling verdant and fragrant. “The dear chamberlain always did enjoy making me the courier,” he mused, violet eyes glittering with amusement. “And you, Jackalope, reap the pickings.”

The knight took Toby’s thyme with the same reverence as if accepting a royal seal. “For thy gentleman fair?” he quipped, deadpan, before sniffing it—sharp, green, and faintly peppery. The corners of his mouth quirked upward as he murmured, “If we’re to be wooed with herbs, I expect a feast to follow.” The softness behind the jest betrayed a fondness he didn’t voice aloud.

A hum broke free from the archfey, his violet eyes lidding with mock sympathy. “My poor, starved knight—forever dreaming of banquets. Insatiable,” he purred. “All over two sprigs of seasoning.”

Galvahin chuckled, brushing a thumb over the thyme’s stem. “What can I say?” he quipped, dry but amused. “Big frame, big appetites. I’ve a reputation to maintain.” He eyed Oriel, tilting his head. “If you’re dropping hints, I’d be happy to indulge in some of those patisseries from breakfast again.”

Oriel gave a sly smile. “Gladly,” he said, his gaze lingering. “But not before you get dressed.” He paused, his violet eyes flickering toward the armour. “I think the pastries can wait until you’re properly attired.” He glided toward the door, clearly enjoying himself.

Galvahin laughed, tracing a finger along the delicate antlers of the helm. “I suppose I’ll need a matching fork and a shield. I’ve been warned—there’s no telling when a scone might become a rogue element.” He let the jest hang for a moment before his expression shifted. “But in all seriousness, though, I haven’t exactly been facing down armies. I’ve only slain one goblin. Is there something I’m missing, or is this just your way of ensuring I can enjoy confections without distraction?”

“Armour suits you,” Oriel said, his voice light, “after all, what’s a knight without it?” His chuckle was low, subdued. “You’ll need it tonight,” he added. “There’s a hunt, and I’d like you to join me. It’ll be… an experience you won’t forget.”

Galvahin huffed once, amused. His perspective was shifting. Ordinarily, a cryptic comment like that from the archfey would breed dread or vexation, but now the knight could only find a playful note in it, like being led into a surprise party, hands clasped behind his head, eyes shut tight. And a hunt? Well, that certainly caught his interest. It was no surprise when he felt the familiar flutter in his gut, the thought of impressing the prince pulling at him like an unspoken challenge.

“Delightful,” he mused aloud, slipping into a low bow. “As you wish, Milord.”

Oriel made his way toward the door, his departure as graceful as his every entrance. “I’ll be just outside—don’t take too long,” he lilted. “Join me when you’ve prepared.”

The knight watched the door close behind him, his chest tightening with something intangible—excitement, perhaps, or something deeper. A faint smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he turned toward the armour, his mind racing with what the rest of the day awaited him.

Notes:

Expression | Salt-N-Pepa

Afraid to be you, livin' in fear (boo)
Expression is rare, I dare you

Chapter 13: The Games

Summary:

Three’s a crowd, but in the Feywild, you've simply doubled your audience.

“Games give you a chance to excel, and if you're playing in good company you don't even mind if you lose because you had the enjoyment of the company during the course of the game.”

Gary Gygax

 

The solarium stretched like a sun-drenched cathedral, awesomely vast beneath a vaulted dome of iridescent glass. Vines twisted along the arching beams, their emerald tendrils clutching at the crystalline panes as if yearning to keep all sunlight to themselves. Towering ferns brushed against the ceiling, their fronds swaying lazily. The aroma of blooming freesia, honeyed orchids, and wild mint wove together in a fragrant tapestry, thick enough to taste.

Colossal cushions and pillowed divans, arranged in languorous disarray, sprawled across the marble floors like islands of beckoning inertia. Velvet in shades of mauve, olive, and terracotta invited lounging, while silken throws and tasselled rugs softened every edge. Pockets of sunbeams filtered through the dome, bespeckling the space in patterns of gold and rhodonite. Despite the hour, midafternoon by mortal reckoning, the light was gentle, diffuse. 

A canopy of blooming wisteria cascaded from one corner, pooling petals onto the marble like a lilac snowfall. Hanging gardens dripped from suspended planters, their blossoms nodding gently. In the far alcove, a small pond mirrored the verdant splendour, its glossy surface only disturbed by the occasional ripple from koi with scales like molten metal.

Astor and Thelanna reclined in a nest of velvet cushions, both watching Flint with twin looks of feigned patience as the satyr pantomimed wildly. Flint’s hooves stamped, arms flapping in exaggerated arcs. His fingers curled like talons as he struck a pose, chest puffed out.

The nymph stretched, propping a chin on their palm. “It is some sort of bird,” they guessed, fuchsia eyes twinkling.

Thelanna grinned. “A hungover peacock.”

“Hungover peacock is just his usual state of being,” quipped Astor. 

Flint flung his arms wide. “A peacock?! I am a PERYYYYTON—hunter of hearts, scourge of the skies!” The satyr stomped an indignant hoof. “Are ye even tryin’?”

“A peryton?” echoed Astor, mock disbelief. “I have stepped on mushrooms scarier than you.”

Flint clutched at his chest as if a peryton actually had torn his heart free with its talons. “Mushrooms! Mushrooms? I will not be compared to fungi!” He leapt onto a nearby divan, wobbling only slightly. “I am a nightmare given antlers! The horror of forest canopies!”

Thelanna chuckled. “You’re the horror of picnic tables.”

The satyr pointed a finger at them both. “Enough mockery! I’m goin’ again—and this time, prepare to be awed!”

Astor smirked. “Prepare to be confused, more like.”

Flint launched into a new stance, exaggerated limbs raised. “Guess wisely, fools!”

Thelanna opened her mouth to reply but stopped short, eyes narrowing on something just out of frame.

The nymph, too, froze, their playful expression softening to quiet curiosity.

Flint blinked, realising he’d lost his audience.

“What?” he asked. But they were no longer watching him.

His gaze followed Thelanna’s, catching on a lone figure at the far edge of the solarium. A knight, unfamiliar, towering, and still, clad in a suit of twilit steel and cobalt velvet, stood half-shrouded by wisteria. Atop the helm, a pair of menacing antlers curved outward like jagged branches, casting twisted shadows across the marble. The metal drank in the room’s gentle light, rendering the figure a quiet, brooding silhouette amid the floral opulence. The visor, riddled with narrow insect-like slits, stared straight toward them. Silent. Expressionless. Watching.

Even the koi in the pond below stilled.

“The feck…” Flint breathed, wiping at his brow as the figure began a slow, deliberate approach.

Astor shifted closer to Thelanna, voice hushed. “Is this part of the game?”

Thelanna’s emerald eyes didn’t leave the looming figure. “If it is, no one told me the ante was terror.”

The knight shifted past the satyr with unsettling grace for such heavy armour, taking centre stage without a word. Slowly cursing, Flint retreated with a staggered step. The figure tilted its helm slightly toward him, as if studying an insect, then turned to the dryad and the nymph. With deliberate poise, it offered them a theatrical bow, then slowly raised one finger in silence. 

“One word?” Astor ventured, fuchsia eyes flicking between Thelanna and the armoured figure.

The antlered helm dipped eagerly. Then came a series of taps against plated steel.

“Oh!” Thelanna snapped her fingers. “Three syllables.”

The knight sank low into a squat, leather-cloaked palms pressed to its cuirass as if they were paws. Without a sound, it gave a stiff little hop, armour creaking with the effort. The antlers, towering and still, made the mimicry even stranger—an ironclad predator playing at being prey.

Flint tilted his head. “A hare?” he guessed, brow quirking.

Astor shook their head. “Too short. Try again.”

The knight pointed to the nymph and gave a single nod. It hopped again, no less eerie for the repetition.

"Kangaroo..?" Flint offered shyly.

"The fuck is a kangaroo?" interjected Thelanna.

“Antelope?” hazarded Astor. The word left them cautious as if eyeing a pitfall. 

Its helm turned fractionally as if testing the answer in the air. The antlers’ shadows stretched across the cushions like skeletal fingers, slitted visor staring unblinkingly at Astor. No shake of the head came, only that cold, unnerving watchfulness. 

Flint, feigning sincerity, murmured to Thelanna, “Bless ‘em. They try so hard.” 

She side-eyed him. “Confidence from the satyr who needed three rounds to guess ‘tree.’”

Before he could bark a retort, the knight’s antlered helm tilted back—an exaggerated, silent lurch that certainly suggested a laugh, though no sound escaped. A hand rose, finger extended, and pointed squarely at Flint.

Flint blinked. “Oi?”

The knight’s shoulders gave a faint, creaking shudder, a miming of mirth stifled beneath layers of steel. No actual cachinnation came, only the hollow suggestion of schadenfreude behind the slitted visor.

Then, with eerie grace, the knight crouched low once more. Leather-cloaked fingers rose to mimic tall animal ears atop the antlers, twitching twice before it spun neatly on its heels and gave a sharp, deliberate wiggle of an imaginary tail. The motion was more puppet than person, unsettling in its precision.

For a beat, none of them spoke. The fey watched in bemused silence, the quiet thick with something like disbelief. Astor’s lips parted as if to speak but faltered in the wake of the absurdity.

Then the dryad inhaled sharply, eyes widening. “I’ve got it!” she gasped, sitting bolt upright.

The knight froze mid-pose, visor snapping toward Thelanna. Unfazed, the dryad stood, sauntered over, and laid a teasing hand against the helm’s cold surface. “Knew it,” she murmured under her breath, before spinning on her heel to face the others, mischief marking her mien.

“A jackalope,” she declared.

Languid and measured, the knight straightened before performing the most absurdly prim slow clap, like a noble congratulating a jest. The soft slap of fingertips against leather came paired with a genteel, exaggerated bow.

Flint crossed his arms. “Right, so it’s a jackalope. Why’s it built like a bouncer for a minotaur tavern?”

Without missing a beat, Astor quipped, “Careful. This jackalope looks like it bench-presses satyrs,” fuchsia eyes glinting as they flicked between Flint and the armoured figure.

Thelanna giggled, tossing a look over her shoulder to the knight. “I wonder what I’ve won,” she mused aloud.

The knight’s gloved hands slid around her waist, drawing her close. She gasped out a soft laugh, curling into the embrace as though they were dance partners mid-revel. Then, with a slow turn, the knight presented its back to the room, shielding their exchange. Thelanna’s fingers found the visor, lifting it just enough to slip into the shadow beneath—and kissed what lay hidden there.

“That's…” Flint huffed, brass amused and low with disbelief. “Bold for a woodland critter.” 

Astor leaned back, the hint of a smirk in their tone. “Feywild fauna are nothing if not ambitious.”

The knight lingered for a beat longer before reaching up and slowly pulling off the antlered helm. Beneath it, Galvahin’s dark hair clung to his brow, and his expression wavered somewhere between sheepish and smug. Waving his wrist across the helm’s surface, he muttered, “Belua pulcher.” The steel shimmered, dissolved into mist, and vanished.

He turned to the others and deadpanned, “For the record, I do not, in fact, bench-press satyrs.” 

Silence sliced through the solarium, broken only by the sharp bite of a disbelieving, “You are joking.” Astor blinked, incredulous. 

“Well shite, Galv,” Flint said, whistling low, eyes alight with admiration. “Donned in that, ye can bench-press me anytime—s’long ye hold me close on the way down.”

Galvahin’s knuckles scrubbed awkwardly at his brow as he sighed, half-flustered, half-ready to strangle. “Is that how you feel?” he grumbled, glancing sidelong at the satyr with a smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth. “After that limerick stunt? The only lifting you’re receiving is over my shoulder—preferably en route to the nearest well.”

“I fail to see a downside,” Thelanna chortled.

Flint grinned, leaning forward with a glint of mischief. “Oi! Ye thought that was bad? Ye should’ve heard what Lanna said after ye asked what ye owed me for the poem.” He waggled his brows, elbowing the dryad. “Go on, tell him!” 

“Oh, this’ll be good,” drawled the knight, folding his arms as he levelled a dry look at Thelanna. “Let’s hear it, then.” 

She smirked, feigning innocence. “I told him he should’ve had you promise to play his flute.” 

Galvahin didn’t blink. His gaze drifted downward, then to the vaulted glass overhead. The path was too easy to trace: the bawdy poem, a thoughtless agreement to ‘play his flute,’ the Feywild’s gift-giving rites twisting it into a binding jest, and Oriel—simpering, dulcet—waiting to collect his due under the terms of their accord. The entire sordid progression unfolded in silence behind his stormy eyes, each beat ratcheting tighter until it locked into place like a bear trap sprung an inch from his pride. 

His cloak, meanwhile, turned traitor; the cobalt dimmed black—then peach, blooming across his silhouette before deepening into magenta, slow as spilled wine. 

He’d admired the ensemble at first; how could he not? Forged dusksteel, velvet so rich it drank the light. It had felt like wearing midnight itself when Oriel helped him fasten the last clasp before their absurdly decadent luncheon. Only moments later did he notice how the cloak’s colour shifted with every misstep of pride, every unguarded breath—just as his silken attire before. A gift, indeed. Now, titillated magenta beneath his supposed allies’ smirks, Galvahin cursed himself for still loving the armour anyway. 

“Ah, there he is.” Astor gestured lazily to the flushed velvet. “Far less intimidating in pink.” 

Flint clicked his tongue, stretching with theatrical flair. “One day, his outfits are gonna start spelling full sentences across his chest. ‘Dearest Oriel, please fuck me in the moonlight—sincerely, Galvahin.’”

The cloak revealed him again in real time—first a flush of red blooming across his chest, then a returning blush of magenta that curled around his shoulders like a lover’s embrace. Galvahin gritted his teeth. “That’s not—not how I address things. I use—titles, Flint. Formal ones. Meaningful ones.” He jabbed a finger in the satyr’s direction. “Which is something you wouldn’t understand, given that your personal signature is probably a booze stain and an arse print.”

Thelanna laughed, brushing a wisteria petal from her shoulder. “Titles are lovely, darling. But ‘Sincerely, Fuck Me’ is so much more honest.”

Astor laced their fingers beneath their chin, watching the red fade into blush with something like reverence. “Do you think he would emboss it?” they cooed. “Or just let the velvet whisper the subtext?”

The cloak pulsed again in answer.

Thelanna snorted.

Galvahin felt ready to implode.

He braced for shame to gut him, for the usual flood of heat and bile that came with being painted as salacious. But it never quite arrived. The teasing was merciless, yes. But oddly gentle at the same time. Not cruel, not mocking. Not rejection.

No disgust. No silence. Just flagrant, irreverent acceptance. Like it was nothing at all to want something. To want him.

Galvahin cleared his throat, trying to muster some semblance of dignity while still half-draped in chagrin. “Well,” he muttered, voice flat, “I see Thelanna’s been briefing the entire court on my personal life.”

Astor didn’t miss a beat. Their eyes gleamed like polished wineglass rims. “She mentioned the star,” they said, dreamily. “The one Prince Oriel gave you. Said you looked like you might weep—or propose.”

Thelanna leaned away, emerald gaze glinting beneath a fringe of autumn curls. “Oh, show them. You still haven’t shown me.” She tilted her head, smile all mischief. “You’ll feel better once everyone’s swooned and sighed appropriately.”

“Ah, um—” The knight adjusted his glove with a little too much force. “It’s not that impressive. Just a… gesture. Entirely ordinary. Happens all the time here, I’m sure.” 

With a lazy flick of his wrist, Flint tossed a wisteria petal in Galvahin’s direction, umber eyes gleaming. “Galv, love, if someone gave me a star, I’d have their name tattooed somewhere humid and hairy I can’t quite further describe without makin’ yer kips flush again.”

Galvahin let out a breath that wasn’t quite a scoff—more of a strangled, despairing wheeze. “You’re—absolutely vile,” he muttered at the chuckling satyr, though the way his ears flushed gave the insult no teeth. “You belong in a locked cabinet marked ‘Hazardous.’”

“I am always saying this,” quipped Astor.

The knight’s cloak flickered again—blush to peach to something almost gold at the edges, as though even it were unsure how to classify the heat blooming across his chest.

He exhaled sharply through his nose, then, without another word, unbuckled the side flap of his satchel and reached inside. The knight half-hoped the thing had vanished, flown back to Oriel’s palm like a bird that knew where it belonged.

But it was still there.

So, Galvahin withdrew it.

The star rested in his palm like something breathing—cool, weightless, and alive with sapphire light. Indigo melted into ultramarine, streaked faintly with veins of silver. No heat. No sound. 

He didn’t look at them. Not at first. He only watched his palm.

“I didn’t ask for it,” he said, tone low. “He just… gave it to me.” Galvahin cleared his throat as if to shake the tremor building from there. “It doesn’t mean anything. He was just being—” 

His voice faltered.

Galvahin straightened abruptly, every inch of him trying to reassemble. “Apologies. I didn’t mean to—” A pause. His cloak dimmed. “Right. Well. That’s enough of that.”

He moved too quickly, nearly dropping the star as he tucked it back into his satchel, fumbling with the strap as if the leather might burn him if he held it too long.

A beat passed. No one moved.

Not even the koi dared disturb the surface of the pond. Only the soft rustle of vines overhead reminded him the world hadn’t stopped entirely.

Then, slowly, the knight lifted his gaze.

Thelanna’s smirk was effortless, triumphant in its ease. Beside her, Astor’s eyes gleamed, calm and appraising, as if already drafting a sketch in their head. Flint’s grin faltered just slightly—shoulders stiff, brow drawn a shade too low for comfort, like the moment had soured while no one was looking.

There was something off in the satyr’s stance: still cheeky, still standing tall, but dimmed at the edges.

Galvahin exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Look, I—when I called you vile, I didn’t actually—” He winced. “It was a reflex. You ruffle me on purpose. I–it’s unsporting.” He glanced up. “But I didn’t mean it. Not really.” 

Flint blinked, then gave a crooked smile. “Didn’t sting, mate. Ye were flustered. I like flustered.” Then, lower: “Put me in a cabinet, and I’ll drag you in by the belt.” He laughed. “Show ye just how vile I can be. Ye’ll be gropin’ in the dark before ye know it—me hands, me hips, me co—” 

“I get the picture,” Galvahin interrupted, voice tight.

Astor tipped their head, expression full of mock sympathy. “Do not mind him. He is just mopey because his own sweetheart only sends for him when he wants something warm to wrap around.”

“Aye, Tori?” Flint levied a dry look to the nymph. 

“Yes?”

“Don’t talk about Nico like ye’ve ever had someone who stayed.” His umber eyes didn’t glitter. They just held. 

Astor blinked once, slowly, as if weighing the cost of a retort. In the end, they said nothing. They just smiled, something wry and thin. 

“Charming,” they murmured and turned their back. 

The tension lingered like a held breath. 

Then Thelanna clapped her hands together. “Right! Tragedy’s wonderful and all, but I was promised summons and a game. Galv, darling—you’re not stalling because you’re afraid I’ll win, are you?” 

Galvahin blinked, clearly still catching up. “I—I’m not stalling, I just—” He glanced between them, cloak flickering at the edges. “Is… everyone alright?” he asked, quieter. “I didn’t mean to—start something.” 

“Darling, this court thrives on drama.” Astor didn’t look back, but their voice drifted coolly through the wisteria. “You are doing beautifully.” 

Flint, still watching Galvahin, gave a shrug that didn’t quite disguise the weight in it. “I’m fine. Nothin’ a drink won’t fix.” He paused, then added with less bravado, “…Thanks for askin’.” 

Something in the way they answered—too smooth, too rehearsed—tugged at him. That veneer of levity. He’d made a habit of employing it too. A blade honed on silence and sidesteps. 

“Alright,” he murmured. “I won’t push. Just—don’t pretend it’s fine on my account. I’m here if you would like to talk about it.” 

None of them responded right away. 

Even Thelanna, hand still half-raised as if to gesture, had gone unusually still. Astor turned back just enough to eye him sidelong. Flint blinked like he wasn’t sure what he’d heard. It wasn’t mocking. Just… surprise. Like they’d witnessed a statue blink. 

“R-right,” Galvahin stammered. His voice snagged in his throat, and he tried to catch it with a stiff, formal bow—one step removed from retreat. For a moment, he lingered there, chin tucked low, fingers tight against his thigh. 

Something had gone wrong.

Not overtly, but enough to send a ripple through the room. Some subtle shift. A silence too long. A gaze held too tightly. He had misstepped—he could feel it in his marrow. Perhaps he’d been too sincere. Too plainspoken. Too human.

His thoughts scrambled, searching for a way to recover. To dissolve the thick stillness, to steer the moment back toward something bright and palatable. Something fey. Something safe.

His jaw tensed. Well… there was always that option.

He rose from the bow and stepped forward in deliberate softness. Without a word, he reached for Astor’s hand, lifting it with careful reverence. A beat passed. Then he dipped low, pressing a whiskery kiss to the inside of their periwinkle wrist—his eyes fluttering closed, lashes brushing their skin. A gesture out of a storybook.

Before the nymph could react, he pivoted toward Flint, stepping in close and folding the satyr into a sudden, firm embrace. His fingers slipped into Flint’s thick bistre curls, scratching gently at his scalp with an almost absent tenderness. No words. Just contact: warm, grounding, absurd.

He lingered just a moment too long, then stepped back, clearing his throat as if nothing had happened.

“I’ll be seeing you,” he muttered, voice low but steady.

For a heartbeat, none of them moved.

Astor blinked slowly, wrist still suspended mid-air like they weren’t quite sure if it had happened. Flint remained frozen in the spot where Galvahin had left him, a single curl of hair still out of place.

Then Thelanna let out a sharp, delighted bark of laughter. “Oh, he’s been learning,” she declared, grinning wide. “Fey gestures and all.”

The nymph recovered next, lifting their wrist as if inspecting it for enchantment. “Points for charisma,” they murmured. “And nerve.”

Flint raked a hand through his curls as if still feeling the phantom of the knight’s digits. “That was dangerous, Galv.” His gap-toothed grin was easy, but something in it flickered, fonder than usual. “Scratch me like that again and I’ll start followin’ ye around.”

Galvahin’s lips parted, but whatever reply he had tangled behind his teeth. It didn’t matter—Thelanna was already moving, slipping up beside him with a fluid sweep.

She took his arm without asking. “Come on,” she said, voice low but bright. “You’ve caused enough chaos for one afternoon.”

He blinked at her. “I wasn’t trying to—”

“Oh, I know.” She patted his hand like they were old conspirators. “That’s what made it so effective.”

Together, they turned toward the far archway, steps muffled against a sprawl of velvet rugs. Galvahin glanced back once, just once toward the cushions, the koi pond, the glint of amused fuchsia, and the flicker of umber eyes still watching. 

Then Thelanna tugged him forward with a wicked smile. “Come now, let’s not keep fate—or Oriel—waiting.”

As they neared the archway, Galvahin veered slightly from Thelanna’s side, steps carrying him to the wall of wisteria with quiet intent. He slipped his hand into the curtain of blooms and retrieved the glaive he had stashed there earlier, its metal glinting as it emerged. A few lilac petals scattered to the floor, disturbed by his motion. 

Thelanna arched a brow. “You tucked your blade in the shrubbery?”

He cleared his throat. “I thought… if I walked in with it, you’d guess it was me straight away.” 

Her emerald eyes traced the curve of the glaive as he buckled it back into its harness, amusement tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Clever of you,” she said, leaning in a little, her voice pitched just for him. “But next time, try slouching more. That knightly spine of yours is what gives everything away.”

“I was improvising,” he muttered as they stepped beneath the archway, the last of the wisteria brushing his pauldron like a farewell. “I see now I should’ve consulted the expert in theatrics.”

Thelanna threaded her arm through the knight’s, her stride syncing to his without missing a beat. “Mm. Consult the expert, you say?” Her eyes glimmered. “Tell me, Galv—do you mean me, or our favourite flair-loving sovereign?”

“I suppose we’ll find out later,” murmured the knight, lips twitching. “Assuming I make it through today unscathed.”

“Any hints about what he’s dragging us into?” she asked, voice lilting with mischief.

Galvahin shook his head. “Not a clue. I didn’t inquire.”

He hadn’t let himself dwell on it until now—had kept the notion tucked somewhere between denial and distraction. But with the solarium fading behind him and Thelanna at his side, the weight of the archfey’s plans pressed sharper against his mind.

Oriel had said nothing of the game’s nature. That alone made his skin prickle. It wasn’t only the unknown that unnerved him, it was the certainty that the unknown had been chosen for him. Every gesture with the prince held a mirror to something else. Every jest was an invitation wrapped around a dare.

The knight should have asked more questions, should have prepared in some way. But then, preparing was hardly useful when the rules were unwritten and the players kept changing costumes. Still, some restless part of him stirred. A dull hum of dread beneath the flicker of something worse: curiosity. 

Thelanna’s hand patted his arm once, mock-soothing. “Poor Galvahin. Tossed into mystery with only your charm, training, and burly muscles to protect you.” Then, more gently: “Relax. You’re better at this than you pretend to be. Oriel knows it. I know it. You will, too—once you stop bracing every time someone smiles at you.”

“It’s not the smiles I don’t trust. It’s what they turn into.” Galvahin let the words hang for a beat before adding, a touch lighter, “But… you and His Grace do make it harder to stay properly wary.” 

The dryad nudged his arm with hers. “Nonsense. You handled that little debacle between Astor and Flint with all the poise of a courtier and just enough scandal to distract them from their brooding.”

“You think so?” he snorted. “I’ll admit, I was proud of the wrist kiss. Less so the hug. I think I nearly gave poor Flint a religious experience. Will they be okay?”

Thelanna gave a breezy shrug, though her eyes held more certainty than her tone let on. “They’ll be fine. That kind of spite is practically foreplay in this court. And neither of them’s petty enough to bleed over it for long.”

Galvahin half-grimaced, glancing back the way they came. “Still. Are you sure they’ll be alright?”

She gave him a sideways look, something knowing tugging at the corner of her mouth. “If they weren’t alright, they’d be louder about it. Astor would’ve staged a monologue by now, and Flint would be halfway through a bottle of something flammable while threatening to elope with a barstool out of spite.”

The knight chuckled despite himself. “That… does sound like them.”

“Exactly.” Thelanna gave his arm a gentle tug, drawing him back into step. “They sulk dramatically, toss a few verbal daggers, and then find their way back with more jokes and worse decisions. It’s a cycle. Painful to watch, sometimes. But it works for them.”

Galvahin’s gaze lingered on the fading hallway behind them. “I just—I worry. That sort of sharpness can turn real if it festers.”

The dryad’s fingers tapped lightly against his wrist, drawing his attention. “And that,” she said, voice softening, “is why you don’t belong to this court—not entirely. You still think affection should look like kindness.”

He frowned. “Shouldn’t it?”

“In theory.” She smiled, rueful. “But in practise? Here, love cuts like a ribbon blade. It’s glittering and theatrical and leaves tiny, little scars that prove you felt something. If they weren’t angry, if they didn’t jab and snap… that’s when I’d be worried.”

Galvahin absorbed that in silence, something like unease flickering in his expression.

After a moment, Thelanna added, more gently, “Your concern is a good thing. Just don’t confuse it for cause.”

He didn’t respond, at least not with words. But he nodded, the weight in his brow easing by a measure.

Their footsteps fell in sync as they moved past the threshold, the stone giving way to soft moss and dappled shade. The garden greeted them like an old secret: quiet, perfumed, tangled with sun-drenched vines. Thelanna hummed some tuneless little melody under her breath, her hand still linked with his. Galvahin didn’t speak, but he let his shoulders ease, let his heartbeat slow. The moss cushioned his steps, but it was the dryad’s presence that steadied him.

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

The scenery had shed its layers a second time.

No hill. No lake. No winding path or sloping rise. Just a flawless stretch of low grass, soft as woven wool, reaching outward in hues of chartreuse and sun-warmed gold. Nothing broke the uniformity. No trees, no boulders, no interruptions. Only stillness, wide and waiting.

At the centre stood Klimvarh.

The sycamore towered above the plain like a memory carved into the world’s surface, his pale gold bark gleaming beneath the warm sky. No longer nestled among hill and water, he now reigned alone—a single, striking sentinel in a landscape that had been stripped of distractions. Not barren, exactly. Just minimalist.

Galvahin slowed as they neared the edge of the field. “It’s different again,” he murmured.

Thelanna didn’t even break stride. She tilted her head, eyes lazily tracing the sweep of the field before flicking back to him with a smirk. “Of course. Don’t tell me you expected otherwise.” Her fingers squeezed his arm like she was reassuring a particularly naive child. “You’re in our playground, Galv. Consistency is the one thing you’ll never get.”

“Right…” His voice was dry, but not unkind. 

The grass brushed their heels, and the horizon curved just enough to make the world feel contained. And there stood the prince. Klimvarh crowned him with quiet grandeur, his pale hair like a trick of the sun.

Thelanna moved with her usual ease: feylike, unbothered, her hand still resting against the knight’s arm.

But Galvahin had slowed.

There was no protocol for this. No rite for parting from this kind of friend to greet that kind of monarch. This kind of lady, that kind of lord. An entanglement. Another riddle.

He glanced at her sidelong. She hadn’t let go. Still linked at the elbow, still matching his pace with that effortless grace she wore like a second skin. There was no urgency in her, no signal to part. Why should there be? To her, this was all simple: companionship, casual warmth, a stroll across an ever-changing dreamscape. But for him, every step toward the prince felt like approaching a storm in a borrowed sky.

He should have let go. Stepped forward. Said something, announced himself, perhaps. Wasn’t that what a nobleman did in the presence of a royal? The worry swelled. Oriel wasn’t just a prince. He was the reason Galvahin’s pulse tripped in his chest.

Thelanna’s arm remained laced through his, and her touch, so recently a comfort, now felt like a question he didn’t know how to answer. Did he release her? Did he step forward alone? Would they be offended, or amused? Was there even a correct choice? What would—

The dryad was already gone, giggling with Oriel in a shared embrace of warmth and mirth before Galvahin could finish the thought.

Time thinned, stretched taut like a snagged thread. He watched the way the prince’s hands curved against Thelanna’s back, how her laughter poured into the hollow of his throat. Two friends, they fit together with ease, like a story mid-chapter, no need for a new beginning.

Galvahin stood outside of it, close enough to feel the warmth, too distant to touch it. He was always arriving a moment late. Always watching the bloom from behind the glass.

Then Oriel’s gaze found him. And that was all it took.

No words passed between them, but Galvahin’s limbs locked into place. The prince didn’t beckon. Didn’t even smile. He only looked—and the knight stood straighter for it, those violet eyes pinning him like a butterfly beneath glass: silent, restrained, waiting to be appraised.

Oriel’s wrist rose, a silent solicitation.

The knight moved, armoured steps sinking into the soft earth as he approached. He knelt, lips brushing the prince’s ring in a motion half ritual, half refuge. His eyes closed tight, as if bracing for impact, shutting out everything but the comfort of the prince’s heady fragrance. 

Thelanna’s voice curled in behind his ear like smoke. “Foreplay already? Are you going to lick it next, or save that for round two?”

Galvahin reeled back, scandalised. “That is not—!”

But the archfey’s thumb found his lips, silencing him with a pressure that bled into indulgence. 

“So loud,” he chided. “And so impolite to a lady’s delicate sensibilities.”

Galvahin’s mind cracked like timber under a lightning strike—scorched, smoking, and hollowed through. Her delicate sensibilities?! He wanted to howl, explode into a righteous rebuttal. Or possibly flames.

His cloak flared in a blaze of ruby and wine, flaunting the fury he couldn’t articulate. Galvahin didn’t move, didn’t breathe—couldn’t, with the archfey’s thumb still pressed to his lips and Thelanna watching as she’d just uncorked her favourite bottle of chaos.

“That expression?” she teased, eyes alight. “That’s his helpless face. Right before the noise he makes that sounds like a protest but secretly isn’t.”

Oriel’s lips curved. “You’re right.” His eyes didn’t leave the knight. “I enjoy that one.”

Galvahin prayed briefly for the ground to open up and consume him. “I—if I may, Sire… I’d like to stand now.”

“Mm. I don’t believe you do.” His voice was honeyed, deceptive in its softness. He looked over the knight’s head toward Thelanna. “What’s your read, my dear? Does that sound like a man eager to rise… or hoping someone will make him stay put?”

“Oh, let him stay a little longer.” She gave a pout. “He looks so pretty like that. And really, how often do you get the pleasure of people kneeling for you with actual sincerity?”

“I do enjoy being knelt to,” he mused, dreamy. “But only when they mean it…” Then, to Galvahin: “Well, Jackalope. Do you mean it?”

Galvahin’s brows drew into a faint, puzzled crease. His eyes searched the archfey’s, confused, aching, unsure if he was being teased or tested. “You know I do,” he murmured, his cloak’s hem dulling. “…Do you not?”

“You saw it too, didn’t you?” Oriel tilted his head toward the dryad, before adding gently, “I was very kind. Sweet, even.” He closed his eyes, a playful smile dancing on his mien. “So why does he look to me like I’ve raised a hand, not a question?”

Thelanna turned toward him, lips parted for some easy, clever reply—but Galvahin broke in first, too fast.

“—I’m sorry,” he blurted out. “I just—I thought I might answer wrong. And then you’d laugh at me. Or look disappointed. Or worse—look like I’d been… obvious.” His gaze dropped. “Which I probably was. I usually am, around you.”

Oh, gods…

His breath caught. The words were out before he could stop them—unguarded, too full of marrow. It was a mistake. Surely. But what else could he do, when the prince spoke like that? Like it was Galvahin who'd metaphorically struck him. And perhaps he had. Maybe honesty stung more than it soothed. Like earlier with the other fey. Too human. Not fey. Still, his mind reeled backward, desperate for footing. Their night prior. The beach. The moonlight. The prince half-turned from him, face shadowed with the kind of softness the knight didn’t know how to deserve, but yearned for, fiercely. 

He glanced up, heart flinching, almost hoping to find that tenderness again. 

What he received instead was the archfey as he often was: beautiful and amused, a face cut between snicker and lure. The look wasn’t malicious, but it held its own unmistakable edge. Galvahin’s brow twitched. He should’ve expected that, should have been disappointed. Somehow, he wasn’t. Fine—furtively, he was already fond of this version too.

Oriel’s eyes glinted like amethyst. “‘Obvious?’” he echoed. “Oh, my knight. That’s hardly the insult you think it is.” He leaned closer, a whisper away. “Go on, then. Spell it out. What have I guessed?”

“You—I wasn’t trying to imply anything,” sputtered the knight, his voice pitching unevenly. “Just—just making a general observation—one that anyone—”

With a breathy sigh, Thelanna collapsed into him from behind, arms locking around his neck and over his cuirass like a wilting garland. “Crushed by the weight of your subtext.” S he swooned, dramatically. “How will we survive such revelations?”

Galvahin stiffened under the weight of her limbs, his ears and cloak tinting a matching shade of peach. “Thelanna—why—this is not—helpful!”

Oriel, ahead of him, closed in tighter, his voice a gentle reprimand. “Mm. You let one woman drape herself over you and lose all sense of composure?” he whispered, his lips barely grazing the knight’s ear. “I assumed you had better pedigree than that.”

Thelanna followed suit, tilting closer as her fingers skimmed the edge of his jaw, tracing the place where beard faded into bare skin. “I only meant to lean for support,” she said as her digits ghosted down his throat to the opening of his gambeson. When they found the patch of hair just below the hollow of his neck, she added “But then I thought… why not luxuriate?” 

“But—you can’t just—” he started, a scold and a plea. But then her fingers swirled lower, and whatever he was going to say crumbled into a helpless sound in the back of his throat. 

Oriel’s lips barely moved, but every syllable trembled across the knight’s nerves like a harpstring plucked too close to the bone: “We’re listening. Do keep going.” 

“You’re both being thoroughly indecent,” Galvahin managed, his voice wedged between wrath and whimper. “And I—I would thank you to—ah—cease at once,” he huffed, though the last word broke on a tremor as her index ghosted lower.

“Say, Oriel,” Thelanna crooned. 

“Why, yes?” 

“Tell me, if you and I kissed—right here—would he weep or faint?”

Galvahin made a sound like a kettle about to boil over, then abruptly jerked away. It was anything but elegant, like the clumsy desperation of a man fleeing a burning building. He ducked, squirmed, and practically slithered out from between them, his limbs moving with all the dignity of a knight entangled in laundry. The cloak flared behind him in a blush of peach and crimson as he crawled, then stumbled several paces toward Klimvarh, chest heaving. 

“That’s—quite enough touching, thank you,” he sputtered, voice an octave too high. “B-besides.” His gaze lifted to the tree. “I—I haven’t been given a chance to greet Klimvarh yet—!”

The sycamore offered his salutations with the ease of one who had watched too many centuries to flinch at awkward entrances. His timbre rustled in the stillness like leaves remembering a laugh. No apology was necessary. Galvahin’s tardiness to address him had stirred no disapproval, only quiet amusement. But Klimvarh, ever the careful steward of moments, made his stance plain beneath the welcome: he would not be the knight’s hiding place today.

“So wise,” Oriel mused, before sighing with faux sympathy. “My poor Jackalope. Even a tree won’t play chaperone to your fluster.”

Galvahin froze, shame flaring hot in his chest. So much for subtlety.

Thelanna drew a dramatic breath. “Rising before being dismissed?” She arched a brow to the archfey, all mischief. “He’s forgotten how to behave. You should offer him a thorough… correction on that.”

“That’s—no, I—” Galvahin stammered, clutching at the illusion of composure. His brows lifted in panic as his storm-grey gaze caught Oriel’s for half a heartbeat—then skittered away like a mouse spotting a hawk. He angled his chin upward, dignified in posture if not in spirit, and silently prayed for mercy. 

This was an ambush. A beautiful, theatrical ambush. Separately, they were already more than he could handle: Oriel all elegance and pressure, Thelanna a walking temptation wrapped in teasing. Together, they operated like a performance troupe—one holding his soul still with ceremony, the other tugging free every secret with a smile. He didn’t stand a chance. And he hated that he knew it. Loathed more that he could imagine it, how easily he might give in if they truly pressed. If they asked. If they wanted.

His eyes dropped without command, settling where Klimvarh’s roots tangled into grass like quiet invitations. And there, in the hush of his mind, it played out: a scene too vivid to dismiss. The three of them collapsed in a tangle, flesh against flesh, his breath caught between pleasure and disbelief. Thighs bracketing his face. A hand tugging his hair. Heat where tension used to live. Whimpering mirth curling with steam off sweat-damp skin. It wasn’t the lust that hollowed him… it was ache. The ache of dreaming of a version of himself that could be part of that ease, of that joy. He wanted to have that. So why couldn’t he want to want it as well? 

“I daresay he punishes himself with enough corrections to last a lifetime.” Oriel clicked his tongue, folding his arms as his gaze swept over the knight’s telltale, magenta flush. “That hue again. A guilty confession, wouldn’t you agree?” he mused aloud, tilting his head as if examining a rare flower. “What secret fantasy is playing behind those noble eyes, I wonder?”

Thelanna didn’t miss a beat. “Mm, definitely something sinful. I’m guessing… spooning.”

Oriel’s silvered brows rose. “With sighing involved. And muffled compliments.”

“Someone squeezing his palm,” she added, tone teasingly reverent, “whispering how proud they are.”

“Scandalous.” He nodded, solemn as a judge. “We should avert our gazes.”

“But it’s just getting good!”

Galvahin rolled his eyes skyward with a huff that could have shaken leaves from Klimvarh’s branches. Cuddling and whispered praise? Gods. Way to know exactly how to twist the knife with satin gloves on. It wasn’t the teasing that struck. It was the accuracy. And the ease. Thelanna and Oriel couldn't only read him like a diary—all the juiciest pages marked with ribbons—they could recite them like a well-worn script. 

It was a show, all of it. Coy looks and suggestive words and the slow unravelling of his composure. And yet… it wasn’t unbearable. In fact, the knight caught himself enjoying it even. Their eyes on him. The wicked attention. It ignited something tender under the embarrassment. He exhaled, stood tall, and gave them nothing more than poise. Alright then. Let them play their sport. But he’d make sure they earned every reaction.

“Oh yes, clearly I’m the deviant here,” he barked, throwing his hands in the air, exasperated. “The two of you, who haven’t spoken a single sentence today without innuendo—and I’m the one darkening the air with my twisted, depraved craving for hand-holding.” 

Thelanna opened her mouth, already halfway into a retort—

“Don’t strain yourself,” Galvahin cut her off, voice smooth with venomous cheer. “If I had a copper for every wildly personal observation you’ve made about me since we met, I could buy your silence for a solid ten minutes. And I would.”

Oriel’s lips parted on a rising laugh, clearly primed to add fuel to the fire.

“And you,” intercepted the knight. “Go on. Counterfeit innocence! We both know whatever you’re about to say will end with you calling me ‘brave’ in a tone people only reserve for stray puppies.”

“Oh, he’s brave, all right,” Thelanna drawled. “The kind of brave you only see in those puppies barking at thunder—or men who sass faeries and think they’ll get away with it.”

A delighted noise left the prince—half-chuckle, half-gasp. “He’s not wrong,” he admitted, violet eyes gleaming. “Though, in my defence, stray puppies don’t pretend they’re not begging to be adopted.”

“Enough!” Galvahin snapped, folding his arms like a particularly fed-up tutor. “If you’re going to keep talking about me like a mutt, the least you can do is offer me a bowl of water or a pat on the head. Maybe toss a stick. I’ll chase it just to get it over with. If not,” he jabbed a finger at Oriel. “then unveil the game you’ve been dangling in front of us. Or are you afraid your lowly mortal friend might win it and ruin your whole day? Unless—” He let out a dramatic gasp, clapping his scruffy cheeks in a theatrical show of pretend surprise. “This was the game all along, in which case—congratulations! You win. Spare me the remainder of my humility as recompense, Your Grace.”

The dryad leaned in, her grin wide and wicked. “Galv, darling, if this was the game, you’d have lost twice over already.”

“Indeed,” Oriel added, folding his hands behind his back. “But I’m nothing if not generous. I wouldn’t dream of counting that charming tantrum as a true contest.” Then, to the knight, with gleaming mischief: “Today’s activity allows for all manner of outcomes. There are winners. There are wagers. There may even be punishments,” he winked, “if you’re lucky.”

Galvahin exhaled through his nose, unamused. “Yes, yes, punishments and wagers, very titillating. Sire, could you please move on to the part where you actually explain the rules?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” Oriel crooned. He gave a single, lazy twirl of his finger in the air before a soft rustle stirred the grass, and three mallets poked up from the ground like mushrooms after rain. The croquet balls—violet, green, and blue—rolled in from opposite directions as if they’d been waiting offstage.

“Fortunately,” he said, “this game is simple enough even for mortals.” 

“…Croquet?” Galvahin hazarded, unsure if this was some sort of jest. 

“Fuck yes,” Thelanna blurted out, snatching up one of the mallets. “You two are going down.” 

Galvahin gave the mallets a long, skeptical look. “Are they enchanted? Rigged? Sentient?” 

The prince hummed. “Not sentient. Probably.” 

Thelanna twirled the mallet once and cocked her hip. “What’s the prize?” 

“Winner gets a favour from one of the losers,” Oriel said airily. “Anything within reason.” 

“Your reason, or mine?” Galvahin muttered. 

“Neither,” he replied. “The Feywild’s. Try not to lose.” 

“You said ‘winners’—plural,” Thelanna hummed. 

“Naturally,” Oriel said smoothly. “One claims victory. One escapes untouched. And the third… wins the honour of owing someone something delicious.” 

“Wonderful,” Galvahin sighed. “So where’s the course, then?” He tilted his head. “Hidden beneath illusion? Written in the clouds? Etched into my nightmares?” 

Oriel raised his hand with a little flourish. “Course design falls, of course, to our most verdant artisan. Thelanna, darling?” 

The dryad grinned, cracking her knuckles. “With pleasure.” 

She lilted a breathy incantation before making a gesture vaguely reminiscent of a conductor beginning a symphony, then snapped her fingers. The earth burst into organised bedlam. In random placements, roots arced into hoops that twisted midair like coiled springs, one opening and closing rhythmically like a mouth chewing gum. A patch of grass warped into a lopsided mound, and a ring of mushrooms appeared to mark the starting zone. The final stake cracked out of the dirt at a 45-degree angle, then rotated slowly to face the players. 

“Remember,” she said, brushing a speck of moss off her shoulder, “if it’s difficult, it builds character. If it’s unfair, it builds legend.” 

“Lovely,” Galvahin muttered. “The course is breathing.” He raised a hand like a man requesting a ceasefire. “Let’s set one ground rule, please. No magic. No enchanted pollen or telepathic commentary or any ‘oh, I just gave the ball a helpful nudge with a vine’ nonsense. If this is to be a contest of skill—” 

“Or chaos,” Thelanna offered. 

“—then let it be an earnest one,” he finished, pointedly. “And not a contest of who can blink a mallet into someone’s kneecap the fastest.” 

“Of course,” the prince replied, unbothered. “Though I assure you, if you lose focus, it won’t be because of magic. I haven’t needed curses to keep your attention thus far.” 

Galvahin’s eyes widened slightly, his jaw moving like it wanted to form a rebuttal but was still waiting on instructions. 

Thelanna gave a sigh. “Damnit, Oriel. Could you try being less smooth for like, five minutes?” She clicked her tongue, amused. “See this is why I don’t compete—I just pickpocket the audience while you’re turning them into poetry.” 

The archfey made a show of pressing a finger to his lips, as though solemnly considering restraint. “Very well,” he said, tenor threaded with mischief. “No enchantments, no psychic nudges, no helpful breezes.” 

“Or compliments that make my knees buckle,” Galvahin added quickly, trying for dryness but failing to mask the colour rising in his ears. 

“No promises,” Oriel murmured. 

Galvahin cleared his throat—sharp, embarrassed, and entirely ineffective at disguising his discomfort. “Right. Well. If we’re quite finished with the serenade, I suppose I’ll start.” He stepped forward with all the dignity he could scrape together and reached for a mallet, lifting it like it might help restore a shred of decorum. “Better I go now before one of you composes a sonnet about the way I grip the handle.”

He aligned the mallet with his ball, then muttered under his breath, “Gods help me if this thing sings when I hit it…” He drew back, took a measured breath, and swung. The wood connected with a dull thunk—and to his surprise, the ball sailed smoothly through the first hoop in a perfect arc.

There was a pause.

Then Thelanna whistled. “Well, well. Competent and scandalous. What a day.”

“It’s not my first time,” he replied with a half-shrug. 

The archfey folded his arms over his chest, clearly amused. “Don’t get cocky yet, Jackalope. This game is long.”

Galvahin stepped forward again to claim his bonus shot. Squinting downrange, he aimed toward the second hoop and struck. The ball zipped forward with a clean arc, straight through. 

“Two for two,” he said, feigning modesty. “Dreadful, isn’t it?” 

“Smugness doesn’t suit you,” Thelanna muttered, closing the distance to her ball with a confident sway. “Let me fix that.” 

She stepped up, adjusted her grip with exaggerated precision, and swung—sending her green ball cleanly through the first hoop. Her next strike was swift, the ball sailing through the second hoop to match Galvahin’s pace. She turned with a wink. “Look at that. A tie!” 

He raised a brow. “Strategic placement or veiled threat?” 

“Can’t it be both?” she said, fluttering her lashes. 

“Not unless there’s something to gain,” the prince added, already aligning his stance for his shot. “Or someone to flirt with.”

“Present company included?” Galvahin asked, tone wary. 

“Present company is the whole point,” the dryad purred. 

Oriel swung, and the violet ball glided forward, slipping through the first hoop without so much as a whisper. He gave a modest nod, nothing showy, just the acknowledgment of a foregone conclusion. But his follow-up lacked the same precision. The second shot grazed the rim of the next hoop and veered wide, rolling off with a sort of lazy defiance. 

Thelanna let out a hiss of pretend sympathy. “Oh, tragic. Struck down in your debut.” 

Oriel regarded the rogue ball with disdain. “Clearly, the course resents my restraint.” 

Galvahin gave a subtle nod. “Bit of a cruel bounce. You deserved better, if you ask me.” Stepping forward with a sigh, his grey eyes aligned on the next hoop. “Let’s see if mine behaves.” When he struck, the ball zipped forward in a clean arc, pulling just shy of his target. 

“Humph.” His gaze narrowed, unamused. 

“Oh, don’t pout,” Thelanna cooed, watching Galvahin plan his next turn with all the seriousness of a warrior marching for battle. “You’ll thank me later for keeping you humble.” 

Then, with a pivot and strike so perfect it could’ve drawn applause, she slammed her ball into his.

Clack!

The blue sphere veered off like a disgraced diplomat—dramatic, undignified, and very, very far from the hoop. 

“Roquet!” hummed Oriel.

“Dear me,” Thelanna said innocently. “That was yours, wasn’t it?”

The knight opened his mouth, closed it again, then muttered, “You did that on purpose.”

“I did,” she chirped. “Which means I get to go again. Isn’t this game lovely?” She sauntered after her ball, aligned her mallet into position, and with a casual flick of her wrist, sent it gliding again—this time cleanly through the third hoop. 

Oriel advanced, attention narrowing on his ball. He tugged at his sleeves, gaze darting to the off-kilter hoop, then spun the mallet in his grip, before unleashing a sharp, calculated stroke. The violet ball sailed through, not directly for the second hoop, but curving off a mossy mound to tap Galvahin’s once more.

The knight frowned slightly at it. “Didn’t think we’d be crossing paths so soon.”

“I never miss an opportunity for contact,” was the reply. “Besides, now I have a better angle.” 

Then, with another swing, he sent his ball through the second hoop. He gave a slight curtsy, entirely too pleased with himself.

Galvahin offered a brief, dignified clap, two palms meeting with just enough enthusiasm to be courteous.

Thelanna side-eyed him. “Oh? We’re applauding him now?”

“Why not?” Galvahin shot back, folding his arms. “He can ask anything of me already, and I’m remiss to say no.” His gaze flicked toward her. “You, on the other hand, would weaponise a favour like it’s your sacred duty. And I’d be your sacrificial lamb.”

“My faithful knight,” Oriel murmured, exaggerating sentiment. “It’s nice to be appreciated.” He stepped past Galvahin with a brush of fabric. “Though I wouldn’t be so quick to trust my mercy. I haven’t even begun to get creative.” 

Galvahin sucked in a breath through his nose and adjusted his stance. “Yes, well. I’m sure whatever you’re planning would be… memorable.” He hesitated, then swung. The shot was fine, but not flawless, edging back onto the course but just shy of the third hoop. 

Thelanna twirled her mallet like a baton as she strolled up to her ball. She eyed the fourth hoop—the one with the unsettling habit of opening and closing like it was breathing. “Easy-peasy. I’ve danced with worse tempo than this.”

She swung.

The hoop snapped shut with a flourish, as if waiting for her cue, and batted the ball sideways into the grass.

Thelanna put both hands on her hips. “Okay, that was just personal.”

Oriel stood above his ball, and his swing was a calm flick of the wrist, sending it cleanly through the third hoop.

Galvahin watched the shot land. “How long have you two known each other?”

Looking back, Oriel strolled forward to take his bonus shot. “Long enough to know she cheats when she’s bored.” Aligning his next strike, he added, “Not long enough to stop letting her.”

Clack!

 Thelanna let out an easy smirk as she looked Galvahin up and down. “And yet he still lets me borrow his things.”

“No, but—how long, actually? Years? Decades?”

Almost thoughtful, she tilted her head. “Would you prefer the Feywild answer or the mortal one?”

“I’d prefer a real one,” he muttered.

“Before you were born.” Oriel didn’t look up this time.

Thelanna glanced at him. “Definitely before your grandparents were.”

Galvahin swallowed, his gaze flickering. “Oh.”

“Still want the details?” Oriel asked, a little too gentle this time. 

The knight hesitated before straightening slightly. “Longevity doesn’t intimidate me. I’ve shared drinks with dwarves old enough to see three human kings rise and fall—and broken bread with elves who think anything younger than two hundred is a child.” He gave a small shrug. “I’ve learned not to take offence.”

He’d meant it when he said longevity didn’t intimidate him. It didn’t. Not exactly.

Though they rarely admitted it, most humans envied the long-lived. Galvahin had made peace with the idea of brevity. He had told himself that it wasn’t the years that mattered, but the way one lived them. The virtuous were promised an afterlife in the upper planes, where time was no longer a burden, where the gods themselves would welcome them. But still, there was a part of him that could not fully silence the bitterness—the resentment toward the fey, the elves, and dwarves, the immortals, all the creatures who lived with the luxury of showing up late and still being early, of never running out of moments.

He didn’t let the weight of that age difference linger too long. Just took a breath, swung, and sent his ball clean through the third hoop.

The ball didn’t hesitate. Just—clack—and gone.

Thelanna leaned against her mallet, watching. “Well. He’s precocious.”

Oriel nodded solemnly. “It’s always nice when the youth try to keep up. Makes the world feel hopeful.”

“Truly,” she said. “He might even survive the decade.”

Galvahin narrowed his gaze. “Are you quite finished?”

He stepped forward, grey eyes fixed on the fourth hoop—the one that opened and shut like a yawning mouth, its rhythm maddeningly irregular. A mutter escaped under his breath, barely more than a prayer or a dare, and readied his swing.

The hoop snapped shut. Waited. Opened.

He struck.

The ball shot forward just as the hoop yawned wide—and slipped cleanly through the gap a heartbeat before it clamped shut again behind it.

A perfect shot. 

He turned, voice mild. “Would either of you like a chair and a warm compress? I hear that physical activity can be hard on the vintage.”

Thelanna rolled her emerald eyes, stepped up without ceremony, and swung—

Clack.

Her ball slid neatly through the hoop just as it opened, mimicking his timing with an almost infuriating ease. “You know what they say, Galv: skill ages like wine. And you’re still… grapes.”

Oriel arched his brow. “Unripe grapes. Still clinging to the vine. Positively tart.”

Galvahin opened his mouth, then shut it again. 

The dryad winked. “It’s okay. Everyone starts somewhere.”

She swung without ceremony, sending her ball skimming up the rise. It rolled to a clean stop, angled perfectly before the fifth hoop. 

Stepping back, she smirked. “See? Supple as ever.” 

Oriel stood over his ball like a noble about to descend a staircase. He didn’t bother lining up precisely, just glanced at the hoop, then at Galvahin’s ball beyond it.

He swung.

The ball sailed through the chomping hoop without resistance—then veered ever so slightly to the left and struck Galvahin’s cleanly, sending it skidding off the course.

He exhaled, pleased. “Ah. That felt… spiritually necessary.”

“Sabotage.” Galvahin’s jaw tensed. “The first refuge of the insecure.”

“Insecure?” Oriel gave a slow, foxlike smile. “No. Just possessive. I don’t enjoy seeing you get confident without me.”

The knight didn’t reply. Oriel’s meaning was clear. And annoyingly well-aimed. There was nothing noble about possessiveness. Nothing gallant about interference. But that voice. That smile. That unspoken: You don’t get to win without me…

It hit somewhere that wasn’t logic. Somewhere that wished to be considered. To be claimed. That part of him, too used to silence, wanted to believe being held that tightly meant being wanted. Even if it was the kind of hold that hurt more than it healed.

Galvahin exhaled through his nose, forcing the feeling back into its box. He stepped forward, shoulders squared, posture straight. The ball sat waiting just off-course, resting in the moss where the archfey had knocked it.

He took his stance. Lined up the angle. Drew the mallet back.

And just as he moved to strike—

Pinch.

Sharp, and unmistakably delivered to the curve of his derriere.

He yelped.

The mallet jolted sideways with a graceless thunk, the ball veering off in a mournful little wobble into a clump of weeds.

Galvahin’s whole frame stiffened. He whirled around, eyes locking instantly on Thelanna, who blinked up from several paces away, wholly unbothered and obviously too distant.

Slowly, suspiciously, he turned the other way.

Of course, there stood Oriel. Entirely too close. Hands clasped behind his back, face tilted upward toward the clouds, studying the sky as though contemplating the weather or perhaps composing a poem. 

Galvahin’s eye twitched. “Really?” he said flatly.

The prince blinked at him, all wide-eyed grace. “Was something amiss, my knight?”

“Sabotage is one thing,” he mumbled in reply. “Fondling my—my arse mid-swing is another.”

Oriel gasped, scandalised. “I would never. Perhaps the breeze simply grew fond of you.”

“The breeze doesn’t have fingers.”

“Not with that attitude.”

The knight straightened, visibly restraining the urge to pace. “Do you ever behave?”

Oriel tilted his head. “Would you like me to?”

Galvahin’s brow furrowed, but before he could summon a retort, his cloak—ever disloyal—blushed before he could deny it, a riot of magenta spilling over his shoulders. He inhaled once, slowly, and turned half-away, back straight as a parade standard. Not quite retreat, nor quite defiance, only a man choosing silence over spectacle. Thelanna gave a low whistle before her countenance collapsed into a wicked grin. Oriel didn’t move, but his violet eyes glittered with something as fond as it was feral.

What followed could hardly be called structured competition.

Thelanna continued to play with the ruthless efficiency of a Fey Court assassin, ricocheting off bonus strikes like a vengeful forest spirit. Oriel, in contrast, remained maddeningly graceful, winning every advantage with shots that looked accidental and smiles that suggested otherwise.

Galvahin was harried at every turn—his ball bumped, blocked, and once, inexplicably buried in a divot of moss—but he held his ground, strategising with a general's ambition, and slowly clawing his way back up the scoreboard.

They passed the sixth, seventh, and eighth hoops in a blur of swears, laughter, and three separate accusations of cheating, none of them proven. 

The match had swung wildly between them, but by the ninth hoop, it was anyone’s game. Galvahin stepped up to begin the round. 

His shot landed inches in front of it, cleanly blocking the mouth. He turned back, hands steady. Not a goal, but a problem for the next player. 

“Strategic obstruction? Well, we can’t have that,” Thelanna murmured, already drawing back her mallet. 

She struck low and sharp. Her ball slammed into the knight’s at an angle, sending both spheres skidding off the course in opposite directions. 

“Are you serious!?” Galvahin snapped, following her with an incredulous glare. He stepped forth, not bothering to hide the sharpness in his bass. “There was no gain in that. You weren’t even playing to win!” 

Thelanna’s mallet connected with her green ball again, sending it neatly back onto the course. 

“No,” she replied airily, not even bothering to look at him. “But it was very entertaining.” 

Before Galvahin could speak again, smarts of crimson flickering in his cloak, the prince’s silken tenor drifted in: “You really ought to thank her, you know. No one makes a more handsome runner-up than you.” 

The knight’s throat swallowed the retort rising in his throat, burying it beneath a silence colder than his stare. He stepped back as Oriel strolled past him, unhurried, unbothered. 

Without pause, the archfey struck again. The ball curved and kissed the peg with a soft, decisive click. 

Game over.

Galvahin had, of course, expected that Oriel would claim victory. This was his game, his terrain, his court. The odds had never truly bent in the knight’s favour; that much hadn’t been in question. But it still didn’t soften the edge.

He had played well, fought through every petty disruption, every roguish smile, each crooked twist. His grind to the front was made with nothing but focus and grit. And for what? To be foiled at the last second by mischief and magnetism?

“Well.” Thelanna’s applause was barely audible. “That was decisive. Shame about the tension. I was hoping it might’ve lasted a little longer.”

The knight gritted his teeth, resisting the urge to scoff.

Oriel offered a slow, elegant nod as if acknowledging a standing ovation no one else could hear. “Thank you, thank you. I do my best work under pressure… and scrutiny… and the occasional knightly glower.” His violet gaze met Galvahin with a tenderness that didn’t match the victory. “You made it a real game. I rather liked that.”

It was obscene, honestly, the way a single soft remark could so effortlessly dissolve Galvahin’s petty frustration over losing. Like frost melting under sunlight, slow and uninvited. The only bitterness that remained now was the distaste of not being able to hold onto that irritation. Or the inability to keep his spine straight and his pride intact. Dignity shouldn't be so easily unravelled. As if all that effort, every careful strike, every flare of discipline, meant less than being noticed. 

Still, he didn’t answer. Not at first. Just stood there, stiff and unsure, while Oriel’s words settled like a hand on his shoulder. Just there. Present. Warm.

It would have been easier if the archfey had gloated. If Thelanna had kept laughing. If someone had broken the moment before he started to wish it could last.

“Oh, good.” He adjusted his gloves, eyes fixed somewhere to the left of Oriel. “I’m charming in defeat. That’ll get me far in life.”

Thelanna twirled her mallet. “You think charm only counts when you win? Poor thing. You’ve no idea the value of a pretty loser.”

The prince chuckled. “We’re a shallow lot, Jackalope. That’s why your depths fascinate us—we’re not used to having to work for the good parts.”

Galvahin looked up, startled, then quickly looked away again, like a man caught standing in a doorway. “Curiosity’s easy,” he murmured. “Sticking around after the answers? Not so much.”

Oriel didn't speak, but he tilted his head slightly, eyes fixed on Galvahin like he was trying to read the shape of the wound through his armour. Whatever he thought, he kept to himself.

The silence lasted just long enough to deepen before Thelanna stepped in. “Now, now,” she said brightly, “don’t pretend you’ve forgotten the best part. You won. You get to collect! I wonder who you’ll choose your favour from…”

Galvahin snorted. “Oh, please.” Gesturing vaguely to himself, he added, “As if there’s any suspense.”

Smiling, Oriel stepped forward, voice low and velvety. “A man resigned to his fate is so inspiring. It gives the impression he might even enjoy it.”

The dryad gave a theatrical sigh. “Well, I can see when I’m no longer the main attraction.” A pause, then a grin and parting wink as she turned to leave. “Have fun, boys,” Thelanna added breezily, already walking away. “And by fun, I mean: don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Which leaves you a very short list.”

Galvahin offered her a stiff, slightly rushed bow. “Good match. And, ah… thank you. For playing with us.”

Oriel raised his hand in a languid farewell. “We are in your debt.” Faintly, he added, “I’ll handle what remains.”

As Thelanna vanished into the shifting gold of the field, Galvahin lingered in the silence a breath longer than necessary. Then, slowly, he looked to Oriel. 

“Sire… when you say ‘handle what remains’…” he asked, voice carefully even, “should I be worried?”

Oriel didn't reply.

He only watched the knight with a serene, affectionate expression. His smile was pleasant, patient, and composed, the kind worn by someone who had already made a decision and saw no reason to explain it. There was no callousness in his eyes, no expectation. That was precisely what made it so unsettling. It was the kind of gaze one might offer a beast that had wandered into the ballroom, too regal to chase away, too naive to know it was being studied.

Galvahin felt the stillness prickle beneath his skin. “I—ah,” he stammered, glancing away. “Apologies. That question was… disregard my—” His voice faltered, the sentence dissolving in his mouth. He couldn’t name the misstep, only felt it tightening in his throat.

The prince did not speak.

His expression did not change. If anything, the warmth in it deepened: gentle, unwavering, insufferably patient. Not churlish, nothing overt. Only the discomfort of someone refusing to interrupt your self-destruction.

“I—um,” Galvahin began again, voice stiff. “I did have fun today. Thank you, that is—my gratitude, Your Grace. Truly.” He adjusted a nonexistent crease on his glove. “And I… I hope nothing I said earlier gave the wrong impression. About the favour, or the match, or—well, anything, really.” His words stumbled over themselves, trying to organise. “You’ve been… gracious. Exceptionally so. I’m aware I’ve been a poor guest at times. Not intentionally, of course. I simply lack the ease with which others seem to—manage this place.” A breath. “But you’ve been generous. And I do appreciate that. Sincerely.” 

Oriel continued to watch. No movement. No sound. Just that maddening smile. 

The knight continued to shift, fingers fussing with the strap of his vambrace. “Not that I think I’ve offended you, of course. At least… I hope I haven’t. I imagine you’d have said something by now—though perhaps not, I suppose. That wouldn’t be very… I suppose that wouldn’t be the way things are done here.” He cleared his throat. “What I mean is, I just didn’t want to seem ungrateful. Because I’m not. Ungrateful. I mean.” 

Still nothing. The silence thickened. 

The knight’s hand rose halfway in a vague gesture before falling again. “And I understand the rules, to an extent. That is, I understand I lost, and that entitles you to… something. A reward. Or a favour. A whim.” His voice dipped. “I mean, I’m sure you’re perfectly within your right to claim… whatever it is you’re going to claim.” He coughed into his glove. “It’s your game, after all. And your court. And I’m—well, I’m just glad to be included.” 

The silence did not waver. It folded itself around the knight like dusk. 

His voice broke the air before he could stop it. “Was it… fun?” A pause. “The match, I mean. Did it… please you?” 

The prince’s brows lifted, his smile deepening just slightly. “I enjoyed every moment,” he said. “Especially the ones you tried not to give me.” 

“I, ahh…” The knight’s breath shivered loose. He didn’t know how Oriel’s voice could be so gentle and still leave him feeling like he was standing too close to the sun. “Then… may I ask why you withheld your reply?” 

“You’re terribly endearing when you scramble for approval,” Oriel said, tenor smooth as ever. “But I wasn’t punishing you if that’s what you’re thinking. I was simply waiting…” 

“Waiting for what, exactly?” 

“For you to remember what you agreed to.” 

Galvahin blinked. “Which part?” 

“Our accord,” said the prince, voice soft but unmistakably firm. 

“I… don’t follow, Sire.” 

Oriel’s smile didn’t falter. “What is mine is yours, recall? Which means…” He stepped slightly closer. “The victory—and its spoils—belong to you.” 

The knight’s brow furrowed deeper. “If you won,” he said slowly, “then… aren’t you..? I mean, by the game’s terms, shouldn’t you be the one collecting the—?”

He trailed off.

Oriel waited.

Galvahin blinked. “Are you saying… I won?”

The archfey tilted his head, amused. “No, no. I’m saying I did. And everything I win, I give to you.” A pause. “That is what we agreed upon, is it not?”

Galvahin stared at him. “And the favour?” he asked, barely above a whisper.

Oriel’s voice dipped lower, richer. “Is yours to name.”

Galvahin shook his head. “That doesn’t seem… fair,” he said gently. “You played better. I lost. I know we agreed to but… I wish not to pilfer your victories.”

The prince’s tenor dropped, velvet-soft. “You think taking is the same as taking advantage? It isn’t.” He paused, head tilting. “Sometimes, receiving is the braver thing.”

Galvahin looked down, then back up. “You’re probably right. Maybe receiving would be brave.” A pause. “But I’m not brave enough for that. Not today.” He met Oriel’s eyes, not with defiance, but calm sincerity. “If the favour’s mine to name… then let it be this: keep your victory.”

“Of course, you’d find the most irritatingly honourable loophole imaginable,” Oriel said, lips curling. “Fortunately for you, I admire creativity in a losing party.”

“You’re not displeased?”

“Oh, I’m livid,” said the archfey sweetly. “And utterly besotted. It’s dreadful. And very confusing. I could kiss you for it.”

A laugh slipped out, raw and shaky, as Galvahin pressed his lips together, unable to stop his fingers from drumming nervously against his thigh. Besotted? Gods. That was… something.

“That’s—ah, well—that’s not exactly a terrible suggestion, Your Grace. I… may already owe you another one, in any case. After earlier. With Thelanna.” He cleared his throat. “If you’d like to… collect.”

“Oh, I do,” Oriel said, voice low with mischief, low enough to crawl beneath the knight’s skin.

Before Galvahin could respond, the prince stepped in, lifting both arms to slide around the back of his neck. His touch was light at first: fingertips brushing over the knight’s skin with a gentle caress, then threading into the hair at his nape, anchoring there with a teasing certainty.

Galvahin bent instinctively, breath caught, startled by the sudden intimacy. His hands hovered, uncertain, as if afraid to touch or afraid not to.

Oriel met him halfway. This kiss wasn’t hesitant. It was confident: intimately precise and devastatingly pliant. His mouth found the knight’s with a warmth that sank deeper than heat, slow as sap, deliberate as a promise. The contact lingered just long enough to taste, to ruin, to leave an ache where breath should be.

And then, he pulled back. Only slightly.

His arms stayed where they were, loosely looped around the knight’s neck, violet eyes gleaming with triumph. “Well,” he murmured, lips still ghosting close. “That was overdue.”

Galvahin’s eyes fluttered open slowly, lashes heavy. He looked dazed, unsteady—a man roused from a reverie he hadn’t wanted to leave. There was a softness in his expression now, raw, unguarded. He hadn’t realised how much he’d needed that until it was gone.

He straightened as best he could, trying to gather himself like fabric over a trembling frame. “Your Grace,” the knight began, politely, “you still have yet to name your request. You won, after all. So I ask—formally, if needed—what it is you would require of me. I will grant it. Gladly.”

“In time, Jackalope,” he said. “Not all that is owed needs collecting at once.”

“Ah. I see.” Galvahin chuckled. “Is that how you build your fortune, Sire—by letting the dues accrue interest?”

Just slightly, Oriel’s lips curved in silent amusement.

Notes:

Tsuyogari Tamashī (Bluffing Damacy) | KIRINJI & Katamari Damacy Series SOUND TEAM

Atarashii koto ga shitai mita koto nai kiita koto nai
CHALLENGER na no sa itsumo RIVAL ha jibun
(transl.)
I want to have new experiences, things I've never seen or heard of
I'm a challenger, and as always, my rival is my own self.

— — —

Hello, lovely readers! First off, thank you so much for your patience, I know it’s been a while since my last update. I could launch into the usual life-got-in-the-way spiel, but let’s be real: you’ve read a billion of those in author’s notes, so I’ll spare you the details. What matters is: this story is not abandoned, not even close! It’s just a long one, and we’re only about halfway through the narrative.

If you’re eager for more Oriel/Galvahin content in the meantime, I’ve posted a sequel novella as part of this book’s new series. Heads up: it does contain some spoilers about the ending of this novel, including the fate of Oriel and Galvahin’s relationship, how things evolve for them, etc. If you’ve been following along, some of it might not come as a surprise, especially since I’ve dropped hints in both the story and the comments (and yes, this is a DnD backstory at heart!). But fair warning: the sequel is very smutty. If the tags weren’t evident, consider yourself warned!

On a related note, I’ve been commissioning some Oriel and Galvahin art, which I share over on my BlueSky (same handle, onericdame). If you’d like to see it posted here on AO3 as well, let me know!

Thank you again for reading and sticking with me and these characters. I’m so grateful for all your comments and support. More updates are coming, I promise!

Chapter 14: The Hunt

Summary:

Enlisted in a Feywild hunt, one might assume the beasts to be the most difficult to slay; alas, the fiercest monsters are postmodern allegories about surveillance, power, and objectification.

“He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself… he becomes the principle of his own subjection.”

Michel Foucault

 

The snallygaster’s body lay broken in the hollow of the swamp, its neck twisted back upon itself, scaled hide dappled with ichor and fading colour. One wing curled protectively inward, the other pinned beneath its bulk, splintered bone visible through rents in the membrane like stained glass shattered underfoot. From its breast, where Galvahin’s glaive pierced to the hilt, steam rose in thin, hissing spirals. The clearing reeked of ozone, ruptured magic, and hot copper, carnal and uncanny all at once. 

“Well, well,” said Lazrik, his voice all swagger and smirk. “I see that our little stag has antlers.” Leaning against his massive, vorpal greatsword like a sleepy lover, the eladrin added rakishly, “What are horns, after all, if not wishes hardened into warnings?” 

“A curious interpretation,” Toby’s voice came from overhead, where he hovered just above the group. “I’ve always understood antlers to be more seasonal.” 

Penthesia didn’t look up from cleaning the blood off her blades. “The creature was crude in form. Yet, you match it in speech.” 

Galvahin braced a boot against the creature’s side. The glaive resisted for a moment, then came loose with a grunt and a twist. He gave the metal a cursory wipe, then let it rest point-down in the earth. 

“I don’t know...” he said, glancing up at the others. A flicker of amusement touched his voice. “I liked it.” He gave a short, surprised chuckle behind his helm. “It was clever.” 

“See? Was that entirely awful?” Lazrik gave an exaggerated shrug. “You killed a beast, laughed at a joke—two acts of violence, and the sun isn’t even up.” 

Somewhere beyond the clearing, laughter rang out again—Galvahin’s laughter. 

He turned, but the sound was already fading, swallowed by the swamp. Not an echo, no, it hadn’t come from him, or from any clear direction. It was as if the trees themselves had held it for a moment too long, then let it go in their own time. 

A surreal thing, to hear one’s own mirth returned like a purloined voice. The knight couldn’t find it within himself to be bothered. 

Further still, he enjoyed it. Not only the reverberated laughter, but everything they’d passed through tonight: the eeriness, the theatre, the way the land curled in on itself like a fever dream. Their hunting party had passed from frost-rimed tundra to red, humming desert in a dozen paces, the air shifting from ice to incense. Once, they crested a ridge and found themselves in a rainforest glowing with phosphorescent vines, only to step again and land knee-deep in a flooded fen crawling with lilies and frogs singing a cappella. 

It was lunacy. And it thrilled him. 

At that moment, he found himself glancing sideways, as if someone should have been walking beside him. Or perhaps behind him. Wherever that space was, it felt conspicuously empty. Had Oriel been there, he might have said something cutting, or strange, or beautiful. 

The way the snallygaster’s lone eye stared upward, glassy and enormous, reminded Galvahin of a mirror too wide to escape. It drank in the world, vast and voiceless, like a still pond. And the archfey would've had words devastatingly true about that. 

Naturally, Oriel had made an appearance earlier in the evening. The memory of the hunt’s beginning still echoed in Galvahin’s mind: the assembling of scouts, the summoning of mounts to carry them across the shifting terrain. The horses, though bizarre in hue—mottled in blues and golds, with manes like fireworks—behaved like ordinary steeds, if unnervingly obedient. 

But when the knight glanced up from adjusting his reins and caught sight of Oriel’s mount, the sheer magnificence of it nearly unseated him. 

In one's periphery, it might have passed for a particularly large draft horse: broad of shoulder, heavy with nobility, and furred about the hooves with pale, cloudlike tufts. But it moved with none of one’s expected equine rhythm. Instead of cantering, it bounded in great, arcing leaps, stotting like a deer, limbs barely seeming to touch the earth. A long tail, leonine and languid, swayed behind it with feline grace, tipped with a silken tuft the colour of moonlit quartz. And from the centre of its brow, a single spiral horn jutted forward, long and straight, its surface iridescent as pearl and humming faintly with some silent melody only fey things seemed to hear. It didn't belong to any man or stable, but every storybook he had ever loved. 

A unicorn. 

Oriel rode bareback, legs draped across the creature as though reclining for the benefit of some allegorical portrait. The image was ludicrously reminiscent of one of those quaint mortal tapestries: some vacant-eyed maiden in a meadow, cradling lilies and chastity on cloven hooves. Galvahin almost guffawed. He doubted the old stories had this in mind. Perhaps such symbols held no weight here. Or perhaps the archfey simply rewrote them as he pleased.

He knew, of course, and with a quiet kind of awe, that the creature beneath Oriel was no mere myth. Despite their place in the Feywild, unicorns were not fey, strictly speaking. Celestials, in fact, beasts of heavenly order dressed in faerie glamour. Their purity was not of innocence or celibacy, but conviction, a radiant justice that never brooked compromise. And yet, here one was: allowing a trickster prince to ride sidesaddle like a damsel in a living legend. It shouldn’t have made sense. But then, very little about him ever did. 

“You may introduce yourself, you know,” said Oriel, a wry glint in his eyes. “Staring is considered quite gauche amongst our company.” 

Galvahin started, flushing beneath his helm as he straightened in the saddle. “Apologies. Er—hello there,” he managed, lifting a hand in an uncertain greeting. 

The unicorn’s eyes narrowed, wide pupils like molten crystal. Into Galvahin’s mind rang a voice—booming, proud, and tinged with exasperation: 

Honourable warrior, is this the measure of thy mortal courtesy? To gape and mutter pleasantries before a scion of the Empyrean Herd? Hast thou no reverence? I am the seventy-seventh son of Lord Eachthighern, Sovereign of the Sacred Horn and Wing; the Moon’s Conviction, Ithrylgrum. Let thy speech rise to the occasion. 

At the unicorn’s rebuke, Galvahin jerked as though yanked by invisible strings. In his haste, he swung his leg over the saddle and very nearly overbalanced. Only a last-minute grab at the pommel saved him from an ignoble tumble. He thudded to the ground, clanking with embarrassment, and dropped instantly into a bow so deep it looked penitential. 

“Your pardon, most august and hallowed one." 

Remaining motionless, the knight counted his heartbeats. The silence stretched, broken only by the faintest tremor of mirth above him. At last, curiosity overcame him, and he risked a glance upward. Oriel was covering a smile with his hand, his violet eyes bright with laughter. Beneath him, Ithrylgrum’s shoulders trembled as he tried (and failed) to appear solemn. Not until the archfey’s voice broke through did Galvahin grasp that he had unwittingly become the subject of their private entertainment. 

"As I promised, a perfect gentleman. Is he anything if not charming?” 

Were all in thy retinue so genial, this company would want for nothing in the way of probity, Ithrylgrum observed, his silvery beard twitching with restrained gaiety. One marvels if such etiquette springs from thy tutelage, Prince Oriel … or in spite of it. 

Oriel scoffed faintly, feigning annoyance, though his pointed ears tinged pink. “So I’m to be blamed for all lapses in decorum, and denied credit for any grace? Typical.” He flashed the knight a crooked, not-so-innocent smile. “Do take note, Galvahin—here, even your closest companions conspire to tarnish your good name.” 

Galvahin opened his mouth, helm glinting with uncertainty. “If anything, Sire’s been most—” 

Spare me thy vexing modesty, Sir Alderwyn. His Lordship's predilections are neither diffuse nor idle. Indeed, even the meanest gaze can apprehend that his largesse finds itself directed with most ardent and particular intent. 

Caught off-guard, the archfey’s expression fractured, wild-eyed indignation chasing away his usual haughtiness. “What a reckless display of candour, my friend. What happens next is on your conscience.” Then, to the knight, voice almost too quick, “Pray, Jackalope, shall I dispense all subtlety and clarify every implied sentiment? After all, to inquire is to invite demonstration.” 

For a long moment, Galvahin could only stare, struck dumb as his cloak revealed him with a vivid flush of peach. He gathered himself at last, voice firm. “I… Well, I have never found it seemly to make sport of another’s private contemplations. Respect, I think, demands taking a man’s meaning as he gives it, and no further.” 

A dulcet, wary smile tugged at Oriel’s mouth as he studied the knight, something like admiration mingling with mischief. “Ah… Ever the sentinel at the gate of propriety. But I can’t help but wonder…” his voice dropped to a purr, and with one violet eye half-lidded in a conspiratorial wink, he finished, “Could you truly withstand any temptation I lay before you?” 

Galvahin blinked, lips parting as if words might come. Then, an incredulous laugh escaped him, rough and low. “If you’re not already at your most persuasive, I dread to imagine it.” 

Oriel’s hand twitched as if to gesture, a half-formed objection dying on his tongue. 

My, what impressive fortitude, Ithrylgrum’s words rang out, cutting clean through. Would that such scruples adorned every throne and bower, we might all repose more serenely—though I daresay the splendid unrest of the dreaming mind would certainly languish for it. 

A soft, rueful note threaded through Galvahin’s muffled reply. “Serenity’s well and good, but… some make unrest a finer fate.” His helm angled toward the prince. 

“Well said!” A flicker of something vulnerable passed over Oriel’s features as he composed himself. “For every spirit that revels in decadence—” He paused, his gaze lingering on the knight, a touch softer than before. “—there’s another who captivates with a steady hand. The world does so love its contrasts.” 

A hush lingered, delicate as morning mist. For a moment, the world seemed to contract around them. Only when the distant chorus of fey fraternization drifted through the trees did the spell break, drawing them gently back to the evening’s purpose. 

As the last echoes of conversation faded, the hunters formed their ranks. Oriel and Ithrylgrum claimed the fore, the unicorn’s luminous horn leading the way. Upon their steeds, Penthesia followed close, blades at her side, with an unfamiliar eladrin just behind her, strikingly large for his people, minty hair left unruly. Overhead, Toby flitted in careful loops, keeping a watchful eye on the column. 

Galvahin settled behind them, the excitement in the air quickening his pulse. A multitude of fey rode in their wake, anticipation rising as the procession disappeared into the thicket. 

The farther they ventured, the stranger the world became. Trees rose like crystal antennas, branching in logic-defying vectors, their trunks banded in shifting gradients that responded to unseen signals. Wind drifted up from below, cool currents rising from the earth to ruffle the manes of their mounts. In places, the air thickened into a slow, viscous haze, where sound and motion dragged and light smeared itself into long, prismatic trails. Now and then, the shadows flickered, briefly resolving into mirrored silhouettes of the riders before dissolving back into the undergrowth. Nothing here followed reason or rule, and with each stride forward, Galvahin felt the world quietly remaking itself beneath his gaze. 

He almost forgot himself in the marvel of it all, sense and thought dissolving into the otherworldly— 

“Ho there! You with the fancy helm!” A deep, thundering voice erupted at his side, shattering his reverie and sending a scatter of birds shrieking skyward. 

The knight jerked in surprise, finding the broad-shouldered eladrin with unkept hair grinning at his flank. The stranger was massive by any standard, his frame wrapped in a flamboyant forest-green cloak, arms corded with celadon muscle, and exuding a gaudy, minty cologne so pungent it managed to eclipse even the horses. Across his back rested an enormous greatsword, its surface etched with whorls of faintly glowing fey runes, the whole thing as wide as a battering ram and twice as heavy. A long scar carved its way up from his brow, slicing across his forehead and parting his hair at the edge in a defiant notch. Rings gleamed on thick fingers, and clashing earrings caught the light as he tossed his head, affability glinting in his cornflower eyes. 

Galvahin straightened, voice a little stiff. “Ah. Good evening. Is it the helm that caught your eye, or the way I almost fell just now?” 

“Oh, it was definitely the almost-fall,” he teased, giving Galvahin a companionable, clanging thump on his pauldron. “Gave me hope you’re not one of those perfect types. Means we can get along.” 

With a small, rueful chuckle, he regarded the eladrin with a sidelong glance. “Well, I’ve never been accused of being flawless. But let’s hope I can earn your friendship with means beyond making a fool of myself.” He reached out, palm open for a handshake. “My name’s Galvahin. Who do I owe the pleasure of meeting?” 

“Lazrik.” With a grin, he took him not by the hand but the wrist, forearms crossing in a gesture more like sworn brothers than strangers. “You must be the human, then. Knew I’d spot you easy.” 

Galvahin tried to return the grip with equal strength. A touch bashfully, he replied, “I suppose I do stand out. I’ll try not to embarrass the species.” 

Lazrik kept hold of his wrist a moment longer before releasing. “Mind if I ask something? You look the obliging sort.” 

A little uncertain but game, Galvahin's helm nodded. “With an introduction like that, how could I refuse?” 

“I beg, would you mind?” Lazrik gave a lopsided smile, gesturing vaguely at his long, elven ears. “I’ve just got to know—do humans really have those little round ones?” 

Discomfort flickered through Galvahin, but Lazrik’s good-natured interest left no room for self-consciousness to fester. If anything, the eladrin’s boisterous charm made him want to laugh along. He nodded, loosening the helmet’s chinstrap. “You asked nicely. I suppose I can oblige a little curiosity.” 

Carefully, he gripped the reins and raised the helmet from his head, suddenly aware of every stray curl and what he could only call ordinary shape of his ears. 

Lazrik squinted, then scrunched up his face. “Blegh!” he yelped, sounding for all the world like a schoolboy poking at something wonderfully revolting. "By the Green, that's a travesty of nature. Go on, mate—let me touch one. I have to know if they’re real!” 

Galvahin snorted before offering his head, bemused. “I’d hate to stand in the way of science. Just don’t expect them to wiggle.” 

The eladrin obliged at once, reaching out with a juvenile sort of nosiness mixed with reverence. Galvahin stilled, feeling the odd sensation of rough, calloused fingers brushing the curve of his ear, gentler than he would have guessed. He found himself acutely attuned to the closeness of it: the softness of contact, the faint and baffling thrill of being inspected like a prize beast. Against his will, a giggle broke under his breath. 

“Ugh, horrible,” Lazrik chirped. “They’re so… nubby! But I suppose you get away with it, handsome as you are.” 

A flush of embarrassment brightened Galvahin’s face and vestments. He managed a polite but firm smile as he removed Lazrik’s hand from his ear. “I appreciate the flattery, truly, but I'll pass on any further study. Let’s keep it friendly, yeah?” 

From up the line, a sudden burst of cachinnation rang out—bright, sharp, and utterly incredulous. Galvahin’s head snapped up, certain for an instant that Oriel must be the source, but no; when he looked ahead, it was Penthesia glancing back over her shoulder, aureate eyes alight with mirth as exuberant as it was uncharacteristic. 

Before either man could speak, she cut in, smirking, “Unless you’ve managed to conceal a pair of bold and ample surprises beneath that cuirass, I think you’re safe from his attentions, Alderwyn.” 

Lazrik barked a laugh, rubbing his chin. “If anything’s off-limits for me, it’s that beard! Wish I could grow one, sure, but the idea of snogging all that fur? No offence, mate, but I’d rather avoid the exfoliation.” 

Absently, the knight stroked his beard. Elves, and by extension eladrin, scarcely had any hair below their brows, let alone the thick scruff he wore. He remembered, with a flash of sympathetic chagrin, a half-elf companion from his travels, and the mortifying story of how the poor lad’s first brush with puberty had become a scandal for his elven family. At the earliest sign of stubble, his friend’s supposed father blanched, shooting a glance at his wife, who stiffened and looked away. Galvahin smiled now, relieved that in Oriel’s court, difference was cause for teasing, not humiliation. 

A second peal of laughter rang from above, lighter than Penthesia’s, but no less dubious. Toby was twirling midair like a delighted moth, wings beating in time with his chuckles. 

Galvahin craned his neck. “You disappoint me, Master Toby. I had hoped your office lent you some restraint.” 

“Oh, pardon me. I meant no offence,” said the sprite. “I simply marvel at your ability to interpret 'horrible, nubby, travesty of nature' as an overture." 

Galvahin’s lips quirked. “Well, you've met me. I prefer to believe the best of people, until proven otherwise—or until they start feeling up my ears.” 

Toby grinned wickedly. “You’ll forgive me if I question your boundaries, Sir Galvahin. It’s just that from you, ‘friendly’ seems to encompass an awful lot—at least where Lady Thelanna is concerned. Remind me, is this the same ‘friendly’ that leaves one’s lips wet and cheeks aflame on a palace balcony?” 

“That is entirely—!” 

“Wait—wait, hold up.” Lazrik cut the knight off, thrusting an arm between them like he was stopping traffic. “Are we talking Thelanna Thelanna? Thighs like faerie fire, hips a satyr’s wet dream, and tits-to-match Thelanna? You lucky sod! What I wouldn't give to hollow out that knothole and call it home.” 

Galvahin’s head turned slowly, gunmetal eyes narrowing slightly as ruby and rose dotted his cobalt cloak. “That is Lady Thelanna you’re describing,” he said flatly, though Toby’s prior use of the title struck him now as a little… optimistic. “And while I’ve grown used to a certain lack of inhibition here, where I come from, gentlemen do not discuss women like—like projects for excavation. Kindly rein in your metaphors.” 

From up ahead, Penthesia gave a short, almost amused snort. “How noble,” she mused. “I wonder if Thelanna knows you’re out here polishing her reputation. She might rather you polish something else.” 

Galvahin busied himself with the helm, avoiding their eyes as he slipped it back on, the steel sealing away his flustered expression. His voice came cool and measured from behind the visor, though tension bristled beneath. “Forgive me, but… I wouldn’t have expected a dame to speak so freely of another’s affairs. Isn’t that sort of talk beneath you?” 

“Lessons in discretion,” she said, as if tasting something sour, “from the man who blushes at bawdy words yet rotates suitors like lunar tides.” Her tone cooled further. “You mistake objectification for diminishment. Where I come from, women are not shamed when named a prize. We set the terms of the game.” 

The knight shifted in his saddle, helm inclined as if reconsidering. “If I spoke out of turn… it wasn’t meant to diminish. I just forget how differently we measure respect.” 

“Your kind of respect asks others to be quiet and grateful for being noticed,” Penthesia shot back, voice like ice. “It comes with conditions. That’s not consideration. It’s control.” 

Galvahin froze. He wasn’t sure if he’d been reprimanded, outmaneuvered, or merely educated. Yet, there was no refuting her. She’d named something he hadn’t been able to: that when stripped of all that renders it unwelcome, desire wasn’t dangerous. It was just truth. And he hadn’t been shielding Thelanna’s dignity. He was erasing it. 

It came to him then, with a quiet horror. Was that how shame got passed along—beneath banners of virtue and modesty? He winced. How many, himself not least, had he wounded through this silent violence of assumption?

Lazrik let out a low whistle, still riding next to the knight. “Blimey, you’re fortunate she used words, mate. My sister? She prefers to let her swords do the teaching. The fact your entrails aren’t decorating the trees means she likes you.”

Galvahin turned, startled. “Wait—sister?” 

“Try not to sound so alarmed,” Lazrik smirked. 

“No, I just—apologies, I just wouldn’t have assumed.” 

“Most don’t. I’ve been told the only thing uniting us is blood, blades, and a shared aversion to the firmer sex.” 

“Pity the little brother didn’t inherit his sister’s talent for wordless rumination,” Toby offered. “Or tact.” 

Lazrik rolled his cornflower eyes skyward. “Galvahin, be a pal—lend me your boot. There’s a most obnoxious buzzing insect nearby in need of flattening. Seems her talent for mercy skipped my branch in the family tree, too.” 

Galvahin held up a gloved hand, shifting his reins. “Absolutely not. No boots. No flattening. No metaphorical insecticide involving my wardrobe.” He paused, glancing at Toby. “No matter how tempting... considering your fondness for invoking certain rooftop indiscretions.” 

“My, what principle,” Toby said, folding his arms in mock awe. “Not every day you see a knight resist the siren song of vengeance.” He turned from Galvahin, floating lazy circles in the air. "Sir Lazrik, would you like to contest his virtue with another duel? Though frankly, I doubt the outcome would flatter either of your egos." 

“Hard pass,” Lazrik said, waving a hand dismissively. “You fight like a wasp in a wineglass. My back still carries a mural of bruises from last time—abstract, but oddly compelling!” 

“As scintillating as this exchange has become,” Oriel drawled, regarding them from atop Ithrylgrum like a benevolent god indulging his creations. “I fear any further displays of testosterone’s least subtle instincts will spook the game, and leave me chasing something far more foolish.” 

Ithrylgrum slowed beneath him, not at the tug of any reins, but at a subtle shift in the prince’s posture. “This will do,” he said, violet gaze sweeping over the treetops. “Pitch your tents. We’ll make our base here.” 

They stepped into a clearing that defied definition. Here, air moved in pulses rather than gusts, rhythmic and soft, like the shallow breathing of some vast creature slumbering just beneath the forest’s skin. The trees grew in concentric arcs, each curve impossibly precise, as though grown to echo the pattern of a shell. Leaves rustled out of sync with the wind, falling upward at intervals too regular to be chance. 

The ground glittered with mica and fine shards of something soft as eggshell, crunching lightly underfoot. In places, bulbous pods extruded from the soil, expanding and contracting in slow, steady pulses. The sky above appeared slightly wrong: too shallow, too curved, as if they were standing inside a mirrored bowl with stars painted on its inner rim. Sound thinned around the edges. Footsteps felt delayed. Shadows appeared where no body had moved. 

Penthesia was the first to dismount, and without a word, she unfastened a pouch at her hip to draw out a pair of thick, lacquered gloves. She pulled them on with mechanical care, flexing each finger once. Then, from a narrow tube strapped to her back, she withdrew a slender iron stake, its surface blackened with age and scored with rust. A trace of tension crossed her jaw, like someone steeling themself against a scent they’d hoped to forget. 

“Now, now,” Oriel lilted, sliding gracefully from Ithrylgrum’s back. “Let’s not squander perfectly good manpower. I’m sure our resident mortal would relish the chance to exert himself for our benefit and prove his worth.” 

The knight dismounted, boots crunching softly on the shimmering soil. “If it spares others the trouble, then gladly.” He approached with measured steps, gilded antlers tilting in deference to the archfey. “I’m honoured to be of service, Milord.” 

Penthesia turned, glancing once at Oriel, then at Galvahin. With visible reluctance, she stepped between them with the brusque poise of a body trained to shield without drawing attention to it. Wordlessly, she extended the stake toward the knight, thick gloves still encasing her fingers. A mallet followed, its head forged from heavy stone, its handle banded in leather. 

Galvahin took both without hesitation. Cold, unalloyed iron met his bare fingertips, and there was no sting. At least not for him. Not for the mortal. 

Oriel’s voice was almost too fond. “Well then, Jackalope. Go on. Pin the world in place for us.” 

The mallet struck once—twice—then again, each blow sinking the stake deeper into the clearing’s pulsing soil. The resistance came not only in the earth but the air itself, which trembled faintly with every impact. Galvahin hadn’t expected the sensation that followed: not triumph, but trespass. The winds of the clearing stuttered. The colour withdrew. A hushed, uncanny stillness spread outward from the wound he’d made, as if the land itself had recoiled.  

For all his care, it felt like forcing something to submit. The air tasted faintly of metal and mourning. He couldn’t say why... but the whole act left his stomach turning. Subtly, his cloak dulled. 

The thaumaturgy of the clearing had dimmed like theatre lights before a scene change. Motion fled. Leaves no longer danced; they lay where they dropped. The land’s respiration faded to a shallow stillness. Even the sky seemed to shift, its painted curve smoothing into something more domestic. Where once the world pulsed with dreamlike whimsy, now it obeyed—if sullenly. 

The fey went about their preparations in fluid expertise. Tents bloomed from seed-sized charms, unfolding in bursts of magic and thread. Canvas unfurled from leaves. Spears arranged themselves in ceremonial spirals. A brazier emerged from a lily and lit itself unabode. 

Oriel approached Galvahin with a smile that might have been sympathetic. Or perhaps serene detachment. “Fret not, my knight,” he murmured. “All things have their time and place. Splendour cannot exist without the occasional dolour.” 

One by one, the fey divided themselves into trios and quartets, heedless of logic or hierarchy, moving instead by some social calculus Galvahin could not begin to parse. It was like watching living brushstrokes arrange themselves into parodies of symmetry. Some posed. Others pranced. One trio seemed bound by a shared colour palette. Another, by an inside joke no one else was privy to. He was fairly certain one quartet had formed solely because they all liked the same kind of butterfly. 

His gaze caught, inevitably, on Penthesia and Lazrik. Just as the younger brother had said earlier, they were matched by nothing: taste, temperament, technique. His sister was a vision of severity and elegance, a complete departure from the mountain of easy bravado he embodied. Yet, together they moved with synchronicity born of something far more eclectic than mere sibling camaraderie. 

Penthesia unslung a brace of darts from her back and laid them out in a line, each aligned to the etched grain of her golden gauntlet. Lazrik, meanwhile, unfurled a gleaming net from a pouch far too small to contain it, tossing it once into the air so it shimmered like a thunderhead and then drawing it back in with a flourish. She checked the edge on one of her blades; he bit the tip of his thumb and smeared a lazy, red glyph across his greatsword’s flat. When she offered him a whetstone, he mimed polishing his teeth with it before tossing it back. She didn’t even roll her eyes. 

The two were discordant on paper, but in practice, strangely hypnotic. She drew focus like a blade unsheathed; he scattered it like confetti. Somehow, the dissonance only made the harmony clearer. Galvahin wasn’t sure what it was. But something in him leaned closer, all the same. 

"Galvahin,” Oriel said, his tone sharp as a quill, “you’ll go with Penthesia and Lazrik. I'm eager to observe how you colour their contrapposto.” His head nodded above toward Toby, who was straightening his waistcoat with exaggerated care, as though off to a luncheon the sprite already regretted. “And take my dear chamberlain with you so he may observe. Or mitigate. Or annotate. Whatever it is he does.” 

Toby sighed, wings giving a resigned buzz. “Lovely. I'm thrilled to be cast as narrative glue for another of His Highness’s compositions.” 

“You’re not glue, Toby,” Lazrik called out, grinning widely. “You’re one of those nameless apprentices who paints all the background cherubs while the master swans about muttering to ghosts named—”
He splayed a palm across his brow. “—‘vision.’” 

Oriel toyed with a silver ring on his finger, violet gaze drifting to Lazrik. “If Toby is the intermediate in my atelier, I imagine that makes you one of the cherubs—decorative, forever aloft, and positively plump with allegory.” 

Toby blinked once, slow and satisfied, as though mentally tipping a glass to Oriel’s latest act of verbal precision. Penthesia didn’t laugh, but she exhaled in a way that carried the shape of one. 

Lazrik, however, simply beamed. “Why,” he said, preening slightly as he adjusted the collar of his cloak, “you flatter me, Your Radiance! I do float through a room like a heavenly vision, don’t I?” 

Galvahin, behind his helm, cleared his throat gently. It sounded suspiciously like stifled cachinnation. “Sire, w–will you be—ahem—will you be joining us as well? Or s–sending us off to be plump with allegory in your absence?” 

“Must I?” Oriel mused, tilting his head with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “And risk being interpreted? I think not.” He flicked a crease from his sleeve. “After all, I'm rendered better in repose." 

Galvahin watched the others slip into motion—Penthesia striding beyond the trees without so much as a backward glance, Toby fluttering after her, dragonfly wings a tangerine blur of officious irritation. Lazrik lingered only long enough to eye his reflection in a blade, whistling a racy tune wholly unsuited to the cathedral hush of the clearing. 

Then the knight turned back—and of course. 

A recamier had materialised like a punchline: seafoam velvet, tasselled trim, curves for days. A side table, no less ornate, bore a cornucopia that looked personally curated by a fruit fetishist: dew-laced grapes, peaches cleaved to the pit, a pomegranate posed mid-swoon. 

And there, stretched languidly across it all—Oriel, already mid-sentence, flanked by courtiers who cooed on cue. He laughed lightly, twirled a fig by its stem, and gestured with such ease it was hard to believe he’d ever moved at all.

Galvahin did not sigh aloud. But his helm’s antlers tilted in a way that very nearly counted. 

With a final glance at the prince’s decadent still life, he turned and set off at a loping pace, his gait quickly swallowing the distance between him and the edge of the treeline. His glaive shifted against his shoulder with each stride, a familiar weight amid the Feywild’s perpetual strangeness. Ahead, Lazrik’s bright cloak flickered like a wolf’s tail between trees, and the distant whirr of Toby’s wings grew sharper, more impatient. He wasn’t far behind. But in the Feywild, a few paces might yet be miles. 

The knight caught up to the group just as Penthesia paused to examine a faint gouge in the bark of a nearby stump, her expression unreadable. He slowed, glancing between her, Lazrik, and Toby, then cleared his throat.

“If it’s not too much trouble,” he said, respiration evening out as he drew beside them, “might I inquire as to the nature of our quarry?” 

“You’ll know it when it runs,” Penthesia replied. “Or when it doesn’t.” 

Galvahin nodded once. “Understood,” he said, though truthfully, he didn’t. “And the plan? Fan out? Track signs? Wait to be ambushed?” 

“Tracking? Technically,” said Toby. “Stirring up trouble?” His eyes cut briefly to Lazrik, who was blowing kisses to a ladybug that had landed on his wrist, then pretending to faint when it flew away. “Inevitably.” 

“Right,” Galvahin said, surveying the undergrowth. “Any clues I should be looking for? Droppings? Broken branches? Blood?” 

Lazrik perked up, bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet as though expecting a prize for best response. “Mmm, blood’s good!” he said cheerfully. “But not always. Sometimes they leave behind hair, teeth, tax documents—usual stuff. If it were me, I’d leave a trail of pressed flowers, discarded underthings, and a note that says ‘Bring snacks.’” 

“Brilliant,” Galvahin muttered, but the chuckle that followed ruined the effect. "If we ever do have to track you, I’ll pack hors d’oeuvres and spare trousers." 

“Hors d’oeuvres and trousers for yours truly?” Lazrik gasped, pressing a hand to his chest in mock swoon. “Can I trade Penthesia for you? Be still, my heart—I’ve always wanted a brother.” 

Galvahin shifted his weight, scratching idly at the underside of his helm. “I’m an only child,” he said, glancing between them. “But even I know Penthesia’s the better deal.” 

“Oh, it’s already settled. You’re my big brother now. We'll bicker fabulously." 

“Still adjusting to how time works here.” The knight glanced up at the branches, their edges glowing faintly in the dusk. “But I have a creeping suspicion I’m the younger one in this arrangement.” 

“Younger? Nonsense.” Lazrik sniffed, giving him a quick once-over. “You don’t look a day under three hundred. Maybe two-fifty if I squint.” 

“Not quite... I turn thirty-two next snowmelt.” 

Lazrik froze. “Wait—thirty-two years? As in, not decades?” 

“Yes.” Galvahin nodded slowly. “Years. Thirty-two of them.” He paused, then added, dryly, “Do you need a moment?” 

“Thirty-two years,” Lazrik repeated, voice distant. “Corellon’s codpiece, I’ve spent longer than that on a jigsaw puzzle.” He blinked slowly, like someone who’d just been told you’re supposed to cook chicken. 

The knight crossed his arms. “What? What is it?” he asked, a touch annoyed. “You’re staring like I’ve just confessed to being a duck in armour.” 

“Oh, nothing.” He waved a hand airily, still blinking. “I’m just… re-evaluating Thelanna. Her taste is significantly more... nursery-adjacent than I thought.” 

“Mind your words, brèryr,” Penthesia said, her voice like glass underfoot. “He’s older than my wife, and I never recall you naming her a child.” 

“Right, right. That’s on me,” Lazrik said quickly, lifting both hands in surrender. “I just didn’t think humans clocked in with the beastfolk crowd.” 

“You didn’t think. That’s clear,” she replied. “But don’t pretend you know not better.”  

A silence settled over the group: thick, brittle, and humming with the weight of what hadn’t been said. Even the twilight seemed to hush itself, the branches overhead stilling like held breath. 

Toby cleared his throat, wings giving a nervous flick. “I… have a pamphlet on lifespan disparities if anyone’s interested?” He didn’t look up from the satchel he’d begun fumbling through, as if the tiny rustle of parchment might somehow absolve the moment. 

There it was again—that crack in the atmosphere. Tension unspoken but unmistakable, like a spell miscast mid-ritual. Galvahin didn’t have a name for it at first, but it wasn’t unfamiliar. Even in the largest cities back home, marriages across lineages (humans with dwarves, halflings with elves) still earned sideways looks. Some cruel as slurs, others dull as habit, but most of it just the slow grind of tradition failing to recognise what no longer mirrored its myth. And even that barely touched on the fractures within a species: the judgments passed for accent, creed, or the shade of one’s skin. 

He hadn’t thought of Meliora and Penthesia in those terms. If anything caught his attention, it was their similitude; that they were both women—an intimacy his world still shied to name—had made him blink longer. Only now did he register the eladrin-and-centaur part. 

Disheartening, how for all its wildness, whimsy, and disregard for mortal propriety, the Plane of Faerie could still refract its prejudices, if only in passing glances and awkward silences. 

The image of them the day prior came to mind: Meliora’s onyx shoulders basked in daylight, her curls and spectacles gently stirring as she turned the page, one thumb tapping the margin in quiet rhythm; beside her, Penthesia’s golden frame held perfect stillness, ash-blonde hair bound at the crown, and swords at rest but never far from reach. They had seemed like a diptych in balance—earth and fire, mind and blade. But he had mistaken that symmetry for simplicity. Only now did he understand how he’d flattened them: into form, not history; into posture, not personhood. Emblems instead of individuals. Caught up in cataloging his own desire for Oriel, the knight had seen only parts: the scholar, the sentinel, and the voyeuristic silhouette of a possibility he wasn’t yet brave enough to hold. 

As he tried to see them whole, it struck him—her words weren’t for him, yet still Penthesia had been made to speak. 

“Apologies, Dame Penthesia.” Even beneath metal, Galvahin’s tone was clear. “Few words as we've spoken, I hadn’t guessed myself as Meliora’s elder. She has a composure that makes all others look like they’re fidgeting.” As he said it, the cloak at his shoulders darkened, feathering green up the hems like ivy climbing a lattice. “But still… That’s twice today you’ve been made to cut through someone else’s thoughtlessness.” He bowed. “I’ll try not to make that your burden once more.” 

Penthesia’s gaze lingered on him, cool and considering. Galvahin shifted under the weight of it. 

“Did… did I misspeak?” 

She paused to look the knight over, chin tilting with practised detachment. “Don’t look so tense, Alderwyn.” Penthesia then regarded Lazrik, eyebrow lifting. “Merely considering if I should be the one proposing a trade for a new brother now.” 

Lazrik sucked in a gasp. “Ousted! The indignities I suffer for family.” He fished around in his nose, then flicked a booger into the brush, grinning. “Though, truthfully, I can’t fault your instincts, sœssyr—doubt he’s ever sat in nettles twice in one day or mistaken a chamber pot for a soup tureen." 

A faint clink of armour accompanied Galvahin as he straightened. “Just checking—I can laugh, right?” he said, voice half-mirthful, half-concerned. “I know among fey, what’s uttered can quickly become what’s owed.” 

“Not a chance,” Toby quipped, dusting off his hands as if brushing away the very idea. “Fey literalism only goes as far as my willingness to file the paperwork." He chortled lightly, then added, “…and between us, I’d rather attend a redcap’s tea party than process your adoption forms.” 

Galvahin bellowed a chuckle, low and hearty. “If tomorrow I’m spirited away and a twig’s left in my armour, I’ll know who to bring my grievances to.” 

Penthesia’s voice was dry. “We keep at this, and the woods will be full of orphans and affidavits.” Without waiting, she strode into the underbrush. “Let’s get moving.” 

Lazrik sauntered after her, swinging his sword over his shoulder. “You heard the lady—march or risk being listed as missing property!” 

Toby zipped past, muttering, “At least then I could retire early.” 

Galvahin fell in at the rear, the last echoes of laughter still vibrating through his chest as the group’s banter faded into the moss-thick silence. A low branch brushed his shoulder, scattering droplets across his helm, the water sliding off with a cold, quiet tap. 

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

Galvahin paused atop a narrow, moss-choked rise, the only solid ground for yards in any direction. Black water lapped hungrily at the mound’s edges, reeds whispering in the chill, humid air. The stench of sulphur and mould curled with every breath. Ferns rose in a dense spray at his feet, their delicate fronds matted and slick—here, the deep green was marred by a spatter of blood, bright and viscous against the velvet leaves. 

He crouched, boots sinking into the peat, and touched one trembling frond. The stain smeared wet against his fingers, still warm enough to steam faintly in the morning’s cool. 

Straightening, he rolled his shoulders to dispel the chill, and pitched his voice toward the distant shadows where the others searched: 

“‘Blood’s good’—that still holds, yes?” 

A quiet stir ran through the reeds as his companions approached, boots splashing and cloaks dragging through the waterlogged undergrowth. Without a word, Penthesia knelt beside him, golden gaze sharp as she studied the crimson-streaked flora. 

Toby landed lightly atop a jutting root, arms folded as he took in the scene with an arched and peppered brow. “Something’s been busy,” he murmured, wings fanning idly behind him. “Let’s hope it’s not still peckish.” 

Sidling up beside Penthesia, Lazrik lowered his voice in a conspiratorial whisper, just loud enough for Galvahin to hear. “Guessing this is where the paladin earns his keep.” Then, to the knight, he drawled, “Gonna show us some of that righteous temper, and give the beastie a proper smiting?" 

Galvahin sighed, flicking the blood from his glove. “I’ll do what I can. Don’t expect any golden trumpets.” 

He flexed a hand around his glaive, feeling the old, familiar ache where certainty used to live. To channel divine power was meant to be a paladin’s calling: a weapon forged of conviction, of duty, of righteous anger tempered to purpose. He’d known the forms—divination, blessings, the odd healing touch—but true smiting required more than rote and ritual. It demanded belief, a well of willpower that had, over the years, grown shallow and brackish. Once, he’d drawn on it easily, picturing the lives he’d sworn to defend; now, the images were muddied by disappointment, his fury a dull ember where it once blazed. 

After a moment’s study, Penthesia straightened, gaze distant. She cocked her head, as though attuned to a frequency beyond human hearing. “It’s near,” she whispered before setting off, undergrowth parting in her wake. “This way.” 

Galvahin hesitated before following, the weight of his doubts lingering like clouds overhead. He moved through the reeds, each step stirring up the rich, fetid scent of the swamp. Ahead, Penthesia moved with a confidence that made him ache for the certainty he’d lost. He tried to match her pace, willing some remnant of that old purpose to rise. 

The undergrowth thickened until the group was nearly swallowed by green. A sudden stirring in the brush ahead caught Galvahin’s ear, followed by a heavy, glottal gurgle that sent ripples through the silence. He exchanged a wary glance with Toby as Penthesia signalled for caution. Even Lazrick held his breath, though he did make a crude gesture. 

As they rounded the thick curtain of brush, the swamp opened to reveal a beast the size of a cow, hunched at the water’s edge. Its body was sheathed in slick, sodden feathers that shimmered with a deep, oily sheen, the plumage clinging in thick mats to hunched shoulders and massive wings. Heavy hindquarters, muscled and scaled, pressed into the soft mud, and a long, serpentine tail curled lazily behind, scales catching the thin light in glimmers of lurid green and bronze. 

It was the monstrous head that most disturbed the eye: where one might expect the symmetry of a beast’s gaze, there was instead a single, cyclopean eye—huge, yellow, and rimmed in sullen red—staring out with a fierce, uncanny intelligence. Below it, a broad, curved beak shone pale as old ivory, and above, a drooping crest of raw pink flesh arched back across its skull, ending in a trembling, wattle-soft fold at its throat. The beast was silent save for a wet, bubbling gurgle rising from deep within, as if pondering the party’s fate with unhurried, reptilian patience. 

Recognition dawned not in the creature’s form, but in the violence of its display. It surged upward, wings snapping open with a wet thunder, feathers flaring in a vivid corona. The creature’s single eye fixed on them, and it opened its beak to unleash a shriek so piercing and metallic it rattled through bone and bramble alike, like a whistle as loud as a war trumpet. The blast echoed over the marsh, splitting the silence into shards. 

Then, with a heave, the beast disgorged a writhing bouquet of pale, muscular tentacles from its throat. They spilled outward in a slick, sinuous wave, draping the mud and water around its feet, clutching and questing. Only now did Galvahin recall the warning from Volo’s book: beware the snallygaster, whose claim upon its ground is heralded by such a grotesque flourish. 

Toby was first to move, wings snapping to life in a humming blur as he shot from the bank like an arrow loose. His rapier flashed, a silver streak plunging straight through the membrane of the snallygaster’s wing. As the creature shrieked, Penthesia was already moving—silent and sure—her darts spinning through the air to stitch fresh wounds in a pattern that opened and frayed the webbing just beside Toby’s strike. 

For a moment, the knight’s grip whitened on his glaive, feet rooted in the muck as the chaos erupted. Lazrik swept in with a ringing slap to his armoured back. “No shame in being scared—just make sure you’re scarier! Now, charge!” With a grin, he veered left, net spinning from his hand in a glimmering sheet that tangled around the beast’s taloned feet. 

Galvahin waded forward, weapon raised, and planted himself in the creature’s path. The snallygaster’s baleful eye narrowed on him, and he felt the old instinct—protect, defend, destroy—tugging at his nerves. Deep within, he tried to summon the focus and conviction that once came so easily. He searched for that sense of purpose, the clarity that used to sharpen his every motion in a fight. 

Nothing answered but silence. The radiance he’d once relied on was just out of reach, leaving only the ache in his arm and the stubborn will to keep going. Doubt threatened to root him in place, but he forced himself onward, wielding steel where faith would not answer. 

He struck at the beast’s flank and wattle, the blade hissing across oily feathers and gouging a shallow furrow along the thick scales. The blow stung the creature, but fell short of the devastation he’d once delivered. Nonetheless, it was enough to draw the snallygaster’s fury: tendrils lashing, wings battering the air. 

Galvahin staggered as a tentacle whipped across his glaive, nearly wrenching it from his grip. His boots slid in the muck, the haft of his weapon squealing beneath the slick, muscular coil. Before he could recover, Penthesia lunged to his side, her sword glinting in the thin moonlight as she drove it cleanly through the base of the tentacle. The limb convulsed and fell away, splattering his greaves with hot, gelatinous blood, and the creature bellowed, rearing its monstrous head. The knight barely managed to steady himself. She spared him a curt nod before stepping into the creature’s shadow, clearing a brief, necessary space for Galvahin to draw a breath and reassert his grip. 

Toby zipped past Galvahin’s shoulder, tracing a silvery arc above the monster’s head before diving in to harry its flank. Lazrik was already in motion, cloak flaring, greatsword swung in both hands with theatrical force. The snallygaster kicked up a massive, scaled foot to meet the blade. Steel and talon met with a teeth-rattling crack, and the sheer weight of Lazrik’s blow drove the beast half a body-length back, wings thrashing for balance. 

Using the length of his weapon to keep just out of reach of the writhing tentacles, Galvahin edged around the snallygaster’s flanks. He slashed at the creature’s hindquarters, drawing its attention with sharp, quick blows meant to harry and distract. Still, as each strike landed, he felt the absence of that old, bright surge—the righteous force that once set his blade alight. Instead, his efforts felt ordinary, the magic just out of reach. The sting of impotence made his grip clench tighter, and he ground his teeth in growing irritation. 

As his glaive flashed and faltered, Galvahin’s anger twisted inward, curdling. The fury was not for the beast alone, but for the weight he carried from the place he called home. Once, he would have faced danger with unclouded resolve, certain that every strike meant something—that the rescue of a single child or the defence of an outlying village justified every hardship. But the years had chipped away at that clarity until every cause felt uncertain, every victory pyrrhic. The Material Realm, with its bureaucrats and moral busybodies, seemed more invested in rules than in righteousness. He’d spent years acquiescing to customs that rewarded silence and punished ambition, watching those in power sacrifice principle for comfort, and those with the least to give torn apart by duty, propriety, and shame. There was never a need for glory or reward; regardless, the ceaseless expectation to fade into the background, to smile at contempt and call it courtesy, had hollowed out the meaning behind his mission. It was only now, here on the knife’s edge between worlds, that he saw how quietly he’d grown bitter, how the endless negotiation of dignity had made him lament for something truly worth fighting for. 

Above, Toby blurred past in a flash of orange, his rapier drawing blood as he spiralled around the beast’s beak. At the same moment, Penthesia wove between tentacles, twin swords flashing in crosswise arcs that scored deep wounds along the snallygaster’s leg. Lazrik crashed in next, hurling his weight into the melee, greatsword slamming down with enough force to shatter a fallen log, his laughter booming, even as the monster bellowed in pain and rage. 

Galvahin’s blade hissed against scaled hide, the rhythm of battle merging with the pulse of memory. The Feywild was no utopia—he’d seen arrogance, he’d heard casual cruelties, and watched tempers flare. Yet here, at least, want was answered not with admonition but with spectacle: a quarrel could become a masque; heartbreak, an excuse for an opulent celebration. Oriel’s extravagance set the tone: outlandish, unrepentant, but never malicious. No one was forced into meekness. The outcast could reinvent himself nightly, the awkward were mocked and then embraced, even the sullen found themselves caught in the slipstream of someone else’s jubilation. In this riotous excess, the knight found something resembling justice—not of laws, but of possibility. The ache in his chest sharpened with each contrast. 

What stung most, as the chaos surged around him, was not the creature’s claws or the strain in his arm, but the memory of every story he’d been told about this place. Mortals whispered that the Feywild was obscene, that right and wrong twisted here into indecipherable shapes, that kindness was only ever a mask for predation. The stories were poison. Deliberate, he now suspected, designed to keep the hearts of dreamers fearful and small, to ensure no one glimpsed the possibilities across the threshold. 

Whose interest does that serve, this narrowing of the world, this teaching of fear as wisdom, he wondered, as he parried a lashing tentacle. 

He thought now of Thelanna, so quick to tease him out of brooding, her intimacy both forthright and conditional on nothing but joy. Of Astor, whose artistic insights could wound or mend with a glance; Flint, who wore his desires on his sleeve and never let shame take root. Penthesia, hard-edged but just; Lazrik, a wildness made loyal; Toby, the quietly steady heartbeat behind the court’s more raucous bravado. Meliora, too, wise and anchored, her presence a balm against all the ways the world defamed the fey. None of them were monsters, none of them the gleeful sadists conjured in old wives’ tales. In only three days, Galvahin witnessed in them the friendships and found family he’d believed existed only in storybooks. He slashed at the beast, jaw set, driven not just by rage but by the certainty that if his home needed its monsters, it was only because it had grown afraid of something better. 

And at the centrepiece of it all: Oriel, the reason and the risk, the hope and the hazard, whose very presence pulled at the knight’s loyalty like a lodestone. Dazzling, infuriating, inscrutable—yes, but principled in ways no law could dictate. He had a knack for kindness so casual it felt unstudied, for drawing laughter from him when it should have been impossible, and for leaving Galvahin half-scandalised, half-honoured to be wanted for no reason but his own particular self. That violet gaze unsettled him not with what it demanded, but with what it seemed to delight in uncovering: something tender, hidden, uniquely his, and entirely untethered to merit or legend. He slashed again, the force behind it no longer just survival, but a growing conviction that if this realm was “wrong,” if the archfey was wicked, then perhaps righteousness was simply a matter of who got to tell the story. 

It was then, a strange sensation swept through Galvahin, at once alien and achingly familiar: a current of grandeur that seemed to well up from the marrow of his bones and thrum beneath his skin. Exaltation tangled with dread; for a moment, the world felt huge, mythic, and newly possible. 

The snallygaster reeled under the onslaught: Toby spiralled in orange arcs, rapier stabbing at the beast’s eye; Penthesia darted low, her swords flickering like twin meteors as she hamstrung its leg; Lazrik’s greatsword crashed down, splitting a wing and sending iridescent feathers spraying. Instantly, Galvahin felt everything narrow to a single, burning axis. He charged, boots churning peat and water, and drove his glaive straight for the creature’s breast. 

With a thundering bellow, the knight roared like a beast unchained, “Exuro malum!” 

The evocation cracked like ice riven in spring, and in an instant, his blade blazed with blinding radiance—white-hot, searing, smiting—unfurling like dawn inside the monster’s chest. Light poured from the wound, blinding and merciless, as the glaive cored through bone and flesh. The creature’s scream was swallowed in the pealing reverberation, the air itself singing with celestial force. For a heartbeat, the world shimmered with argent fire, every eye drawn to the spectacle at the centre of the struggle: gore bursting in burning sheets, scattering triumphantly across Galvahin’s armour and pooling in curious, smouldering patterns at his feet. 

Notes:

Eye In The Sky | The Alan Parsons Project

I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you
I can read your mind
I am the maker of rules
Dealing with fools
I can cheat you blind

Chapter 15: The Waylaid

Summary:

Content Advisory.

“First they smeared him with butter, and then they rolled him in the dough.”

Beatrix Potter

 

Dawn had yet to break, but the swamp already steamed with the promise of swelter. The snallygaster’s carcass still lay like a gutted parade costume, a mess of scorched feathers and snapped bone, pinions splayed in absurd angles. Galvahin had stopped watching its eye. He didn’t like the way it reflected the twilit sky—glassy, vacant, too round to seem empty. 

A frog chirred nearby, then fell abruptly silent. 

He took one step forward and pressed the butt of his polearm against the beast’s ribs. They didn’t give. “I assume,” he said, brassy voice low and a little hoarse, "someone here has a plan for hauling the corpse back to camp." 

Penthesia didn’t answer him. She moved instead, crossing toward Toby on a nearby branch. Her gauntleted hand dipped into a pouch at her side, withdrawing a small riverstone. Jet-black and no larger than a coin, its surface was scored by sigils that looked burned rather than carved, as if cauterised by thought. 

The sprite accepted the stone and slipped it into the flap of his satchel, where it vanished like a raindrop into loam. Its weight and shape dissolved the instant it slipped from view. Galvahin had no name for the object, but he knew the type. He’d seen similar talismans exchanged between strategists and spymasters, tools meant to convey missives across great distances and maintain dialogue without travel or delay. 

“I assume casual use is frowned upon?” Toby asked, adjusting the satchel strap across his chest. 

“Just don’t chatter,” Penthesia replied. 

“Perish the thought.” With no further ceremony, Toby rose a few inches and drifted in retrograde, his wings catching the thick air with just enough effort to stay aloft. 

“You’ll hear from me when I’m inbound,” he called out, before zipping away into the trees like a tangerine comet. 

“Well,” Lazrik drawled, stretching his arms behind his head, “we’d best start carving before it goes stiff.” He crouched low at the creature’s torqued neck and pulled a jagged kris from a sheath strapped to his thigh. It wasn’t clean; old residue had darkened the groove near the hilt, but he didn’t seem bothered. 

“Spine and head first,” Penthesia said, already wresting the beast's wing-joint to hold it still. 

“I know where the head is, thanks,” Lazrik muttered, already sinking his blade into the base of the skull with a wet pop of sinew. 

Without looking up, Penthesia pulled another blade from her belt and tossed it to Galvahin, hilt-first. “Liver and heart,” she said. “Keep them intact.” 

He caught the knife by the handle and stepped in, boots sinking into the churned slough beside the beast’s exposed gut. The hide was thick and leathery, but it parted under steady pressure, peeling back with a sickening sound as the cavity opened. A wave of dense, hot air surged out, followed by the slow collapse of intestines into the mud, ropes of them sliding loose like coiled rigging. 

Galvahin wasn’t squeamish. Blood didn’t bother him, nor the smell. Game was game, and the work was the same in principle. But this was outsized, grotesque in magnitude. He had to lean his full weight into the task, one hand braced in the muck, the other digging deep inside the creature’s chest—fingers groping through cords of slick muscle and fibrous tissue as he tried to orient himself within an anatomy that felt halfway between natural and invented. Fortunately, the mire concealed the queasy, enchanted shimmer of suppurant yellow writhing up his cloak like an afterbirth of revulsion. 

Time slipped as they carved. The sounds became a rhythm: blades cleaving through cartilage, membranes wrenched asunder, organs thudding into sorted piles. Lazrik had long since finished with the skull; the beast’s head now rested beside the body, neck stump ragged and dark. 

Methodically, Penthesia moved between heaps of viscera, inspecting lengths of intestine and clusters of glistening tissue, her focus narrowing on a few thick, truncated tentacles she’d laid out across a slab of exposed stone. 

Galvahin kept his head down. He’d lost track of how long he’d been elbow-deep in the thing’s chest, but the rhythm helped. Cut, lift, check for rupture. Pile. Repeat. 

Lazrik stood up with a grunt, stretching until his spine popped. “Back in a tick,” he said. “The ferns look parched for libation, and I’m feeling generous.” He cracked his neck, dusted off his hands, and sauntered into the undergrowth. 

The knight looked to Penthesia, tipping his helm in a faint gesture toward the surrounding, waterlogged mire. Her return glance—equal parts incredulous and withering—clarified her brother’s crude euphemism. 

A long stretch passed in silence, broken only by the slap of organs into neat piles. The knight worked with steady focus, but the question had been nesting in his mind for some time. 

“If I may… what becomes of the remains?” he asked. 

“It’s your kill,” she said, tone neutral. “By the terms of your accord, it’s His Excellency’s property.” Slicing through a membrane, she added, “But that makes no difference. It’d go to the court either way.” 

“And what does the court do with its spoils?” 

“What any sovereign court does,” Penthesia said as she worked a blade under a stubborn strip of sinew. “Curate. Repurpose. Profit.” She nudged a glistening lump into place with her wrist. “Most ends up in Seelie hands. Some in Unseelie. A bit off-plane—Celestia, Arborea, Baator, depending on the tenday.” Her knife paused on a veined sac, then resumed. “Mortals, too—druids, wizards, warlocks. Everyone wants their cut. Spell components, potions, medicine, cloaks, fetishes, trinkets. Occasionally?" Her tone turned wry. "Something tasteful." 

Galvahin didn't reply at first. Celestia. Baator. The names tolled like bells at antipodes of a moral spectrum, but here, they were just customers. Buyers at a shared table. He wasn’t sure which disturbed him more: the image of a snallygaster heart pulsing in an Infernal demon grinder on the frontlines of the Blood War—or braided into some seraphic gonfalon, stitched with holy thread and raised as a symbol of Celestial triumph. Either way, it ended the same. Bones stripped, utility meted and measured upon fate’s abacus. And mortals weren’t better. He’d seen wizards throw entire lives at power, warlocks barter sanity for a glimmer of it. That Oriel's court served them, too, only confirmed what Penthesia didn’t say: it’s not about good or evil. It’s about appetite. His knife slid in again, smoother this time. 

“I see…” he murmured, stormy gaze fixed on the pile of harvested parts. “Turn adversaries into clients. Sell to everyone, so no one dares take you off the market. Enough glamour to pass for power… and just enough power to seem indispensable.” 

“You’re catching on,” Penthesia said without looking up. “Fey don’t do armies. We do leverage.” 

“Soft power's a clever game,” he said. “But there’s wisdom in wielding both. I'd certainly follow Commander Penthesia into battle." 

“Finally,” she replied flatly. “Just what I’ve always dreamt of—obligatory speeches.” 

Galvahin smiled to himself. “Well, if your speeches match the poetry of your riddles, they'd be stirring enough—assuming the troops survive long enough to puzzle them out.” 

Penthesia huffed something that might’ve been a laugh. “Is that what you would do then, if you had a court? Build a banner, raise an army, send them marching to your riddled creed?” 

The knight stilled, bloody thumb and forefinger rising to the chin of his helm in thought. “Not exactly,” he said after a beat. “No. My army wouldn’t conquer.” He looked down at the remains between them. “But I’d see it defend what mattered. It’s just…” A pause. “There’s something strange about a people so mighty pretending they’re delicate. Makes one wonder if it’s the world they’re trying to fool… or themselves.” 

Her blade paused. “I wonder that too,” she said, so quietly it might not have been meant for him at all. 

The rhythm of their labour settled again, broken only by the dull thunk of metal against cartilage. 

After a long stretch, Penthesia broke the silence. 

“Funny.” 

Galvahin didn’t look up. “What is?” 

“That you of all people are critiquing performative fragility.” 

He blinked. “I beg your pardon?” 

“You spend all your time walking like the floor might break under you,” she said. “Like being gentle is something you have to apologise for. It’s transparent. You speak of posturing like it’s foreign to you—yet you live it.” 

Galvahin’s brows knit beneath his visor. “That’s not—I don’t—” He exhaled, lips pressing thin. “Maybe. But you make it sound like a strategy. I assumed it was just cowardice in better tailoring…” 

“Mm.” Penthesia’s blade sank into a thick tendon. “You say cowardice. I say squandered craft. You’ve got one of the most manipulative beings in existence playing fetch with your affections, yet you spend your time sulking in full plate. I’d call that leverage, if you weren’t too embarrassed to wield it.” 

The knight’s head jerked up, a flush creeping high on his neck as his cloak shimmered a sharp, saturated peach. “Saints preserve me,” he said, aiming for deadpan but overshooting into strained. He adjusted his grip on the knife, keeping his gaze fixed anywhere but on her. “An esteemed officer of the crown suggesting I manipulate His Grace. Is this sanctioned advice, or are you grooming me for some deeper scandal?” 

“Hardly,” she said. “You’d be a terrible conspiracist. You’d either confess on principle or get seduced out of your secrets by the first thing that fluttered its lashes.” 

Galvahin hummed, not quite agreeing, not quite conceding. “And you?” He chuckled lightly. “You’d hoard your secrets in a locked box at the bottom of a pond, then glare at the carp for swimming near it.” 

“Those carp should mind their business.” 

The frog chirred again. Galvahin didn’t notice. His thoughts had sunk deeper than the mire underfoot, caught somewhere between her jest and the truth nestled inside it. He’d assumed that staying still meant staying noble. That restraint was the same as decency. But here, surrounded by filleted sinew and monarchal blood-price, the difference seemed academic. And shrinking. 

Minutes blurred, measured only by the steady motions of their work. Shadows crept and retreated, dappling Galvahin’s vambraces as he cut, and a passing cloud turned the air from lilac to pewter and back again. Mosquitoes circled, undeterred, and once a distant bird gave a startled cry, but nothing broke the rhythm except the passing of another silence, heavier than before. 

Penthesia looked up, her brow knit. “Lazrik’s been gone a while,” she said, her voice carrying a hint of something unspoken. 

"Somehow," Galvahin offered, sotto voce, "I suspect the urgency of his bladder has given way to a sudden, lifelong aversion to manual labour." 

“I wouldn’t put it past him,” she replied, tone rueful. “Still, someone has to play shepherd. Stay here. I’ll be back.” 

“Yes, ma’am!” He gave a jaunty half-salute with her carving knife. 

A ghost of a smile touched Penthesia’s lips. “Keep the knife. Consider it a souvenir.” Without another word, she slipped into the trees, the gleam of her golden armour vanishing behind curtains of bracken. 

Time continued to pass. With every sweep of the blade, Galvahin felt his heart reforge itself around new logic. Power, here (and perhaps everywhere), was not the brute force or the silent gravitas of tradition; it was reciprocal, ever in flux, seized and surrendered in a thousand acts both clandestine and flagrant. Even his reticence, the careful way he moved and spoke, was another form of posturing, conscious or not. Nobility, denuded of its solemn vesture, bespoke not abstention, but possession: of consequence, of fealty, of import. Clout, not merely conduct, ruled the day. 

He thought of the stories he had internalised since boyhood: fear the wild, fear the beautiful, fear the parts of yourself that don’t fit. Only now, what erstwhile seemed treacherous became a kind of freedom. Attraction bore no ignominy—it was simply there, in every bold glance and easy quip. The fey neither abjured their appetites nor policed their avidities; they met them, teased them, gambolled with them until intimacy waxed into something jubilant, not suspect. It was caution, he realised, that served the old world: it kept people small, chained to docility. Here, the lesson was different: you could want, and still be good. You can crave, and still be whole. 

The years spent chasing connection only to stumble at the last gate replayed like a song whose ending he never learned. Friendship, flirtation, fleeting nights of shared heat, they all became verses in the same unfinished ballad. Sometimes it was concupiscence that unmoored him: the moment when laughter between acquaintances lingered too long, or a hand grazed his thigh, and suddenly the safe script of fellowship blurred into something more perilous. Each experience spun him through the same ritual: augury, hope, abstention, and, inevitably, excruciating, inexorable chagrin. It wasn’t that he lacked inclination, nor opportunity; it was the fear braided into him by upbringing, the conviction that passion must be justified, love must be earned, and appetite—whether for joy, for closeness, for the press of another’s skin—was only acceptable if it made itself small. Even in those scarce, heady instances when arousal flared bright and urgent, consummation left him riven with gratitude and guilt, as if intimacy seemed ever a lent indulgence, unworthy of receipt. No wonder the bonds never held. 

Yet the Feywild, for all its wheeling and dealing, had become a warped looking-glass that refused to flatter or lie. Beneath every jibe and riddle, every careful exchange, pulsed the certainty that fondness was a boon, and credence the rarest magic of all. He recognised it first in Thelanna, whose laughter and candid provocations had drawn him out of himself long before he understood what she was offering. Even now, after every encounter—Penthesia’s dry banter, the esprit de corps that emerged in a field littered with blood and debris—he saw traces of that first insight: true kinship was never reckless usury, but a risk freely taken, a gift exchanged and recompensed in its very acceptance. 

Stupid, really, how a realm infamous for manipulation, mercurial moods, and malice would be the one to remind him of that. Even enlightenment lands like a punchline in Faerie. 

As always, Oriel surfaced at the root of this meditation, as if the prince had embroidered himself into the lining of Galvahin’s skull without ever needing to ask permission. However far his mind wandered, the memory of that violet gaze remained a fixed point, impossible to evade and even harder to meet without some inward tremor. The familiar horizon collapsed in on itself with a single look from him: curious, mercilessly discerning, sometimes warm as a hand at the knight’s jaw, sometimes cool and clever as a dirk to his jugular. Under that appraisal, the teachings became more than philosophy; they were a living challenge, an invitation to be witnessed in all the knight’s unguarded queerness. It was not just ardour that unsettled him, but the unbearable clarity of it, the way he could make Galvahin’s composure feel like a child’s costume, a thing to be laughed at and then slipped free. Each time he replayed their conversations, he found new shades of meaning tucked between the words—a teasing compliment here, an honest warning there, all spun into a web that refused to let him settle for safety. The possibility of being truly seen, not as a paladin, nor as a paragon, but as the flawed and desiring man beneath the armour, pulled at him in ways that frightened and steadied him at once. In that regard, Oriel was both parallax and promise, the question and the answer, the man who bestowed what Galvahin needed before he could even begin to name it himself. 

He wanted nothing more, in that moment, than to gather Oriel up and kiss him. Again and again, a hundred different ways. To let his enthrallment radiate without apology, to return every gesture with an embrace that left nothing obscured. And, perhaps… if grace and boldness both allowed… to taste what lingered beyond the press of those lips. 

Galvahin’s mouth twitched at the sight of viscera drying beneath his nails. No prince merited courtship delivered in such a state. He chuckled; best to save such ambitions until after a thorough scrubbing. 

As the last grisly tasks of carving the snallygaster neared their end, he wondered what would become of all these revelations when he returned to the Material Plane; how he might sculpt tacit epiphanies into outward form, how he could translate liberation into a language not designed to hold it. There was a flicker of hope, almost giddy, at the idea that he might walk into old rooms, look old ghosts in the eye, and stand a little taller for having survived the Feywild. 

Then, as if a chord had snapped inside his chest, the question arose, wholly unheralded: did he even wish to return? It startled him, raw and ringing in the hush left by Penthesia’s absence. Was home still home if everything he had longed for was already here? 

Turning her knife in his grasp, the gleam of an inscription caught his eye. He squinted at the looping Elvish, translating slowly under his breath: The Mark Thou Carvedst is the Mark Thou Dost Bear. The dictum unsettled him, but there was something honest about it, too. Was it a promise, or a threat? He couldn’t say. 

A sudden rustle in the undergrowth jolted Galvahin from his introspection. He jerked upright, blade still in hand, muscles tensed for danger. Instead, he caught a small, furtive movement—a flash of beige skin, tangled hair, and wide, glassy brown eyes peering out from behind a lichen-spattered trunk. For a moment, he could hardly trust what he saw: a human boy— no, girl, muddied and trembling, no older than eleven or twelve, clutching the bark with both hands. Her dress, once baby blue, was now a tattered smear of earth and bramble, the hem shredded and stitched with mud, sleeves drooping over thin, twig-scratched arms. Tears streaked her cheeks beneath the grime. She stared at him in mute, pleading terror, as if unsure whether he was a saviour or a fresh nightmare. 

The knight’s heart thudded in his chest. Moving slowly so as not to frighten her further, he sheathed the blade and knelt to appear smaller, his palm raised as if greeting a spooked animal. “Hello, there,” he called, pitching his timbre as gently as he could. “I won’t come any closer unless you want me to. My name is Galvahin. What’s yours?” 

The girl bolted, disappearing into the verdant morass. 

“No—wait!” Galvahin let his arm fall, jaw tight. 

Shit. 

He let out a shaky breath, stormy gaze flicking between the corpse at his feet and the trembling foliage where the child had vanished. Penthesia’s parting words pressed at his conscience: “Stay here.” His fists balled until his knuckles ached, frustration festering hot in his gut. A heartbeat passed—then he was on his feet, moving in the direction the girl had gone, boscage parting as he plunged after her. 

Roots and brambles snagged at his boots as Galvahin chased, breath ragged in the muggy air. The girl darted with feral, untamed speed—one moment crouched behind a stump, the next streaking out of reach, always a heartbeat ahead. Each time he glimpsed a flash of soiled blue hem or wide, frightened eyes, she slipped away through another breach in the brambles, uncanny in her quickness. 

“Please, wait!” he called, but his plea only seemed to spur her onward. 

Air grew thinner and cooler, the stench of sodden earth replaced by the acrid tang of smoke. The ground, once sodden, gave way to fissured clay strewn with dead leaves and the remnants of ancient trunks. He could still glimpse her by the dim twin moons overhead, her silhouette weaving between twisted boles, yet the space between them only stretched further. Trees here were all gnarled limbs and flaking bark, casting talon-like shadows across the path. Even his footfalls sounded muted and foreign. 

The swamp faded behind him, giving way to swathes of bone-pale roots and old timber contorted into gruesome forms. Brambles ashen as dust coiled around his calves, their thorns scoring slow lines across his schynbalds. The girl would pause just long enough for their gazes to lock—hers wild and uncertain—then melt again into the half-light, always receding deeper into that shifting, uncanny wood. He pressed onward, disoriented, each stride feeling as though he might stumble through the very seams of the world. The Feywild always felt animate around him; tonight, it seemed a willing accomplice to her flight. 

The clouds thickened above, swallowing the twin moons until the clearing ahead glimmered with only a stray, colourless sheen. Galvahin burst through a tangle of grey brambles and found himself stumbling to a halt, the world around him suddenly hushed and airless. A ring of ashen briars encircled the space, their spines tangled so densely that not even wind could slip between. Inside the hollow, dried trees stood stripped and crooked, boughs arcing overhead like the ribs of a long-dead beast. 

 In the clearing’s centre, the girl froze at last, chest heaving, hair plastered to her face. He opened his mouth to speak—then noticed the others: more human children, a few dozen, faces hollow and dirt-streaked, eyes wide as lanterns, some clutching each other, others clutching scraps of torn cloth or their elbows for warmth. 

Among them stood an old woman, bent nearly double, her back bristling with shawls of indeterminate colour. As Galvahin’s eyes adjusted, her homely features resolved from the gloom: cheeks heavy and furrowed, mouth set in a thin, uncompromising line. A faded kerchief wrapped her brow, wisps of dull red hair escaping in stubborn frizz. She wore the look of a battered farmwife, plain as porridge, but her coal-black gaze was sharp as any thorn. The children pressed close, one small hand clutching desperately at her sleeve. 

The girl he’d been chasing let out a strangled sob and bolted toward the old woman, throwing herself against her skirts. Between hiccuping sobs, she choked out, “I’m sorry, Nana Joanne! The monster’s gonna eat us now!” 

Nana Joanne gripped her fiercely, murmuring something soothing in a voice roughened by age and suspicion. Her black eyes never left Galvahin. “Hush now, poppet,” she said, but the message was as much for him as for the girl: a warning, a denial of trust. The other children shrank behind her, whimpering or peeking over thin shoulders. Every gaze in the clearing was fixed on the knight, wide, glistening, brimming with terror. 

Monster? pondered Galvahin. "Ah, wait, that's not—" He stopped mid-protest, his attention snagged by a jagged slab of obsidian jutting from the earth beside the bramble ring. Its surface, slick and eerily polished, caught what little light remained, reflecting the clearing in uncanny, fractured detail. 

At first, he expected the weary, stalwart knight he strove to be. Instead, the void-like mirror showed a grotesque parody: a giant swathed in eldritch platemail, helm bristling with antlers gilded in ribbons of snallygaster gore. The visor, with its chitinous slits, made his gaze look as predatory as a spider’s. Sanguine webbed every surface, thick as paint. He glanced at his hands, sticky and crimson to the wrists. Suddenly, the blood felt deeper than skin. 

His stomach sank as the reflection shifted with every shallow breath. He’d hoped his new armour lent him the mythic air of a hero, a figure a frightened child could trust. Yet here, under the black glass, he looked less a saviour and more like the last page of a macabre fairytale. Galvahin remembered being a boy, longing to grow into a figure that others might follow: knightly, brave, just a little bit dazzling. This? This was a villain’s silhouette. 

The humiliation stung—absurdly juvenile, raw. I figured I looked… cool, he thought, almost sulking. They probably think I’m some Unseelie brute. Gods, look at me. He could hardly blame them; in this light, he’d frighten himself. 

“Er—apologies,” he called out, striving for a gentler tone. “I realise I look scary. I swear, it’s mostly for show. My antlers aren’t even real.” 

No one laughed. Galvahin grimaced and unfastened his hornéd helm, revealing a face flushed and unmistakably human—sweat-dark hair plastered to his brow, a bruise purpling his bearded jaw, kindness flickering uncertainly behind the embarrassment in his gunmetal eyes. He offered a small, rueful smile, then bowed his head. “See? Not so fearsome now.” 

Nana Joanne didn’t relax an inch. If anything, she drew herself up, spreading her shawls around the children like the wings of a brooding bird. 

“Back, beast,” she barked, one hand firm on the trembling girl’s shoulder. “We know faerie monsters wear stolen skin. We’re not fooled by a friendly face.” 

Galvahin let his arms fall to his sides, steady but open. “Please, I—listen, I know you're afraid, but I’m no faerie, no trickster. My family’s name is Alderwyn. I grew up in a castle town outside of Saltmarsh. I have a father—his name's Maeren." He slipped his signet ring from his finger and held it out for them to see, crest glinting dully in the moonlight: a leaping hare encircled by wheat. “See? I promise, I’m human. I mean you no harm.” 

Nana Joanne barely glanced at the ring. “Baubles and names mean nothing here. You can conjure all the stories you like, beast. I know better.” 

One of the boys, voice thin and wavering, tugged at her sleeve. “Nana, I’m hungry.” 

She hushed him sharply, pressing him tighter to her skirts. “Not now, poppet.” 

“Please, I can see how much you’re struggling,” Galvahin offered. “The local lord is a beloved—” Fingers tightened reflexively around the signet ring as the words slipped out. “...close companion of mine. Let me escort you back to his palace. Believe me, he’ll see you safe and fed if I plead your cause.” 

The effect was immediate and visceral. The smallest boy began to scream, flinging himself backwards, nearly toppling. “No, not the palace! Not him, not him!” 

A girl grabbed Nana Joanne’s sleeve, her eyes wild. “Don’t let him take us, Nana. Please, don’t let him!” 

Nana Joanne bent low, hushing them in fierce whispers. She looked up at Galvahin with something like hatred. “Save your breath—I know of which impious palace you speak, and I know what wicked dandy sits its throne. We want nothing from that painted bugger.” 

“‘Painted bugger’ —that’s…” Galvahin’s brows drew together, stunned. “You mean Oriel, the Seelie prince?” His tone was thick with disbelief. “I—I don’t understand. Surely you must have him confused with someone else.” 

A fresh wave of wailing broke out among the children—high, keening cries that set Galvahin’s teeth on edge. 

“Not the prince! No, no!” 
“No, no, Nana! He wants to take us!” 
“Don’t let him! Don’t let him!” 

One boy dropped to the ground, clawing at the hem of Nana Joanne’s skirts as if he could hide inside them. Her lips curled in scorn as she gathered the children closer. “Of course you’d be under his thrall,” she spat. “What, sell your soul to that lilyhanded despot for a taste of his honeyed favours? Turn on your own kind?” Her gaze raked Galvahin from head to toe. “Shame’s a rare thing, it seems.” 

The knight winced. “That’s not… No, you’ve been misled.” He met Nana Joanne’s eyes, a quiet conviction settling in his face. “My interim liege is many things, I grant you, but base? Never.” 

“Lies. More lies,” Nana Joanne hissed, not taking her eyes off the knight. 

The thin-voiced boy tugged at her sleeve again, plaintive. “Nana, I’m hungry...” 

“Not now, poppet!” she snapped. 

Galvahin took a halting step forward, hands still raised. “I swear to you, every word is true. I’d never see any of you harmed. If you just let me help—just let me prove it—” 

The children only screamed louder, shrinking further behind Nana Joanne. 

“Shut your mouth! You’ve no idea what he’s done." Her voice was a whipcrack. "If not for your precious liege, we’d be safe at home.” 

“I—” Galvahin blinked hard, trying to steady himself, and the world seemed to tilt. Silvered mist drifted low over the ground, coiling between tangled shrubs and the ashen trunks that ringed the clearing like silent witnesses, each thorn glinting like an accusation. The children’s crying tangled with the calls of distant nightbirds, the whole evening vibrating with a sense of something gone awry. Even the very shadows watched. 

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Please—explain. What has he done to you?” 

Nana Joanne threw back her head and laughed—cruel, wild, and strangely empty. 

“What has he done?” she spat, her voice thick with bitterness. “Oh, you crude fool. That prince of yours, he lays traps all across the waking world—clever little snares, dressed up as gifts or games or dreams too sweet to resist. Once they cross, there’s no turning back. He keeps us penned here, starving and scared, watching the moons fade and the sun wither. He delights in it—the screams, the begging, the slow undoing of an innocent mind.” 

Her charcoal gaze swept over the ring of ashen faces at her skirts. “When he believes they’ve suffered enough, when there’s nothing left but trembling and despair, he sells them off. Devils from the Hells come collecting, grinning wide. That’s the deal. He’s a merchant of misery—feeds the worst of the lower realms the souls of young’uns as tithes. And me?” Her voice dropped, rough with fury and old grief. “I keep watch. I make sure the stock doesn’t spoil. If I fail, I pay his price myself.” 

For a moment, Galvahin couldn’t breathe. The tale was ancient as terror itself: the Faerie Tithe, the pact with devils, the annual reckoning in blood and wailing. It was the oldest, ugliest legend about the fey, a horrid warning whispered over rings of salt, and traded from mouth to mouth as if truth could be baked in with the fear. He’d always hated that particular story, found it the most wicked, the most improbable. Surely such things belonged to the old world, to lands where nothing beautiful survived untaxed. 

And yet… Oriel’s court gleamed with impossible plenty, every banquet obscene in its luxury. Was this where it came from? He remembered Penthesia’s wry aside—trading with Baator, with the hells, as easily as she named the Seelie or Celestial. Had she meant this? He shivered, feeling the ground shift beneath him, yet the pieces refused to fit. 

To believe it, truly believe it, seemed obscene. Oriel. Vain, mercurial, at times even callous—perhaps. He could imagine the prince guilty of casual indifference, petty transgressions... But this? Galvahin’s mind recoiled; nonetheless, the shadow of the account clung to him, weighty as a curse. 

“Nana… I’m hungry…” The thin-voiced boy’s plea was sharper, almost a wail. 

This time, Nana Joanne spun on him, her hands clamping his shoulders. “Not! Now! Poppet!” she barked, voice sharp enough to cut. The child recoiled, lower lip quivering. 

Galvahin’s fingers trembled as he lifted his helm, almost fumbling it onto his head. Once enclosed, his next words came out hollow, distant. 

“You’ve been deceived,” he insisted, but the conviction tasted sour. “Someone’s preyed on your fears, filled your minds with phantoms. I know what glamour can do. I know how stories take root when you’re afraid.” His voice sharpened, more certain than he felt. “His Grace is not the monster you imagine. Whatever you think he’s done, it isn’t real. You’re—” He hesitated, searching their faces, seeing only despair reflected back. “You’re wrong.” 

Nana Joanne bared her teeth in something between a smile and a snarl. “‘Wrong’, you say? You think I can’t smell you, under all that tin and trilling? There’s not a mother in Saltmarsh that hasn’t warned her children of your type—powdered and perfumed goons, always dangling off some lisping coxcomb’s sleeve.” She scoffed. “I know the kind of court that welcomes a sissy in platemail. Save the pretty words. That prince of yours turns honest boys into fops and fodder.” 

She spat into the dust. “We’d sooner die than listen to you.” 

“Nana… I’m hungry!” 

Nana Joanne’s patience snapped. She whirled, voice cracking like a whip. 

“Not yet, poppet!!” 

The words hung, shrill and echoing. The other children flinched, shrinking from both her and the stranger. 

Galvahin palmed the steel covering his temple, the dull throb of a headache building behind his eyes. He shook his head, voice rough. “No. No—I don’t believe you. Something here isn’t right. None of this is.” He let his hand drop, stance hardening. “You don’t want help. You want a scapegoat.” 

Taking a step back, boots heavy in the cracked earth, he finished, “I don’t know what’s bewitched you all, but I’m done here.” 

Nana Joanne’s arm swept out in a wide, deliberate arc—fingers splayed, palm facing Galvahin like a wall. Her charcoal eyes never left him. 

“Oh no, you’re not going anywhere. I suggest you stay right where you are. Listen close, boy—and learn just what sort of creature you really are.” 

Galvahin took a breath, the protest rising like bile—only to dissolve, swallowed by a saccharine numbness flooding his mouth. Something cold, a treacle of thought formed that wasn’t quite his own. His limbs felt heavy, rooted. The ache behind his eyes sharpened—then receded, replaced by a strange clarity. As if every doubt had been painted in sharper lines. 

He should leave. He wanted to leave. For the barest instant, Oriel’s face surfaced in his mind—a fleeting memory of violet eyes. He clung to it, but the vision soon faded beneath the suggestion’s quiet logic. Stay. Listen. See what you’ve become. 

“You’d have us to believe you’re some brave soul—a noble knight, a hero—what a laugh,” Nana Joanne sneered, her mouth twisted in scorn. “I see you plain: trembling under all that metal, simpering for your master’s praise, too pathetic to stand alone.” 

Galvahin blinked slowly, shoulders rounding. “Yeah. Maybe.” 

“Look at you—clinging to titles you never earned, mouthing prayers you never meant, hoping some man of means will find you worth keeping.” She shook her head, gaze cold. “It’s pitiful.” 

He rubbed at his wrist, eyes on the dust. “‘Suppose so.” 

“There’s lads like you in every town,” she pressed, voice rising. “Fluttering with soft voices and softer spines, always hungry for approval, terrified of any real work. Always hiding, always whispering in corners, passing your sickness to the next fool willing to listen. There’s nothing holy in you—just a hunger for pleasures you don’t deserve, a thirst that feeds on kindness you never earned.” 

The knight let out a clipped breath. “You’re probably right.” 

“You make a show of suffering when all you want is permission to sin without consequence. Perverted, cowardly, and false—you want us to look past all the little shames you wear like brooches, but I see the shaking in your hands, the degeneracy you shield beneath your pomp. It follows you like a shadow—unnatural wants, twisted longings you dare not confess except behind locked doors and borrowed names.” 

The knight’s hand flinched at his side, every muscle tight, knuckles grazing a briar. The children’s eyes now shone with something like shock—or was it revulsion? His reply barely reached a whisper. “Feels that way, I guess.” 

“Weakness is all you have, and even that you serve up as if it were a virtue. No wonder you’re drawn to your prince—birds of a feather, both more woman than man, wallowing in lust and calling it power. You’re a danger, a stain, and a warning to any boy who’d grow up whole.” 

He didn’t argue. His jaw worked, but all that came out was a quiet, “I know.” 

Nana Joanne’s voice rang out, sharp and unyielding as the thorns hemming them in. “And you want me to believe it’s safe to let these children go with you?” she demanded, her gaze burning through the gloom. “What should I do—have the boys follow you to your ‘palace,’ have you and your pansy prince take your pick?” She swept her arm toward the children huddled behind her, the gesture slicing through the close, stagnant air. “Let the whole world watch, see what you’d make of our sons—ruined before they’re men. Disgusting. The gallows would be too kind.” 

Galvahin’s throat worked soundlessly. He heard her slander as if from a great distance, the syllables echoing off the walls of his skull. The world dulled to a ringing in his ears, colour on his cloak leaching to grey. He gripped his arm, desperate for an anchor. His stormy eyes, dry, burned. No more words left him. 

“Nana… I’m… hungry…” 

With a gentleness that seemed out of place, Nana Joanne bent toward the thin-voiced boy, brushing a strand of hair from his face. Her lips curled in a sweet, unsettling smile. “Soon, poppet.” 

The knight barely registered the exchange; all he could think of was how peaceful oblivion might feel—swinging above that jeering, gallows crowd, every word and accusation at last made weightless. 

But before the silence could deepen, something sharp and effervescent burst at his feet. Celadon-green and scandalously sparkly, it twisted round him in scented ribbons, filling the clearing with the brazen effulgence of gaudy cologne and aftershave, equal parts zesty and reckless self-confidence. 

Sound split the air—a shimmer and sizzle, like sequins being scattered on a marble floor, each note ringing too clear and punctuated by the zing of unseen strings. Through the swirling spearmint cloud, Galvahin glimpsed a burst of kinetic, shimmering golden light above his head. The brilliance was dazzling and unreachable, refracting through the haze. For a heartbeat, he could only blink, watching the light dance just beyond his grasp. 

A biting gust swept through the clearing, snatching the minty haze and scattering it over the brambles. Joanne’s eyes narrowed, her lips drawn in a tight, furious line. All around her, the children stood motionless, shoulders rocking as if underwater, their gazes lifted skyward, wide and empty. 

The knight barely had time to react before a jet of golden mist exploded in front of him. Penthesia erupted from the haze, sword already drawn. She closed the distance in a blur, grabbing a little girl by the hair. The child shrieked and clawed, but Penthesia was merciless; with a flick of her wrist and a cold, fluid motion, she slit the girl’s throat. Blood spilled dark across the earth. 

Galvahin’s shriek echoed off the briar wall, but terror soon twisted into wide-eyed shock. The girl’s features began to boil and flow, as if some unseen hand pressed and warped her bones. Her skin rippled, darkening to swampy green, while her eyes drained of humanity, taking on a feral yellow gleam. Choking on her own blood, she buckled, limbs contorting, and in a moment, a goblin’s corpse lolled in the dust where a girl had fallen, mouth frozen in a ghastly, toothy rictus. 

The afterimage of violence still burned behind the knight’s eyes when he felt the sudden pressure, a heavy hand dropping to his pauldron. He turned, breath shaking, to find Lazrik’s broad, roguish mien inches away, concern buried under the rough bravado. 

“Galvahin, pal!” he exclaimed. “You alright there? 

The world felt thin and bright around the edges. He blinked, trying to focus past the riot of colour and carnage, the horror still unspooling in his mind. “I thought—I thought I was saving—” 

“Easy, easy." Lazrik’s grip tightened, steady and unyielding. "Just some glamoured gobbos, that's all. You’re good, mate. Everything’s good now.” 

Galvahin nodded, jaw set, and reached for his glaive. The blade rasped free, its weight a small comfort amid the lingering shock. 

A lopsided smile tugged at Lazrik’s mouth, but there was a tension in the set of his jaw. “Well… almost good.” 

Galvahin’s knuckles whitened around the haft of his polearm. The stench of blood and spent magic lingered sharp in his nose. He followed Lazrik’s gaze back toward the interior of the clearing, heart hammering with dread and disbelief. 

The children stood frozen, glassy-eyed and silent, necks straining skyward. A shudder ran through them. Skin bubbled, paling to sickly green; fingers knotted, jaws jutted, hair receded in wiry tufts. Tattered rags hung loose from their newly stooped bodies. Lantern eyes shrank to jaundiced pinpricks. In moments, the clearing was ringed not by children, but by goblins, mouths gaping in leering, vacant ecstasy. 

At their centre, Nana Joanne no longer looked like any farmwife. The illusion sloughed away in slow, uncanny ripples: first her hunched silhouette stretching taller, then her shawls darkening and stiffening into a tangle of brambles and twisted horns. 

A mould-pale arm elongated, splitting at the elbow into too many joints. Blotches of sickly blue and grey mottled its skin, bristling with pustules and crowned with ashen, velvet fungus. Bones jutted, too sharp for any mortal, and its hunched back writhed with the weight of skulls and broken branches. Ragged remnants of a peasant’s dress clung to its enormous, warped body like a joke, something worn only for the pleasure of the trick. 

Her face—dear gods, its face—gaped with wide, jagged canines, lips split and raw, nose rotting off, eyes gleaming coal-black beneath a greasy skein of matted, red hair. Where once there had been the veneer of stern, grandmotherly comfort, now there was only predatory hunger. 

Galvahin’s blood chilled; he knew exactly what stood before him. No song or story remembered such beings with pity, and not a soul alive nor dead spoke well of their kind: 

A hag. 

Notes:

Seasons in the Abyss (Cover) | Banjo Metal Nation

Frozen eyes stare deep in your mind as you die
Close your eyes and forget your name
Step outside yourself and let your thoughts drain
As you go insane, go insane

Chapter 16: The Thorns

Summary:

Content Advisory.

“Justice moved my maker on high; divine power made me, wisdom supreme and primal love.” 

Dante Alighieri

 

Encounters with the fey were infrequent in Galvahin’s homeland; nonetheless, tales lingered like woodsmoke in the rafters: gossip of vanished silverware or lace gone missing from a dowry coffer, of children who returned from the hedgerow claiming to have made friends with laughing spirits in the trees. Now and then, a farmhand might speak, in hushed tones, of waking with bruises in the shape of fingers, or the eerie weight of a presence seated on their chest—unseen, unmoving—until dawn’s light chased it off. People usually dismissed such stories as night terrors or the product of febrile imaginations. But some looked toward the woods with caution in their eyes and salt in their pockets. 

Most recounts danced at the edge of disbelief, full of tricks and odd turns, or a shadow slipping just out of sight. There might be fear, but never without wonder. 

This story lacked all of that. It offered no winks, no riddles, no glimmer of magic. 

Only misery. Only decay. 

When Galvahin was a boy, there was a man he knew—his father’s old trade partner, a merchant who lived in the low stone manor just past the barley fields, where frost clung longest and the woods pressed nearest. Once, he had been sighted, but a fever during his wife’s pregnancy had blinded him, turning his eyes to alabaster glass. Still, he moved through the world with quiet dignity. He made deals by voice and touch, could judge coin by weight alone, and was said to know a person’s character by the cadence of their step. He laughed easily, cried at sad songs, and spoke of his wife with much love. 

Sadly, she died in labour, her life ending in the same room where their daughter’s began. The birth was long and bitterly cold, and when morning broke, there were only the infant’s soft cries and the memory of a voice forever silenced. In the lonely years that followed, he would spend hours with the girl in his lap, tracing her cheeks, her nose, her brow with trembling fingers—searching for echoes of the woman he’d lost—but the face he yearned to see remained unknowable. 

Love, fierce and aching, consumed him. He could feel his daughter’s smiles but never meet them. Her laughter was a balm, but it deepened the ache. No fire nor prayer could warm the hollow left by the wish: I want to see my family. 

So one winter night, when the sleet was thick and no birds sang, he rose from his bed and slipped into the woods beyond their fields, seeking the one whispered of in rumour. Some called him a shaman. Others, a moss-choked hermit. A miracle-worker. A curse-monger. The names differed, but all agreed on this: he made trades. And his trades never broke. 

Through the leafless tangle, the healer emerged, his presence heralded by the whisper of barkcloth brushing brambles, and the brittle scent of damp earth and rotting foliage. 

His voice rasped like rocks under frost, old and jagged, making every word feel scraped raw from the winter air. Opa Falwell, he introduced himself as, and even the snow seemed to sour at the sound. Sight was the promise. In return, he would take the child, and in the spring her father would see. When the trees budded green, the girl would be returned, untouched by the passing cold. 

Desperation dulled his judgment. The father agreed. 

The following night, he bundled his daughter close, whispering he would return with snowmelt. In the heart of the woods, he pressed a kiss to her brow and gently placed her in the shaman’s arms before turning away, his heart heavy. 

However, spring arrived mute, and the world’s breath held fast. Guided only by memory and the stubborn ember of hope, he returned to the clearing where the bargain was sealed. Opa Falwell waited, still as a shadow. 

He greeted the widower, snickering like the wind, and offered what was promised: sight. 

Then, before any protest could be made, cold, root-rough hands steadied his cheeks, and a bright flare of agony spread through his skull as the shaman’s thumbs bore mercilessly into his sockets. Vision returned—but with a cost too cruel; where eyes should have been was a curse of brambles, pulsing with life. Each blink split his lids. Every glance was fire. The world returned, but it flayed him open. 

And what greeted him first? Not the daughter he yearned to hold. Not the kindly hermit he’d trusted. No—what stood in the blood, tears, and brackish moonlight was fouler than nightmare. Opa Falwell was no healer at all, but a hag: tall and withered, robes slick with mildew, skin stretched tight over a frame too long, too sharp. Prongs coiled from a brow too broad, a beard writhed with nettles, teeth black as river rot. And its eyes. Not his, not the shaman’s—its: septic-glazed and gleaming with the ecstasy of carnage. 

It had never been a man, only ever wearing that shape like bark wears fungus. All about the hag, the trees stood naked and curse-stricken, as though grief had ripened into gangrene, and the woods had begun to fester from the inside out. The widower’s daughter belonged to Opa Falwell now, lost as the vanished green. 

The first time he saw him after the trade, Galvahin was still small enough to carry a basket of dried meats and bread, but old enough to understand true horror when he saw it. The manor, once orderly and spare, had sunk into disrepair: dust hanging in still air, doors ajar, floors lined with dust and brittle leaves that no one had swept away. The hearth had gone cold, and somewhere upstairs, a chair scraped faintly. 

He followed the sound, steps crunching on grit and broken glass, and found the widower in what might once have been a sitting room. His back was to the window, but light slanted through the cracks and caught the soaked linen wound tight across his eyes. It wasn’t just red—it was brown, old, dried in layers. 

“The world is too sharp,” he whispered, as if answering a question no one had dared ask. 

Galvahin never went back. 

That was what hags were, as he knew them, and as did anyone with sense: not tricksters, not riddlers, but monsters. Creatures of cruelty for its own sake. There was no lesson to their horror, no rhyme in their malice. They didn’t test mortals—they ruined them. Slowly. Thoroughly. And with cachinnation in their throats. Sadism wasn’t a flaw; it was the entire point. 

There was a small tragedy in it. Not all things that walked or flew or bled had the birthright of choice. Across the planes, there were creatures older than questions, older than doubt, their actions inscribed into the fibre of their being. A mortal might wonder whether to lie, to steal, to kill—but a fire elemental does not choose to burn. A mind flayer is never troubled by the chaos it spreads. As rust feels no remorse for the metal it consumes, nor a storm regrets the village it flattens, so too do they not err, for they cannot conceive of otherwise. 

Some of these entities operated on strange logic: undead that follow no god, clockwork constructs that heed their gears alone, and star-spawn that treat emotions as algebra. Other planes had their absolutes: upper realms birthed angels who could no more harm innocents than mortals might live untouched by need; the lower planes spawned fiends whose only creed was malignance and entropy. 

The fey, Galvahin was coming to realise, inhabited a moral territory paradoxically familiar yet unlike any he had known. Their politics were not always measured on the simple spectrum of good or evil, nor did their cruelties arise from malice or even indifference. With Oriel, there was caprice and candour in equal measure; with Thelanna, mirth that was both bracing and watchful. Among their kind, compassion could look like mockery, and a jest may wound deep as any blade. Sincerity, when it appeared, arrived in unfamiliar forms, fettered with proviso or delivered with a smile that made him question its sincerity. But the fey did not seem to delight in disregard for its own sake; their hearts were simply attuned to a music he could not always hear. 

Even the Unseelie, for all the stories whispered about their darkness and betrayal, remained distant presences in mortal memory. Their doings were the stuff of myth and old warnings, seldom crossing into the paths of common folk. 

But there was another spectrum, one that Galvahin had confirmed through the pages of Volo’s curious fieldbook—a category not marked by caprice or etiquette, but by madness, malice, and relentless, ravenous appetite. This was the realm of goblinkind, fomorians, redcaps, gremlins, and beasts who lived for frenzy or spite. No courtly whimsy nor larkish jest haunted their dealings, only a chaos that curdled into predation; their every deed seemed tuned to the pitch of iniquity. 

And at their crown, perverting rapacity into something vicious and inexorable, stood the hags, a horror to which even the Feywild’s courts gave wide berth. 

To call hags “witches” was as foolish as naming an anglerfish a lantern; they merely cloaked themselves in the guise of crones and medicine men to better bait the suffering close. Mortal witches lived, loved, and lusted for many things—knowledge, power, even justice—but a hag’s desire was singular: suffering. It was said their hearts beat fastest at the taste of despair, their hunger sated only by the spectacle of anguish, that the pleasure they took in torment rivalled the most rapturous euphorias of mortalkind. Their depravity was so absolute that most people never even realised hags were fey at all—a confusion Galvahin suspected was no accident, but rather a piece of shrewd mythcraft on the courts’ part. 

It was not that all extraplanar beings lacked free will. Some had it and chose consciously. But most were bound by essence, their discretion scaffolded in instincts incomprehensible to mortals. What appeared to be wickedness might be hunger. What felt like justice might be inertia. Galvahin, young as he was, could not yet name these things. But in that dilapidated manor, in that dim room, with bandaged eyes and crumbling hearth, he glimpsed the first edge of that truth: not everything that speaks, smiles, or sings does so with a soul you’d ever understand. 

He knew some scholars who argued for compassion, even for the damned: that to be born monstrous was to be as much a victim as a villain, that the universe itself deserved blame for forging such horrors. He had nearly believed it, once, in some soft-willed corner of his soul. But standing now in the cindereal hollow, flanked by Penthesia and Lazrik, ringed by stunned goblins and the smell of rot, the knight felt every last trace of sympathy dissolve into acid. 

Nana Joanne stared back at him, lips slick with cruelty, its charcoal gaze savouring the gouges it’d left in his mind and heart, every insecurity pried open and displayed, every word a scalpel, every barb of intolerable emasculation twisted for its amusement. He could see it relishing the havoc it’d sown inside him, the cursed epithets still ringing in his ears, his spirit reeling as if gnawed through. The philosophers could keep their theory. In that moment, there was nothing left but hatred. He wanted to see the hag obliterated, not studied; yearned to see it suffer as he had. Where pity and doubt had once lingered, only the bitter taste of ash remained, his mind engulfed by a singular, venomous drouth: vengeance—ruthless and absolute. 

The hag’s phalanges writhed, each joint grotesquely canted. Its voice curdled like charnel reek: “Still standing, poppet? Saints bless. I thought you’d crumple like parchment before I plucked your spine out!” It sniffed theatrically, smile seeping like sludge. “But here you are, stiff-lipped and trembling, clenching like a maid on her rag.” Skreighing, it added, “Tell me—when the prince puts a hand on your cheek, do you lean in like a bride or a bitch?” 

“You think this power?” Galvahin snarled, stepping through the ring of stunned goblins. “Mocking love you’ll never feel—hiding behind make-believe children?” His cloak ignited rubescent, so fierce it made the snallygaster gore seem pale. “Figures you’d scorn anything that bleeds with dignity, hag; you’ve never earned a scar in your life,” he spat. “I swear to every god that’s listening, when I cast your filthy carcass into the pits, even the demons will spit you out!” 

“Ahhh, now that’s a curse!” cooed Nana Joanne, clapping its gnarled hands together in mock delight. “Almost made my warts tingle.” It leaned in, grinning wide enough to show every torqued dentition. “Go on then, poppet. Bark louder. Maybe the gods’ll hear you sobbing before I’m done shittin’ what’s left.” 

A guttural snarl echoed beneath the knight’s helm as he stalked forward— 

—only to be met with a hand planted squarely on his breastplate like a paperweight. 

“Whoa, whoa, easy there, tiger,” Lazrik said, eyes fixed on the hag. “This one’s a showstopper. Step any closer, and it’ll make you the curtain call.” 

For a moment, Galvahin didn’t answer. His shoulders rose with a slow breath. Then, without looking away from the hag, he asked— 

“…The fuck is a tiger?” 

“Showstopper? Oh, I’m flattered,” Nana Joanne sighed, tilting its head like a disgruntled father. “Let’s wake the bit parts then, shall we?” Murmuring something jagged under its breath, the hag snapped its fingers. “This tragedy deserves a full cast.” A ripple passed through the clearing, and the soot recoiled as if stung. Shadows flinched where there should be none, and the brambles leaned subtly inward, as if an audience were waiting for a scream. 

All at once, the dazed goblins stirred—heads lolling, jaws slackening, eyes regaining focus with a glassy sheen. One hissed. Another reached for a blade. Like marionettes on rotted strings, they began to move. 

“Nana Joanne…” One of the goblins—the thin-voiced brat from before, face still smeared with grime, bared yellowing teeth. “I’m still fuckin’ hungry!” 

The hag rounded on him, backhanding him hard enough to knock a yelp from his throat. “Greedy little ass!” it snapped. “What, need it plated now, do you? The feast’s gone to piss. If you want your meat, then go butcher it like a big boy.” 

Penthesia blinked once as the goblins neared; she only rolled her neck, the motion sharp and almost bored, then raised both of her swords in a fluid, disdainful arc. One sidelong glance at Galvahin, then: “We’re leaving.” 

Before he could muster a retort, a screech rose—then stopped short with a wet crunch as Penthesia’s blade flashed once, neat as a ribbon-cutting, and a lunging goblin dropped in two silent halves. She didn’t so much as glance at it. Her hand rested on his pauldron. 

Instantly, golden mist ignited beneath Galvahin’s boots, and the world split open like a wound. There was no up, no down—only heat and silence and the taste of maple in his teeth. He felt the pull in his spine before he felt his feet leave the ground. By the time the light collapsed, the two of them stood in a cankered copse, his stomach churning and his vision rimmed in nacre. 

The knight staggered forward, gagging, and caught himself on a dead tree. He had never moved like that. No one should. 

“Hells,” he gasped. “Could’ve warned me.” 

Green mist tore open beside them, and Lazrik slammed into view, skidding across the dead leaves. From behind the trees came the rising din of pursuit: feral snarls, thudding feet, the hag’s cachinnation like snapped bones. 

“Oh, good,” he muttered. “They’re still cheering. Thought I’d miss the encore.” 

“Keep moving,” Penthesia said flatly, already turning in the direction they needed to go. 

The brambles ahead shook with the force of distant movement, their brittle arms clattering like ossified wind chimes. Galvahin’s boots scraped dead leaves as he forced himself forward, the effluvium of smutch and rot still thick in his throat. Behind them, the clearing rang with chaos—shrieks, snarls, the erratic clang of goblin blades—and over it all, the hag’s voice rising in giddy delight. He didn’t need to glance back to know they were gaining; the hunger trailing them was palpable, like breath on damp skin. 

“Come now, poppets...” the hag sang behind them, her words peeling through the trees like mould on breath. “The final act is upon us. Come see the little tin shit with his limp vows and broken oaths, wanking off to crowns he'll never wear; the ice-veined bitch with blades for feelings, and a cunt full of splinters and frost; and last but least, the strutting oaf—big arms, shrivelled cods, all lard-arse and cocksure until someone bites back…” 

“How does it talk that long without choking on its own phlegm?” Galvahin muttered, ducking a low branch. 

“Necrotic lungs,” Penthesia said flatly, not looking back. “No airflow to lose.” 

Lazrik snorted, leaping over a root. “Give it two more minutes and it’ll be performing a one-hag play—‘A Soliloquy in Scabs, by Nana Jo—DOWN!” 

Light shattered the gloom, a crackling corona of azure and a sharp intake of breath. In the instant before it struck, Penthesia’s weight slammed into Galvahin’s, knocking him to the forest floor with a grunt. Overhead, lightning shrieked—and met metal. Lazrik roared, heels skidding in the dirt, his massive greatsword lifted like a shield. Sigils etched deep in the blade lit up in eerie succession, ravening and fulgid, as the vorpal steel drank the spell down to sparks. 

Ahead, the passage dilated—and Nana Joanne was there. 

It flickered into existence at the bend ahead, as if peeled from the bark itself. Cloaked in flickering shadow and wired with crackling blue fulgur, the hag raised one claw, voltaic serpents writhing between its nails like maggots under skin. 

Lazrik cursed in Sylvan under his breath. Sparks still gambolled along his knuckles, bleeding from the runes etched in his blade. 

“You call this a show?” he laughed. “Witness a real primo spectacle.” 

In a snap of mint mist, he vanished midstride—and in the same instant, Lazrik was midair above Nana Joanne—backlit by spelllight, the runes along his greatsword flaring like metal in a forge. 

“Stagedive, motherfucker!!” he roared as he brought it down, both hands braced on the hilt, vorpal blade screaming toward the hag’s skull like an executioner’s axe. 

Nana Joanne simply grinned up at him, its visage crazed with glee. 

The greatsword struck— 

—but the hag’s body was already dislimning. Tenebra swallowed it whole just as steel tore through space where it’d been. The blow landed deep, fissuring the trail open like a scar. Lightning rebounded from the point of contact, splitting asunder roots and soil. The blast glassed dirt to slag and scoria, then cooled to a warped shell of blackened vitrification, humming with residual heat. 

Penthesia was already on her feet, blades drawn in a twin hiss of steel. Galvahin pushed off the ground beside her, limbs aching but steady. The goblins were pouring through the smoke, eyes glassy, teeth bared—dozens of them, lunging without formation, without fear. No commands, no tactics. Just hunger. 

Without pause, Penthesia knelt and drew a flawless circle in the dirt, the blade scoring with ritual precision. As it completed, gold light spilled upward in a delicate aureole. She spoke in Sylvan: quick, rhythmic phrases layered atop each other like gears locking into place. 

The glow brightened. The dirt inside the circle buckled and warped, then split. A spectral paw pierced through, followed by another. A blink dog was hauling itself through the portal, ears pinned and teeth already bared. 

A shadow peeled loose from a tree ahead—no flicker, no puff, just sudden presence. Nana Joanne stood at the path’s edge, hunched and grinning, eyes gleaming like beady, wet rocks. 

“No animal acts,” it said. “This isn’t a circus.” 

Before the blink dog could fully emerge, the hag’s mouth opened in a shuddering snarl—and out poured a fractured echo of Penthesia’s incantation, twisted and guttural, like glass ground under bone. An incarnadine whip of spectral energy uncoiled and lashed through the treetrunks, striking her with a sound like a rubber cello string snapping subaqueous; her aureate eyes flared wide as the air was punched out of her. 

The summoning circle stuttered and dimmed. The blink dog gave a short, startled whelp—then split like silk at the seam. Its moieties vanished mid-motion, dissolving into golden mist that curled back into the portal before it collapsed with a hiss. 

Penthesia rose without a sound, but her lip bled from where her teeth had broken skin. Her hands never shook, but her grip was tighter—knuckles blanching pale. The gap was gone; the goblins were here. 

"Left," she said to Galvahin, low and sharp. He couldn’t tell if she wanted survival or revenge; it didn’t matter. 

Galvahin nodded once. His glaive rose. 

The first one got close enough to spit. 

He knocked its teeth out with the haft of his glaive, then split the goblin’s sternum on the backswing. Another clambered onto a fallen branch to lunge at his throat—he ducked under it and drove the blade up through its gut. It screamed once before it ceased to be a shape. 

They came fast—slipping through the gaps the knight couldn’t cover. 

Penthesia didn’t chase. She waited. 

When the first reached her, her left sword rose in a short arc, severing fingers from grip; the right came in low and punctured the lung. She stepped over the corpse and twisted to meet the next, blades flashing once, twice—artery, throat. 

The next wave surged—and the pair began to move. 

Galvahin’s glaive swept in a low crescent, carving through knees and bellies in a brutal arc. He moved like a titanic fate’s wheel in motion, cleaving wide, baleful spirals through the haze. A lemniscate blossomed from each swing, graceful but punishing, metal slicing air, catching limbs, shattering ribs. Every sweep flowed into the next, his momentum folding back on itself like tide and undertow. 

Like smoke through lattice, Penthesia slipped between his rotations. When a goblin ducked his blade, it found her instead: silent, precise, sudden. Her swords parted exposed throats, slid through open guts, and painted the branches red. She moved without hesitation, without sound, her rhythm an echo of his, a counterpoint to his refrain. 

Where he cleared space, she punished intrusion. 

Where he faltered, she finished. 

Together, they scythed through the throng not just as combatants, but as a threnody. 

A roar split the tempo, and Lazrik barrelled in from the flank. His greatsword landed with a crash, pulverising two goblins with all the subtlety of a sonic avalanche. Flesh didn't so much as slice; it pulverised. 

The tempo shifted. Galvahin’s glaive wrought the melody—wide and resolute; Penthesia threaded the harmony, her blades flickering like strings over tensioned silence; Lazrik brought the bassline, heavy and wild, each swing a thunderclap. Their motions fused into something larger: not defence, but a brutal, tempestuous composition—a shredding fugue of motion and blood. 

The goblins faltered mid-charge. Their snarls dimmed to wary growls, claws twitching at half-raised blades. No one had told them the prey would bite back. 

A slow clap sounded from the trees—wet and sarcastic. 

Nana Joanne reappeared with a skeletal flourish, teeth bared. “‘Where he cleared space, she punished intrusion,’” it recited, mimicking a pompous narrator’s drawl. “Piss in a bonnet—you three twirl like jesters fucking a hog!” It spat. “Wheel? Threnody? Shredding fugue—honestly—who’s quilling this preening drivel?” Licking its teeth, it added, “But do go on. I love watching hack bards kill their darlings.” 

It scraped two yellowed claws together with the care of a violinist tuning sinew, whispering in a cadence that made the branches lean back and the wind shudder; a moist cracking, like marrow splitting under pressure, followed, and goblins slipped sideways into place from nowhere, as though they’d always been there but only just been noticed. 

The original goblins flinched, jaws twitching, as their new doubles stared back—same teeth, same snarl, same bloodied grip on jagged blades. For one breathless moment, none of them moved. Then something clicked between them, not quite thought, not quite command, and they rushed forward as one, shrieking as the doubled pack descended in a tide of claws and filth. 

The trio fell into motion again, a desperate reprise—yet this time there was no rhythm, only recoil. They swarmed, heedless, filling every space, chewing through steel, slipping past flesh. Galvahin’s blade met marrow. Penthesia’s falchions flashed faster. Lazrik roared with every respiration. But still they pressed, hungry and endless, until the ground itself seemed to writhe beneath them. 

One wriggled past his guard—a squat, rancid thing with matted hair and a blade like a broken tooth. Galvahin turned too late. The knife plunged into his leg. He reeled, expecting pain, blood, but instead, cold spilled down his thigh. The goblin flickered. Its arm bent awry, its maw grinned wider than possible, and then it burst into soot and shadow like a wrong chord unspooled. 

The air reeked of sweat and verdigris and too many carcasses. A wail snapped close by. Another blade scraped his cuirass. He turned, pivoted, struck. Still, they came. He met Lazrik’s shoulder in a stumble, caught Penthesia’s eye just long enough to read it: this wouldn’t hold. And yet—between the smoke and the teeth, a thought emerged. Sudden. Whole. 

“Cover me.” 

They shared a look—brief, bewildered. Neither asked. There was no time. Then Penthesia was moving, blades whirling in tighter arcs, and Lazrik adjusted with a grunt, falling into step. The pair contracted as a portcullis crashing down, giving him the narrowest shelter to gather, to gamble, and to make it count. 

Galvahin stowed the glaive behind him, buckling the strap. His hand plunged into the satchel’s silk-lined gut, rifling past charms, his star, and a few crumbled, half-finished stanzas about moonlight and violet eyes scrawled in a moment of abashing sincerity. 

Not this—not this—there. Vitreous and boreal: the eclipsing flute. It came up like a blade drawn from a sheath, gleaming and strange, its thorny vines coiled in pale spirals, its surface an eidolic speculum. The gift. The riddle. The song he feared—until now. 

For when you’d rather play the melody than be part of it. 

Penthesia caught his eye. Nodded once. Then seized Lazrik by the arm, and in a quiet cascade of aureate vapour, the two were borne away, leaving the air vacant and humming in their wake. 

Galvahin lifted his visor and blew. 

The first note keened out sharp as ice, slicing through the bedlam like a scalpel through tendon. It rang—not in the ear, but behind the teeth, in the bone, in the marrow—and the forest recoiled. What followed was more than music, some chime of impossible geometry: too bright, too clear, ringing with unnatural overtones that shimmered metallic in the air. 

The goblins screamed. A dozen doubled over mid-charge, retching up bile. Some stumbled, clutching their skulls. One dropped its weapon and wailed, blood seeping from its nose. Others slumped without a word, twitching as if exorcised. Most tore at their ears to claw the sound out of the air. 

But the fakes? They swarmed. 

They didn’t flinch. Didn’t bleed. One leapt for Galvahin’s neck—he didn’t move. The blade struck his throat and passed through like smoke. The goblin flickered, spasmed, and dissolved into shade, its scream swallowed by the melody. Another jabbed low; the wound never came. Instead, the shadow-thing split in two and fell inward, a smudge without heat. 

The knight played on, lips sealed to the bone-white ocarina, fingers dancing a rhythm he didn’t know he knew. 

“You squalling sack of hymn and shite!" 

The words ripped through the clearing like a gut wound—then shadow surged, hiccupped, and spat beside him. Galvahin had just enough time to suck in a breath before something clawed and cracked against his jaw. The ocarina tore from his lips, clattering across the dirt with a shriek like porcelain screaming. His vision swam; blood filled his mouth. 

Nana Joanne loomed in his blind spot, hunched and steaming, eyes rabid, knotted arm still raised from the blow. “I’ll fuck that flute down your throat till your arse whistles!” 

The knight’s cloak blackened like ink in water, the colour leeching from it as if the fabric itself had blanched. 

In an instant, mint vapour cracked like a thunderhead as Lazrik and Penthesia crashed through the mist. Lazrik struck first, his greatsword swinging in a high, overhead arc. Nana Joanne caught the blade between its claws with a screech of heated friction, sparks hissing from the contact. Lazrik staggered back, cornflower eyes wide. Penthesia darted low—too late. It was already moving, slithering beyond the eladrin’s twin blades with a wheezing cackle. 

Galvahin moved in tandem with Penthesia’s strike, circling wide to catch the hag’s flank—but it turned, too fast, too low, and raked its claws against the shaft, knocking the weapon wide. In the same motion, it reached out, snatched Lazrik by the shoulder, and heaved, tossing him like a bouquet into the crowd of goblins. They burst into applause made of snarls and snickering, their blades carving the rhythm as they swarmed on him in a frenzy. 

Penthesia pivoted, swords singing, one aimed for its neck, the other for its gut. “Oh, you again,” Nana Joanne cooed, and caught her by the throat mid-swing. In one grotesquely fluid motion, it drove her backward until she cracked against the tree’s bole. Bark splintered. Branches quaked. The eladrin’s feet dangled like a puppet on a meathook. 

“Don’t you fucking touch her!” spat Galvahin, and his body lunged before thought. The glaive rose in a savage backswing and caught the creature off-balance, steel biting into gnarled skin with a jolt of impact that made the bones in his arms ring. He snarled the incantation, each syllable like a nail driven into wood. Radiance surged down the blade’s edge like molten glass poured onto snow, white-hot as it seared deep into the hag’s distended stomach. The air peeled with a keening shriek, high and ringing, as its flesh boiled under the smite. Smoke curled from the wound; blood sizzled where it hit the ground. Instantly, Nana Joanne dropped Penthesia and reeled back, screaming expletives foul enough to shame even a devil’s diary. 

Galvahin dropped to one knee beside her, fingers skimming her neck for breath and blood. Penthesia coughed once, sharp and wet, then shoved his hand aside. 

“I’m fine,” she rasped, already reaching for her blades. Her aureate eyes hadn’t lost their focus—only narrowed it. The knight rose with her, shoulder to shoulder in seamless tandem, weapons raised, ready as razors for a throat in reach. 

Ahead, Nana Joanne clutched its belly, black ichor sluicing between its claws. 

“Primping little pervert-paladin,” it hacked. “Bless your bleeding, buggering heart—rutting in every pot, then blaming the bowl when the broth festers.” 

Galvahin let out a low, disbelieving chuckle. Nana Joanne was slipping now—grasping at old slanders, lazy archetypes, fumbled angles. As if the defence of a friend could be rooted in anything other than loyalty. He’d slept with women, longed for men, pervert in more ways than one, sure—but Penthesia? Not for her, and certainly her not for him. There was nothing there but ironclad respect and shared wariness. If this was the hag’s best venom, it was running thin. 

He glanced beside him, expecting to see a similar amusement or incredulation. Instead, Penthesia’s jaw was clenched, her gaze fixed and burning. Where there had once been elegance, now there was only something rawer, nearer to animal instinct. Then she lunged, reckless as a cornered predator, her blades tracing in wild arcs, no longer singing but screaming. 

Nana Joanne's grin split wide, and it regurgitated a series of syllables that seemed to make the very air putrefy. A thread of black light stitched from the hag’s claw to Penthesia’s brow, vanishing the instant it touched. She jolted as if struck, and her breath caught on nothing. For a heartbeat, her gaze unfocused—as though she were staring at something far away, and it was staring back. 

Then her throat tore loose in a caterwaul, guttural and cracking, as if the world had gone white behind her eyes. Her legs buckled. One sword clattered from her grip; the other she swung blindly, shrieking at phantoms. 

“No—stop—stop!!” she screamed, tears streaming, golden eyes wide, feet slipping. She crashed against the trunk and flailed wildly. “She’s not—she’s not—that’s not her! ” 

Galvahin surged toward her, glaive raised, his voice sharp with urgency. “Penthesia—it’s not real, listen to—” 

He never got the rest out. 

A claw speared past his guard, wrapped around his wrist, and yanked him sideways. The world spun, and then came impact. His back slammed against the nearest tree; bark cracked. Nana Joanne pressed close, breath hot and wet as sewage, her eyes glowing with fresh malice. 

“By the by, your sanctimonious, sickly little sunburst in the swamp? That’s what called me crawling,” it whispered, as if sharing gossip, claws curling tighter around his arm. 

Pinned firm, Galvahin twisted his shoulders and swung his glaive one-handed in a sharp, sidelong cleave—only for the hag to catch it mid-motion, claws clanging against steel. With a flick like swatting a fly, it knocked the weapon wide. 

“Oh,” it sang, “and what fucking joy it was when I caught your stink—a little anhedonic knight, all wrung out on fear and fixation.” Its other grip found his ankle, cold and unyielding, and with a gleeful twist, it yanked him clean off his feet. “Gods, you reeked of it. Lust like rotting honey. Shame like meat turned in the sun.” The world flipped over as the hag slammed him upside-down against the trunk, limbs jostled and pinned like a nailed carcass. “Fucking delicious.” 

Galvahin convulsed with a bark of pain, leg snapping taut as the claw sank home. His boot slammed against the tree, heel skidding for leverage that wasn’t there. 

“Most of you tin-coated turds need baiting. Not you.” Its claw ticked down the polished face of the knight’s schynbald, then snaked behind it, worming under the seam. “You flung yourself on the hook all on your own. Don’t it just thrill me? Paladins… always think they’ll die for something,” it cackled. “But you? You’ll live.” Then, a jab—sudden and surgical—straight into the soft muscle of his calf like a pin through wax. “I’ll make sure of it.” 

The leg snapped taut, then trembled violently. A stifled cry ruptured in the knight’s chest but never made it past the grit of his clenched jaw. Sweat stung the corner of his eye. Somewhere in the coil of nerves, humiliation scourged as vicious as the laceration itself. 

“Such a waste, really—all that bluster and bulge, spoiled by squirming self-reproach.” The talon carved through muscle and leather like wet parchment, sending a lance of splintering-hot pain up his leg as it dragged slow and deep toward the hip. “Here, poppet, let Nana trim the temptation right at the root, neuter those nasty little urges.” 

“No—no, gods—” The words tore out in gasps. His hands clawed at the bark, nails splitting. Fire shot up his leg as the talon carved deeper, slow and merciless. His body bucked. He coughed, gagged, choked again—unsure whether he was trying to breathe or scream. 

“Chop goes the cherry, and off you trot!” Nana Joanne cackled, its claw burrowing further, digging a wicked furrow along inner thigh to loins. “Court-bound and castrated, a squeaky snipped soprano singing sweet as spring!” 

The knight’s scream broke before it left his throat, catching in a sob that cracked wide open. “No—NO—” He writhed, useless, bucking like a speared thing. His hands scrabbled at the tree, torn nails leaving red crescents in the bark. “Stop, stop it—HELP—” he gasped, eyes swimming, anguish spilling quicker than ichor. 

But the claw only drove deeper. The pain was blinding. The laughter worse. Another sob stalled in his chest—and then—light: a bloom of searing teal, cataclysmic as eldritch wrath. Nana Joanne shrieked. 

Galvahin crashed down antlers-first, hitting the ground with a jolt that knocked the wind from his lungs. Pain flared through his leg again as he rolled, groaning, the motion clumsy, instinctive. One trembling hand lifted to shield his eyes as the light roared across his vision—and through the burn, he saw him: 

Oriel—poised astride Ithrylgrum like a prophecy on the horizon—radiant, terrible, beautiful. 

The unicorn rose with a clarion sound, hooves flaring auroeles of light as each step sent trails of ivy spiralling up from the ground beneath him. Light radiated from Oriel like a god descending, but stranger, wilder—his silhouette haloed in whorls of silver and sea-glass green. In one hand, he held a slender bow of opalescent flame, and in the other, nothing but poise. 

Then, a roar behind the light. From the brambles and roots, from behind trunks and stones, scores of fey descended: scouts with inked skin, hunters with cutlasses and helms of woven moss, blink dogs in tow on chains of wind. They moved as one. Goblins barely had time to scatter before blades were in them. Flesh parted. Magic hissed. Instantly, the grove became an abattoir in bloom. 

Amid the chaos, Galvahin glimpsed Lazrik through the blood-misted grove—spattered, staggering, cornflower eyes blown wide with something rawer than rage. He hunched over his vorpal blade, the weapon sunk deep in the loam as if the only thing holding him upright. Around him, goblins peeled away like smoke from fire, scrambling over the still-warm corpses of those he’d already felled. Blood streaked his side in soaking strokes, and a gash above his brow wept into one eye. Whatever strength had carried him through the onslaught now drained by degrees, leaving only pain and something in his face that looked like grief. 

The world around him blurred—teal light, shrieking steel, the stench of opened bodies—but Galvahin had eyes for only one shape. Clawing through mud and ash, he hauled himself forward, teeth gritted against the pull of his ruined leg. Penthesia sat folded into herself beneath a knotted tree, rocking with the gentle rhythm of someone counting breaths, trying to remember where and who she was. Her blades lay scattered in the dust, untouched. 

“Penthesia,” he rasped, reaching her side. 

She blinked, slow and uneven, as if returning from a thousand miles. Then her gaze dropped. 

“Your leg.” The words barely landed before her gaze swept behind him, where blood had marked his passage in streaks—bright and wet, clotted in places, smeared like paint through ash and leaves. 

Her hand moved, fingers already brimming with faint light. “Let me heal you.” 

He slapped her arm away, not cruelly, but hard enough to halt her. 

“I have it,” he said through gritted teeth. “See to yourself.” The paladin swallowed a groan as he clutched the torn muscle. Radiance bloomed low and gold beneath his fingers—blister-bright, brutal in its grace. Skin closed in ragged stitches. Not all the way. Just enough to move. A rough repair. 

Lazrik’s gait dragged as he crossed the churned, blood-slick earth. His gaze flicked to the fallen glaive beside Galvahin, and with a grunt, he stooped, hissing as the wound at his side protested, and gathered the weapon in both hands. He pressed forward and knelt beside his sister. With a silent nod, he set the glaive across Galvahin’s knees, then leaned in, pressing a battered brow to his sister’s. 

A hush rippled through the grove as Ithrylgrum drew near, his hooves kindling soft motes with every stride. Oriel slid down from the unicorn’s back, not leaping but descending as if down an unseen perron suspended above the mud and blood. At his side, Toby zipped in with a bright flicker of wings and a worried flutter, the sprite’s voice quick and low as he surveyed the battered trio. 

“I beseech you forgive the tardiness—we came as soon as Penthesia’s message found me,” said the sprite. “You three look… well, better than I feared, all things considered.” 

Oriel stood a pace apart, visage strung taut as a snare drum, violet irises seething with ire that felt almost aesthetic in its intensity. His gaze swept over Galvahin and the others, lingering on torn flesh and battered armour, before flicking to the bloodied ground as his nostrils flared. It was the look of an artist made witness to sabotage, a playwright forced to watch his chef-d’oeuvre mangled. 

Fortifying her poise, Penthesia turned to Lazrik with a silent glance. She pressed her palm to his side, golden light blooming beneath her fingers as she sutured flesh and sinew with practised care. Lazrik gave a sharp breath, pain dissolving to gratitude, and nodded once in thanks. Only then did Penthesia rise, reclaiming her blades. 

Galvahin followed, using his glaive for balance, and limped to the archfey. He knelt without hesitation, head bowed, battered but resolute. 

“Oh, for the love of—” Oriel’s lips curled, his gaze hardening as he regarded him with vexed astonishment. “Enough,” he said flatly. “Get up. Now.”  

Galvahin stiffened, a flicker of hurt crossing his frame. But some part of him echoed Oriel’s impatience. He pushed upright, steadying on his glaive. No pageantry or ritual would mend what had been torn apart tonight—save, perhaps, for one: 

Drawn by the same thread, every eye in the clearing turned down the path—fixing on the collapsed, waiting figure of the hag. There was nothing civil in their faces, only the promise of violence, and hatred whetted to a single, lupine keen. 

Nana Joanne was hunched in the churned dirt at the end of the path, both arms cradling its ruined face as though trying to hold it together. It rocked in place, a low, guttural whimper threading through the air. All around, fey hunters closed in, bows drawn, blades levelled, eyes full of old, predatory malice. The hag shrank smaller with each heartbeat, claws digging ruts in the mud. 

The archfey’s sneer was all the warning it received. With a languid flick of his fingers, supernatural force rippled outward, and magic gripped Nana Joanne like a snare, seizing and dragging it through the dirt like refuse. It flopped at the group’s feet, rolling to expose the side of its face: a blackened cavern of bone and pulped flesh, festooned with mycotic excrescences that pulsed with every tattered, agonised breath. The entire lower half of its jowl was gone—obliterated by Oriel’s earlier wrath—leaving the creature unable to conjure so much as a word or curse, its magic trapped behind massacred mouth. 

“Ugly wretch.” With a scowl, Lazrik spat a thick gob of blood onto the hag’s pulped face. “Rot.” 

“Toby. Attend the hunters,” the archfey intoned, every syllable measured and glacial. “Make certain the rest of the dregs are rooted out while this vermin’s due is determined.” 

The sprite startled once at Oriel’s command, wings flickering with nervous energy. 

“Right away, Sire.” He straightened, adjusting his waistcoat, and zipped toward the cluster of hunters, voice ringing out with crisp authority: “All right, you lot—fan out in pairs. Sweep the perimeter and check every thicket. Anything still skulking in the brush gets no quarter, understood?” 

Ithrylgrum, meanwhile, stood at the edge of the circle, cloven hooves rooted in morose hush. His horn’s silver whorls drew no glimmer, his mane heavy and dull as storm-lashed banners. The eyes that once mirrored celestial vistas now yielded only the cold indifference of night. He did not bow, nor did he pass judgment; rather, he averted his gaze as above, the very heavens dimmed, and the stars recoiled, drawn timid behind gauzy clouds. All that would pass here tonight would unfold outside the reach of sanctity, veiled below the shadow of so-called just gazes turned elsewhere. 

Oriel let his attention settle on the rest of the party. He tilted his head, the arch of his brow sharp as a knife’s edge. “For my own part, I would not waste creativity on a creature so witless,” he announced, tone flat as glass. “But I am not without mercy for consensus. How would you three wish this managed? 

“Slowly.” The word left Penthesia like an expletive, acrid and clipped. 

“That goes without saying,” Lazrik added, his laughter cold and brief. 

An uneasy quiet fell. Penthesia’s eyes flicked sidelong, then Lazrik’s, following the thread of tension to where Galvahin stood rooted in place. The knight was utterly still, visor fixed toward the crumpled hag, his gaze unreachable. 

He was keenly aware of their furtive glances, drawn not only to the sopping maculation on his thigh, but to the awful proximity of it. The rips in his chausse let in the biting air, leaving bloodied, hirsute skin exposed in a way he would have preferred to ignore. 

Yet that wasn’t what held him fast. Galvahin’s stare—veiled by steel—was fixed on the hag’s distended gut, the brutal seam he’d carved into it aglow with the remnants of holy fire. At first, there was a decadent satisfaction, sinuous and satiating, watching the laceration leak and gape, basking in the proof that some tortures could be returned twicefold and made to last. It was a lurid elation, drinking in that agony, one that should have felt compunctious; instead, it felt delightful. 

He knew he’d invent explanations, later—summon the words for justice, for duty, for some lofty, vapid desire to spare the world further harm. But none of it would be true. He loathed Nana Joanne for his own suffering, for hurting his friends, yes, but what gnawed at Galvahin now was pure humiliation, bitter and caustic as an alkahest. The hag had reduced him to a trembling fool in front of those he wanted to impress most, had stripped him of pride and composure with every noxious epithet. And as if that were not enough, it had dragged Oriel into its filth, tried to sully his liege’s name with disgusting slander. That was the line crossed, the injury that would not be left unanswered. The knight felt no kinship with clemency or justice now; only the ancient urge to hurt back, to grind beneath his heel, to reclaim some fragment of dignity, and answer cruelty with cruelty of his own. 

It was perhaps possible to imagine a small, persistent cricket urging him toward mercy, chirping that a quick death would be the only righteous answer. But any such counsel was snuffed out at once by what he saw flickering within the gash. 

There, buried in guts and bile, was the flash of torn blue fabric and tiny—no… 

Galvahin surged forward, glaive already rising. In one savage motion, he drove the blade into the ragged seam and began hacking, heedless of the hag’s spasming form. 

“Wait—hold up—” Lazrik barked, reaching out, but Penthesia caught his arm in a vise. 

“Let him,” she whispered, aureate eyes never leaving the grisly discovery in the gash. 

The blade bit deep, parting flesh, fat, rot. Nana Joanne writhed, howling—though the sound was half-swallowed, half-choked, splattering black ichor across the dirt. It's ruined form twisted, legs kicking, a frothy spray of blood and bile gurgling up its throat. Feebly, it clawed at Galvahin’s legs, but he didn’t flinch. Each savage stroke widened the gash, the stench congealing, gore pooling. The hag’s one good eye rolled in its head, mouth working uselessly around blood and bile, wails dying into a strangled gurgle as Galvahin carved it open. 

With a final, brutal twist, the seam split wide, and something small and pale tumbled from the hag’s belly, landing with a sodden, brittle rattle amid the gore. The knight’s vision went white. He ripped off his helm and staggered back, doubling over as a dry, wrenching paroxysm tore through him. Only when his breath returned did he dare look: a tiny skeleton, delicate bones entangled in a blue dress; unmistakably the same as the “child” he’d tried to save, now revealed as the hag’s long-dead prey. That thing spat accusations of predation, wailed about saving the young, yet here was the proof: it was the devourer all along. 

A thousand imagined lives crowded in at once. Was she loved? Did someone still call her name at night, praying she’d return? Did she have siblings, friends, a favourite story or song? The horror of it pressed on him until he could barely stand: what terror had this child faced, alone in the dark, tricked and devoured by a thing that wore her fear like a crown? In an instant, Galvahin wished he could have traded places with her—wished it had been he that the hag had claimed, and she the one welcomed into Oriel’s wild, riotous court, given feasts and finery and all the safety that wonder could provide. 

If any dared imagine she’d have been imperiled there, he thought, heart iced over, let them be seen for what they are: kin to hags—glutting on slander, tonguing vileness as if it were truth. 

So why, for all the Feywild’s caprice, was he given its gifts and spared its worst, while she endured only its curses? Maybe she’d been seeking more—more colour, more possibility. A place to fit. Maybe her dreams had whispered that elsewhere was a world that would make sense of her, the way the knight, too, yearned for a place beyond the hedgerows, beyond the rainbows. Did she step into the woods because home felt too narrow, her heart too large for its walls? He felt a sting of kinship, even now: two outsiders, marked by misplacement, but only one granted passage to the garden. 

Shock rippled through the circle. Lazrik’s hand was a barricade over his lips, eyes wet. Penthesia had folded inward, lids closed, jaw tense, profile turned away. Ithrylgrum, avatar of higher justice, averted his gaze; heaven’s answer, craven as ever, was to bear witness only to its own innocence. 

It was Oriel alone who was statuesque, hands flanking his temples, violet eyes distant. Yet the knight saw it—a flicker in his liege’s composure, a shuttered pain, the unmistakable shadow of guilt or shame. Whatever glory or revel Oriel usually conjured, he could not meet Galvahin’s eyes. 

It did not compare to the larger torments at hand, but still, the knight felt it pricking at every corner of his compassion. Hot tears pressed down his cheeks, but his gaze caught on a subtle shiver in the hag’s form. He braced for another trick, some violent jolt or curse, but the pattern of the movement was unmistakable. Even through the mutilated mass of blood and fungus, Nana Joanne’s one eye shone with cruel amusement, and the ragged edges of its cheeks quirked upward: that evil fucker was laughing. 

Without a sound, Galvahin stepped forward and slammed his boot square into its mangled visage. The creature howled, gurgling through shattered teeth, the laughter snuffed into an ugly sob. The knight didn’t look back. He limped directly to Oriel, stopping so close their shadows mingled. For the briefest instant, the prince’s poise wavered—just enough to see a flicker of apprehension. 

“Prince Oriel," Galvahin said softly, but low and firm. “I wish it to suffer. Not death—something worse. Is that within your gifts?” 

For a heartbeat, the prince’s posture remained statuesque, poised on the precipice between reticence and display. Then, slowly, the angle of his head shifted; his hands dropped, and his expression tightened into something keen and alert. Galvahin’s boldness—the unambiguous plea—seemed to call forth a current in him, something wilder and more essential. It was not only permission Oriel had been given, but a summons to be exactly what he was: a creature of boundless extravagance, capable of both wonders and terrors, and, at last… unrestrained. A slow smile curled at the corner of his lips, half-mirth, half-malice. He almost looked grateful. 

“Something worse than death, you say? Hap’s lover basks this evening, my handsome jackalope. Yours truly is owed a debt I’ve longed to cash, and it couldn’t suit this moment anymore exquisitely.” 

Oriel’s hand spun in the air, index finger looping an idle spiral as if winding silk. Instantly, the circle was cast—a rim of fire igniting from nothing, snaking around the hag and sealing it off in a cage of burning blue and white. Heat and stench radiated outward: brimstone first, sharp as struck flint, then the choking bite of ammonia, so strong that Galvahin’s eyes stung. The bones of the child, barely visible in the ash just outside the ring, were spared even a lick of flame. 

And then the prince began to speak. 

Not with his own voice, but with two: one ancient and glacial, one guttural and venomous. With each utterance, pools of boiling blood welled into existence inside the circle, seething up from bare earth and stone, frothing and spattering at the prince’s command. The language was violence itself—every consonant scourged like a knife, every vowel spun out with rancor so pure it threatened to unravel sanity; to hear it was to be shown the architecture of hatred, every pattern tuned for dissolution. The sound scraped across the mind, sinking barbs of despair so deep that even the bravest felt bile rise in their throats. 

The knight knew the language—though he’d only ever read warnings, never heard it voiced aloud. Yet there was no mistaking the blood seeping from Oriel’s lips, nor the ragged edge to each word. The dialect was infamous for rewarding its speakers with torn mouths and forked tongues, as if the hells themselves marked those who dared master its cadence. This was the speech of devils, the voice of contracts and curses: Infernal. 

Ithrylgrum slipped away unseen, and the others stood stunned in his absence: Galvahin remained motionless, lips pressed together, shoulders stiff beneath his battered cloak. Penthesia stared at the ground, arms folded, her expression shuttered. Lazrik rubbed at his brow, glancing sidelong at the others, the trio mute and subdued in the spectacle of the archfey’s damning orison. 

When the last syllables faded, Oriel strode to the circle’s edge. The inferno recoiled at his presence, opening just enough for him to reach through. He gripped a handful of hair, ripped it free with a sharp twist, and held it aloft in the smoky air. Turning to the knight, he offered the clotted tangle, voice low and commanding: 

"Spit. Your mortal hatred dots the line—and tips the balance with a gratuity.” 

For a heartbeat, Galvahin faltered—not from doubt or regret, for there was no undoing the choice he’d made, and he would not disgrace the archfey by retreating now. His hesitation was of another sort: he found himself transfixed by the man before him, the blood on Oriel’s lips, the savage beauty in his bearing, the unmasked power that thrummed through him. There was something magnetic, terrifying, and glorious in it—something Galvahin loved. 

He spat, sealing the ritual. 

With a flick of his wrist, Oriel hurled the befouled hair into the flames. The fire devoured it, singing up in a shriek of agony. In an instant, an ichor-caked chain, bristling with barbed hooks, burst from the boiling pool of crimson within the circle and snapped around the hag. The world seemed to tilt as screams—countless, distant, and anguished—rose from the bloodied portal. Tiny, clawed hands reached up, imps gibbering as they tore and clawed at the hag’s flesh. A spike drove up through its body, pinning it in place, and more chains followed, binding every limb. With a final wrench, the hag was dragged downward, disappearing into the weltering depths as the fire and portal snapped shut behind it, cutting off the echoes of torment. 

“Ah, and so passes the guest of honour. My old consociate downstairs does so pride himself on making every visitor feel… special.” 

Silence held the clearing, the weight of what they’d witnessed pressing down until even the fey seemed hesitant to breathe. A slow, deliberate clap echoed in the hush—measured, dry, almost sounding sarcastic. All eyes turned; it was the knight, giving Oriel a solitary, sardonic applause. 

“Bravo, bravo,” he said, arid as ash. “Hospitality consummate, Sire. My gratitude, utmost. Your munificence and panache are—as always—second to none…” 

Penthesia and Lazrik exchanged a look, silent, tight-lipped, uncertain whether to intercede or let the moment play out. Oriel’s gaze sharpened, the line of his mouth hardening. 

The archfey stared him down. “Do you mock me?” 

Galvahin didn’t flinch. He met Oriel’s gaze with a steady, implacable calm. Only his stance shifted, a subtle realignment—weight settling, shoulders squaring—but his gunmetal eyes never left the prince. 

He donned his helm, the gesture slow and ceremonial. As the clasp fell into place, dawn broke behind him: a fan of bright morning rays limning his figure in brilliance, burnishing the gore and dust on his mail until he seemed both august and ethereal. The antlers atop his crown cast a dendritic shadow across the forest floor, their tips reaching to pool in umbra at the archfey’s feet. 

“Your Grace, if my respect for you is truly under scrutiny," he said, tone low, head inclined, “then I demand you assay it anew.” Galvahin’s bearing looked almost offended, yet he caught himself nearly smiling; was it possible, in the wake of so much ugliness, to find the prince a little lovely for his wounded pride? The impulse felt like madness, but no less real. 

An unreadable emotion flickered in Oriel’s visage: surprise, regret, perhaps even admiration. His eyes darted, first to Galvahin, then to the others, then back again. For a long, taut heartbeat, his violet gaze simply searched the knight’s visor, the silence growing almost unbearable—until, at last, he looked away, conceding the moment with a nod, then, subtly… a simper. 

Notes:

Get Even | Angelspit

Zombie doll with wings
Feasting on rot
Evil siren sings,
"Cast the fat lot!"
Vulture rip away
Scavenging parasite
Full-blown soul decay
Under the silver knife

Chapter 17: The Hollows

Summary:

Betwixt grief and garden, a knight counts the colours he was never before permitted to herald.

“Queerness is a longing that propels us onward, beyond romances of the negative and toiling in the present.”

José Esteban Muñoz

 

High above Galvahin, Klimvarh’s verdant canopy sieved late-morning light into a shifting trellis of coruscating gold and green. The garden lay still in a way he had not yet seen during his stay—no courtier’s laughter spilling from the colonnades, no distant notes from the musicians, only the distant susurrus of leaves and the lethargic drone of bees. On this, the knight’s fourth day in the court, the sycamore had chosen a new place to stand: behind a living colonnade of hyacinths, their purple and blue bells bowing under the weight of morning dew. As he passed between, their fragrance had risen to meet him—rich and bittersweet, a perfume that seemed to cling to his lungs as much as to his skin—until the glade felt cut off from the rest of the world, sealed in scent and colour.

Now he sat at the sycamore’s roots, silken attire in muted shades of black and grey pooling around his legs, armour surrendered to the menders’ invisible labours. The garment’s gentle charms refused soil; only his hands and the half-moons beneath his nails bore witness to the work. He had bathed after the hunt, scrubbing away blood until the water ran clear, but the scent of turned loam had settled in his skin and stayed. 

The grave before him was no larger than a low stool, its edges raw where grass had been cut away, the dark soil still damp from the spade. The flattened ring of grass where he had knelt marked how long he’d stayed there, working each pile of earth into place. No one else had touched the task. He had refused the hunters, the courtiers, even Toby when the sprite had alighted nearby with a hesitant offer. 

Fecund with monsters glutting themselves upon the gentle and the blameless, the world had shown the knight many a grave undeserved; this, too, he laid to rest, knowing well it would not be the last.

He could no longer recall the precise phrasing, but the steadiness of Klimvarh’s earlier counsel lingered, softening the sharper edges of the grief. It mattered that the sycamore was neither fey nor mortal; his was a voice apart from courtly turns of phrase and veiled designs. Galvahin took comfort in that more readily than he wished to admit, and the readiness itself left him faintly ashamed, as though by seeking comfort here, he had prematurely measured fey assurance and found it wanting.

Still, it was no crime to prefer the voice of one who had, in some distant way, known what it was to be bound. The fey had never been required to sand their edges smooth for another’s ease, never been told their laughter was pitched too high, their gaze too long, their hands too gentle for the work expected of them. They had not learned to turn a step into a march or a dream into something more acceptable to those with narrower hearts. Klimvarh spoke with the gravity of one who understood that growth in the wrong soil leaves a bend in the trunk long after it is free to reach for the sun.

He let his mind drift toward those small histories, each one rising like stones on a riverbed revealed in low water. Once the first showed itself, the rest came quickly, one brushing against another until they formed a path he could not help but follow.

As a boy, Galvahin hated the dark, hated the empty bed he was expected to sleep in alone. Night after night, he crept toward his father’s chamber or the cot of a nursemaid, seeking the closeness of another body, the reassurance of a hand near his own. The answer was always no. Once, when he lingered too long, his father snapped: “Men are not touchy; men do not cling; men do not hold hands when they are too old for lullabies.” He went back to bed that night and never asked again.

One spring, a fledgling thrush fell from a garden wall. He scooped it up, cradled the shuddering form in both palms, and carried it to the barracks. They laughed, shaking their heads. The captain snatched it from him, tossed it into the grass, and said, “That’s what the cat is for.” The brittle crunch beneath his heel when Galvahin went looking for it later stayed with him longer than their jeers.

There was a year when his chief joy was painting coats of arms no one had ever borne: gryphons coiled in violet, bears swathed in seafoam, stags crowned in blossoms. An older courtier laughed until others looked over. “Gaudy things,” the man said. “Knights wear red or blue.” That evening, Galvahin scraped the paint from every page until they tore, and left his brushes dry the rest of the season.

Once, when the other kids in the fields made heroes and brigands of themselves, he tried to lead a marching song, his voice high and clear above the clatter of sticks. The others collapsed into giggles before the second verse. “You sing like a girl!” someone crowed, and the chant died. He kept humming, but only where no one could hear.

The summer after, his limbs outpaced the rest of him—shoulders broadening, jaw squaring, a beard shadow haunting his chin before he’d learned to relish childhood’s last games. Overnight, Galvahin was tall enough to be mistaken for a man, and thus treated as one. Invitations to play dried up; rather, he poured wine at council, stood at his father’s back during meetings, listened, and said nothing. The ink on his cuffs replaced grass stains, and he learned the ache of sitting still for hours.

That proved the gentlest of puberty’s curses; worse was the treachery of his body, flushing and quickening whenever a glance lingered. Once, he stared at another boy in the yard, all sweat and sunlit skin, only for the lad to narrow his eyes and shove past him. Another time, his gaze strayed to a girl in the gallery; she looked him over as if regarding refuse before turning away. Gender made no difference; his heart was reckless, and the knowledge that both could betray him felt like carrying tinder through a city of torches.

He was seventeen when a travelling company visited with a comedy of disguises. One of the leads was a man dressed as a lady, moving with a grace that drew Galvahin’s eyes each time he crossed the stage. He laughed at all the wrong moments just for the pleasure of watching him. When the applause died, his father muttered the whole business was frivolous, a waste of coin and attention. Galvahin kept his opinion to himself.

The next day, he gathered his nerve and found the players as they packed their cart, asking—too quickly—if he might have the mask the “lady” had worn. The actor slipped it to him with a conspirator’s grin and a slow wink, drawing an awkward chuckle lighter than Galvahin intended. For months, it hid under his mattress, until one morning it was gone. He never had proof, but he knew in his bones who had taken it.

It would not be the last time others made folly or sport of what he could not help wanting. Years later, in a roadside tavern thick with pipe smoke and autumn chill, he sat among guards trading tales. Someone pressed a battered book into his hands and bade him read. He chose a story of two knights who slew a dragon, safeguarded a town, and found love in each other’s arms. When he finished, the silence that followed was longer than the story itself. A cough broke it. Then came a smirk, and the question of whether the knights “took turns” in bed. Laughter broke like glass. Galvahin smiled thinly and said nothing, but for the rest of the night kept his eyes on his cup.

That winter, the longest romance of his life ended when she confessed she could not bear the way he whimpered and clung to her in bed. “It’s like lying with a woman,” she told him, and rolled away into the dark. He lay staring at the rafters, listening to her slow breaths, each carrying her farther from him. She was gone by the tenday’s end.

The months after, in a fit of defiance, he even attempted—clumsily—to court his gentler side. A bard acquaintance persuaded him to try out for an amateur play, the sort staged in a barn on nights that smelled of hay and spilled cider. The play was a pastoral romance, replete with knights jousting for roses and maidens' favours. He auditioned as the lead, leaning into every gallant bow and phrase. When the roles were posted, the hero’s name belonged to a slim, clean-shaven, and bright-eyed man whose smile could have sold out coliseums. Galvahin returned the script upon seeing where his own name stood opposite: Ogre.

It seemed petty, even obscene, to sit at a child’s grave and count the injuries done to his pride. But even that thought led him to another memory, one of the few times he had ever voiced such things aloud. On the road between cities, in the company of a halfling woman whose wit had kept him from brooding through long days, he had spoken—carefully, awkwardly—about feeling unmoored, about the gradual attrition of the parts of himself that reached for colour, for beauty, for warmth. She listened until the fire burned low, then told him he was a man who had never known real peril, a pampered heir who wore his strength like armour and had the gall to bemoan slights. “Fear,” she said, “was for the small and powerless; gratitude for everyone else.” He’d swallowed the rebuke whole. Sitting here now, however, he couldn’t help but wonder whether a soul could be killed without the body following it into the ground.

Leaning back into the sycamore's steadfast bulk, his lids drifted shut. “Thelanna,” he called, voice carrying just enough to reach the hyacinths. “If you mean to lurk, at least do it where I can see you.”

A faint rustle stirred to his right, and Thelanna eased out from the bole of a slender elm. Her hands stayed clasped before her as she turned her regard toward him. Then the grave.

“Forgive me,” she murmured. “I only wanted to see if you were all right.”

“Was that the conclusion you reached an hour ago, when you first began loitering? Or is that your excuse for being a nuisance since the day I arrived?”

Thelanna straightened, smoothing her hands over her dress as though burnishing away his retort. “If I’d known my concern was so offensive, I’d have sent someone else to waste their time.” She turned to go, pausing just long enough to glance back over her shoulder. “I’ll leave you to your solitude—try not to choke on it.”

The sting of her parting words made him flinch. His hand rose in a small, halting gesture. “Wait.” His voice was quieter now. “I’m sorry. That was undeserved. I… would rather you stayed.”

She stopped at the edge of the elm’s shade, her figure half-hidden by the curve of the trunk. A breeze stirred the petals at her feet. Slowly, she stepped free of the arboreal shelter, her tread soft over the sward. The dryad came to stand near him for several breaths before lowering herself onto her knees at Klimvarh’s roots, her posture still and composed.

For a time, only the breeze moved, and neither of them spoke. The steady drone of bumblebees filled the space between them, weaving into the slow sigh of the sycamore’s foliage. Galvahin kept his eyes closed, the warmth of the bark against his back a steady counterpoint to the raw earth’s cool scent. Thelanna’s presence hovered at the bounds of his ken, not insistent, but there.

Her gaze stayed on the mound, her expression still yet sorrowful. “You took great care,” she said at last, her voice low.

The knight shook his head, the motion small. He did not open his eyes. “Care after the fact is a poor substitute for the care deserved in life.”

“You’re right,” she replied softly. “Nothing can change what’s come before. But this much is true—whatever else the world denied her, it can’t be said she mattered to no one.”

Galvahin kept still, unwilling to disturb the moment. Thelanna’s voice echoed in the pits grief had carved in him, a careful comfort that did not press on the wound but kept vigil beside it. The effulgence of fresh earth lingered as he breathed, and though he said nothing, her words stayed. 

After a pause, Thelanna’s hands shifted in her lap. “Would you mind if I added something?” she asked, her tone careful, seemingly wary of disturbing the stillness between them.

He didn’t answer at once. One eye opened, the other still closed, and he regarded her sidelong before murmuring, “I don’t see why not.”

With a small nod, Thelanna leaned forward, resting her hands upon the mound. The instant her chartreuse skin touched the soil, a tremor of green rippled outward, followed by a sudden, luxuriant efflorescence. Stems sprang high, leaves unfurled, and flowers of every size and colour thronged one another for room—golden marigolds, pale primroses, violet asters, and a hundred others in a firestorm of colour. The grave’s raw darkness vanished beneath a blooming quilt. She drew in a breath, her fingers curling as though reluctant to lift them away. 

Galvahin stared, the bedlam of hues briefly pilfering whatever words he might have found.

“I wasn’t sure what she might have loved best,” she said, her voice carrying a shy note. “So I thought… better to pick them all.”

The knight’s mouth tightened, then eased into a small, unguarded smile. “They’re… lovely,” he said at last, his voice low. “Thank you.”

Thelanna met his smile with one of her own. “We don’t have to speak of it any longer,” she said gently. “Not unless you wish to.”

“I’d prefer not to.”

“I understand. We don’t even have to speak at all… but if you’d rather talk about something else, we can.”

Galvahin hesitated at first, gaze returning to the riot of flowers. A few breaths passed before he murmured, “Maybe.”

Thelanna’s head inclined slightly. “Did you have something in mind?”

“No… No, not really.”

The dryad glanced away. “Penthesia told me what happened with the hag.”

Galvahin stilled.

“I’ve dealt with one before,” she said quietly. “Not like you did—nothing nearly as cruel. It feels small even saying so.”

He opened his grey eyes fully, sitting straighter. “No. It isn’t small. Tell me.” The flicker of doubt in her voice was too familiar; it carried the same quiet shame he’d felt when comparing his scars to someone else’s, as though suffering were a scale, and his share never tipped it far enough.

Thelanna’s mouth curved faintly, though her emerald eyes stayed on the flowers. “It went by Papa Ailes,” she said at last. “Or at least, that’s what it called itself. Used to follow me from grove to grove, always turning up with some ghastly little gift—”

“Papa?” Galvahin cut in before he could stop himself.

She glanced over, brow lifting.

“I—apologies,” he said, shifting in place. “It’s just… why in the gods’ names do hags call themselves things like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like Papa. Or Nana. Opa this-and-that, or Auntie so-and-so… all those false-friendly names they favour. You’re telling me they always introduce themselves that way?”

Thelanna smiled as if at a child’s question. “Of course. Those are their names.”

“The whole thing?”

“The whole thing. Seems strange to you?”

“A little,” he admitted. “You mean they’re just… born knowing it?”

“Not just hags—dryads, nymphs, naiads. Some of us arrive already certain of who we are.”

“I don’t understand—how does a creature know its own name without someone telling it?”

Her smile tilted. “Helps if you skip the part where you’re helpless and screaming.”

“If they’re not chosen, why do they all sound the same way?” he asked, stumbling a little over the fact that Thelanna’d just confessed to having never been a baby. He supposed that explained enough, though the other picture it left him with—an infant hag in some cradle, glaring at the world—nearly dragged him from his point. Best not to get lost in the weeds just yet.

“Because it’s easier to carry one name, worn smooth by repetition,” said the dryad. “Papa Ailes. Nana Joanne. Auntie Ethel. Say them slow and they sound like family. Say them quick and you hear what they really are. Say them enough… and you start to taste the deep places they really came from.”

Galvahin rolled the names over once, then again, and this time they no longer sounded like kinship at all. He could almost hear them now, not from any lips but rising from some black water, patient and eternal. His jaw tightened.

“I’m sorry for interrupting,” he said at last, voice low. “Go on.”

“Right, right. Papa Ailes,” she said, her tone measured. “At first, I thought it was only curious. A stray in the woods, keeping its distance. It didn’t speak, not at first. Just left things where I’d find them. A child’s shoe. A comb with teeth missing. A music box that played without winding.” She smoothed her hands over her knees. “I stopped wondering what it wanted.”

“You’re telling me—” He stopped himself, jaw tightening before he tried again. “You think it was… courting you?” The phrasing was soft, but his eyes searched hers, as if trying to gauge how much of that thought still troubled her.

“Careful, Galv. That almost sounded like doubt in my charms.”

“What? No—gods, no. You’re gorgeous, everyone can see that.” He shifted, suddenly aware of how easily it came out, his doublet following with a flush of peach, as if the fabric itself had heard him. 

“Everyone can see that? Well, of course. You think these good looks grow on trees?”

“…You’re telling me they don’t?” Galvahin blinked, feigning shock before lowering his voice as though sharing a scandal. “It seems I’ve been labouring under some very literal assumptions…”

She laughed under her breath, a sound like wind teasing leaves. “Mm. There it is again—charming as you look.”

The compliment caught him off guard; he looked away, a small huff of breath betraying the smile tugging at him. Cerulean shimmered faintly through the fabric at his shoulders, brightening when he glanced back.

“You’ll have me insufferable if you keep on like that,” he said, voice with the effort to smother a sheepish chuckle that wanted to escape. “But you were saying—about the hag?”

“‘Course. I think… I pitied it, in a way. It always looked so tired when I caught sight of it—like some old, wet thing that had forgotten how it came to be in the woods at all. Ridiculous, isn’t it? A hag. But when you’ve a creature dogging your steps long enough, leaving you trinkets like some clumsy suitor… you start to think it must be lonely. Or desperate. Or both.”

“Lonely—gods. No, Thelanna,” Galvahin said, staring at her as if she’d spoken in another language. “They’re not lonely, they’re hunting. Hags have no place for love in them—only for the next misery they can plant.”

“Believe me, Galv, I know what hags are,” she said, a wry note in her voice. “But that one… it had a patience I’d never seen before. It made me want to know why.”

The knight gave her a startled once-over, his expression saying far more than he meant it to. “You didn’t—”

Thelanna’s laugh erupted like a gust through the leaves, sending birds wheeling away. “Hells no! Ugh.” Her grin softened. “But I did start talking to it.”

“Talking to it?” A low laugh escaped him. “Braver than me. Or madder.”

“It was what you’d expect—vicious, vulgar, utterly without shame,” she began, leaning her elbow on her knee, “but for some reason it never turned that edge on me. Not head-on.” She let her fingers trace idle patterns in the grass. “Obviously, it had a knack for putting me in situations I’d rather have died than explain, and sometimes the sound of its voice made me want to put my head through a wall.” She gave a small, rueful laugh. “But when it wasn’t revolting, it could be… oddly good company. There were days it kept me laughing until my sides hurt. It had a wicked sort of wit, if you could ignore the fact that most of its jokes were appalling.”

He gave her a look equal parts doubt and curiosity. “You expect me to believe a hag could keep you laughing for hours? All right. Impress me.”

“Oh, they’re wonderfully tasteless.” She tilted her head, smiling faintly. “But given where we are?” Her gaze flicked to the grave. “I’m not sure they’d suit the moment.”

“Fair.” Galvahin traced the line of her gaze back to the dryad. “But after yesterday, I can handle tasteless. Give me your worst one.”

She smirked, but a faint flush of deepened green rose in her cheeks. “Absolutely not. If I repeat it now, Klimvarh will never speak to me again.”

“Ah, I see how it is.” Galvahin turned away in mocking, theatrical disapproval. “So they’re fit for hours of your company but not five minutes of mine…?”

“Fine, then.” Hunching over and lowering her voice to an ominous purr one might expect from a pantomime villain, she asked, “Why do mortals salt their thresholds?” 

“...Why?”

“Complimentary seasoning.”

Galvahin clutched his chest as if stricken, shaking his head in faux sorrow.  “Saints preserve us, Thelanna. You’re going straight to the Hells for that one.”

She narrowed her eyes, pointing an accusing finger at him. “Oh no, no, no—you baited me, you schemer, and you know it!”

“Nope,” Galvahin declared, lifting a hand as though delivering divine judgment. “Cannibalism jokes over the bones of a digested child—damnable, through and through. Tell Nana Joanne I send my warmest regards—perhaps it’ll lend you a fresher repertoire.”

Thelanna clasped both palms together, bowing low in mock supplication. “Forgive me, O’ gallant knight, for I have been appalling. My last confession was… well, never!” She placed a hand over her heart, eyes wide with false reverence. “But by the honour of your sacred vows, I beg you—spare me from the Hells… if only so I might plague you with worse.”

“Hmm. Perhaps I could be persuaded to plead your case,” he mused, tapping his chin, “but such mercy demands a toll—one more joke.”

“Oh, you’re an absolute devil—”

“Hush, transgressor,” Galvahin intoned deeply, the corner of his lip twitching upward, “lest I march straight to the prince and recount how you trod into this holy ground and befouled it with your scandal, your sarcasm, your sacrileg—”

“Fine, fine!!” Thelanna threw her hands up, laughing despite herself. “For the record, I regret ever encouraging you.”

Galvahin’s smirk was almost as shameless as it was smug, like a man polishing a medal he swiped from the podium.

Letting her voice drop into that same croaking, mock-menacing register she’d used to mimic Papa Ailes earlier, she rasped, “Why do hags hate mirrors?” 

“Why?”

“They undercut my rates.”

“Gods, now I see why it went by ‘Papa.’” The knight recoiled, as if the realization physically pained him. “Those are the sort of jokes only a father would tell for the satisfaction of mass eye-rolling. Tell me the groaning isn’t part of its cruelty as well.”

Thelanna simpered. “Depends… are we talking about groaning from me, or from you?”

Without missing a beat, Galvahin laughed, “Cannibalism jokes, and now tawdry double entendré. It’s official—you’re a sinner.”

“You’d better keep me under a sharp eye, then,” she teased, “lest you shirk your duty to reform me.”

“Oh, I’ve no illusions about that,” Galvahin said, grinning. “If anything, I’d have my work cut out for me—more likely you’d corrupt me long before I ever reformed you. Speaking of corrupting influences… what became of Papa Ailes?”

Thelanna drew in a slow breath. “I stopped showing up,” she said simply. “Whatever else it was, it was seeping into me, little by little. I didn’t like who I was becoming. Like you said… corrupting influences. So I left.” Picking a loose petal from her hair, she went on, “But the strangest part? It didn’t follow. You’d think it’d chase, punish me for turning away. But it never did. No tricks, no more trinkets, no lurking in the treeline. Just, poof—” She made a vague gesture with her hands. “—and gone.”

“Then it’s dead,” he said flatly. “Either something bigger took notice, or it was called elsewhere.” His mouth curved faintly. “Unless of course you’re leaving out the part where you tracked it down and put it in the ground yourself.”

Thelanna barked a laugh, shaking her head. “If I’d done that, you’d never hear the end of it.” Her smile lingered for a beat before fading into thought. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe something else claimed it. But I’m not so sure. The whole thing… It left me wondering. Not about what hags are—I saw enough in Papa Ailes’ company to know. It took pride in the ugliest things it did. Still, I can’t help but doubt that anyone would choose to begin life as something like that.”

“You’re kinder than I am,” Galvahin admitted, his gaze fixed on some far-off point. “I no longer care what they began as. I’ve carried shame like a penance for vices that hurt no one but me; meanwhile, hags gorge themselves on others’ misery and sleep soundly for it. My pity runs dry for that which fattens itself on suffering without a second thought.”

She tilted her head, studying him as if he’d just admitted something more intimate than a sin. “So you’ve lived like a monk, and for what? So the monsters could eat their fill while you counted crumbs?” Her smile was quick, keen. “Tell me, then—what’s a man to do after a lifetime of starving himself?”

Galvahin felt Thelanna’s question snag in his gut, drawing up every old wound, every self-denial, until the weight of them seemed absurd. A half-breath passed—enough for the choice to crystallize—and then he was leaning in, closing the gap between them in one deliberate motion. The kiss was quick but fierce, a spark struck on stone, his hand lifting as if to cup her jaw but stopping just shy, perhaps afraid of turning it into something longer. It left the taste of dew and cedar on his lips and the echo of her nearness thrumming beneath his breast. He eased away, wondering if she could feel his pulse in the air between them. Best to keep her words at bay a moment longer.

Bracing a hand against Klimvarh’s roots, he rose, petals slipping from his sleeves in the motion. His hand hovered between them until hers found it—cool, deliberate—the slow press of her fingers answering the unspoken offer. He inclined his head in an almost courtly gesture as he steadied her rise, his palm broad and sure beneath hers.

“Will you come back to my quarters with me? I’d… rather not be alone just now,” he admitted, the faint crease in his brow betraying more than the composure of his tone would allow.

“Well,” Thelanna said, her mouth curving as though she’d just been given the punchline to a private joke, “if the knight insists, who am I to refuse? Lead the way before I change my mind.”

“Don’t start getting any funny ide-” Galvahin cut himself off with a sharp hiss as his left leg buckled, the old wound flaring despite the healing he’d given it. He caught himself before the stumble became a fall, jaw tight, and forced the limp into something that passed for forward motion.

The dryad’s smile faltered, her next quip dying before it could form. She slowed beside him, her hand half-lifting as if to steady him before she thought better of it. “Stars, Galv,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “You alright?”

“Nothing worth fretting over,” he murmured, waving off her concern. “Just need to sleep it off—shouldn’t have tried to play the hero yesterday.”

Thelanna’s gaze lingered on him for a beat longer, but she let it go with a small nod. Together they turned back toward Klimvarh, offering valedictions to the ancient sycamore and the grave he now sheltered. Then, without breaking the quiet between them, they left the garden’s seclusion for the long, polished halls of the palace.

The corridors received them in a gentle draught of cool, resin-scented air, the temperature dipping as the palace itself sighed in welcome. The halls curved gently, guided by the natural bend of bough and trunk; now and then, the living walls parted to reveal spring-fed ponds or sheltered bowers where starlight seemed to pool despite the day. Thelanna made an idle game of pointing out these small wonders, remarking on a hanging bloom that always seemed to face her, or a knothole shaped suspiciously like a frowny face. Galvahin responded in even, understated tones, the corners of his mouth twitching at her observations, though now and then a shift in his weight pulled his focus inward to the ache in his leg. She seemed to notice without saying so, letting her words flow just enough to bridge those silences.

A slow, deliberate clop of hooves echoed down the corridor behind them, the sound softened by the wood beneath but carrying just enough to catch Galvahin’s ear. He glanced over his shoulder, already straightening out of habit, and saw a figure emerging from a curve in the hall. The light caught on the soft sheen of dark, curly hair before the voice followed.

“Galvahin?” Meliora’s tone was as steady as ever, but the faint upward lilt at the end carried both question and summons.

“Well met, Meliora.” The knight dipped his head. “It seems you find us ere our paths’ end.”

“And yet still up to mischief,” Thelanna added with a sidelong look at Galvahin, then at the centaur. “You might as well come witness it firsthand.”

“She’d never say it herself,” Meliora said quietly, then after a beat, “but I will—my thanks, for standing between Penthesia and harm.”

“You give it to the wrong man.” A faint scoff escaped Galvahin, not at her gratitude but at the absurdity of deserving it. “Had I heeded her counsel, there would have been no confrontation at all. If anyone is owed thanks for standing between harm and the rest of us, it is her.”

A flicker of something like amusement softened Meliora’s features. “You two are alike in that—you both make light of what you endure.” She stepped into pace beside them, her gait bringing her alongside Thelanna as the three moved deeper into the winding passageways of the court. “Regardless, you have my thanks. And—” She glanced toward him with the faintest lift at the corner of her mouth— “If you’re determined to keep running into danger, you might as well have something to read while you rest.” Her hand dipped into the satchel slung across her shoulder, producing a slim, leather-bound volume.

He took the book without breaking stride, feeling the faint imprint of her fingers in the warm leather. “My thanks. What is it?”

“It’s an anthology of Elvish love poems, each written from the vantage of heroes whose names were never recorded,” Meliora intoned, as if reciting the book’s own preface. “Penthesia mentioned you could read it without translation—I figured you’d appreciate the originals.”

Thelanna let out a delighted laugh, her steps quickening as if she needed to see his expression from another angle. “Wait—our gallant, human knight reads Elvish? And here I’ve been wasting my charms in Common.” She leaned in just enough to catch his eye. “Say something scandalous in it.”

He shook his head, the smile ghosting at the corner of his mouth. “I won’t indulge you. And besides… I don’t remember telling Penthesia I spoke it at all.”

“Strange,” Meliora murmured, as though the thought had only just surfaced. “She told me you understood the script on her dagger without asking.”

He felt his brow knit. He had never spoken the words aloud to her—The Mark Thou Carvedst is the Mark Thou Dost Bear. How, then, had she known he’d read them?

Thelanna’s grin turned wicked. “Oh, I see how it is… Too shy to say anything yourself?” She flicked a glance at Meliora, as if inviting her to watch, then turned back to him. “Very well. Let’s test you—” Dipping her head closer, she dropped her voice into a velvet purr. “Tula, arkhlavae a’amin, lle’ naa amin-melda thaethiira liyan…” Her lips curved in mock innocence as she tossed him an airy kiss.

Galvahin stopped dead in his tracks, doublet flaring as if jolted by a sudden wind, then blooming an unmistakable, ripe magenta. “By the gods, woman!” The words escaped before he could temper them, his voice pitching until it cracked.  His hand cut a quick, agitated gesture through the air, as though trying to bat the phrase itself away from his hearing. “Pray tell me you aren’t truly inclined toward such—such caprices!” he exclaimed, staring at her as one might study a beautifully dressed dinner guest who’d just bitten into a raw onion.

A faint huff of amusement left Meliora. “I’ll admit, that was a touch coarse—even for you.”

“Nonsense,” said the dryad with a wave of her hand. “Everything sounds gorgeous in Elvish. I could have been inviting you to tea and you’d still think it indecent.” 

“You most certainly did not invite me to tea just now,” he muttered, vestments still flushed bright. 

“Tea, scandal, what’s the difference?” she replied with a smirk, then fell back a pace, letting Meliora match his stride.

The garden path gave way to flagstones, the perfume of night-blooming vines softening under the cool breath of the courtyard. Above them, the palace’s arched windows glimmered like the facets of some vast lantern, casting gold across the pale stone. Galvahin kept his eyes forward, willing the heat in his face to ebb.

Meliora’s gaze dipped as they walked, and her brow creased. “You’re favouring your right leg,” she said quietly, her voice pitched so it wouldn’t carry to Thelanna. “Is it from last night?”

“Nothing worth fussing over…”

“It’s a limp,” Thelanna confirmed from behind, far too pleased. “Shall I carry you? I’m very good at it.”

“You will do no such thing,” he said, jaw tight, though the flush at his collar deepened as his room came into view.

Meliora’s laughter was light and brief, like glass beads rolling in a dish. “Well, if you collapse in the hall, I’m blaming her,” she said, tilting her head toward Thelanna.

“Blame away,” she replied, all innocence.

They reached the carved door to his chambers, the daylight pooling gold across the inlaid living-wood. Meliora stopped there, her hands folded before her. “This is me, then. Rest well, Galvahin.”

He bowed, the gesture precise despite the faint stiffness in his stride. “My thanks for your company, my lady.”

“Later, girl,” Thelanna added with a grin as sunny as it was sly.

The doors closed on Meliora’s retreating steps, and before the click of the latch had finished echoing, Thelanna’s voice rang out:

“All right, Galv—strip.”

His head snapped around. “Pardon?”

“You heard me.”

His doublet flushed magenta again, and he lifted a hand as though to fend off the words themselves. “Absolutely not. No, thank you!”

“Oh, spare me the squealing,” she said, already closing the distance. “Penthesia told me you turned away any healing, insisted on tending to that leg yourself. I want to see how badly you botched it.”

“I did not—” he began, only for her to cut in:

“Because from where I was walking, it looked like you were trying to brandish that limp as a permanent feature.”

His brows knit, but it was not indignation that kept him rooted to the spot; it was memory. The wound’s path ran high up the inside of his leg, along the slope of muscle to where inner thigh became haunch, into territory most would rather leave veiled. Many could take solace in asking a healer of their own gender for such work, but that had never lessened the ordeal for Galvahin; there was no safety in similitude, no tidy trick to keep the thoughts away when the touch came.

He remembered, with a prickle of heat entirely unrelated to his limp, the warm press of a holy man’s palm years ago—callused from mace-hilt and prayer-beads alike—spanning almost the exact breadth of skin Thelanna now threatened to lay eyes on. The prayer had been for swiftness and purity of heart. Galvahin’s had been for composure, and for the ground to swallow him before anyone saw the colour in his face.

“I—no. It’s… it’s not a good idea,” he said, the phrase landing more like a reassurance to himself than a refusal to her.

“Ah, so that’s what this is about,” Thelanna drawled, stepping in until the scent of moss and sunwarmed bark closed around him. “He thinks I’d take advantage of him—adorable. Darling, if I wanted to, you’d never call it ‘not a good idea.’” She tapped his hip lightly, as if to nudge him along. “Now, trousers—off with them.”

Galvahin’s gaze drifted past her to some vague point on the far wall, buying himself a moment before answering. “Fine,” he murmured, tone between flattery and resignation. “If I’m to be seen to, best it be at the hands of someone so… tenacious.”

“Flattery noted.”

The knight stepped toward the bed, his limp more pronounced without the distraction of conversation. He stopped at the edge, fingers working at his belt with slow precision, as if untying a knot in his own resolve. Just before the buckle gave, his hands stilled.

“Would you… mind turning away?” he asked, the words softened by something nearer to shyness than command.

Her brows shot up, and she let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. “Turn away? What in the Green for? I’m healing you—not preserving the mystery of your virtue for the bards.”

“I—yes, well, I insist,” he blurted, the protest tumbling over itself. “It’s one thing for you to… to see—and quite another to have me stand here under your gaze peeling myself out of my clothes like some—some wanton coin-boy.”

Thelanna gave a short laugh, tilting her head. “Coin-boy? Oh, my—believe me, if that’s what you were, you’d be fetching a far higher rate than I could afford.” She pressed a hand to her heart as if in deep sacrifice. “Very well, I’ll spare your modesty… for now.”

With a flourish, she spun half a step away and slapped both palms over her eyes. “There. Unseeing. Untouched by scandal.” She tilted her head just enough to aim her voice back toward him. “I’m not peeking, but I never promised I wouldn’t listen!”

“Much obliged,” he said, tone dry but not without sincerity. He bent to unfasten his boots, tugging them off one by one before setting to the laces. The breeches proved less cooperative, clinging to his tights until both came away together—unhelpfully snagging his brais halfway down. He made a small, almost wounded yelp in his throat, rescuing the silk before it could bare him further; a rare mercy, he thought, that she’d missed him floundering like that. Trousers discarded onto the bed, he lowered himself beside them, bare-kneed and feeling only slightly less exposed than before.

He let out a long breath, eyes dropping to the grey, slightly weeping cut that curved along the inside of his upper calf, disappearing beneath the hem of his brais. It snaked upward toward the tender recess of his thigh, and the sight of it stirred a reluctant awareness of how close it came to places better left unmentioned. He smoothed a hand once over the fabric above it, then dropped it to his side. “All right,” he said at last, the words low and almost reluctant. “You can look.”

Thelanna cracked her fingers open like shutters, one eye peering through. “You’re safe, coin-boy—my virtue’s intact.” Then her expression tightened. “Well, that’s nastier than I expected.” She dropped to her knees without further ceremony, catching the hem of his undergarments and rolling it steadily upward, the silk bunching as more of the wound came into view.

Galvahin’s spine went rigid, his voice catching. “I—ah—there’s no need to be so… thorough—good gods—Thelanna!” He half-rose from his seat, palms lifting in a fumbling attempt to intercept, only to falter as if the mere act of reaching might scandalize them both more than whatever she was doing. “Do you—ah—have to be on your knees like this? It—it looks…” His words failed, the warmth under his beard doing the rest of the talking.

“Oh, hush—before I’m tempted to make this truly indecent,” she teased, mouth hovering close enough that he felt the ghost of her breath on bare skin. “And if anyone walks in, I’ll just tell them you insisted…”

A small, helpless sound caught in the knight’s throat, thin as a reed in the wind. His arms hovered uselessly in the air, then fell to his sides in surrender.

Thelanna worked the fabric higher, heedless of his mortified stillness, until the bunched silk met the root of his thigh and the swell of his buttock. Thick, dark hair spilled into view with unruly abundance, framing the angry track of the wound as it deepened, its upper length slick with a thin ooze that clung in the light. She stared at it for a moment too long, the faint purse of her lips betraying some private calculation.

“Wh–what… what is it?” Galvahin stammered.

The dryad looked up at him with a kind of grave, unblinking solemnity that made his stomach twist.

“Well?” he asked, his pulse ticking in his throat.

“I’m afraid it’s bad news,” she intoned flatly. “We’ll have to take the leg… and maybe the other one for symmetry.”

He jerked as if she’d struck him, a strangled noise catching halfway between a gasp and a groan. “You’re—oh, for the love of—”

Thelanna reached up and patted his knee as though consoling a bereaved widow. “There, there. The rot’s not bad enough for amputation… yet. We’ll have you hopping about in no time.” Her hands slid up, cupping the wound with surprising gentleness, her gaze catching his. “Now—ready for me, coin-boy?”

Galvahin shifted, lips tightening as he gave the smallest of nods, like agreeing to a sentence rather than a salve.

A cool, damp breeze seemed to rise from her palms, carrying the verdant scent of crushed leaves and rain-soaked moss. The sting in the wound ebbed, replaced by a slow, spreading warmth that seeped deep into the muscle. His breath loosened before he could stop it. Thelanna’s eyes stayed fixed on her work until the last glow faded from her fingers. She patted his knee again, briskly this time.

“There. I’ve done my best—you’ll be lucky if there’s even a scar to show off,” she said, lips quirking. “Another day or two, and I’d be carving chanterelles off you.”

“That’s… reassuring. I’d hate to have my legacy in this court be the man who went mouldy.” He straightened a little, still unable to meet her eyes for long.

“Don’t let me stop you from sitting there half-naked, but I feel I should warn you it sets a precedent,” murmured the dryad, emerald eyes glinting.

“That—! I—” Galvahin’s reply collapsed into a flustered noise. He rubbed the back of his neck, gunmetal gaze sliding to his still-grimy arms. “I… was thinking I might actually bathe now, if you’ve no objection.”

“A bath? Perfect,” Thelanna purred, reaching to pat his arm as if sealing a bargain. “I’ll wash your back… and everywhere else you can’t quite reach… You’ll just have to trust me on what counts as ‘can’t reach.’”

His mouth opened, but the protest caught, smothered by the picture that rose unbidden: the slow drag of her palms over his shoulders, down his back, fingers slipping below the waistline to spread the soap’s slick warmth lower still. His jaw worked once, twice, before a raw sound slipped free—half-groan, half-laugh. “That—absolutely not,” he managed, though the heat behind his eyes betrayed the lie.

Thelanna’s smile sharpened, eyes gleaming. “Mm. That’s all right. Figured I’d ask anyway—your ‘no’s always sound like they’re practicing to be a ‘yes.’”

“I—um… Well, it’s not that I don’t want you to,” he said quickly, meeting her gaze for half a breath before looking away again. “Truth be told… I rather enjoy it—how you make me feel like I’m worth looking at.” One hand clenched the sheet into a fist, dragging it slightly toward himself as though a fold of cloth could stand in for armour. “I’m just… still accustoming myself to being looked at that way.”

“Fair enough.” Thelanna’s grin softened, though her voice stayed light. “Then I’ll just keep looking until you get tired of blushing about it.”

Galvahin rose slowly, the silk sliding from his thigh in a soft spill of fabric. He tested the leg, shifting his weight with the caution of a man gauging an unfamiliar bridge. Stalwart, it held, and the faint coolness of her magic lingered. He glanced at her, a small, wordless acknowledgement in the meeting of their eyes, before he bent to collect Meliora’s book.

At the bathroom door, he let it fall mostly shut, leaving a deliberate handspan of space. “I… may soak a while,” he said, eyes fixed on the book’s cover as though it demanded his full attention. “But if you’ve no urgent mischief to attend, I… wouldn’t mind the company. You could sit, and I’ll read you something—keep the water from having all my thoughts.”

From the bed, Thelanna tilted her head, her grin returning with easy precision. “Elvish love poetry from a bath? Laying a dangerous trap there, Galv.”

“Only a trap if you walk into it,” he replied, lips curving faintly as the sound of running water joined the quiet between them. His brows knit a moment later. “To be clear, that was not… in any way an invitation. Merely a turn of phrase.”

“All I’m hearing is a great deal of yapping, and precious little in the way of swooning verse or those nice, lazy sounds a man makes when he’s finally relaxing.”

The knight muttered something uncouth as he undid the ties, letting silks slip away in quiet layers. The air of the chamber felt cool against newly bared skin, a chilled contrast to the slow, rising warmth of the bath. He stepped in, the heat uncoiling through his calves and thighs until his shoulders sank below the waterline. 

“There,” he said, retrieving the book before tipping his head back. “I’m in. You’ll have your pretty words as soon as I’m sure I can breathe without sighing too much and giving you the wrong idea. Any requests?”

“Oh, I’d never take the wrong idea from a man sighing in the tub,” she called, voice warm with mischief. “As for requests… surprise me. Something lush, something indecent—something you’d only dare read aloud if I were sitting on the rim beside you.”

“I doubt I’d make it past the first line if you were,” he chortled, rifling absently through the gilt-edged pages. The paper gave a soft rasp under his fingertips as he searched for a likely stanza. “But if you insist, I’ll do my best to keep the reading steady from the other room. Just don’t expect the diction to come out flawless when you keep unsettling my poise at every turn.”

In the next beat, his brassy timbre unspooled in Elvish—low, liquid, and measured—as the sound of the language became a current in its own right. Vapour lifted in veils; water lapped with a patient hush. He told of dawn on a shingle-bank where a or-tel-quessir (wood-elf in Common) stood calf-deep, skirts kilted, hair bound in a cord of river-grass. The net the Elven fisherwoman’d mended by starlight hung from her shoulder like a woven reverie, and the river grinned back with a thousand bright teeth.

The pike came first as rumour in the eddies—a green-silver flicker, a coil of muscle beneath the ripples, a hiss that might have been nothing more than water stroking the stones—until rumour became weight: a drag at the net, a wrench at her wrists, the clean pull of strength answering strength. Galvahin spoke her bracing stance, the give of gravel beneath her soles, the bruise that would flower at one hip where the rope bit, and how she laughed at it, teeth bared at the river as if daring it to take more.

The struggle made music of itself. Cords groaned. Net-lines sung. Her breath counted the beats. And then the turn: the mesh thrummed like a struck harp, and what rose was not only fish: scales slid away in a glittering rush from a man’s back; broad shoulders breached, scattering droplets like flung coins; reed-dark hair streamed heavy to a thick nape; rivulets chased themselves in quicksilver offshoots across a chest built for wrestling whitewater. Burly and stout, the nixie shook himself free of the last green light and grinned through it, all appetite and old river-law.

Galvahin’s cadence softened on the next part, as though tasting each sound before letting it go. The nixie spoke, not pleading but pronouncing: her cast had marked him, and marks had to be owned. If she wished to keep her catch, and to make amends for the scuffed pattern along his flank, she must claim him by the rites of the water—“claim him”—the word snagged; Galvahin’s knee tapped the tub’s rim and the bath answered with a shallow knock. He found the line again. The fisherwoman, who knew cords and knots and the way to gentle stubborn things, waited a heartbeat longer, then stepped close, palms wet, to set about restitution as the river keeps it.

The knight recited how she drew a little jar of oil from her pouch—linseed sweetened with crushed mint—and worked it along the damaged scale-bed with the pads of her thumbs, patient as prayer. At her touch, the nixie’s breath deepened, his lids half-lowering. She counted the missing places, kissed each bruise of bare skin as if to lend it back its shine, and smoothed the rest until he gleamed like a spearhead rising from the waves. Only then did she take him: a green ribbon looped once about his wrist, a knot pulled tight against his pulse, and a mouth laid to his with the authority of one who has earned both catch and kiss.

Through the crack in the door, Thelanna’s laugh feathered the air. “Proper contrition,” she murmured, approval bright. He continued. 

The nixie, appeased and pleased and owned in the only way a river-spirit can be, bore her down to the grotto below the root of the stream, where the ceiling sparkled with pink mica and the water tasted faintly of salt. There, he gave her the rest of the river’s due—warmth and weight and a thousand little liberties—and when they rose again at noon, the shingle was heaped with fish, silvering the whole bank in the zenith sun. She loosed the ribbon, but he kept it, wearing the knot like a boast. And if, in later years, the river flashed green at dusk, it was only the nixie turning his wrist to see whether the knot still remembered his name.

Galvahin’s voice ebbed with the last line, and the bath breathed around him. From the bed, a soft, pleased hum: “Lush enough. Indecent enough. I could float on that cadence—those accents, though? No offence, Galv, but they come at the words like oars at minnows.”

“Guilty,” he chuckled. “Most of my Elvish lives on the page—my eyes learned it better than my tongue ever did.”

“Do you ever hear yourself?” she called with a laugh. “Eyes, tongue—you continue to hand me bait like that and hope I’ll be polite?”

“I—ah… yes, well, perhaps I should have chosen my words with more… hm… separation?” He rose, the water’s heat slipping from the curls on his chest in a rush of steam, and reached to pull the drain. The sound of the tub emptying filled the pause as he caught up a towel from the peg, wrapping the linen about his waist and working another over his shoulders. The easy pace of the bath gave way to brisk, frugal motions, as though dressing quickly might prevent any further ammunition from landing in Thelanna’s hands.

The latch clicked, and he emerged, hair tousled from the towel, undershirt loose over his frame, and brais still creased from the fold. “I can’t promise I smell like linseed and mint,” he said, with a glance that faltered almost as soon as it met hers, “but I am clean.” He moved toward the bed in a slow, steady line, as if each step gave him time to remember how little he was wearing.

Thelanna tipped herself sideways, the moss beneath her springing back with a faint sigh as she made a space at her side. “Let me guess—palms pruny enough to read fortunes in? Come closer and I’ll check.”

With the care of someone settling after a long day’s march, he sat beside her, one hand braced on the bed as he covered a yawn with the other. “If you were hoping for the full raisin effect, you’ll be disappointed. I kept my hands on the book most of the time.” He worked a knuckle beneath his brow, chasing the last blur from his gaze.

“If that yawn’s any measure,” she remarked, her gaze tracing the faint shadows beneath his eyes, “you haven’t slept a wink since last night, have you?”

“A little. Not enough.”

“Tragic,” she said, already on her feet and crossing to the window, shuttering the light to a softer wash. The room cooled. When she returned, it was with the steady assurance of someone setting camp—blankets pulled up, pillow set just so—before nudging his shoulder toward it. “There. No excuses now—unless you want me singing lullabies.”

“Fine. Alright,” he mumbled, already sinking. He let the bed and covers take him, the room’s green hush closing in like a palm around a candle. “Stay?” he asked, not quite looking at her.

“Already decided,” she said, settling beside him and tucking the sheet’s hem under his shoulder.

He made a small, contrary sound, the kind a guard makes when he means to keep watch and the body has already decided otherwise. The moss cupped his shoulder; the pillow learned the shape of his skull. The shuttered light went green and gentle; amber and cool water scented the hush. Piece by piece, the day unhooked from him—first the set of his jaw, then the careful hold at his brow, then the bracing in his ribs. He turned onto his side with the caution of a man minding where he’s been hurt, keeping the mended leg uppermost, curling just enough that fabric rasped at his flank.

Thelanna did not move except to be steady. Her breath measured his into something regular. A faint creak passed through the living wood, roots remembering wind, before settling to be content with quiet again.

Half-asleep, Galvahin slid one hand free of the blankets, knuckles pale in the dim, and let it feel blindly along the furs. Her palm turned up to meet it as if she had been expecting him. His fingers found the heel of her hand, then the warm track of her lifeline, and closed—no claim, only a grateful, unshowy squeeze. Her thumb answered in a slow circle.  With that touch anchored, his breathing lengthened; the last of his vigilance went out like a lamplight, and he drifted.

 

☙ ✠ — ⋆⁺‧☽ · ❦ · ☾‧⁺⋆ — ✠ ❧

 

It was a country of no landmarks, where the senses wandered without map or master. Slumber drew Galvahin into a sea of colour: vermilion rising through him like warm wine, spilling into gold faintly scented of apricots, then settling into the tranquil green of crushed wheatgrass. No shapes or stories formed here, only hues and attendant tastes, each note carried on a private breeze. Everything came and went as if a painter rinsed a brush in his thoughts. Snow crunched underfoot; air hung humid; a low hum vibrated in his teeth; the bright tang of pomegranate seeds lingered on his tongue. Feelings rose and fell without sequence: sorrow into joy, anger blooming outward into restlessness. In the Feywild, even dreams defied logic; why spin tales, when waking was stranger than anything the mind could invent?

The drift quivered, rippled by a distant stir of voices—one bright, the other velvet-dark. Their laughter darted through the haze like fireflies, never close enough to catch. Galvahin floated in the sound, uncertain if he was listening or remembering, or if the dream had simply decided to grow its own voices.

His hand wandered outward through loosened sheets until it closed over another—cool, soft, reassuring. The air altered, pressure drawing toward him, steady as the hush before a branch bows under snowfall. He gave the limb a drowsy tug, and the world tilted as he turned onto his back. The weight moved beyond him as a shadow passed over. A whisper of long hair slipped against his chest, leaving a cool trace at his collarbone. Above, the light gentled, folding in on itself like petals at dusk.

The dimness swelled, not with shade alone, but with a hush pressing against his skin, as if he lay at the heart of a closing flower. A pulse quickened at the centre of his ribs—sharp with hope, sharp with dread—each beat pulling him toward whatever hovered above. Weight shifted; in the thickened air came a sensation of touch before touch: a whisper of warmth, the taste of breath not yet given, then the seal of lips pressing his just enough to tip the balance from dream into something perilously like lucidity.

His hand tightened reflexively, thumb brushing along its back. The kiss deepened, and he drank in the breath between them: tuberose, intoxicating, threaded with gardenia. The scents unfurled through him like a remembered promise, until the ache in his chest softened into something sweet, if twice as heavy. A sound escaped him, low and raw, a sigh that gave away more than words.

The parting of lips felt like a shift in tide, and Galvahin’s eyes followed after it, heavy-lidded, unhurried. He blinked into the dim, shapes resolving with the sluggishness of a man surfacing from deep water. The first thing he found was a smile, soft and amused, curtained by silver hair, followed by that familiar violet gaze. Surprise stirred faintly through the fog, but never enough to dislodge the quiet ease settling in his chest. If anything, the only thought that made it through the haze was how pleasant it felt to open his eyes and find Prince Oriel there.

“Did I oversleep, Milord?” he asked, his tone mild but weighted with drowsy irony. The answer didn’t matter; his focus shifted, slow as turning a page, and found Thelanna perched on the far side of the bed, simpering like a conspirator caught mid-prank.

“No, no… You’ve more than earned your rest. Though I ought apologize for trespassing.” His voice was gentler than Galvahin was used to hearing from him. “Thelanna thought you wouldn’t mind.”

With a soft snort, the dryad leaned back on her palms. “If you’ve been avoiding him on purpose today, that’s news to me.”

Galvahin blinked at her, a slow frown gathering like a shadow. “‘Avoiding him?’” His voice warmed, almost defensive, as his gaze drifted back to Oriel. “I’m not so faithless to my inclinations.”

If the prince heard Thelanna’s aside, he gave no sign; he stayed fixed on Galvahin, the faintest curl of amusement resting in his mien. “Then I trust you’ll forgive my intrusion,” he murmured. “And perhaps forgive me again, should I request your company?”

“I should think you know, Sire,” he replied, voice still thick with sleep, “permission and forgiveness are wasted on such things. It needs only to be spoken—and I will follow.”

A quick, high noise escaped Thelanna, smothered almost instantly by a demure clearing of her throat. “Much as I’d love to stay, I do have an engagement to keep,” she said, emerald eyes lingering just long enough to suggest she knew exactly what she was leaving behind. “Enjoy your evening.”

Galvahin stretched with a low yawn, eyes following her as she rose and made for the door. “You needn’t rush off,” he said, “I’d not turn you out.” The sentiment hung between them only long enough for his gaze to seek Oriel’s. “Th–that is… if it pleases His Grace.”

He gave the knight’s hand another faint squeeze. “Your courtesy does you credit, Jackalope,” he said, “but if the lady is set on leaving, would it not be cruel to keep her?” Coy and winking, he added, “I’m not in the habit of keeping a guest captive…”

A quiet huff escaped Galvahin. “Strange, then, that I seem to be the exception to that habit.”  

“So unkind,” Oriel murmured. “It must be stranger, then, how often you lean nearer rather than away.” 

For a heartbeat, the thought of answering seemed almost unnecessary. When Galvahin did speak, it was quiet, almost conspiratorial: “And even stranger still that you’d accuse me of naming you anything other than a most attentive gaoler.”

Pressing a palm to her chest, Thelanna gave an exaggerated sigh. “Best wishes, Galv. I’d offer to rescue you, but… well, you look perfectly comfortable.” She was halfway out the door before either of them could answer, her steps quick and light as though she’d merely ducked out for air.

The latch clicked shut, and the silence it left behind felt oddly weighty. Galvahin realized, with a start, that Oriel’s hand had never once left his. He could have pulled away, but the thought didn’t even brush the edge of his mind. Somewhere in the stillness, the rhythm of the prince’s breathing had settled into his own, and he found himself reluctant to disturb it. 

“You’re meant to look more troubled in the company of your gaoler, you know.”

A small, wry smile tugged at Galvahin’s lips. “Sire… may I speak without the trappings of courtesy for a moment?”

“Without courtesy? My, you wound me,” Oriel cajoled. “But yes—let’s hear what you’re hiding under all those manners.”

Galvahin’s mouth opened, then closed again, as though the words might change shape if he waited. His eyes dropped to their joined hands, tracing the pale ridges of the prince’s knuckles with the edge of his thumb. “My thanks are a thin coin for what you’ve given,” he said, voice steadying as it went. “Kindness freely offered. Gifts beyond measure. Ventures with honest edges. Redress, swift and clean, to a filthier insult than I deserved. And the license you gave: do as the fey do; have fun.” He smiled, shy and helpless. “I am having fun—despite everything.”

Oriel drew breath as if to speak. 

“Grant me a moment more,” Galvahin asked, lifting a hand. “You are not easily read, Sire; I honour that. But I would know whether my presence pleases you. How you hold me in your regard. If I am kept only by courtesy, say so, and I will bear it. If—” He paused. “And if you feel any burden for the hag’s deeds because they brushed me while I stood in your shadow, lay it down—its malice is not your ledger.” He exhaled. “I care for you. Past what a tidy little chapter on chivalry prescribes. If you want anything of me—name it. You may call on me as friend as readily as you command me as errant in thy service.”

For a long while, Oriel said nothing, only watched him with that violet gaze turned inward. When he spoke, the words were quieter than Galvahin expected. 

“Would you have me weigh your care on scales? Or will you take mine the way spring receives a shower—felt on the skin, and not counted as drops?” He brushed a strand from the knight’s brow. “You wish for the forecast behind my eyes—clear skies or storm. If I say ‘fair,’ will you leave your cloak… or keep it, just in case?”

Galvahin let the question sit between them, tasting the shape of its edges, the truth it sought. His eyes followed the slow drift of the prince’s hair as it caught the light, then returned to his face. 

“I’d bring an umbrella,” he said at last. “One to share.”

A quiet laugh escaped Oriel, low in his throat. “You’d shield me from my own skies? How gallant. I’d wager you’d hold it over me first, though.” He leaned in, his voice dropping. “And here I hoped you’d sooner dance in the rain with me.”

The knight blinked at him, slow and disbelieving. “Gamble with Your Grace’s health for the sake of a dance? I think not. I’d be disgraced in every ballad from here to the Far Realms.”

Oriel threw his head back and guffawed, the sound bright and unrestrained. “Oh, you poor, sheltered thing—you’ve no idea how mad the Far Realms’ bards truly are. They’d sooner pen a knight courting a weathervane than cast you a villain in your own tale.” Shifting upright in one smooth motion, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. “Come—we should go, before someone adds ‘slothen layabouts’ to our titles.”

“Better a weathervane than a thundercloud. But sloth?” Galvahin chuckled. “That I can’t have on my epitaph.” 

He swept the furs and sheets from his lap—only to still at the sight of Oriel, motionless mid-breath, violet eyes gone wide in the kind of surprise one didn’t expect from a prince.

Galvahin followed that gaze—and the air seemed to shear away from his lungs. In the lazy sprawl of sleep, he’d twisted himself into disarray: his undershirt had ridden high enough to bare the breadth of his torso, the thick pelt of hair across his chest tapering to the softer swell of his stomach, which in this slouched posture lapped gently over the waist of his brais. The silk there, too, had bunched, gathering high over his hips to frame a dense thicket of dark curls and the unapologetic weight of his loins, pressed heavily against the fold of cloth. One nipple stood bare in the cool air, the other veiled only by the rucked hem of his shirt. Mortification hit him with the force of a lance; his chest rose too fast, too shallow, and yet he couldn’t make himself move, as though any shift might acknowledge the exposure or—worse—invite further attention to it.

Yet for all his notorious control, the easy balance in Oriel’s posture faltered, one shoulder settling lower as though the weight of the room had shifted. His gaze clung too long to the place it shouldn’t have, violet darkening by shade before he broke it with an almost imperceptible shake of the head. 

Briefly, he felt oddly apart from himself, watching from some impossible distance as the prince’s gaze mapped him. The heat in his own face said move, cover yourself, say something, yet no command reached his limbs. Nothing emerged. His throat worked soundlessly, and in the quiet, the fact of being seen so wholly seemed to speak for him.

Though his own eyes skittered away in shy, uneven arcs, Galvahin let him look. Now that the bandage had been ripped free, the sting dulled, and a strange calm crept in. Oriel had not turned away in distaste, nor spoken a word to cut him down. If anything, the silence bristled with the suggestion of something undisclosed, the sort that the knight could not intimate aloud. And if it was for that only other reason a man might gaze at him like this for so long, well, that certainly couldn’t be called awful. A tender pride rose in his chest, small, startled. Absurd as it seemed, he was holding an archfey’s attention captive, and it called to mind Penthesia’s dry aside from the day before, about knowing where the reins truly lay.

It felt almost rather plain, then, for the knight to fumble for modesty—to sour beneath the searing appraisal of another. After all, guidance had been given that he savour such things with grace. So, merely by being and not flinching, and by permitting a bitter moment to sweeten of its own accord... he did.

Notes:

Not | Big Thief

It's not the warm illusion
Nor the crack in the plate
Nor the breath of confusion
Nor the starkness of slate

———

If this chapter or arc stirred any thoughts or feelings, I’d love to hear them—please feel free to leave a comment or question below. Thanks for reading! 🙏💜

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Vesper Eques