w: aasimarr

[infernaling]

1 . 2 . 3 . 4 .

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act 3; heads will roll

[infernaling]

[ It all comes to happen because she buys a newspaper from the square as they enter the city, and can't be bothered to correct the threats for gossip and misrepresentation. Bigger fish to fry, so to speak. She has shrugged it off, her reasoning a simple one: What's the Mouth going to do, talk about how I'm a horned devil?

That's her mistake, to think nobody in Baldur's Gate will know her enough to give a fuck about whatever the papers print about her.

It doesn't happen right away, of course. It's a few weeks into being back in the city, with several blades already at Ea's throat (Orin's taken that sweet young child hostage, Gortash wants her to ally with him, Karlach actually believes she will, Cazador's been preparing for his ascension, Mystra probably wants some fucking thing from Gale as if she wasn't asking him to blow himself and all of them up for her - it's always some fucking thing) when the poisoned dart hits.

It's a metaphor, by the way. The Blackbirds don't have that sort of subtlety - that was Ea, once upon a time, the sleight of hand beaten into her from a young age, until slipping sleeping draughts and poison into wine glasses and beer barrels had come easily to her; not the rest, though.

It's nighttime in the city, and she is on a walk with Nico (she'll hate herself for this later). He's been watching her with worry as of late, as if expecting her to be a powderkeg ready to explode at the merest inconvenience. She knows she's tense, and she knows she's become withdrawn (from him, from the others) as of late - well, as of Orin slipping so easily into the rooms at Elfsong Tavern and taking that child from under their noses - but there's a reason for it.

The truth is, Ea does not see a way forward out of this. She has always considered her death a very real possibility, but now? Back in the city, back where everything is familiar? It's become more likely. If it's not the Emperor who does it (and let her just tell you, she doesn't trust that fucking guy), it'll be Gortash, or Orin, or the massive brain threatening to turn them illithid, or Raphael, or - or, or, or. Bottom line: she's going to die. She's sure of it. She's trying to minimise the pain for those left behind, in the only way she knows how: by pulling away from them.

Of course, Nico's not having it. Of course, she's weak to the tug of her heart. Nico is a magnet, he is a flame and he draws her in, and she is powerless to say no for too long because he is the one perfect, wonderful, good thing that's happened to her in years and he loves her, so -

If it's a walk at night that he wants, to clear our heads, then that's what he gets. They're making their way to Elfsong's after dinner at the Mermaid, the streets empty and quiet, the stars glittering above them - it's a picture perfect date.

She's considering stopping them in the middle of the street just to kiss him, feel the feathers of his mask tickle her nose, smile into the kiss all smug because she knows what he looks like without it, and then hell breaks loose.

She hears the movement behind her too late, something sharp nicking her throat (just an arrow, not deep enough to cut an artery). Her eyes widen, she reaches reflexively out for Nico, and just in that moment she sees them. The arrow that nicked her, and five more, in quick succession and shot from different angles, all embedding themselves into Nico's torso and back right in front of her eyes. ]

No - [ She manages that much, before her mouth feels slack, tongue replaced by cottonballs, and she clocks it again too late. Poison? No. Sleeping draught. Son of a b -

She crumbles onto the street, the last thing she sees the blurry figure of Nico faltering and collapsing as well.

And then, someone throws a bucket of cold water at her face. ]

Wake up, demon bitch.

[aasimarr]

[ Clarity comes at the expense of safety; Nico, too, will look back on his offer for a walk and regret it, not for the sentiment but for the foolhardiness of it all. He'd known, he'd seen, and he'd still planned poorly beforehand, despite the looming shadows of the Dead Three, the illithid threat, the ghost of their collective pasts nipping at their heels.

He'd known. It'd hurt him to watch Ea navigate her days and nights, going through the motions of conversations like hiding an open nerve. You'll bleed out like this, he'd said.

He'd meant the warning to be metaphorical. Now, it's a real possibility.

Nico comes to after their assault, the matter of the pain he feels less about where it's coming from and more about the sheer amount of it; his entire body feels like one interconnected bruise. Shifting reveals that he's been bound, wrists at the small of his back and ankles restrained with rope, leather bindings around his knees to prevent kicking. The floor of whatever cellar or warehouse they've been brought to is cold, caked with a layer of dust and grime, and rasps uncomfortably against his scarred face―

―but he's still alive. Lucid enough to feel a cold wash of fear (Ea, where is she, is she alright―), followed by a colder wave of anger, so immediate and all-consuming that he thinks he might choke around it (if they so much as touch her, he swears to every wrath-coded God in every plane).

The second sentiment prevails, when he hears the distant, fuzzy outline of a man's voice saying demon bitch. Nico, on the ground, struggles to raise his head to see where the conversation is taking place in the room; he's dissuaded by a heavy boot to his head, the dirty heel of it grinding with intent into his silver hair. ]

Fuck, the freak can still move! Stay down, loverboy.

[ A weak writhe, molars gritting. Ea, he tries to say, but his breath is a whisper despite the simmering of uncontrollable cosmic rage blinking behind his pale eyes.

(Something strange and unknowable, angelic and vengeful, whispers in his blood. You can punish them all, if they lay a finger on her.) ]

[infernaling]

[ Her surroundings come into focus in quick succession: how many people in the room, the weakest point of the ropes they've tied her arms behind her back with, the fact that they didn't find the thin but sharp dagger hidden into a secret stitch on the inside of her sleeve. She's sat on a chair, as if she's been left there for a show, arms behind her back, ropes restraining her into place.

The pain is a dull throb right now, ignorable for the moment while she tries to locate not who is talking (they are as good as dead now, and irrelevant) but Nico. Gods help these people if something happened to Nico, she will burn them all to a crisp. Not even their ancestors will recognise them from fireplace ashes.

Stay down, loverboy, someone hisses in the background, and the burn and panic inside her goes down to a simmer. Alive, good. ]

Good, you're awake. [ This from the guy with the bucket, a tall elf who looks at her with disgust. ] I have to say, Lowkey, ageing has not treated you kindly.

[ She doesn't bother with clearing her throat first, her voice raspy when it does come out. ] Whereas you still look like a pre-pubescent fuck, Elgar. [ As she speaks, her mouth fills with something - an excess of saliva? shouldn't be the case, the drow poison doesn't usually leave you drooling. Belately, she realises it's coppery in taste, and turns her head to spit out her blood at Elgar's feet. She must've bitten the inside of her cheek when she fell, or maybe her tongue. ] What do you want?

What I want is to be even, Lowkey. You took our Guildmaster and left, and in the power vacuum you left behind, there's been nothing but mess after fucking mess. Imagine my surprise when I get the papers and read about a tiefling matching your description exactly in Baldur's Gate. It took us a few weeks to track you down, but sure enough. I thought -

Ugh, sorry. Hold on. [ She spits again and pulls a face, before looking up at Elgar with a glare. ] Are you going to stand there and monologue at me all night, because I really couldn't give a fuck about what mess I made when I left the Guild. What do you want? An apology? Not happening. I am starting to regret not killing his honour guard while at it. [ A beat. ]

Nico, sweetheart, grunt if you're awake, yeah?

[aasimarr]

[ Whatever those arrows were coated with, it's done Nico no favors. It's a struggle to focus on any one thing in particular, frayed nerves made even worse with all of this rage that Nico doesn't know what to do with― it's new and frantic, something that Aylin might've called resplendent. A miasma, and the only thing that cuts through it is Ea's voice. He clings to it with mental claws and fangs, registering her cadence as music instead of words.

He thinks he understands her request, though, and tries to make noise. A soft, hoarse rasp, almost negligible and immediately punished by the boot on his head, its heel lifting only so it can lightly kick at Nico's jaw with its toe. ]

Don't get cute, Lowkey. You think you're in any position to bargain with us, huh?

[ The half-elf standing by Nico's prone body lifts his leg and digs his foot, this time, into the arrow wound he'd left on Nico's shoulder; Nico only registers that they've stripped his armor off when he feels the pressure of that dig directly against the thin fabric of his inner shirt.

He doesn't make a sound. They don't deserve it, and he doesn't want Ea to hear it. Instead, he curls in on himself, anger coursing through him like fire, making his ungloved fingers pulse blue. His assailant sees that faint glow, and spits at him― clearly unnerved by celestial traits, but putting on a brave face. ]

Hells, only a freak could fuck another freak like this. Now shut up and let Elgar finish.

[infernaling]

[ It's been almost a decade to the day since she left the island, the Guild left in shambles in her wake. She's spoken little of it, ever since; maybe given people little bits and pieces of her story, but never really being honest with what had happened to her old gang.

To reveal that is to reveal that she'd been used. Picked off the streets and brought into the fold of a criminal world with promises of food and shelter, trained and groomed into becoming first a good spy, then a fucking perfect assassin. She remembers Elgar, ten years back, newly appointed to the guards that the Guildmaster kept himself surrounded by, his right-hand man where Ea was his dagger. She remembers how little Elgar had liked her at the start, and how she'd thought herself clever and kind when she'd left him alive instead of killing him and the others, the night she took the Guildmaster out.

What a dumbass she'd been. She could be kind to twenty-year-old Ea, maybe, but kindness for herself is a trait that's been chipped out of her with time. It's hard to feel anything but disappointment right now.

Except for the relief of hearing that grunt from Nico, and noting his location even in the dim light. They never account of darkvision, elves. Elgar especially thinks he's the hottest shit around, so he wouldn't bother with it.

She looks from Nico up to the asshole who kicks him, and her eyes narrow. Focus is sharp, a dagger in her hand. You're first.

The half-elf says shut up and let Elgar finish, and Ea gives him what would by anyone sane be described as a feral smile. ]

No. [ Elgar's talked enough. Separately from the arcane tricks she has up her sleeves are a few infernal legacy spells she can wrench out of herself at greater cost - expending some energy to the point where she can only do this once a day.

She has the room mapped out like so: where Elgar is, where the fucker who's dying first is, where Nico is. She casts Darkness, and slips her dagger out of her sleeve with deft fingers, working on her bindings while the others curse and panic. ]

[aasimarr]

[ It should never be a failing, to have not killed someone. Nico still only knows the outlines of Ea's history in broad strokes, having never found the right time to delve deeper into it alongside all the other dark corners they've had to navigate throughout their journey―

―and he resents, no, hates that this is how he's seeing more of the details of it. An unfamiliar emotion that sits on the opposite side of the coin, right behind the unwavering wave of love he has for Ea; Nico adores her, which has left him wholly unprepared for how much he would loathe anyone who does her harm. The emotion continues to burn him, so hot in his veins that it feels like the poison burns out from his blood, evaporates, lending him divine clarity even when darkness falls.

Especially when darkness falls. Heightened arcane awareness sings in the back of his skull, as powerful as his illithid parasite; magical synesthesia allows him to taste Ea's spellcasting in the back of his throat. Ea, Ea, Ea.

Nico barely registers the commotion happening around him. Someone trips over him and collapses on the floor, but it feels like it's happening miles away. Radiant energy pours from his fingers, and disintegrates the rope around his wrists.

When Nico sits up, all the fallen man sees of him are twin pale eyes like ghosts in the dark; he screams, but the sound is cut off by a hand against his mouth, glowing fingers searing into bare skin, silent and furious. ]

You should've left her alone, [ Nico says, no warmth in his usually-soft voice. His grip tightens, and another muffled yell rings above the general panic, adding to the chaos and confusion. ]

[infernaling]

[ She sees everything within ten feet of her, which in this basement is pretty much everything and everyone. Sees the moment Nico's fingers burn through the ropes because it's when she finishes cutting through hers as well. With a swift move, she practically jumps out of the chair they had her tied to, grabs the back of it in both hands, and slams it sideways into Elgar - who stumbles in the dark and falls out of being caught unprepared.

The chaos continues. She is quick, side-stepping former guild-members left and right, and manifesting herself behind the half-elf who kicked Nico, just in time to hear that should've left her alone. ] This one's mine.

[ She jams the dagger in between the assailant's ribs, and twists, her gaze fixed on Nico in the magical darkness. This is why she learned this skill, to see him even in this environment.

She pulls the blade out, stabs twice more just to be sure, and then swipes the half-elf's sword out of its scabbard as he slumps lifelessly in Nico's hand. ] Here, take this.

[ They'll need to find his armor and weapon later. For now, she slips the shortsword into Nico's hand, squeezing it there so he knows it's her, she's fine, she'll be fine, and then steps into fighting range with Elgar. ]

[aasimarr]

[ Ea's presence is the eye of the raging storm; she approaches him, and the fury that clouds his eyes behind his mask abates enough that he stops blindly reacting to the things around him and concentrates, awareness dialed to her grip, her voice. Nico flings the dead body aside once she's done with it, feeling instinctively that his touch is better served for her, fingers around her wrists, searching for her pulse―

―but she's there and gone again, slipping gracefully out of his range and back towards her enemy, the one responsible for all of this, and the anger settles into his blood again.

If anything happens to her, he swears to the Gods.

The rest of his bindings are cut loose by the shortsword, knees and ankles; the vertigo that hits him when he stands up properly is mitigated by the blade-sharp focus that his rage affords him, physical discomfort shed in favor of pure fighting instinct. The next former-guild member to cross paths with him gets cleaved neatly in two, diagonally from shoulder to hip, bathing him in lukewarm blood.

(Celestial blood says good, Oathbreaker ghost says oh well.)

Nico is a monster in the dark, a glowing outline that the rest start fleeing from. An angel's benevolence is only offered until they become vengeful; every child in Faerun should know that. ]

[infernaling]

[ It all boils down to strategy now. The ones she has no beef with - she's been a lackey in a heist or a kidnapping, or even on one occasion a torture party, before and she knows that sometimes you're just a number - she takes out quickly. A small mercy, if you think about it.

Without the ability to see in magical darkness, or the space to exit it, it's all about picking them off one by one.

Elgar first, because the bastard is vicious and cruel and he will throw his underlings in front of Ea's daggers if he thinks it'll save him. She doesn't want him to think he's safe, she wants him to regret every remaining moment of his life, regret following her and holding onto the grudge, and mostly regret harming Nico.

None of this would've happened, if they'd just taken her out when she was alone. (Well, sure - they would've all died, but none of the suffering and the panic!)

The Knife of the Undermountain King takes out Elgar at the knees, the blunt of her other dagger taking him out of combat. She leaves him breathing, but barely - knocked out. She'll be back. He needs to learn his lesson properly before he dies.

While Darkness lasts, she goes after the others. Whoever Nico hasn't cleaved in half, she takes in two stabs per turn, until there's only one left. Then two more stabs, and the last one falls just as the magical darkness dissipates. ]

[aasimarr]

[ Darkness falls, and the room is carnage. A cellar somewhere, Nico presumes, though he's not paying attention to the details of the space as much as the bodies and blood painting it, the carrion of Ea's checkered past.

He finds that he feels nothing for them, the dead. Just the stillsame anger that he'd expressed in words before: you should have left her alone.

There are only three people alive now, sequestered by four stone walls and the grim silence of Nico's rage. Obviously, Ea isn't on the receiving end of all of this ire; Nico's attention flicks towards her, and it's pure relief that sits near his heart when he sees that she's still standing, red-stained but alive. Still beautiful, even in her ferocity.

It's the other one, the one that Ea called Elgar, who remains problematic. He watches the elf come to, groaning as he tries to drag his broken body over the dirt-covered floor, too close to Ea for comfort.

So Nico closes the distance, and steps on one outstretched hand, hard enough to feel bone yielding under his weight. The resounding sound of his screaming still barely registers; Nico tips his head to the side, as dispassionate as a hawk watching a mouse scurry by, and lifts his foot again.

This time, it lands squarely on Elgar's head, and the sick sound of his skull caving cuts off the last of the man's screaming. ]

[infernaling]

[ The moment her eyes adjust to the natural light again, they focus on Nico. There's a whole room of bodies (and Elgar) between them, and the distance burns. She doesn't need more than a few seconds to quickly run the inventory. He's taken some damage, but the blood spattering his skin isn't his, because he is standing without any of the characteristic swaying of an injured person.

And then, she is locked into place as she looks at him crush Elgar's hand underfoot, her gaze on Nico rather than the ghost of her past. What does it say about her that she thinks he is hot as fuck when he does that dispassionate, predatorial head tilt?

She sees the foot rise again, her breath catching, and then - gone. Elgar is gone. They're all gone.

She sways on her feet a little, adrenaline rushing out of her in one swoop. She crosses the room over to Nico, her hand settling on his arm. ]

Hey. That's enough, don't turn him into juice. [ She's going to have to dig through some pockets to find a healing potion or two, by the looks of it. Her fingers graze a tear in his shirt, where an arrow had pierced him before, and she can't help the small, choked apologetic sound that escapes her. ] I'm sorry, I - I should've expected them to follow me, I don't know why I got complacent, and you're hurt, I've put you in harm's way, fuck -

[aasimarr]

[ There are injuries― pockmarks where arrows embedded into his back, when they were first ambushed― but the pain's been buried under six feet of adrenaline and fighting instinct, concern and confusion and anger. Nico is barely thinking about them, though, his brain rubber-band-snapping to Ea when she approaches him, her words a pleasant blur that cuts through the roar of his blood in his ears.

His hands are blood-slick; he wielded a shortsword like a broadsword in close range, and the aftermath of his violence is all over his fingers. Stepping away from the gore of what used to be Elgar, he pivots to face Ea, touching her bruised face with painful care, so at odds with all the dispassion with which he'd slaughtered half the room a minute ago.

He doesn't want her to apologize to him. Still masked and with his hands pulsing blue, he pulls Ea closer to him and presses his mouth to hers, tasting blood on her torn lip, cutting off anything else she has to say, because it hurts his heart to hear it. ]

[infernaling]

[ She searches his face for answers that aren't coming as soon as he cups her face, the words dying off on her lips but a moment later.

Then his mouth is on her, and that deliberate lick against her lower lip feels like a 6th level Lightning Bolt straight to her core. (She realises that he must have licked the cut on her lip - gained mid-battle perhaps, or maybe someone backhanded her before the bucket of water.

Either way, he's licking her wounds clean. Feral. She's so in love it hurts.)

She inhales through her nose and pushes herself into him. Crushes her mouth to his with a desperate kind of hunger, grabbing onto the front of his shirt with one hand and curling the other over the back of his neck. ]

[aasimarr]

[ It's hard to project much with the mask still on; it's deliberate. Nico doesn't want to see the void-shaped anger behind the feathers, the two cloud-white eyes that are sure to be like twin storms still seething. So he leans into Ea instead, hands at her hips and gripping, kissing and licking into her bloodstained mouth until the taste of iron is subsumed by the taste of her, as warm and alive as he always remembers her to be.

He's panting by the time their mouths part, his lips flushed red. Like an animal, he licks the blood his fingers have left on her cheek, still trying to clean all of this violence off of her skin. ]

They never deserved you. [ He whispers. The subdued version of Aylin with her wings parted wide, Ketheric's corpse under her heel. A calmer, colder rage. ] They put you in harm's way.

[ She has nothing to apologize for. Nico kisses her again, tongue against her cut again, murmuring a muffled te curo to cast Cure Wounds with his mouth. Unconventional ways of using healing magic, but who's keeping track? ]

[infernaling]

[ It's not as though she expects scorn from Nico. It may not have been long since they've come clean in Moonrise Towers, but she's grown familiar enough with his particular brand of devotion, of love, that she does not expect him to be shocked by the violence of her acts.

He doesn't know all of her past, but - perhaps he should. This is what she thinks, when the first kiss ends and she lets her head lean into the grip of his hands, her eyes fluttering closed. Hells, she wants to let him know all of her - does that make her a horrible, selfish person? The contrast between knowing she's likely to die and the selfish need to be loved anyway...

Put a pin in that, Nico's just cured her cut in the middle of a kiss. She whimpers against his lips, and surges further up against him, practically jumping into his arms. He can either catch her or not, she's going to wrap her legs around his waist anyway, and taste him, take his mouth in a heady and deep kiss. ]

[aasimarr]

[ He wants to know, of course. He wants to know all of her, not just the physical shape of her but what makes Ea tick, all the things in her past that have made her who she is now. He wants to know her future, too, and all the things she wants to be, will become. An all-encompassing devotion, made more intense by celestial instinct.

Hands fly up when Ea jumps, palms to her thighs to keep her in place as they kiss. Nico barely stumbles despite his injuries, holding Ea's weight as if she's featherlight― he only moves backwards to find a flat surface because it suits him, and he uses the wall for balance as he cranes forward, letting Ea claim him, opening himself to whatever she wants. His breath, his tongue, his pulse.

When they come up for air again: ] I love you.

[ A blessing and a curse in three syllables. Ea has doomed herself by getting injured in front of him; there's no escape from an aasimar who has bonded himself so thoroughly to someone else's safety. Nico sounds almost drunk on his own words, pressing them against Ea's mouth, her jaw. Reinforcing, compelling. Riding on a blood-induced high, and on barely-concealed concern for her wellbeing. ] I love you, Ea. I love you.

back on my 'make prestidigitation available, larian, you cowards' agenda

[infernaling]

[ She gets it now. What it means to be stuck between a wall and a hard place - or person. Her breath stutters against his lips, but she recovers quickly enough to tighten her hold on his waist, ankles hooked together.

With the wall at her back, she can draw herself up to level with his head, and further up so she can cup his face in her hands and kiss all of her own devotion into him. They come up for air, and it washes over her like another round of hearing. ] I love you.

[ Easiest three words to say. No doubt in her heart that it's real, and true. She lets him kiss her again, her adrenaline rush running out and leaving her dazed. But smiling, because he keeps saying he loves her and she feels it, she does.

She's not looking at the massacre at their feet right now, only at the feathers of his mask. And impulsivity wins, so she leans in and kisses those feathers, lets them tickle her lips, and whispers the incantation to prestidigitation against them to magic them - and his face - clean.

Following that, a huffed laugh.] It's a good thing I'm no cleric, or I'd revive the bastard just to kill him again for hurting you.

actually really weird that it isn't available tbh!?!?!

[aasimarr]

[ The sensation against his feathers clues Nico back in to the fact that he's wearing them at all, but the mask stays; he's wary of letting Ea see all that fury underneath, the roiling fog of his eyes, the inhuman glow of his rage-trembling expression. It's easier to still them under the obstruction, even if the faint tremor of his voice might give it all away.

He's grateful when Ea magics their blood off. He doesn't mind smelling it on her, not usually, but not tonight. Right now, he can't stand smelling someone else on her. ]

It doesn't matter what he did to me, [ he whispers. Almost like a threat, directed towards a man who's already dead. ] He tried to hurt you. I was just another tool in his arsenal.

[ And he can't forgive that, not really. Nico may be used to being used, but not against someone, let alone against someone he loves. He kisses against Ea's jaw again, hitching her closer to his chest. ]

[infernaling]

[ Poor Elgar. More of a nuisance than a threat, just like he'd always been - even in the old days, when Ea had been the favoured dagger of their Guildmaster, the elf had been ruffled by the idea of a young tiefling girl being better at the job than him. She can connect the dots fairly easily now, in the aftermath:

Blackbirds going leave the Guild either in a coffin or in a ditch. She'd taken out her biggest opposition to her decision to not be a part of that soul-sucking gang anymore, the Guildmaster himself, in the most backstabbing of ways. Taught him a lesson, too, in not being too overconfident and trusting his iron fist could keep everyone afraid of him, and obedient. She hadn't exactly stood behind for the lesson to sink in, but whatever.

His death was on her hands. The warehouse burning to ashes, also on her hands. But she'd left everyone else alive, trusting the ones who - like her - had always dreamed of leaving would take the opportunity to leave. She can connect more dots: Elgar seeing it as a chance to put himself in charge, building the Blackbirds for his own gain, until the island became too small for his ambition. Elgar coming to the continent, finding his way to Baldur's Gate. Maybe he'd thought he'd go after the Underduke next. Maybe not.

And hearing about the tiefling that had ruined his long game on the island, and thinking of taking revenge, and - she snorts under her breath. ] His main mistake is wanting to talk my ear off.

[ But then finally, the scattering of dots she keeps trying to connect fades away, scattered to the winds, as Nico kisses her jaw and she finally lets his words sink.

He hates it, the idea that he could be a tool. She hates it too. She cups his face in both hands, now clean, and looks down at him in this position. Mask or not, she thinks she can see down into his soul, can guess exactly the type of threatening storm that roils in his eyes. ]

It matters to me. [ Quiet, but clear. ] What he did to you, what anyone does to you - it matters to me. I would burn the world down if it guaranteed your safety.

[ She glances down at his mouth, an ache settling in the pit of her stomach. Want, yearning sort of want, coils around her throat like a noose. She has to force her eyes back up to his mask, the viccinity of his eyes. ] They might not be the only ones. I should tell you - I want to tell you everything about my past, but I'm selfish and afraid you won't want me after.

[aasimarr]

[ Nico has little empathy for Elgar; maybe that scares him, in a way. His lack of remorse for the gore he still feels under his foot and his inability to remember what the elf sounded like when he crushed his skull remind him that there's something wrong with him, that under the map of his skin, he's wearing something that doesn't look like everyone else.

It's more tolerable when Ea has her hands on him, when she tells him that he matters. All of this strangeness serves a purpose with her, when she looks at him and touches him and tells him that he's needed. Goddess, he'd threatened calling her mid-sex, but a part of him believes it. Rootless and unmoored, she really could be his religion.

Scarred, feathered, the scent of blood still thick on his skin even after the cleaning off: ]

I want all of you. Your past, your present, your future.

[ He whispers it. Someone who isn't familiar with Nico might find his cadence poisonous; too yearning to be normal, too gentle to be trustworthy. No one should really dote on anyone this way, should be so permissive without bringing morals into the equation, but. Well.

Sometimes, blood is thicker than water. Nico, with the single-mindedness of the divine, rubs foreheads with Ea despite the obstruction of his mask. ]

My love. What could make me want you less?

[infernaling]

[ She exhales so slowly, breath shuddering out of her, fanning against his lips and ruffling the lower feathers of that mask. A part of him, not a disguise, he'd told her; the manifestation of whatever excess of magic that courses through his veins.

She can't believe she ever thought him confusing and adorable, when he now has her whole heart in his hand. Exhale over, the words sink in - your past, your present, your future - and the words stumble out before she can help it. ]

What if there isn't a future? What if I - [ She sucks in a breath, letting her eyes flutter closed. Her heart thuds in her chest, now that the dark thoughts have been voiced. She thought, sincerely, that she would not make it beyond the Absolute. Now that there's Orin, and Gortash, now that there are so many enemies to deal with in the city, she's not confident she'll make it to the Absolute.

And she's been keeping quiet on that, pushing Nico away, and it's not fair. Tell him, some part of her (all her, not the Emperor) whispers. Drives her forward. ]

I've been pushing you away because I thought it would make your heart break less if I die in the battles to come.

[aasimarr]

[ Her breath whispers against his skin; her confession is strained. Nico stays where he is, still holding her against the wall with his unfaltering hands, her legs wrapped around his torso, their hearts beating against their pressed-together chests.

The words are revelatory. Nico doesn't know what to do with them, at first, and struggles to interpret what Ea means by his heartbreak and her so-called inevitable death. Mostly, he can't imagine losing her― he tries, and the cold fear that runs through him pulls invisible drawstrings around his lungs. He can't breathe around it, can't think around it.

So he shakes his head. No. Almost childlike in its vehemence. ]

There's no less. [ He struggles to get even this out, like he can't imagine why she won't understand. ] I would die with you.

[ If not physically, emotionally. Some part of him will perish, irrevocably, with or without her pushing him away. ]

[infernaling]

[ Her eyes snap open, narrowed. The reaction to that - Nico's declaration - is immediate. ] Absolutely not, you can't. [ Her grip on his face twitches, digging her nails into his skin ever so slightly, the reaction visceral. ] You can't die with me, I'll kill you.

[ A gentle reminder that her wisdom is mid.

And speaking of ungentle reminders? The very distinct possibility that he might throw himself into the abyss with her is making her want to stay alive. Nico isn't allowed to come under harm.

This isn't the first time she's chosen to live and survive for someone's sake. She feels a bitter taste in her mouth, pursing her lips around the indescribable feeling of that 180° spin she's going to do. ]

Alright - fuck it. We do our best to survive while taking down the Absolute.

[ That does, unfortunately, mean that they're going to go to Hells to steal the Orphic Hammer from Raphael, because the Emperor is convinced that the only way forward is for one of them to become illithid, which has been driven into her head as being equal to death. She won't ask that of anyone, and she's not going to do it herself. That astral-touched tadpole can wither away in the chest.

Maybe it makes her a hypocrite, or maybe tonight has been an awakening.

They're going to have to find Nico's armor and weapons, wherever the Blackbirds stashed it.

Unfortunately (maybe, sources?) she's not eager to let him go and do the reasonable thing. There's a fire burning in her veins still, roiling there; somewhere in her memory she sees the boot kicking Nico's head down again, sees her past coming back to hurt her loved ones, sees the glow in his eyes and that should not have hurt her. Not in her memory, she sees the aftermath of a bloody battle, one where their enemies were outmatched because Ea and Nico fight so well in tandem they have it down to an artform.

The most shameful thing, perhaps, is that it has left her aroused. And because impulse control is not a thing right now, the outburst ends with Ea crushing her mouth to his, deep and heady. ]

[aasimarr]

[ The storm keeps roiling between Nico's ribs; what should he do? Ea doesn't want him to hurt, but that's an impossibility― he doesn't want her to agonize over being the recipient of his devotion, and, by extension, his concern, but he has a feeling that she might.

His mask dissipates at the feeling of nails in his skin. Vulnerability shared for vulnerability given. Nico's not sure if the pale-white of his eyes are still glowing, but he can still feel the vehemence buzzing like white noise in his skull, responding to Ea's statement about taking down the Absolute, because he would.

He'd kill a God for her. He'd kill timeless entities with unspeakable power, if she only asked him to. And it feels like an ask, when she surges forward and claims his mouth, parting it open with hers to taste him; where he misses his chance to respond to her in words, he reciprocates with his eagerness to kiss her, her shoulderblades pressed up against the wall as he opens his mouth to let her in.

(Is he hard? He has no idea. He grinds up against her as if he is, though, because he needs Ea to know that she's needed.) ]

[infernaling]

[ All she can think of, beneath the cacophony of buzzing, blood pumping, heart thudding in her chest, is that it's been too long. She let it go on too long, and she knows it's her fault and her doing, because Nico has never been anything but warm and loving.

He kisses her back, she drowns a needy whimper against his mouth, rubs her tongue against his and decides it has been an eternity. (So like a week.)

He grounds his hips against hers, she wraps her tail around his thigh like time and time again, mineminemine, and releases a panted breath against his lips. ] I want -

[ To feel him everywhere. To make up for lost time. To love him with the same wild devotion he (inexplicably, still) loves her. To fuck his brains out in a bloodied basement until they both cry.

Normal, non-dramatic things.

She withdraws from his mouth for a second, takes in the fury and beauty of his eyes, and inevitably her hips twitch, griding down. ]

You're as feral as I am, aren't you, love? [ Said so lovingly, and with wonder. One of her hands find their way to his mouth, thumb brushing again his lower lip. He kissed her after the battle, licked the blood off her lips and cured her mid-kiss. Yeah, he's feral. ]