† Kohryn †
They'd carried each other through the woods. Over and down unfamiliar rolling hills and past trees she vaguely recognized. She'd collapse and one of the men would pick her up. She'd regain consciousness, then one of them would go down. A sickly progression across the land. Whenever one fell the other two would take up dragging their body.
Each one of them wanted to escape the prison more than the next and whoever was strongest standing took the mantle of pulling them forward.
The singing being, worse among them with his twisted appearance and electric white hair, would be the first to tire and collapse. The mimic and Kohryn dragged him a bit further before the mimic keeled over as well.
She did not recall how long she kept moving after that.
The singing mans command of 'breathe' and 'escape,' still rang in her mind. Despite her mangled state, air filled her lungs and sirens long faded into the distance still played in her mind.
Escape! Escape! And she'd continue to move across the land.
For miles she must have walked. The leather bag secured to her back, the singing man draped across her shoulder, and the ankle of the mimic in one hand.
His skin was odd and malleable, and her iron tight grip molded into his flesh.
She could have left him. Maybe even should have killed him.
He was the reason she was in the prison after all. He found her for the priests and captured her like some kind of trained hunting hound. Every time she looked over at him she had the overwhelming desire to stomp on his unconscious face.
Then she'd remember that sad look he gave her. '-doing these things was never my intention. I just want to survive.' That's what he'd said, staring up at the sky how she knew she also stared at the sky. Later, during their fight, as the squat leader had been yelling threats at him, it became clear to her that he too was a captive.
He'd also led them out of the maze like hallways of the complex. Under the threat of death, but he still did it.
So she dragged him along.
Eventually little black stars began to gather in her eyes, and her head started to pulse as her ear drums took up ringing. The stars turned to splotches and the ground came up to kiss her face.
Dim beans of sunlight dappled a cocoon of foliage wrapped around her like a protective shell. Kohryn resisted the urge to panic when stiffened binds slid away as she rustled awake.
However she did not escape the little flinch that went up her spine when she realized she was bound to the chest of the singing man. Both by root and the cage of his arms. Her breath hitched until she noted the rhythmic sound of his soft snoring.
His features had settled in his slumber.
No longer filled with adrenaline or eyes full of blood, she took a moment to marvel at the man. He'd said he was from another realm, and she believed it. He looked nothing like anything she'd ever seen before. In some ways, he reminded her of the vypnyr that she met in her dream. But the singing man was not as beastly.
He was slender and lean, with skin that rolled like storm clouds passing in the night. All shades of gray violet and slate. His features made Kohryn think of an evil cupid. Long delicate ears, curving lips, a nose that slightly sloped up paired with crescent shaped eyes sealed in thick lashes. It was a dishonest face.
Short hair looked soft and electric. Kohryn wondered if it would shock her if she ran her hand through its luminous strands.
She resisted the temptation.
"Tell me what you see?" He suddenly sang.
Kohryn gasped and tried to pull back. She hadn't noticed his snoring stop and he didn't open his eyes.
His grip tightened, trapping her against him and he sang again, "Well what do you think?"
The song traveled through her blood and urged her to say what she thought of him. Annoyed, she fought it with a huff, "Why?"
He sighed. "Because I'm curious." The command tugged down the bond. Kohryn could feel the pulsing line between them. "Please." He flavored a plea in song.
"Are you going to sing every question and demand that you have of me?"
He smirked. "Are you going to counter my questions and demands with questions and demands every time I make them?"
Kohryn hardened her gaze, then a wicked thought came to her. "Okay. How about I answer your questions and then you answer one of mine." She bit her lip. She didn't know how long she could resist the compulsion of his spell. "Truthfully. You have to answer truthfully."
"Sure." His smirk became devious.
"Promise."
He bent his head low, his eyes didn't open but Kohryn knew he could see her. "I promise." He sang his whisper
.
"You look like a smug bastard." She paired her words with what she hoped was a sweet smile. Based on what her younger self told her she probably just looked like a bastard as well.
He laughed, a sound that made the foliage around them flutter. "Truly?'
Kohryn paused at his soft tone and felt as he probed down the odd bond, searching for a genuine answer. "Hmff. Only in the most beautiful way. I think the saying 'handsome devil' is appropriate." Her admission broke the song spell and its command fizzled from her veins.
He smiled to himself with a nod, "I'm glad you think so, I'm no devil though." The roots around them rattled.
Calculation fluttered across her eyes. "My question is not about your species. But if you wish to tell me…"
The sharp tongued man's lips finally broke to reveal pearly teeth. "How about we hear your question first?"
Kohryn shrugged then took a deep breath. She didn't know what would happen next. 'Emry' said she'd sung in her dream but she didn't know if she could while awake.
"What is your name?"
His ears drooped, and his mouth fell slack.
Apparently she could.
They watched one another with bated breath. Kohryn felt like she was falling waiting to see what he would do, his arms still wrapped around her.
His face relaxed, that sinful smile reappeared and he dragged her closer. The sides of his lips ran across her cheek as he hovered over her ear. "That sounds more like a demand than a question."
"It's only a name." She said innocently and tilted her head, their breaths intermingling. His eyes were open just a hint and blackened pupils the color of his resins watched her intently.
† Delta †
His decisions were usually thought out. Things of logic and reason.
But when the pretty wrath with the power of celestial gods sang out the spell song, his brain seemed to short circuit.
The strange connection between them pulsed with a heated awareness.
He cupped the back of her head as he leaned in. "Will you be kind with it?"
"Will you be kind with mine?" The little goddess wanted reassurance that he would not abuse the song of her soul.
His heart sped up. The awareness that viewed him in their bond at the forefront of his mind.
Delta nodded, yet his typical cunning smile still flitted about his mouth. "I promise not to be too cruel." She'd possessed him. Her and her infinite power. It was the only conclusion he could think of.
Kohryn rolled her eyes at 'too cruel'.
"But I must inform you, exchanging names is a very intimate act to my people."
Her yellow gaze did not waver. "My people do not have this custom of name sharing. But we are big on 'fairness'. And I think it's only fair. Besides, you already promised to answer my question truthfully."
The nightfae in him hummed, a wanton hedonist driving his impulsivity. Surely if anyone was worthy of his name it was the goddess with infinite magic.
Or perhaps her own influence had already begun to infect him. Through the tether of his own spell. Oh sweet irony.
Whatever the reason, skepticism and all his wits fled him as he brought her close once more. "You may call me Delta."
"Delta." She sang back his name as if she were tasting it and a shutter ran through them.
All his morose keys twinkled and the softer notes of her own song mixed in.
Then he felt her power. A churning red vapor that tangled across the lines of his own influence. They came down the bond and sank into his body. The well opened up and the song hollowed out.
Avenues with her access to infinite vyra became plain to him.
Some winding streams he could barely see. Ones containing access to her mind were shaded but there. And others appeared cut short, leading to an edge of darkness he could not peer into.
Delta was sinking his face into the crook of her neck.
The hands she'd kept pasted to her body until then, wrapped under his arms and held the back of his shoulders. She took shuddering breaths as the spell fluxed between them.
"Breathe." He sang to them both, and she leveled out. Her favored breathing pattern triangular and measured. It was a naturally stabilizing technique.
Their breaths fell in sync after a moment.
Delta was waiting for regret or rationality to grace him, but it never came. Instead he asked, "What did you think?" As the singer of the spell this time she would have heard his song in much more definition than he.
She didn't lift her head, her fingers squeezed into his shoulder. "Your song…" she paused to think, "sounded like longing. It's beautiful but sad."
He hummed and stoked the back of her head. "What can I say? I am a yearning and covetous being."
They remained silent for quite some time.
Then Kohryn broke their calm and cleared her throat. "Why are we covered in roots and why are you holding me?" She looked around the little hollow shell they rested in. "And where is the mimic?"
"I asked the trees to grant us protection, so they've let us hide in their roots. Your mimic should be somewhere nearby."
She tried to scoot of him and fall to the side, which rugged at his cuts and gashes. He winced, grabbing her again. "Hold still." He took a pained breath. "The reason I'm holding you is for your energy."
She finally took stock of his state. He was wrapped in his bandages, shirtless, and covered in soot. They both were haggard.
"Does it help with the pain?"
"Your power is so strong it leaks down the connection." It'd been her energy funneling through his system as he lit the prison on fire. On his own he couldn't even carry himself, but with her aid he'd burned the complex to the ground.
She scanned his body again and tentatively picked at the edge of stained gauze wrapping his shoulder. "Let's clean out the metals."
Delta nodded. "I can hear water nearby."
He groaned as he reached out, ran a hand along the wood and asked for release. The tree happily unfurled and pushed them up from the root ball and into the late morning sun.
He could feel her momentarily marvel at the experience.
Above the surface of the soil she was the first to stand. And abruptly fell as she let out a short scream.
Delta sat up as fast as he could, scanning the forest for an attacker.
"Fuck." She groaned.
"What is it?"
"I think my ankle is broken." She grabbed at an obviously swollen foot and let out another yelp. "Yeah, broken."
It was the foot she'd kicked through two different walls.
"After the explosion, when we fell into the yard, I lost some of my concentration." She admitted. Her head fell to the ground.
Anyone would have lost concentration after witnessing that. Delta suddenly had the urge to choke the mimic for telling her it was her fault when she asked what was happening.
His eyes found the other man easily. Curled at the base of a tree nearby he still slumbered.
Delta held out a hand and a branch moved down to help him rise. He stumbled forward, sleeping and Kohryn's energy providing enough strength for him to help her stand as well.
It was a painful walk heavily assisted by the trees, who reached out in perfuming worry over the fae. Soon a chain of branches interlinked like railing leading them right to the water.
Sweaty and huffing by the time they got there, his commands of 'breathe' no longer worked for either of them.
Kohryn sighed in relief when the branches finally lowered them into the water.
"Great realms." Delta joined in.