Archive of Our Own ^beta

There’s a moment— between dreaming and wakefulness where all lines seem to blur and time itself becomes obsolete. Like snow upon a gale that seems not to fall, but float above the ground.

Opening your eyes after so long feels less like waking and more like being remembered by the world. Breath returns first— hesitant, testing— followed by the slow insistence of weight and gravity. The house does not greet her. No footfalls echo, no kettle sings, no familiar rustle answers the quiet. Only stillness remains, settled thick as ash, as though time itself passed through while they slept and took everything warm with it. Their home stands intact yet emptied, holding its breath, waiting to see if the mage is truly returned.

They stand on shaky legs, muscles stiff and weak with disuse, making their way to a small rune in the corner of their home, tucked between the bed and wall. 

The stone beneath Vers’ hand pulsed faintly— warm with old magic and long memory, source stone at the very foundation of the home she had built for herself. Dust filtered through the cracks in the ceiling above, disturbed by the breath of the underground. Their palm stayed pressed to the rune carved into the wall, waiting for the wards to recognize them. It had been too long since they had been set in place, fueled by the archwood of the Underground Forest to keep them in their solitude while finding rest— letting none but those they allowed to pass.

A hum, soft and familiar, answered them as their home unwound: passages opened, warp stone engaged, and doors unlocked.

They hadn’t expected to awake to company, much had been said in fear and stress and anger that no doubt soured with time ad they dreamt. A promise to be there when they returned did not mean a promise to be present, especially when neither had had any sure way of knowing the date and hour that their waking would occur.

They needed to apologize.

The Informant had been right. Even as they rested the visions persisted. Even as they stood now, the voices began to whisper to them.

It didn’t matter.

Not right now. Not when all they wished to do was bathe the years from their skin and be held in the arms of the one they loved.

There was time for debates later, as was the nature of the passionate and beloved. They would need a new plan and there was much to write after so many dreams had plagued their rest, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Tonight was meant for more pleasant times— to eat and drink and sit beneath the trees of their home who had kept them safe in the years waking mana could not.

The mage made their way to the water elevator swiftly, the lock to the door disengaged with a small click. The water, clear and pure still flowed, suspended in place and easy to step into on their journey upwards.

Vers stepped into the passage, pulling their cloak tight against the cold even as the water was pulled back from their form to its rightful place. Their joints ached from the long rest, but they said nothing. It wasn’t sleep, not truly— just the stillness of an elf who has lived too long and feels the weight of centuries. And dreams— not visions of what could and might and will and may be— but true dreams when they came, always carried a name on their breath.

Varya.

The lantern at Vers’s side flickered as they walked, dust covered floors and lightless candles. Moss grew thick between the bricks as they went, damp and untouched. The air changed—  growing heavier, denser, laced with rot and iron that had always accompanied this part of their journey . The smell of the deep.

When they reached the furthest end, they found it: the mouth of the tunnel where once had been the final gate, a harmony of magic and redstone machinery to act as hidden entrance between them.

Someone had bricked it up. Rough stone and mortar, newer than it should’ve been. Sloppy work. A warning, maybe. Or a grave.

Vers placed a hand to the obstruction, fingers splayed across the uneven surface. They whispered something old in the language of stars and deep rivers. The stones began to hiss.

Slowly, the barrier unraveled under their spell— unweaving  earthly mana sleeping in stone and dust, and dirt, into time, until the path opened once more.

The Vampire Sewers sprawled out ahead like veins under the city. Silent. Forgotten. A mixture of blood and water lapped at the stone edges, glowing faintly with the rusted lanterns high above. Their old rowboat, hidden in a niche and layered in mildew, waited right where they’d left it.

Vers climbed in without a word and dipped the oars into the water. The tunnel groaned around them— walls thick with fungus and the scent of viscera long dried. Not even rats made homes down here anymore with the way the wood along the walls drew them in, seeping life from their forms. Seldom even vampires took advantage of the network beneath their feet.

They rowed until they reached the fork, then left again. Right again. Down. Always down. Finally, the tunnel widened, ever so slightly.

The boat bumped against the edge of a makeshift wooden platform, and Vers stepped out. The air was wrong. Too still. Too silent. The informant’s carefully hidden door had been left open, like a gaping maw becoming them forward with an eagerness their inhibitor had never shared. At the threshold, the scent— stale blood, scorched velvet, ash— struck them first.

And then they saw her— a beacon of light, mane of white hair shining against the darkness that surrounded them.

White hair. White skin. And the most beautiful splattering of RED.

Her feet refused to move.

Their heart did not.

Not at first.

Then— slowly, soundlessly— they stepped forward, a single word rising from their lips:

“…No.”

In an instant, the chilled air of the sewer behind them turned to ice, digging its jagged fingers into their lungs with a vengeance.

“No, no, no, no, no.”

His knees hit the ground before they were able to breathe again; their hands trembling as they reached forward— fingers ghosting over the blood-crusted fabric. Grey fabric turned brown and black where it clung to their chest.

Varya’s eyes were closed. Her skin pale in a way he never let it get to, not since they had met. Not when they fed regularly, or regularly enough. Not when she smiled and fresh blood filled pallid cheeks, peaking out beneath their mask.

“Love…” Vers’ voice breaks. “Love, wake up.”

They press a hand to her chest, desperate, searching for warmth, the slow, aching beat of a heart, anything.

“Please— Please, no.” Their breath came  ragged then, short and shallow as moisture gathered in their eyes. “Varya…”

The mage cupped her cheek, thumb brushing under the scarred skin of an eye like they could smooth away the chill that threatened to overtake them— traveling from their skin into her own.

“Varya, my love, ” the words came even shakier then, quivering past a barely restraining sob, “Gods…”

A lock of Varya’s hair fell across her face and Vers brushed it back tenderly, like they used to, as if he might stir at the touch.

“You’re just as beautiful as I remember.”

“Varya, please wake up.” Their voice was smaller then. Empty of command. Full of begging— pleading to the Gods, to Varya, to anyone who might listen; anyone who might do something.

“You promised,” the words fell from their lips like shards of broken glass upon the stone, “You promised me you’d be there.”

Death was meant to be beautiful. To lay beneath trees from whence they came and listen to the silence. To let time pass in dreamless nothingness. Long lives coming to an end like the last pages of a well worn book. Blissful eternity, together in tranquility…

This was not beautiful.

It was lonely and cold and dark in a way that they had never thought dark could be.

They looked around the chamber— blood on the stones, stakes splintered, torn cloth where once there were velvet drapes. The smell of iron still clung to everything. To Varya. To the place their bodies met in the cruel mockery of a lover’s embrace.

The weapon, whatever it had been, was spirited away with its wilder leaving only its carnage behind. Long gone from the chamber and years apart from the act of violence that currently surrounded the Seer and the Informant.

“Things are supposed to be better,” they whispered, more to themselves than any words they had spoke so far. Around them, the silence grew ever louder.

The world spins on without mercy.

“What am I gonna do?”

There’s no one left to answer.

They don’t expect one.

Vers gathered Varya into their arms even further, every joint— every nerve in their body— protesting against the effort it takes, lifting him with all the care of a lover waking someone from a dream. Their body wasn’t heavy.

Shouldn’t it have been heavy? Had Uni’s been? Had Lulium? Had Kai?

Lifeless…

They sat on the cold stone floor, cradling him against their chest like something sacred. Vers closed their eyes, burying their face in her hair, rocking gently, a wordless keening in their throat, until silence swallowed the chamber whole.

+

The dying wish for the people of the forest—

“And when we fall, let our bodies return to the trees made us.”